RealTimeData/bbc_alltime
This dataset contains BBC News articles from 2017 to 2022. The articles are arraged by month. Access the specific month by using the format "YYYY-MM" as config. Such as load_dataset("RealTimeData/bbc_alltime", "2021-1").
0332
1{"title": ["Bahrain Grand Prix: Charles Leclerc wins as both Red Bulls retire - BBC Sport", "UK government mulls move to take over Gazprom unit - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Backlash in Russia against anti-war musicians - BBC News", "P&O Ferries' sackings were appalling, says Sunak - BBC News", "New P&O crew on less than £2 an hour, union claims - BBC News", "Morad Tahbaz: British-US national detained in Iran on hunger strike - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says freedom should have happened six years ago - BBC News", "Video clip of hoax call with UK minister Ben Wallace published - BBC News", "Woman accused of murder after body find appears in court - BBC News", "Covid: Spring booster rollout begins and most Scotland's legal curbs end - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Holocaust survivor killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson sparks fury after comparison to Brexit - BBC News", "Anonymous: How hackers are trying to undermine Putin - BBC News", "UK blames Russia for hoax calls to cabinet ministers - BBC News", "Murder charge after body found buried in Northampton garden - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Western agents seek to get inside Putin's head - BBC News", "Logan Mwangi: Boy, five, could have survived for hours - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Drone footage shows level of devastation in Mariupol - BBC News", "Murder arrest over Sabita Thanwani Clerkenwell death - BBC News", "Free-range eggs no longer available in UK due to bird flu - BBC News", "William and Kate dance and taste chocolate during day two of Belize tour - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Russian shelling blamed for corrosive gas leak - BBC News", "China Eastern: Plane carrying 132 people crashes in Guangxi hills - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Why has she been freed now? - BBC News", "Nottingham Forest 0-1 Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp's side set up semi-final date against Man City after edging past hosts - BBC Sport", "Mariupol: Why Mariupol is so important to Russia's plan - BBC News", "In Mariupol, children bear the brunt of Vladimir Putin's war - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Resilience making Russia assess reality, negotiator says - BBC News", "Covid: Spring booster jab launches for over-75s and high risk in England - BBC News", "Kaden Reddick: Topshop and Arcadia guilty of safety breaches - BBC News", "Sheffield boy steals Covid van then crashes it into car - BBC News", "Multiple Apple services suffer outages - BBC News", "Police send over 100 questionnaires on No 10 parties - BBC News", "Unite union 'refused to exempt special schools from strike' - BBC News", "Prince Andrew plans to attend Prince Philip service - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Kyiv shopping centre hit by Russian missile - BBC News", "Grenfell tragedy: Government is failing to act on inquiry report, says London mayor - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Tanks in streets' as fighting hits Mariupol centre - BBC News", "Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' - BBC News", "Ukraine: What have been Russia's military mistakes? - BBC News", "Anger and grief as crowds rally to support Child Q - BBC News", "Covid hospital numbers in Scotland reach new peak - BBC News", "The lonely funeral of a young soldier in Ukraine - BBC News", "P&O: Stena Line to help retailers with extra ferries - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russian soldiers fire on Kherson protesters - BBC News", "Woman stranded on Newquay cliffs rescued - BBC News", "Sir David Amess MP murder trial hears accused targeted Michael Gove - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she's missed holding her seven-year-old daughter - BBC News", "Sabita Thanwani killing: Family pay tribute to 'irreplaceable angel' - BBC News", "Child Q: Hackney march over strip-searched girl - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family 'relieved' by Iran release - BBC News", "A young soldier's funeral and a city facing starvation - Ukraine war daily round-up - BBC News", "Six killed after car drives into crowd in Belgium - BBC News", "Climate change: 'Madness' to turn to fossil fuels because of Ukraine war - BBC News", "Jonathan Van-Tam granted freedom of Boston in ceremony - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted - BBC News", "Climate change: IPCC scientists to examine carbon removal in key report - BBC News", "Isle of Wight e-scooter complaints exceed 1,000 - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: I should have been freed six years ago - BBC News", "Ukrainian city of Mariupol 'near to humanitarian catastrophe' after bombardment - BBC News", "Windrush generation: Ministers waiting for claimants to die - Diane Abbott - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Kharkiv family desperate to treat daughter's cancer - BBC News", "Journalist wins 'kleptocrat' book High Court libel case - BBC News", "Cheltenham and Cotswolds killings: Children 'devastated' by parents' deaths - BBC News", "Culture is third front in Ukraine war, says Nadine Dorries - BBC News", "Northern Ireland's 'hidden homeless' living life in limbo - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Drone shows extent of damage in Borodyanka - BBC News", "Former education secretary Gavin Williamson to get knighthood - BBC News", "Kim Kardashian declared legally single in divorce with Ye - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Videos show locals confronting Russian forces - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Are Russia's attacks war crimes? - BBC News", "Ukraine: Fighting escalates despite ceasefire talks - BBC News", "Ukraine: How a week of war has transformed lives - BBC News", "Ukraine: UK sanctions oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov - BBC News", "Chelsea: Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell club - BBC Sport", "Gender recognition reform bill tabled at Holyrood - BBC News", "Mikhail Watford: Ukrainian oligarch's death investigated by Surrey Police - BBC News", "Neighbours: TV soap will end this summer, producers confirm - BBC News", "Netflix pauses future projects in Russia - BBC News", "‘Terror against Ukraine’: Residents flee as rockets rain down on Kharkiv - BBC News", "H&M temporarily suspends all sales in Russia - BBC News", "Aliny Godinho: Police 'regretful' over failings before murder - BBC News", "Another life-saving Covid drug identified - BBC News", "Polls close in Birmingham Erdington by-election - BBC News", "Rod Marsh: Legendary Australia wicketkeeper dies aged 74 after heart attack - BBC Sport", "Pushchair passed over heads in desperate train station scenes - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: UK sanctions Belarus for role in Russian invasion - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Reporter takes cover as blast lights up Kyiv's sky - BBC News", "Ukraine: Dorries gives emotional tribute to UK journalists - BBC News", "Energy bills could reach £3,000 as oil and gas prices soar - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: MPs applaud Ukrainian ambassador in UK Parliament - BBC News", "Martin O'Hagan: Police 'did not act' on journalist murder tip-off - BBC News", "Ros Atkins on...Russian gas and oil - BBC News", "Covid: Half of Nightingale Courts to close within weeks - BBC News", "Mum reunited with daughter in Northern Ireland after fleeing Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Crowd surround car with Russian markings - BBC News", "'Putin has to be stopped' - the Britons preparing to fight in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: Russia faces war crimes investigation - BBC News", "Ukraine: Watching the war on Russian TV - a whole different story - BBC News", "Russian oligarch's super yacht seized - BBC News", "As it happened: London hit by second 24-hour Tube strike - BBC News", "Computer glitch gives hundreds of Scottish offenders wrong risk level - BBC News", "More support needed for GPs to treat eating disorders - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics 2022: Russia and Belarus athletes unable to compete at Games - BBC Sport", "‘Every child deserves to live in a free country’ - BBC News", "Which companies are pulling out of Russia? - BBC News", "Jim Crossley: Dunmurry woman, 31, admits killing boyfriend - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Russia doubles interest rate after rouble slumps - BBC News", "RT: Russian-backed TV news channel disappears from UK screens - BBC News", "Ukraine: Not too late for Vladimir Putin to withdraw, says UK defence secretary - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: EA removes Russian teams from Fifa 22 game - BBC News", "Woman charged with murdering Jim Crossley in west Belfast - BBC News", "Social housing: Man told 'no point' in applying as demand surges - BBC News", "Bet365 boss Denise Coates gets £300m pay package - a £170m cut - BBC News", "Babyn Yar: Anger as Kyiv's Holocaust memorial is damaged - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: What sanctions could West still impose on Russia? - BBC News", "Ukraine: Estonian cargo ship sinks after blast in Black Sea - BBC News", "Ukraine: Putin has already carried out war crimes - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Ukraine: Russia agrees need to create humanitarian corridors - BBC News", "In pictures: Ukraine donations pile high across the UK - BBC News", "Met officer Adnan Arib jailed for seeking relationship with teenage girls - BBC News", "Ros Atkins on... Russia’s nuclear threat - BBC News", "Car reverses into Birmingham jewellery shop during ram-raid - BBC News", "Covid: Temporary courts to close and Western Australia's borders reopen - BBC News", "Divorced couple found dead in Cheltenham and Cotswolds - BBC News", "Taiwan: Massive power outage affects five million households - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: UK sanctions against some oligarchs may take weeks - BBC News", "Essex lorry deaths: Smuggler to pay £6,000 to victims' families - BBC News", "OneWeb: UK satellite firm suspends use of Russian rockets - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Half a million flee as fighting rages - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Mum in Poland takes in fleeing families - BBC News", "Formula 1 terminates contract with Russian Grand Prix - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: How might the war end? Five scenarios - BBC News", "Martin Bashir Diana interview: BBC pays compensation to aide Patrick Jephson - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Husband looks forward to 'new life' - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Gun battles as Russian troops reach Mariupol city centre, says mayor - BBC News", "Peter Bowles: To The Manor Born actor dies aged 85 - BBC News", "Brittney Griner: Russia extends arrest of US basketball star over drugs charge - BBC News", "Boris Johnson: Ukraine paying the price for West's failure over Putin - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Mariupol theatre destroyed in bombing - BBC News", "Ukraine's Zelensky calls on Germany to tear down Russian wall - BBC News", "Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' - BBC News", "Sophie Lancaster murder: Killer Ryan Herbert to be freed from jail - BBC News", "Who are the dual nationals jailed in Iran? - BBC News", "Manchester Airport sorry as huge queues lead to missed flights - BBC News", "Russia attacks theatre sheltering civilians, Ukraine says - BBC News", "DFDS ferry boss warns of 20 mile queues at Dover if checks do not ease - BBC News", "Former Hull to Zeebrugge ferries for sale after route closes - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Infection and hunger as hundreds hide in Mariupol cellar - BBC News", "Angela Rayner: Men admit sending abusive messages to MP - BBC News", "Rethink over crackdown on MPs' second jobs - BBC News", "Arsenal 0-2 Liverpool: Visitors close in on leaders Manchester City with deserved victory - BBC Sport", "Diesel rises again to hit a record £1.76 a litre - BBC News", "Preston man detained for Army veteran's one-punch death - BBC News", "Shells rain down on Kharkiv as Ukraine's army stands firm - BBC News", "Emiliano Sala: Footballer died after plane broke up mid-air - BBC News", "Anoosheh Ashoori: Iranian-Briton's family delighted at his release - BBC News", "Orford Ness: Former military site needs ferry operator - BBC News", "Earthquake: Two dead after Japan hit by tremor - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day: Biden reinforces support for Good Friday Agreement - BBC News", "Police powers reviewed under racial disparity plan - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day parades: Police warning as public events return - BBC News", "West Ham 2-0 Sevilla (2-1 on aggregate): Andriy Yarmolenko winning goal sends Hammers into Europa League quarter-finals - BBC Sport", "Child, 13, drove pickup in deadly Texas crash that killed nine - BBC News", "Ukraine war could hit global growth, OECD warns - BBC News", "Covid: Scotland spending watchdog's concerns, and travel firms confident for 2022 - BBC News", "Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba reveals burglary at his home - BBC Sport", "St Patrick’s Day parade in Belfast ‘for everyone’ - BBC News", "Lloyd's of London fines insurer Atrium over initiation games - BBC News", "Kanye West: Rapper suspended from Instagram for 24 hours - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Kyiv residential buildings hit in Russian strikes - BBC News", "Russian oligarch Strzhalkovsky's super yacht stuck in Norway - BBC News", "Secondary breast cancer: Call for better care in Northern Ireland - BBC News", "Online Harms Bill: Cyber-flashing added to proposed legislation - BBC News", "Ocado sales hit as workers return to the office - BBC News", "Scientists claim hairy black holes explain Hawking paradox - BBC News", "Stormont ‘doing a disservice to deaf community in Northern Ireland' - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Why has she been freed now? - BBC News", "Boy, 12, denies burglary spree of top London hotels - BBC News", "As it happened: Kremlin fury over Biden 'war criminal' comment - BBC News", "P&O to axe Hull to Zeebrugge route due to Covid impact - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Putin lays out his demands in Turkish phone call - BBC News", "Jussie Smollett released from jail pending appeal - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russians grieve for fallen soldiers - BBC News", "Russia's state TV hit by stream of resignations - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Fourth Russian general killed - Zelensky - BBC News", "Marina Ovsyannikova: Protesting journalist says Russians zombified by propaganda - BBC News", "Outrage and no ferries after mass P&O sackings - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Biden brands Putin a 'war criminal' - BBC News", "Music experts disagree in Ed Sheeran court case - BBC News", "BBC Radio 4 - Nazanin, Episode 1", "Interest rates rise again to counter higher prices - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ben Wallace and Priti Patel targeted by hoax calls - BBC News", "Ukraine: Putin will search for a way to save face - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband on her return - BBC News", "Greenvale Hotel: Family 'kept in dark' over Cookstown hotel deaths - BBC News", "Met police officer David Carrick charged with further rapes - BBC News", "Kherson: Russian-occupied city stays angry and defiant - BBC News", "Ukraine: Poots warns of grain shortages as war continues - BBC News", "Man jailed for Aberdeen stab-in-heart knife murder - BBC News", "Mournes: Six-year-old twins complete mountain challenge for friend - BBC News", "Ukraine: Ambassador to UK calls for more support and says his country will fight - BBC News", "Indian evacuee: The kindness of Ukrainians saved my life - BBC News", "Rod Stewart: Video prompts pothole DIY repair warning - BBC News", "Bournemouth stabbing: Boy, 16, arrested after Subway attack - BBC News", "Scotland and Wales bid to be refugee super sponsors - BBC News", "Boss accused of defrauding blind workers' pensions - BBC News", "Rod Stewart fixes potholes near his Harlow home - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Javid says Russia will pay for war crimes as UK sends aid - BBC News", "'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: NI households offered £350 per month to host refugees - BBC News", "Liverpool schools: The parents tackling admission policies - BBC News", "Chelsea 1-0 Newcastle United: Kai Havertz's late goal gives hosts three points - BBC Sport", "Why I want to share my home with a Ukrainian refugee - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day parade returns to London after Covid hiatus - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Spirited tourists have to settle for draw in first Test - BBC Sport", "Sarah Everard: Protesters demand 'radical change' to Met Police - BBC News", "Watch: Sophie Raworth interviews Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci - BBC News", "As it happened: Abuse survivors apology delivered at Stormont - BBC News", "No-one raised security concerns over Lord Lebedev with me, says Michael Gove - BBC News", "Michael Conlan 'all good' after Leigh Wood retains WBA 'Regular' title with brutal knockout - BBC Sport", "Manchester United 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur: Cristiano Ronaldo scores hat-trick in thriller - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: Ireland's 'priority is humanitarian' as it takes 5,500 refugees - BBC News", "Bafta Film Awards: Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog wins top prize - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Evacuations 'extremely difficult' amid shelling - BBC News", "Under threat of Russian bombs, Lviv hides away its priceless heritage - BBC News", "William Hurt: Oscar-winning actor and Marvel star dies at 71 - BBC News", "Brexit: Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson discuss NI Protocol - BBC News", "Unions warn of job losses if rail firms close ticket offices - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Kyiv prepares for Russian attack - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Premier League disqualifies Chelsea owner as director of club - BBC Sport", "Battle for Mykolaiv: 'We are winning this fight, but not this war' - BBC News", "Abuse survivors hear Stormont public apology - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: How Russia is recruiting mercenaries - BBC News", "Saudi Arabia executes 81 men in one day - BBC News", "Denis Donaldson: PSNI 'failed to properly evaluate' threat - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Zelensky visits wounded Ukrainian soldiers - BBC News", "Naomi Osaka: Former world number one in tears after heckling during Indian Wells defeat - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: UK Home Office is in crisis mode over visas - BBC News", "Ben Nevis victim was father-to-be Samuel Crawford from Newtownards - BBC News", "Oxford Russian Orthodox church ransacked in burglary - BBC News", "Six Nations 2022: Ireland see off brave 14-man England - BBC Sport", "War in Ukraine: Uni to uniform - Ukraine's new teenage army recruits - BBC News", "Russia faces brain drain as thousands flee abroad - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Sky turned red' as missiles hit Lviv military base - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Russian forces accused of abducting second mayor - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Rabbi investigated over Portuguese citizenship - BBC News", "Brent Renaud: US journalist and filmmaker killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Pictures of war intensifying in third week - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Protests after Russians 'abduct' Melitopol mayor - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What happened on day 18 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Body of missing hillwalker found in Glen Coe - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Volunteers 'working on autopilot' - BBC News", "Zeebrugge disaster: Memorial service for 193 victims marks 35 years - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Petrol at fresh record as oil and gas prices soar - BBC News", "Bird flu restrictions put in place to prevent spread on Jersey - BBC News", "Ukraine: 'We try to tell them the truth' - parenting in wartime - BBC News", "Shell defends 'difficult' decision to buy Russian crude oil - BBC News", "McDonald's and Coca-Cola boycott calls grow over Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine war: PM calls for 'step-by-step' move from Russian fuel - BBC News", "Iowa tornadoes: Seven people killed, including two children - BBC News", "Scans reveal how Covid may change the brain - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: The West fights back against Putin the disruptor - BBC News", "Ukraine: Irish student makes fresh escape attempt - BBC News", "Ukraine: Angry Zelensky vows to punish Russian atrocities - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson defends refugee response after visa criticism - BBC News", "Dizzee Rascal: Grime artist guilty of assaulting former partner - BBC News", "Manchester Arena bombing: Saffie Roussos's parents on hearing the truth - BBC News", "Blue and yellow flowers as Queen meets Trudeau - BBC News", "BBC Ukrainian editor: 'My mother called to say she'd managed to buy bread' - BBC News", "Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky to address UK MPs in Commons - BBC News", "Ukrainians on way to UK hit paperwork dead-end in Calais - BBC News", "Baby killed in suspected dog attack at Ostler's Plantation - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Australian cricket legend died from natural causes - police - BBC News", "Ukraine war 'catastrophic for global food' - BBC News", "Energy prices: NI oil prices up 35% since Russia invades Ukraine - BBC News", "Corrie Mckeague would binge-drink after friend's death - inquest - BBC News", "Covid: Fourth jab for Scotland's vulnerable, and testing wind down fears in Wales - BBC News", "Aldgate fire: Large blaze at high-rise London tower block - BBC News", "Twitter is part of our war effort - Ukraine minister - BBC News", "Mariupol: Fires, no water, and bodies in the street - BBC News", "Don't go to Ukraine, military boss tells Britons - BBC News", "Protests across Russia see thousands detained - BBC News", "NHS dental practices 'may struggle to remain financially viable' - BBC News", "Lynda Baron: Open All Hours and Come Outside actress dies aged 82 - BBC News", "Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak investigated for wearing pro-war symbol on podium next to Ukrainian - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: UK grants 50 Ukrainian refugee visas so far - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: 'It's hell, it's really hell' - Families flee bombs in Irpin - BBC News", "TikTok limits services as Netflix pulls out of Russia - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran denies Shape of You copyright claim at High Court trial - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Why has 'Z' become a Russian pro-war symbol? - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Family accept offer of state funeral for Australia legend - BBC Sport", "Chaos and tears as thousands try to catch a train out of Ukraine - BBC News", "The young Ukrainians battling pro-Russian trolls - BBC News", "One dead after trawler which sailed from Peterhead capsizes off Norway - BBC News", "Ukraine: With placards and tears, Poles are greeting refugees like family - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Investigate claim PM intervened to help Evgeny Lebedev get peerage, says Starmer - BBC News", "Defiant Ukrainian troops tell Russians: 'Go home while you're still alive' - BBC News", "EU signs US gas deal to curb reliance on Russia - BBC News", "Italy 0-1 North Macedonia: European champions stunned in World Cup play-offs - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: The small town which managed to block Russia's big plans - BBC News", "Bella-Rae Birch: Dog that killed toddler was legal American Bully XL - BBC News", "Electric car chargepoints to overtake fuel pumps - BBC News", "Wales 2-1 Austria: Gareth Bale strikes twice to fire hosts into World Cup play-off final - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Five challenges for Biden in Europe - BBC News", "FA Cup: Liverpool's Jordan Henderson thinks Man City semi-final should have been switched from Wembley - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: A dangerous escape on the 'Rescue Express' - BBC News", "Dairy giant Arla warns of supply issues unless farmers paid more - BBC News", "Kyrell Matthews: Mum and partner jailed for killing toddler son - BBC News", "Top US court backs right to be touched at execution by pastor - BBC News", "Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will go ahead after missile attack - BBC Sport", "Rishi Sunak faces questions over link to firm operating in Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine-Russia: The 76-year-old artist taking on Putin - BBC News", "Child Q: School apologises for strip-search of black schoolgirl - BBC News", "Ukraine War: Civilians abducted as Russia tries to assert control - BBC News", "Royal tour: Cherish your friends, Kate tells schoolchildren in Bahamas as trip ends - BBC News", "Queen's delight as teapot factory comes to her - BBC News", "A bomb hit this theatre hiding hundreds - here's how one woman survived - BBC News", "Bute Park: Three jailed for doctor's homophobic murder - BBC News", "Texts reveal wife of Supreme Court judge urged 2020 election overturn - BBC News", "Ukraine not alone in fight against Russia, says Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Sir Philip Pullman resigns as Society of Authors president after book row - BBC News", "Calls for P&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite to resign grow - BBC News", "Dawn Sturgess: 'Rigorous' inquiry into Novichok death - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis tests unity as Biden visits Europe - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Not consulting on job cuts broke law, boss admits - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What Ukraine is getting right - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: New record as one in 11 Scots had virus last week - BBC News", "P&O Ferries ship detained over crew training concerns - BBC News", "Next stop Kyiv - the battle on the capital's outskirts - BBC News", "N Korea claims successful launch of 'monster missile' Hwasong-17 - BBC News", "UK's rainfall records rescued by volunteer army - BBC News", "Ukraine war: JK Rowling hits back at Putin's 'cancel culture' comment - BBC News", "Dubai ruler's ex-wife given sole responsibility for their children's care - BBC News", "Ukraine: Nato will respond if Russia uses chemical weapons, warns Biden - BBC News", "Prince William and Kate: The PR missteps that overshadowed a royal tour - BBC News", "Ethiopia's Tigray war: TPLF agrees to humanitarian truce - BBC News", "Rishi Sunak denies link to Russia through firm part-owned by wife - BBC News", "Ashling Murphy 'will not be forgotten', says Prince Charles - BBC News", "Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever case found in UK - BBC News", "UK Covid infections climb by a million in a week - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Bodycam shows moment of suspect arrest - BBC News", "'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine - BBC News", "Pregnant women to receive life-saving pre-eclampsia check - BBC News", "Ukraine war: The priest shot at a checkpoint - BBC News", "Lower energy bills for people near wind turbines considered - BBC News", "Spring Statement: Rishi Sunak accused of not doing enough for poorest households - BBC News", "Father 'devastated' at lack of progress on autism care - BBC News", "P&O Ferries offers £100,000 to some sacked staff - BBC News", "World freedoms at stake, President Biden tells US troops - BBC News", "Richard Curtis: Ferrell should have had Oscar nomination for Elf - BBC News", "HMP Thorn Cross: Killer is second inmate to abscond in two days - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Joshua da Silva nudges hosts into ascendency on day two - BBC Sport", "David Amess killing: Suspect said MP suspected 'sting', court told - BBC News", "Kherson: Russian-occupied city stays angry and defiant - BBC News", "Spotify stops streaming in Russia over safety concerns - BBC News", "Video clip of hoax call with UK minister Ben Wallace published - BBC News", "Ukraine: The small town which managed to block Russia's big plans - BBC News", "Cabinet split over changing planning law to allow more wind farms - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Jury played 999 call from witness to stabbing - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Western agents seek to get inside Putin's head - BBC News", "China Eastern: Plane carrying 132 people crashes in Guangxi hills - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Nato to boost forces in eastern Europe as Ukraine war rages - BBC News", "Police send over 100 questionnaires on No 10 parties - BBC News", "Teenage girl on e-scooter dies in crash with van in east London - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russian soldiers fire on Kherson protesters - BBC News", "China Eastern plane crash rescuers find no survivors - BBC News", "Ukraine: Couple hire hotel in Poland to house refugees - BBC News", "Covid: Fewer stomach bugs recorded during UK's lockdown - BBC News", "Daniel Morgan: Met Police approach to tackling corruption is flawed, watchdog finds - BBC News", "Ukraine: UK sanctions oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: I should have been freed six years ago - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Backlash in Russia against anti-war musicians - BBC News", "UK to fully compensate postmasters who exposed scandal - BBC News", "Boris Becker used his business account as piggy bank, court told - BBC News", "A bomb hit this theatre hiding hundreds - here's how one woman survived - BBC News", "Shells rain down on Kharkiv as Ukraine's army stands firm - BBC News", "Mariupol: Why Mariupol is so important to Russia's plan - BBC News", "Ukraine war: On the front line of the battle for Kharkiv - BBC News", "Kaden Reddick: Topshop and Arcadia guilty of safety breaches - BBC News", "Unite union 'refused to exempt special schools from strike' - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Kyiv shopping centre hit by Russian missile - BBC News", "Corrie Mckeague inquest concludes he died after going into bin - BBC News", "Freeing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe took too long, Jeremy Hunt says - BBC News", "WATCH: Ukrainian sailing club protest superyacht linked to Abramovich in Turkey - BBC News", "The lonely funeral of a young soldier in Ukraine - BBC News", "P&O: Stena Line to help retailers with extra ferries - BBC News", "Sir David Amess MP murder trial hears accused targeted Michael Gove - BBC News", "How access to satellite images shifts the view of war - BBC News", "Boris Johnson gets summaries of sensitive government material via WhatsApp - BBC News", "Jonathan Van-Tam granted freedom of Boston in ceremony - BBC News", "Terror alert level in Northern Ireland lowered - BBC News", "Alisher Usmanov: Everton-linked Russian billionaire has assets frozen by EU - BBC Sport", "Sabita Thanwani: Man in court over murder of student at university halls - BBC News", "The global music market was worth $26bn in 2021 - BBC News", "UK government mulls move to take over Gazprom unit - BBC News", "New P&O crew on less than £2 an hour, union claims - BBC News", "Chancellor Rishi Sunak to deliver Spring Statement amid price pressures - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Holocaust survivor killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv - BBC News", "Birmingham pub bombings: Chris Mullin allowed to keep source secret - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran awaits verdict in 'traumatising' Shape of You copyright trial - BBC News", "Multiple Apple services suffer outages - BBC News", "Police failing to bring in talent from black communities, says racism lead - BBC News", "Petrol prices stabilise after weeks at record highs - BBC News", "Prince Andrew plans to attend Prince Philip service - BBC News", "What to expect from Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement - BBC News", "Malmö: Two women killed after violent attack at Swedish school - BBC News", "Shell reconsiders its exit from oil field off Shetland - BBC News", "Yvan Colonna: Corsican nationalist dies after jihadist jail attack - BBC News", "US rolls back Trump-era tariffs on UK steel - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Belarusian dissidents fight against Russia in Ukraine - BBC News", "Cost of living: Calls for targeted help to cut energy bills - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Resilience making Russia assess reality, negotiator says - BBC News", "P&O Ferries offers £100,000 to some sacked staff - BBC News", "Ukraine: What have been Russia's military mistakes? - BBC News", "Ukraine: Impossible choices for surrogate mothers and parents - BBC News", "Rafael Nadal out for up to six weeks with rib injury - BBC Sport", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she's missed holding her seven-year-old daughter - BBC News", "Woman stranded on Newquay cliffs rescued - BBC News", "Amanda Bynes: Judge ends former actress's nine-year conservatorship - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's family 'relieved' by Iran release - BBC News", "A young soldier's funeral and a city facing starvation - Ukraine war daily round-up - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted - BBC News", "St Helens dog attack: Girl aged 17 months killed at home - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Residents rescued after Kyiv apartment block strike - BBC News", "Rod Stewart: Video prompts pothole DIY repair warning - BBC News", "Ukraine: Ambassador to UK calls for more support and says his country will fight - BBC News", "Cost of living: Food boss says prices could rise by up to 15% - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Editor interrupts Russian TV news show - BBC News", "UK's most premature twins reunited as sister returns home - BBC News", "Homes for Ukraine refugee scheme launches in UK - BBC News", "Chelsea 1-0 Newcastle United: Kai Havertz's late goal gives hosts three points - BBC Sport", "Why I want to share my home with a Ukrainian refugee - BBC News", "As it happened: US warns China against support for Russia - BBC News", "Rolling Stones announce first UK dates since Charlie Watts' death - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran copyright trial: Songwriter says he 'feels robbed' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Drone shots show Mariupol devastated by fighting - BBC News", "Cricket World Cup: England on brink after South Africa defeat - BBC Sport", "Lewis Hamilton to change name to incorporate mother's surname - BBC Sport", "Petrol prices set to ease after hitting record highs - BBC News", "Putin changes law on leased jets to keep them flying - BBC News", "Logan Mwangi: Murder-accused, 14, was 'a monster' - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day: NI ministers to travel to White House - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 21 children flown to UK for cancer treatment - BBC News", "No-one raised security concerns over Lord Lebedev with me, says Michael Gove - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What happened on day 19 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Bafta Film Awards: Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog wins top prize - BBC News", "William Hurt: Oscar-winning actor and Marvel star dies at 71 - BBC News", "Potholes near Sir Rod Stewart's Essex home to be fixed in April - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Pregnant woman and baby die after hospital shelled - BBC News", "Unions warn of job losses if rail firms close ticket offices - BBC News", "Douglas Ross: Removing PM would only benefit Putin - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Demonstrator disrupts Russia's flagship evening news broadcast - BBC News", "Battle for Mykolaiv: 'We are winning this fight, but not this war' - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: How Russia is recruiting mercenaries - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Zelensky visits wounded Ukrainian soldiers - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: US warns China against helping Russia - BBC News", "Russia-Ukraine war: British Fox News journalist injured - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What happened on day 18 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Uni to uniform - Ukraine's new teenage army recruits - BBC News", "Russia faces brain drain as thousands flee abroad - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Sky turned red' as missiles hit Lviv military base - BBC News", "Ukraine risks being pulverised, service is told - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Pub dedicated to Hemingway destroyed in Kharkiv - BBC News", "Inflation: Sports bras in, doughnuts out of cost of living measure - BBC News", "Tom Brady: NFL great makes retirement U-turn after six weeks - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: UK to discuss oil stability with Saudi Arabia - BBC News", "All UK travel rules to end on Friday, says government - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Russian forces accused of abducting second mayor - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Can China do more to stop Russia's war in Ukraine? - BBC News", "Brent Renaud: US journalist and filmmaker killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Hong Kong: Briton accused of jeopardising China's security - BBC News", "Mass graves in Ukraine: Battered cities are digging makeshift burial sites - BBC News", "Ukraine: Eight arrests at oligarch's London mansion after balcony protest - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: New evidence highlights corrupt deals - BBC News", "Toddler tossed to safety from burning building - BBC News", "WATCH: Disposal experts defuse unexploded bomb in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Your guide to understanding day 14 - BBC News", "Rising fuel costs put car-reliant businesses under pressure - BBC News", "Ukrainians with passports can apply for UK visas online - BBC News", "Ukraine-Russia war: The era of complacency is over, says Liz Truss - BBC News", "'It is Russia against humanity': Crisis grows in besieged Ukrainian city - BBC News", "Novak Djokovic pulls out of Indian Wells and Miami Open over US coronavirus rules - BBC Sport", "As it happened: Biden warns US intervention in Ukraine would mean WW3 - BBC News", "Russia hits back at Western sanctions with export bans - BBC News", "Ukraine war: People can welcome refugees into their homes - PM - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Chelsea sale halted by UK government sanctioning club owner - BBC Sport", "Russia could launch chemical attack in Ukraine - White House - BBC News", "Ukraine: What happened on day 15 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Ukraine: UK sanctions oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov - BBC News", "RAF airman Corrie Mckeague 'slept under bin bags' - inquest - BBC News", "Chelsea: Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell club - BBC Sport", "Fact-checking Boris Johnson's claim about refugees - BBC News", "Real Madrid 3-1 Paris St-Germain (3-2 agg): Karim Benzema hat-trick inspires superb Real fightback - BBC Sport", "SNP chief Ian Blackford dismisses resignation rumours - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Column of Russian tanks ambushed by Ukrainian forces - BBC News", "Emotions high as EU leaders face up to Putin's war - BBC News", "Ukraine war: On the front line of the battle for Kharkiv - BBC News", "Ukraine war: No progress on ceasefire after Kyiv-Moscow talks - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Children of the Soviet era running from Russia - BBC News", "Borrow billions or see incomes squeezed, Rishi Sunak told - BBC News", "Midwife struck off over Shropshire baby's death - BBC News", "US Border Patrol finds dozens of snakes and reptiles in man's outfit - BBC News", "Ukraine war: UK Home Office is in crisis mode over visas - BBC News", "Waitrose free coffee will have a trial return in some stores - BBC News", "IS confirms leader Qurayshi's death and names successor - BBC News", "Farmers warn Ukraine war will hit UK food prices - BBC News", "Russia oligarchs: The mega-rich men facing global sanctions - BBC News", "Norwich City 1-3 Chelsea: Blues strengthen their grip on third spot - BBC Sport", "War in Ukraine: A family's 'torturous' UK visa chase - BBC News", "Twitter blocks Russian claims on hospital attack - BBC News", "Russia-Ukraine war: Family drags grandmother to safety from Bucha - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine latest news: Zelensky says children's hospital attack a 'war crime' - BBC News", "Anthony Russell: Triple killer convicted of rape - BBC News", "Man given genetically modified pig heart dies - BBC News", "Ukraine-Russia war: UK to send more anti-tank missiles - BBC News", "Sam Ryder: TikTok star to sing Space Man for UK at Eurovision 2022 - BBC News", "UK Covid inquiry draft terms of reference set out - BBC News", "Ukraine: Cardiff orchestra pulls Tchaikovsky music over war - BBC News", "Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross withdraws call for Boris Johnson to quit - BBC News", "Goldman Sachs and Western Union pull out of Russia - BBC News", "'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: Mum and three children reunited with family in Lurgan - BBC News", "Mark Page: Ex-Radio 1 DJ jailed for 12 years over child sex offences - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Roman Abramovich sanctioned by UK - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Hospital patient numbers highest in 13 months - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: What do Russian owner's sanctions mean for Chelsea? - BBC Sport", "Children's social care generates excessive profits - report - BBC News", "Could EU weaponise energy in Russia crisis? - BBC News", "Cookstown hotel disco crush: Police officers reported to prosecutors - BBC News", "Ukrainecast - The Info War - BBC Sounds", "Use Russian money to rebuild Ukraine, says bank boss - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Oil price rises again due to fears over Russian shortfall - BBC News", "Absent UK soldiers may have travelled to Ukraine, British Army says - BBC News", "Black Panther Ryan Coogler director mistaken for bank robber - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Troops dig in near Kyiv - BBC News", "West Yorkshire Police officer jailed for raping woman after night out - BBC News", "Birmingham Erdington by-election: Starmer hails new MP as 'champion of working people' - BBC News", "Windrush generation: Ministers waiting for claimants to die - Diane Abbott - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Drone shows extent of damage in Borodyanka - BBC News", "As it happened: Russia continues full-scale attacks as residents trapped - BBC News", "Former education secretary Gavin Williamson to get knighthood - BBC News", "As it happened: Zelensky asks Putin for talks as humanitarian crisis grows - BBC News", "Apple, Nike and Google join brands limiting services - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Russia restricts social media access - BBC News", "Ukraine: How a week of war has transformed lives - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Labour calls for emergency visas to help refugees - BBC News", "WATCH: Russian TV staff walk off set after final broadcast - BBC News", "Ukraine: UK sanctions oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov - BBC News", "Gender recognition reform bill tabled at Holyrood - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Before and after images reveal Russian destruction - BBC News", "Facebook hits out at Russia blocking its platforms - BBC News", "Kyrell Matthews: Mum and partner guilty of killing toddler son - BBC News", "Ukrainian refugees fleeing conflict urge UK to offer more support - BBC News", "Polls close in Birmingham Erdington by-election - BBC News", "Derriford Hospital: Woman dies in helicopter landing incident - BBC News", "Rod Marsh: Legendary Australia wicketkeeper dies aged 74 after heart attack - BBC Sport", "Gas prices hit new record sparking fears over bill rises - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Why Kherson and Mariupol are key to Russian success - BBC News", "UK bank accounts frozen over 'oligarch links' - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: BBC suspends its journalists' work in Russia - BBC News", "David Goodwillie: Clyde U-turn on loan deal after female players quit & council ban on striker - BBC Sport", "Game Of Thrones actor John Stahl dies aged 68 - BBC News", "French designer giants suspend sales in Russia - BBC News", "Abandoned rocket 'hits the Moon' - scientists - BBC News", "Price of first class stamps to rise to 95p - BBC News", "Nuclear plant: How close was nuclear plant attack to catastrophe? - BBC News", "Ros Atkins on...Russian gas and oil - BBC News", "Afghanistan: MPs 'ashamed' over support for aid workers - BBC News", "Son of accused 6 January rioters testifies in court - BBC News", "Biden imposes sanctions on Russian oligarchs, 'Putin's cronies' - BBC News", "Greater Manchester Police pays £8,000 damages to rape complainant - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Australia cricket legend dies aged 52 - BBC Sport", "Ukraine sanctions: UK dockers refuse tanker of Russian gas - BBC News", "Jack Ritchie inquest: Gambling addict help 'woefully inadequate' - BBC News", "Ukraine: Not too late for Vladimir Putin to withdraw, says UK defence secretary - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Families run for cover as Russian air strikes hit Chernihiv - BBC News", "Clive and Valerie Warrington: Son charged with murdering parents - BBC News", "Bet365 boss Denise Coates gets £300m pay package - a £170m cut - BBC News", "Keighley mill fire: Five arson arrests over Peaky Blinders location blaze - BBC News", "Ukraine: Liz Truss calls on international community to step up support - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Russian soldiers killed my family while they fled' - BBC News", "WATCH: 3D model shows extent of Russian military convoy - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: What sanctions could West still impose on Russia? - BBC News", "Ukraine: Estonian cargo ship sinks after blast in Black Sea - BBC News", "Ukraine: Russia agrees need to create humanitarian corridors - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Ukraine and Man City's Oleksandr Zinchenko on Russian invasion - BBC Sport", "Ukraine help: What can people in the UK do? - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: UK promises quicker sanctions against Russian oligarchs - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'My city's being shelled, but mum won’t believe me' - BBC News", "Tube Strike: Disruption easing on Tube network after strike ends - BBC News", "Ukraine: Apartment block just outside Kyiv shelled - BBC News", "Car reverses into Birmingham jewellery shop during ram-raid - BBC News", "Covid: Wales entering 'steady state' in managing virus - BBC News", "Andy Murray back with Ivan Lendl who helped him win Wimbledon, US and Olympic titles - BBC Sport", "Supermarkets remove Russian vodka from shelves - BBC News", "Ukraine war is economic catastrophe, warns World Bank - BBC News", "Ukraine says it is fighting first 'hybrid war' - BBC News", "Premier League: China's rights holder will not show games over Ukraine support - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: How might the war end? Five scenarios - BBC News", "Europe's largest nuclear plant shelled in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ashling Murphy 'will not be forgotten', says Prince Charles - BBC News", "Abortion in NI: Westminster to intervene on services after election - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Joe Root's side facing defeat in Grenada after disastrous day - BBC Sport", "Royal tour: Cherish your friends, Kate tells schoolchildren in Bahamas as trip ends - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Oligarch Eugene Shvidler's jets held indefinitely - BBC News", "Covid-19: Free PCR tests to end for most in April - BBC News", "In pictures: Taylor Hawkins, a drummer who 'served the song' - BBC News", "Netflix's Diana the Musical named worst film by Razzie Awards - BBC News", "England 2-1 Switzerland: Luke Shaw & Harry Kane goals help Three Lions earn Wembley win - BBC Sport", "A bomb hit this theatre hiding hundreds - here's how one woman survived - BBC News", "Highlights of Foo Fighters' set at Glastonbury 2017 - BBC News", "Ukraine war: The priest shot at a checkpoint - BBC News", "Sergio Perez on Saudi Arabia pole as Lewis Hamilton out early and Mick Schumacher crashes - BBC Sport", "Bute Park: Three jailed for doctor's homophobic murder - BBC News", "Prince William tells Caribbean tour that relationships evolve - BBC News", "P&O Ferries ship detained over crew training concerns - BBC News", "Next stop Kyiv - the battle on the capital's outskirts - BBC News", "Michael Bisping: Former UFC star looks back on remarkable career in new documentary - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: A dangerous escape on the 'Rescue Express' - BBC News", "Calls for P&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite to resign grow - BBC News", "Under threat of Russian bombs, Lviv hides away its priceless heritage - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Musicians perform emotional concert in Kharkiv metro station - BBC News", "Dorset Police hunt prisoner on the run in underwear and socks - BBC News", "Ukraine: Sadiq Khan says UK should do more to help refugees - BBC News", "Taylor Hawkins: Foo Fighters' drummer dies aged 50 - BBC News", "Afghanistan: Protesters urge Taliban to reopen girls' schools - BBC News", "'Photography completely turned my life around' - BBC News", "World freedoms at stake, President Biden tells US troops - BBC News", "Russian general Yakov Rezantsev killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine war: JK Rowling hits back at Putin's 'cancel culture' comment - BBC News", "Kyrell Matthews: Mum and partner jailed for killing toddler son - BBC News", "Man and woman die in Nottingham house fire - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: The danger of wishful Western thinking - BBC News", "HMRC must do more to recover taxes unpaid due to pandemic, say MPs - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Protests at ports against sackings - BBC News", "Civilian deaths: Aerial video shows escaping father killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Grass fires: Wales' resources stretched by 'burn season' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: WHO says attacks on health facilities are rising daily - BBC News", "Man found buried in garden died from stab wound to neck - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Joshua da Silva nudges hosts into ascendency on day two - BBC Sport", "Coda star and Oscar nominee inspires deaf children to dream big - BBC News", "On the road to Mariupol, a southern Ukrainian town fears for the worst - BBC News", "Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will go ahead after missile attack - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Five wounded after explosions hit western city of Lviv - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Suspect said MP suspected 'sting', court told - BBC News", "NI election 2022: Which MLAs are standing down from Stormont? - BBC News", "Spotify stops streaming in Russia over safety concerns - BBC News", "Antytila: Ukrainian band backed by Ed Sheeran refused fundraiser slot - BBC News", "How the feel-good film Coda caused an Oscars upset - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ros Atkins on... Putin’s false ‘Nazi’ claims - BBC News", "Child Q: School apologises for strip-search of black schoolgirl - BBC News", "China plane crash: All 132 passengers and crew dead, officials confirm - BBC News", "Ukraine War: Civilians abducted as Russia tries to assert control - BBC News", "Black man 'not dressed for climate' searched by Met police - BBC News", "Ukraine defence: Red lights and painted arrows fuel fear of Russian agents - BBC News", "UK Covid infections climb by a million in a week - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Calls for clarity on refugee matching process - BBC News", "Comic Relief: Red Nose Day raises £42m in star-studded show - BBC News", "Rachael Blackmore wins Cheltenham Gold Cup on A Plus Tard - BBC Sport", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Gun battles as Russian troops reach Mariupol city centre, says mayor - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Centuries from Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood blunt England in Barbados - BBC Sport", "Shells rain down on Kharkiv as Ukraine's army stands firm - BBC News", "Diplomats spar over 'edited' Russian letter - BBC News", "Russian oligarch Strzhalkovsky's super yacht stuck in Norway - BBC News", "Brittney Griner: Russia extends arrest of US basketball star over drugs charge - BBC News", "Outrage and no ferries after mass P&O sackings - BBC News", "Ukraine war: The women tracing missing relatives - BBC News", "Emiliano Sala: Footballer died after plane broke up mid-air - BBC News", "Strip-searched Hackney schoolgirl to sue Met Police - BBC News", "Joanne Tulip: Justice Secretary blocks killer's move to open prison - BBC News", "Nasa's giant new SLS Moon rocket makes its debut - BBC News", "Ukraine: Elegant Odesa is transformed by efforts to deter Russians - BBC News", "Boy, 12, denies burglary spree of top London hotels - BBC News", "Girls face more pressure to be a perfect teenager - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Mariupol theatre destroyed in bombing - BBC News", "Ukraine's Zelensky calls on Germany to tear down Russian wall - BBC News", "Orford Ness: Former military site needs ferry operator - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Putin lays out his demands in Turkish phone call - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ben Wallace and Priti Patel targeted by hoax calls - BBC News", "Ukraine's restaurants rally to the war effort - BBC News", "Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' - BBC News", "Sarah Everard: Killer Wayne Couzens charged with four counts of indecent exposure - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day: Biden reinforces support for Good Friday Agreement - BBC News", "Interest rates rise again to counter higher prices - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Larne Port protest over P&O Ferries sackings - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day parades: Police warning as public events return - BBC News", "Covid travel restrictions have ended in the UK - BBC News", "Russia Today: News channel RT's UK licence revoked by Ofcom - BBC News", "Airline giant Delta warns oil increases mean higher ticket prices - BBC News", "Chelsea to play Real Madrid in Champions League quarter-finals - BBC Sport", "Covid: Rise in UK infections driven by BA.2 Omicron variant - BBC News", "Greenvale Hotel: Family 'kept in dark' over Cookstown hotel deaths - BBC News", "P&O Ferries sackings: Government to review contracts with ferry firm - BBC News", "Ukrainian ballet star Artem Datsyshyn dies after Russian shelling - BBC News", "Dozens of pilot whales die at notorious New Zealand beach - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russians grieve for fallen soldiers - BBC News", "West Ham 2-0 Sevilla (2-1 on aggregate): Andriy Yarmolenko winning goal sends Hammers into Europa League quarter-finals - BBC Sport", "Child, 13, drove pickup in deadly Texas crash that killed nine - BBC News", "British Sign Language set for legal recognition - BBC News", "Jacob Rees-Mogg dismisses partygate as 'trivial fluff' - BBC News", "UK City of Culture 2025 shortlist revealed - BBC News", "Putin hails Crimea annexation and war with lessons on heroism - BBC News", "Ukraine: Arnold Schwarzenegger's anti-war video trends on Russian social media - BBC News", "P&O Ferries staff protest over shock firing - BBC News", "Sarah Everard vigil: Met Police appeal against High Court ruling - BBC News", "Marina Ovsyannikova: Protesting journalist says Russians zombified by propaganda - BBC News", "Climate change: Wildfire smoke linked to Arctic melting - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich's jet among 100 planes grounded by US - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: West hits Russia with oil bans and gas curbs - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Petrol at fresh record as oil and gas prices soar - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Crisis is unleashing 'hell on earth' for food prices - BBC News", "Ukraine: 'We try to tell them the truth' - parenting in wartime - BBC News", "Prince Andrew pays settlement ending sex assault case - BBC News", "McDonald's and Coca-Cola boycott calls grow over Russia - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran sings Nina Simone during Shape of You copyright case - BBC News", "Public sexual harassment: The women groped and laughed at in the street - BBC News", "Iowa tornadoes: Seven people killed, including two children - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: World Bank approves $723m financial package - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: The West fights back against Putin the disruptor - BBC News", "Scans reveal how Covid may change the brain - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks halt Russian sales - BBC News", "Ghislaine Maxwell: Juror admits 'mistake' not revealing abuse - BBC News", "Sydney floods: Two killed and thousands forced to evacuate - BBC News", "Government rescue of Bulb Energy set to cost taxpayers billions more - BBC News", "Covid: Vaccines not linked to deaths, says study, and brain changes after virus - BBC News", "Brexit: UK and EU 'still determined to find solutions to protocol' - BBC News", "Glass Animals: UK band's hit Heat Waves sets new record to top US chart - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Your guide to understanding day 13 - BBC News", "Ukraine: Are arms shipments from the West making a difference? - BBC News", "Ex-Commons Speaker John Bercow was a serial bully, says report - BBC News", "Uniqlo keeps Russian shops open as clothes a 'necessity' - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Russia says it may cut gas supplies if oil ban goes ahead - BBC News", "Dizzee Rascal: Grime artist guilty of assaulting former partner - BBC News", "Ukraine: Refugees to UK turned back at Calais over paperwork - BBC News", "Ukrainian actor Pasha Lee killed in Russian bombardment - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine latest news: Zelensky says children's hospital attack a 'war crime' - BBC News", "Blue and yellow flowers as Queen meets Trudeau - BBC News", "Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky to address UK MPs in Commons - BBC News", "Ukrainians on way to UK hit paperwork dead-end in Calais - BBC News", "Ukraine war: BBC News journalists resume English-language broadcasts from Russia - BBC News", "Cost of living: Warning UK faces biggest income squeeze in nearly 50 years - BBC News", "Baby killed in suspected dog attack at Ostler's Plantation - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Transport firms feeling pinch of rising fuel costs - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boy of 11 flees to safety in Slovakia by himself - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Refugee's daughter says there's a risk of riots at visa centre - BBC News", "Ukraine: Mother of Russian soldier asks 'Whose door should I knock on to get my child back?' - BBC News", "Nicola Sturgeon apologises to people accused of witchcraft - BBC News", "Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky invokes Winston Churchill as he appeals to MPs - BBC News", "Could EU weaponise energy in Russia crisis? - BBC News", "Ros Atkins on… The UK’s refugee response - BBC News", "Chaos, upheaval and exhaustion for Ukraine's disabled children - BBC News", "Ukraine war: President Zelensky speaks to UK MPs - BBC News", "Amazon rainforest reaching tipping point, researchers say - BBC News", "Mariupol: Fires, no water, and bodies in the street - BBC News", "Lynda Baron: Open All Hours and Come Outside actress dies aged 82 - BBC News", "Clive Myrie: The Ukrainians I met are not about to give up - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: 'It's hell, it's really hell' - Families flee bombs in Irpin - BBC News", "As it happened: Russian shelling prevents evacuations once again - Ukraine - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran denies Shape of You copyright claim at High Court trial - BBC News", "'World-first' heart-thymus transplant success for Easton - BBC News", "Vamps star tells of liposuction body-image pressure - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Why has 'Z' become a Russian pro-war symbol? - BBC News", "Ukraine: Documenting the war on TikTok - BBC News", "Chaos and tears as thousands try to catch a train out of Ukraine - BBC News", "Lancaster mum wins legal fight for son's kidney transplant - BBC News", "Shell sorry and pledges to stop buying Russian oil - BBC News", "Edward III gold coin found by Norfolk detectorist sells for £174k - BBC News", "Covid vaccines not linked to deaths, major US study finds - BBC News", "Russia oligarchs: The mega-rich men facing global sanctions - BBC News", "West Yorkshire Police officer jailed for raping woman after night out - BBC News", "Ukrainian city of Mariupol 'near to humanitarian catastrophe' after bombardment - BBC News", "Highland hermit makes surprise film festival visit - BBC News", "Facebook hits out at Russia blocking its platforms - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Ukraine and Man City's Oleksandr Zinchenko on Russian invasion - BBC Sport", "Putin says sanctions over Ukraine are like a declaration of war - BBC News", "Zara, Paypal and Samsung suspend business in Russia over Ukraine invasion - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Kharkiv residents still sheltering underground a week on - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay and team shot at in ambush - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Hurley pays tribute to 'beloved lionheart' - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Zelensky slams Nato over rejection of no-fly zone - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ukraine can absolutely win against Russia - Blinken - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics: Millie Knight and Brett Wild win downhill bronze - BBC Sport", "War in Ukraine: UK promises quicker sanctions against Russian oligarchs - BBC News", "Derriford Hospital: Woman dies in helicopter landing incident - BBC News", "From Grozny to Aleppo to Ukraine, Russia meets resistance with more firepower - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'My city's being shelled, but mum won’t believe me' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Why Kherson and Mariupol are key to Russian success - BBC News", "Siege of Mariupol: Fresh Russian attacks throw evacuation into chaos - BBC News", "Ukraine: Apartment block just outside Kyiv shelled - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson urges renewed world push to halt Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Drone shows extent of damage in Borodyanka - BBC News", "UK bank accounts frozen over 'oligarch links' - BBC News", "Ukraine: Workers refuse to unload Russian oil from ship - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: BBC suspends its journalists' work in Russia - BBC News", "Greg Robinson: An act of kindness to make a community smile - BBC News", "European peace seems as fragile as ever - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Minute's silence held & MCG stand to be renamed after iconic cricketer's death - BBC Sport", "BBC World News - Seven Days That Changed the World", "Shane Warne: Australia cricket legend dies aged 52 - BBC Sport", "Game Of Thrones actor John Stahl dies aged 68 - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Citizens evacuate town of Irpin as homes are destroyed - BBC News", "French designer giants suspend sales in Russia - BBC News", "Jim Crossley: Dunmurry woman, 31, admits killing boyfriend - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Thousands march in Kherson against occupiers - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Cricket pays tribute after death of its 'greatest showman' - BBC Sport", "Nuclear plant: How close was nuclear plant attack to catastrophe? - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Families run for cover as Russian air strikes hit Chernihiv - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics: Ukraine top medal table with three golds on opening day - BBC Sport", "Toxteth shooting: Man charged after girl shot at bus stop - BBC News", "Naomi Long: Alliance 'can end Stormont political soap operas' - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Russia restricts social media access - BBC News", "Derriford Hospital: Plymouth woman 'blown over by helicopter' before death - BBC News", "Mum reunited with daughter in Northern Ireland after fleeing Ukraine - BBC News", "Charities warn fuel poverty could double in a year - BBC News", "Clive and Valerie Warrington: Son charged with murdering parents in court - BBC News", "Nikita Mazepin: Haas end driver's contract & partnership with Russian chemicals company - BBC Sport", "Neighbours: Ramsay Street homeowner hopes for heritage status - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: The Russians leaving Russia for Finland - BBC News", "Europe's largest nuclear plant shelled in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: UK lawyer appointed to probe war crime claims - BBC News", "Afghanistan: Taliban bars BBC TV programmes from schedules - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Joe Root's side facing defeat in Grenada after disastrous day - BBC Sport", "Sizewell C nuclear power station: Government to take 20% stake - BBC News", "Dorset prisoner on run in underwear 'changes appearance' - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Joe Root's side slump to 10-wicket defeat in Grenada - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Oligarch Eugene Shvidler's jets held indefinitely - BBC News", "Ukraine war is our war, say Brit ex-squaddies heading to Lviv - BBC News", "How the sex trade preys on Ukraine's refugees - BBC News", "Canada pledges to help countries stop using Russian oil - BBC News", "Minister vows 'tougher guidelines' after schoolgirl strip-searched - BBC News", "England 2-1 Switzerland: Luke Shaw & Harry Kane goals help Three Lions earn Wembley win - BBC Sport", "In pictures: Taylor Hawkins, a drummer who 'served the song' - BBC News", "Oscars: Branagh and Hinds to attend after Covid all-clear - BBC News", "Simon Coveney: Woman released after Coveney security alert arrest - BBC News", "Watch: Sophie Raworth interviews Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci - BBC News", "Ukraine war: The drone pilots monitoring Russian troops - BBC News", "Sergio Perez on Saudi Arabia pole as Lewis Hamilton out early and Mick Schumacher crashes - BBC Sport", "Shanghai Covid: China announces largest city-wide lockdown - BBC News", "As it happened, Oscars 2022: Coda’s best picture win overshadowed by Smith slap - BBC News", "Next stop Kyiv - the battle on the capital's outskirts - BBC News", "Caribbean tour: Prince William says future is for the people to decide - BBC News", "Michael Bisping: Former UFC star looks back on remarkable career in new documentary - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: A dangerous escape on the 'Rescue Express' - BBC News", "As it happened: Putin 'cannot stay in power', Biden says - BBC News", "Under threat of Russian bombs, Lviv hides away its priceless heritage - BBC News", "Snowdonia: Walker critically ill after cliff fall - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Musicians perform emotional concert in Kharkiv metro station - BBC News", "P&O Ferries given deadline to reemploy sacked workers - BBC News", "Dorset Police hunt prisoner on the run in underwear and socks - BBC News", "Taylor Hawkins: Foo Fighters' drummer dies aged 50 - BBC News", "As it happened: UK and US urge caution on Russian pledge to reduce attacks - BBC News", "Ukraine: Sadiq Khan says UK should do more to help refugees - BBC News", "Russian general Yakov Rezantsev killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: No Russia regime change plans, says Blinken - BBC News", "Women's World Cup: England beat Bangladesh to set up South Africa semi-final - BBC Sport", "El Salvador: State of emergency after 62 gang killings in a day - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Protests at ports against sackings - BBC News", "Civilian deaths: Aerial video shows escaping father killed in Ukraine - BBC News", "Oscars: 'It's been a hell of a ride' - Jude Hill's Belfast journey - BBC News", "Man found buried in garden died from stab wound to neck - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Five wounded after explosions hit western city of Lviv - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Liz Truss says Russia sanctions should end only after withdrawal - BBC News", "England schools set for minimum week length in new rules - BBC News", "Bethnal Green: Murder arrest over stabbed mother-of-two - BBC News", "Israel says partnership with Arab League allies will deter Iran - BBC News", "Russia transfers thousands of Mariupol civilians to its territory - BBC News", "Oscars 2022: The Power of the Dog leads nominations - BBC News", "Why Biden's off-script remarks about Putin are so dangerous - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ros Atkins on... Putin’s false ‘Nazi’ claims - BBC News", "M&S sorry after shopper got 100 wrong parcel texts - BBC News", "Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen wins after late overtake on Charles Leclerc - BBC Sport", "Oscars 2022: All the winners and nominees - BBC News", "China plane crash: All 132 passengers and crew dead, officials confirm - BBC News", "Ukraine defence: Red lights and painted arrows fuel fear of Russian agents - BBC News", "Child funeral fund: Families in Northern Ireland to receive payments - BBC News", "Taylor Hawkins: Drugs found in body of late Foo Fighters drummer - BBC News", "North Korea recently tested intercontinental missile system: US - BBC News", "Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days in jail in attack hoax case - BBC News", "Sesame Street star Emilio Delgado dies aged 81 - BBC News", "Rising fuel costs put car-reliant businesses under pressure - BBC News", "'It is Russia against humanity': Crisis grows in besieged Ukrainian city - BBC News", "As it happened: Biden warns US intervention in Ukraine would mean WW3 - BBC News", "India accidentally fires missile into Pakistan - BBC News", "Will Nato get involved if dirty bombs are used in Ukraine? And other questions - BBC News", "Battle for Mykolaiv: 'We are winning this fight, but not this war' - BBC News", "Russia hits back at Western sanctions with export bans - BBC News", "Ukraine war: People can welcome refugees into their homes - PM - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Huge fireball lights up night sky over Lutsk - BBC News", "Disney apologises for 'silence' on 'Don't Say Gay' bill - BBC News", "Ukraine: What happened on day 15 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics: Ollie Hill wins bronze for Britain's first snowboard medal - BBC Sport", "Benjamin Mendy: New hearing set for rape-accused footballer - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Large Russian convoy redeploys near Kyiv - satellite images - BBC News", "Anthony Russell: Triple killer given whole-life prison sentence - BBC News", "Sarah Everard: Met Police breached rights of vigil organisers - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Column of Russian tanks ambushed by Ukrainian forces - BBC News", "As it happened: Abuse survivors apology delivered at Stormont - BBC News", "Ukraine war: On the front line of the battle for Kharkiv - BBC News", "Redditch Asda stabbing: Boy, 14, charged with murder - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Kyiv prepares for Russian attack - BBC News", "Abuse survivors hear Stormont public apology - BBC News", "Covid deaths probably three times higher than records say - BBC News", "Covid infections rising again across UK - ONS - BBC News", "Midwife struck off over Shropshire baby's death - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Chelsea have credit card facilities temporarily suspended - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Images reveal scale of destruction in Mariupol - BBC News", "Covid inquiry's public hearings to begin in 2023 - BBC News", "Farmers warn Ukraine war will hit UK food prices - BBC News", "Katy Perry wins in Dark Horse copyright appeal - BBC News", "Norwich City 1-3 Chelsea: Blues strengthen their grip on third spot - BBC Sport", "US to ban Russian diamond and vodka imports - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: A family's 'torturous' UK visa chase - BBC News", "Twitter blocks Russian claims on hospital attack - BBC News", "Russia-Ukraine war: Family drags grandmother to safety from Bucha - BBC News", "UK sanctions 386 Russian MPs over Ukraine invasion - BBC News", "Bitcoin cash machines ordered to shut down in UK - BBC News", "Ukraine: What happened on day 16 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Six Nations 2022: Wales 9-13 France - visitors keep Grand Slam dream alive - BBC Sport", "Douglas Ross: Removing PM would only benefit Putin - BBC News", "Which companies are pulling out of Russia? - BBC News", "Anthony Russell: Triple killer convicted of rape - BBC News", "Petrol price hits new record above £1.60 a litre - BBC News", "Zoe Covid-tracking app loses government funding - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Zak Crawley hits hundred as tourists dominate day four in Antigua - BBC Sport", "UK Covid inquiry draft terms of reference set out - BBC News", "Evgeny Lebedev: I am not some agent of Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin seeks foreign volunteers to fight in Ukraine - BBC News", "Mariupol hospital attack: Pregnant woman hurt in bombing gives birth - BBC News", "Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross withdraws call for Boris Johnson to quit - BBC News", "'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine - BBC News", "WATCH: 3D model shows extent of Russian military convoy - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Roman Abramovich sanctioned by UK - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Hospital patient numbers highest in 13 months - BBC News", "Mystery drone from Ukraine war crashes in Croatia - BBC News", "Ukraine: Thousands of vulnerable children unaccounted for - BBC News", "Denis Donaldson: PSNI 'failed to properly evaluate' threat - BBC News", "Cookstown hotel disco crush: Police officers reported to prosecutors - BBC News", "Ukrainecast - The Info War - BBC Sounds", "Covid pandemic fuels deepening education inequalities in England, say MPs - BBC News", "Queen pulls out of attending Commonwealth Service - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Troops dig in near Kyiv - BBC News", "Queen holds afternoon tea for Canada's governor general after missing service - BBC News", "UK's most premature twins reunited as sister returns home - BBC News", "As it happened: US warns China against support for Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine UK refugee hosting scheme: Mum-of-four opens home to refugees - BBC News", "Putin changes law on leased jets to keep them flying - BBC News", "Manchester United 0-1 Atletico Madrid (agg 1-2): Renan Lodi puts Diego Simeone's side into quarter-finals - BBC Sport", "Fox News' Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshinova killed in Kyiv - BBC News", "St Patrick's Day: NI ministers to travel to White House - BBC News", "Ukraine's wartime rail chief has to be faster than the Russians tracking him - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Demonstrator disrupts Russia's flagship evening news broadcast - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Sanctions restrict rent payments to Crown Estate - BBC News", "Russia sanctions Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and others - BBC News", "Ukraine risks being pulverised, service is told - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has UK passport returned, MP says - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Infection and hunger as hundreds hide in Mariupol cellar - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Pub dedicated to Hemingway destroyed in Kharkiv - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russia's ex-president among 370 new UK sanctions targets - BBC News", "Cheltenham Festival 2022: What to watch out for at four-day meeting - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Drone shots show Mariupol devastated by fighting - BBC News", "Logan Mwangi: Murder-accused, 14, was 'a monster' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Zelensky urges Russian troops to surrender - BBC News", "Logan Mwangi murder trial: Boy disciplined at home, court told - BBC News", "Russians to give American astronaut ride to Earth in spite of tensions - BBC News", "Outdoor civil weddings and partnerships here to stay - BBC News", "Met Police apologises for strip-search of Hackney schoolgirl - BBC News", "Out-of-date adoption laws in Northern Ireland set to change - BBC News", "Ukraine war: One shell that destroyed a family - BBC News", "PM defends Saudi Arabia trip despite human rights record - BBC News", "Ukraine: Eight arrests at oligarch's London mansion after balcony protest - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: New evidence highlights corrupt deals - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Fears Russian aggression could spill into Poland - BBC News", "Abramovich: Jet linked to oligarch lands in Moscow - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Editor interrupts Russian TV news show - BBC News", "Ukraine: Nick Robinson on how Germany is reversing decades of closer ties with Russia - BBC News", "Oil price falls below $100 but petrol hits new high - BBC News", "Edward Meenan trial: One man guilty of murder, another of manslaughter - BBC News", "Homes for Ukraine: NI 'fully looped into' scheme says Michael Gove - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Kyiv residential buildings hit in Russian strikes - BBC News", "Camelot to lose licence to run National Lottery - BBC News", "As it happened: Kremlin fury over Biden 'war criminal' comment - BBC News", "Covid: Date for lifting of Scottish face covering rules pushed back - BBC News", "Chelsea want FA Cup tie with Middlesbrough played behind closed doors - BBC Sport", "IMF: Ukraine economy could shrink as much as 35% - BBC News", "Ukraine war: European leaders risk train ride to meet Zelensky - BBC News", "Christian Eriksen back in Denmark squad - BBC Sport", "UK gets first new-style pylons in a century - BBC News", "Ukraine war: West made terrible mistake after Crimea - PM - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Residents rescued after Kyiv apartment block strike - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Mask rules will stay in force until April - BBC News", "Ukraine war: A baby born under bombardment in Bucha - BBC News", "Homes for Ukraine refugee scheme launches in UK - BBC News", "Petrol prices set to ease after hitting record highs - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What happened on day 19 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Potholes near Sir Rod Stewart's Essex home to be fixed in April - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Protester exposes cracks in Kremlin's war message - BBC News", "Wilko sorry for saying staff could work with Covid - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: US warns China against helping Russia - BBC News", "Star Hobson murder: Frankie Smith's sentence increased to 12 years - BBC News", "Chelsea withdraw request to play FA Cup tie with Middlesbrough behind closed doors - BBC Sport", "Children with mental health problems were at 'serious risk' in care home - BBC News", "Russia-Ukraine war: British Fox News journalist injured - BBC News", "Fracking: Deadlock over plan to seal up wells - BBC News", "NHS struggling with 'long tail' of pandemic mental ill health - BBC News", "All UK travel rules to end on Friday, says government - BBC News", "Mass graves in Ukraine: Battered cities are digging makeshift burial sites - BBC News", "Ukraine war: BBC World Service granted extra funding - BBC News", "Ukraine's recruits swap spreadsheets for sniper rifles to defend Kyiv - BBC News", "Ukraine: The small town which managed to block Russia's big plans - BBC News", "Cabinet split over changing planning law to allow more wind farms - BBC News", "China plane crash: Search teams find flight's black box - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Western agents seek to get inside Putin's head - BBC News", "Afghanistan: Taliban backtrack on reopening high schools for girls - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Nato to boost forces in eastern Europe as Ukraine war rages - BBC News", "Is Rishi Sunak a tax-cutter? - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Suspect looked 'self-satisfied' after attack - BBC News", "Nestle pulls KitKat and Nesquik out of Russia - BBC News", "Afghanistan girls' tears over chaotic Taliban schools U-turn - BBC News", "Ukraine: Couple hire hotel in Poland to house refugees - BBC News", "Custody cells in many NI courts 'not fit for purpose' - BBC News", "Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder gets married in Belmarsh prison - BBC News", "Evan Neumann: US Capitol riot suspect gets asylum in Belarus - BBC News", "Madeleine Albright: First female US secretary of state dies - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Dnipro orphans find sanctuary in Scotland - BBC News", "Almost 400 migrants cross Channel on small boats - BBC News", "A bomb hit this theatre hiding hundreds - here's how one woman survived - BBC News", "Olympic Park: Major gas leak incident at London Aquatics Centre - BBC News", "Spring Statement: Rishi Sunak seeks to combat cost-of-living squeeze - BBC News", "Corrie Mckeague inquest concludes he died after going into bin - BBC News", "Spring Statement 2022: Sunak on Ukraine war effect on UK economy - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ukrainian fightback gains ground west of Kyiv - BBC News", "WATCH: Ukrainian sailing club protest superyacht linked to Abramovich in Turkey - BBC News", "Boris Johnson gets summaries of sensitive government material via WhatsApp - BBC News", "George Montague: Tributes to 'oldest gay campaigner' after death at 98 - BBC News", "New P&O crew on less than £2 an hour, union claims - BBC News", "Chancellor Rishi Sunak to deliver Spring Statement amid price pressures - BBC News", "Spring Statement 2022: Chancellor announces 1p income tax cut by 2024 - BBC News", "William Collins: Giant memorial built without permission - BBC News", "Paul Pogba: Man Utd midfielder experienced depression under Jose Mourinho - BBC Sport", "Boris Becker offered his wedding ring to pay debts, court told - BBC News", "Spring Statement: One family's cost of living experience - BBC News", "Angel Lynn: Kidnapped woman's abusive ex has sentence increased - BBC News", "Ed Sheeran awaits verdict in 'traumatising' Shape of You copyright trial - BBC News", "Petrol prices stabilise after weeks at record highs - BBC News", "Lia Thomas: Florida governor Ron DeSantis refuses to recognise Thomas win - BBC Sport", "Prince William and Raheem Sterling play football on Jamaica tour - BBC News", "Spring Statement: Will Rishi Sunak help where it really hurts? - BBC News", "Inflation hits new 30-year high in February - BBC News", "Mournes: Firefighters extinguish fires on mountains - BBC News", "A month in Ukraine: 'All normal life is gone' - BBC News", "Australian Open: 'Ashleigh Barty cements place as national hero with Melbourne win' - BBC Sport", "P&O: Agency seafarers quit after hearing about sacked staff - BBC News", "Child Q: Hackney mayor calls for school's head teacher to resign - BBC News", "Covid: Lockdown anniversary and New Zealand set to ease rules - BBC News", "BBC editors react to Sunak's 2022 Spring Statement - BBC News", "Fuel duty cut by 5p a litre to help motorists - BBC News", "US rolls back Trump-era tariffs on UK steel - BBC News", "Russian veteran reformer Chubais quits job as Putin envoy - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Belarusian dissidents fight against Russia in Ukraine - BBC News", "Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited - BBC News", "People face biggest drop in living standards since 1956 - BBC News", "Doubt over PM claim that P&O sackings may be illegal - BBC News", "P&O Ferries offers £100,000 to some sacked staff - BBC News", "Ukraine: Impossible choices for surrogate mothers and parents - BBC News", "Amanda Bynes: Judge ends former actress's nine-year conservatorship - BBC News", "As it happened: Spring Statement latest: Sunak cuts fuel duty and raises National Insurance threshold - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted - BBC News", "St Helens dog attack: Girl aged 17 months killed at home - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Scores feared dead after Russia attack on Mykolaiv barracks - BBC News", "Comic Relief: Red Nose Day raises £42m in star-studded show - BBC News", "Six Nations 2022: Ireland v Scotland match preview, team news & key stats - BBC Sport", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Gun battles as Russian troops reach Mariupol city centre, says mayor - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Centuries from Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood blunt England in Barbados - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Zelensky tells Moscow 'it's time to talk' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson sparks fury after comparison to Brexit - BBC News", "Shells rain down on Kharkiv as Ukraine's army stands firm - BBC News", "Russia claims first use of hypersonic Kinzhal missile in Ukraine - BBC News", "Russia denies cosmonauts board space station in Ukrainian colours - BBC News", "Gorseinon: Girls arrested after crash into opticians - BBC News", "Diplomats spar over 'edited' Russian letter - BBC News", "Six Nations: France beat England to sweep to Grand Slam - BBC Sport", "Middlesbrough 0-2 Chelsea: Blues beat Championship side to reach FA Cup semi-finals - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Drone footage shows level of devastation in Mariupol - BBC News", "Ukraine war: The women tracing missing relatives - BBC News", "Strip-searched Hackney schoolgirl to sue Met Police - BBC News", "Six Nations: Ireland 26-5 Scotland - Irish clinch Triple Crown before title hopes ended by France - BBC Sport", "Joanne Tulip: Justice Secretary blocks killer's move to open prison - BBC News", "Chelsea: Multiple bids lodged to buy Premier League club - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: Elegant Odesa is transformed by efforts to deter Russians - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Resilience making Russia assess reality, negotiator says - BBC News", "William and Kate arrive in Belize for jubilee Caribbean tour - BBC News", "Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Tanks in streets' as fighting hits Mariupol centre - BBC News", "Lupin: Seven charged over armed heist on Paris filming set - BBC News", "Ukraine: What have been Russia's military mistakes? - BBC News", "Covid: Rise in UK infections driven by BA.2 Omicron variant - BBC News", "P&O Ferries sackings: Government to review contracts with ferry firm - BBC News", "Concern over toxic chemicals in tap water - BBC News", "Wirral marshland fire may have been started deliberately - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russians grieve for fallen soldiers - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich's jet among 100 planes grounded by US - BBC News", "P&O treatment of workers a disgrace says Sir Jeffrey Donaldson - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Gordon Brown backs Nuremberg-style trial for Putin - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Man rescued from Kharkiv rubble after shelling - BBC News", "UK grounds private jet with possible Russian links - Shapps - BBC News", "UK City of Culture 2025 shortlist revealed - BBC News", "Putin hails Crimea annexation and war with lessons on heroism - BBC News", "Ukraine: Arnold Schwarzenegger's anti-war video trends on Russian social media - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted - BBC News", "Clerkenwell: Woman, 19, killed at student accommodation - BBC News", "How Kremlin accounts manipulate Twitter - BBC News", "Zeebrugge disaster: Memorial service for 193 victims marks 35 years - BBC News", "Shell defends 'difficult' decision to buy Russian crude oil - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics: Neil Simpson and brother Andrew win super-G gold in Beijing - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: 'We try to tell them the truth' - parenting in wartime - BBC News", "Ukraine war: UK has a direct line to Russia - defence chief - BBC News", "Russia oligarchs: The mega-rich men facing global sanctions - BBC News", "Ukrainian city of Mariupol 'near to humanitarian catastrophe' after bombardment - BBC News", "Highland hermit makes surprise film festival visit - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: The West fights back against Putin the disruptor - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Kharkiv family desperate to treat daughter's cancer - BBC News", "Watch: Sophie Raworth interviews Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Ukraine and Man City's Oleksandr Zinchenko on Russian invasion - BBC Sport", "Thomas Tuchel says Chelsea fans should not have chanted for Roman Abramovich at Burnley - BBC Sport", "Zara, Paypal and Samsung suspend business in Russia over Ukraine invasion - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Zelensky urges Ukrainians to go on the offensive - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Hurley pays tribute to 'beloved lionheart' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Sky News journalist Stuart Ramsay and team shot at in ambush - BBC News", "Visa and Mastercard suspend Russian operations - BBC News", "Ukraine: Angry Zelensky vows to punish Russian atrocities - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: UK promises quicker sanctions against Russian oligarchs - BBC News", "From Grozny to Aleppo to Ukraine, Russia meets resistance with more firepower - BBC News", "Manchester City 4-1 Manchester United: Kevin de Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez settle derby - BBC Sport", "Tony Blair challenged on guilt by Archbishop of Canterbury - BBC News", "Siege of Mariupol: Fresh Russian attacks throw evacuation into chaos - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson urges renewed world push to halt Russia's invasion - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Russian invasion fuels Finnish support for Nato - BBC News", "BBC Ukrainian editor: 'My mother called to say she'd managed to buy bread' - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Drone shows extent of damage in Borodyanka - BBC News", "As it happened: Russia continues full-scale attacks as residents trapped - BBC News", "Ukraine: Workers refuse to unload Russian oil from ship - BBC News", "Greg Robinson: An act of kindness to make a community smile - BBC News", "European peace seems as fragile as ever - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Halt extended at Oxford Mini plant over parts shortage - BBC News", "Brittney Griner: WNBA club Phoenix Mercury concerned for player detained in Russia - BBC Sport", "War in Ukraine: Citizens evacuate town of Irpin as homes are destroyed - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Thousands march in Kherson against occupiers - BBC News", "Energy prices: NI oil prices up 35% since Russia invades Ukraine - BBC News", "Don't go to Ukraine, military boss tells Britons - BBC News", "Protests across Russia see thousands detained - BBC News", "Mariupol: Fires, no water, and bodies in the street - BBC News", "Twitter is part of our war effort - Ukraine minister - BBC News", "Ukraine war: UK grants 50 Ukrainian refugee visas so far - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Families run for cover as Russian air strikes hit Chernihiv - BBC News", "As it happened: Russian shelling prevents evacuations once again - Ukraine - BBC News", "TikTok limits services as Netflix pulls out of Russia - BBC News", "Naomi Long: Alliance 'can end Stormont political soap operas' - BBC News", "Derriford Hospital: Plymouth woman 'blown over by helicopter' before death - BBC News", "Shane Warne: Family accept offer of state funeral for Australia legend - BBC Sport", "The young Ukrainians battling pro-Russian trolls - BBC News", "Nikita Mazepin: Haas end driver's contract & partnership with Russian chemicals company - BBC Sport", "Putin says sanctions over Ukraine are like a declaration of war - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Investigate claim PM intervened to help Evgeny Lebedev get peerage, says Starmer - BBC News", "Europe's largest nuclear plant shelled in Ukraine - BBC News", "Defiant Ukrainian troops tell Russians: 'Go home while you're still alive' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: BBC World Service granted extra funding - BBC News", "Italy 0-1 North Macedonia: European champions stunned in World Cup play-offs - BBC Sport", "Covid-19: Free PCR tests to end for most in April - BBC News", "Ukraine: The small town which managed to block Russia's big plans - BBC News", "William Collins: Giant memorial will need to be changed, council says - BBC News", "Bella-Rae Birch: Dog that killed toddler was legal American Bully XL - BBC News", "Wales 2-1 Austria: Gareth Bale strikes twice to fire hosts into World Cup play-off final - BBC Sport", "As it happened: Ukraine war latest: Nato to boost forces in eastern Europe as Ukraine war rages - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Five challenges for Biden in Europe - BBC News", "Child Q: Strip-search Met officers put on desk duties last week - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Suspect looked 'self-satisfied' after attack - BBC News", "Nestle pulls KitKat and Nesquik out of Russia - BBC News", "Top US court backs right to be touched at execution by pastor - BBC News", "Afghanistan girls' tears over chaotic Taliban schools U-turn - BBC News", "Ukraine-Russia: The 76-year-old artist taking on Putin - BBC News", "Julian Assange: Wikileaks founder gets married in Belmarsh prison - BBC News", "Madeleine Albright: First female US secretary of state dies - BBC News", "Orchards vanishing from the landscape, says National Trust - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Dnipro orphans find sanctuary in Scotland - BBC News", "Lapsus$: Oxford teen accused of being multi-millionaire cyber-criminal - BBC News", "Croydon tram crash: Prosecutions launched by rail regulator - BBC News", "A bomb hit this theatre hiding hundreds - here's how one woman survived - BBC News", "North Korea tests banned intercontinental missile - BBC News", "Spring Statement: Rishi Sunak seeks to combat cost-of-living squeeze - BBC News", "Ukraine not alone in fight against Russia, says Boris Johnson - BBC News", "As it happened: Putin 'cannot stay in power', Biden says - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ukrainian fightback gains ground west of Kyiv - BBC News", "Prince Harry: Parts of legal case to be kept secret, court says - BBC News", "China plane crash: Human remains found amid wreckage - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Fortnite owner Epic Games raises £37m for humanitarian efforts - BBC News", "Jeffrey Epstein's private islands put up for sale for $125m - BBC News", "Next warns prices to rise by more than expected - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Not consulting on job cuts broke law, boss admits - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: What Ukraine is getting right - BBC News", "Boris Becker offered his wedding ring to pay debts, court told - BBC News", "Spring Statement: One family's cost of living experience - BBC News", "Netflix boss Scott Stuber says Oscar best picture win would be the dream - BBC News", "Dubai ruler's ex-wife given sole responsibility for their children's care - BBC News", "Mournes: Firefighters extinguish fires on mountains - BBC News", "Western leaders meet to discuss Ukraine support - BBC News", "Covid-19: Young people hit hardest by Covid pandemic - BBC News", "Mournes fires: Fire service believes Bloody Bridge fire was 'deliberate' - BBC News", "Rachel Zegler: West Side Story actress gets Oscars invitation after outcry - BBC News", "Prince William expresses 'profound sorrow' over slavery in Jamaica speech - BBC News", "Rishi Sunak denies link to Russia through firm part-owned by wife - BBC News", "Abortion in NI: Westminster to intervene on services after election - BBC News", "David Amess killing: Bodycam shows moment of suspect arrest - BBC News", "Football World Cup: Wales fans descend on capital for crucial game - BBC News", "BBC editors react to Sunak's 2022 Spring Statement - BBC News", "Couple scammed out of £77,000 by 'fraud squad' - BBC News", "Fuel duty cut by 5p a litre to help motorists - BBC News", "Russian veteran reformer Chubais quits job as Putin envoy - BBC News", "Russian warship destroyed in occupied port of Berdyansk, says Ukraine - BBC News", "People face biggest drop in living standards since 1956 - BBC News", "Lower energy bills for people near wind turbines considered - BBC News", "Spring Statement: Rishi Sunak accused of not doing enough for poorest households - BBC News", "Doubt over PM claim that P&O sackings may be illegal - BBC News", "P&O Ferries offers £100,000 to some sacked staff - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: UK unveils new Russia sanctions as PM aims at gold reserves - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Russian journalist Oksana Baulina killed in Kyiv shelling - BBC News", "Mariupol hospital attack: Pregnant woman hurt in bombing gives birth - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Large Russian convoy redeploys near Kyiv - satellite images - BBC News", "Transgender children: Texas plan to probe parents halted - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Javid says Russia will pay for war crimes as UK sends aid - BBC News", "'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine - BBC News", "As it happened: US warns China against support for Russia - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Spirited tourists have to settle for draw in first Test - BBC Sport", "Sarah Everard: Protesters demand 'radical change' to Met Police - BBC News", "UK sanctions 386 Russian MPs over Ukraine invasion - BBC News", "Bitcoin cash machines ordered to shut down in UK - BBC News", "Ukraine: What happened on day 16 of Russia's invasion - BBC News", "Cost of living: Energy bills to rise 14 times faster than wages, says TUC - BBC News", "Manchester United 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur: Cristiano Ronaldo scores hat-trick in thriller - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Evacuations 'extremely difficult' amid shelling - BBC News", "Under threat of Russian bombs, Lviv hides away its priceless heritage - BBC News", "As it happened: Biden warns US intervention in Ukraine would mean WW3 - BBC News", "India accidentally fires missile into Pakistan - BBC News", "Six Nations 2022: Wales 9-13 France - visitors keep Grand Slam dream alive - BBC Sport", "Brexit: Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson discuss NI Protocol - BBC News", "Ukraine: Thousands of vulnerable children unaccounted for - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Kyiv prepares for Russian attack - BBC News", "Roman Abramovich: Premier League disqualifies Chelsea owner as director of club - BBC Sport", "Battle for Mykolaiv: 'We are winning this fight, but not this war' - BBC News", "Will Nato get involved if dirty bombs are used in Ukraine? And other questions - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Ukrainians mourn their fallen soldiers - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: How Russia is recruiting mercenaries - BBC News", "Saudi Arabia executes 81 men in one day - BBC News", "Covid infections rising again across UK - ONS - BBC News", "Ukraine: Spam website set up to reach millions of Russians - BBC News", "Merseyside baby born at 23 weeks finally able to go home - BBC News", "Six Nations: 'Ireland will demand new level from new England' - BBC Sport", "Roman Abramovich: Chelsea have credit card facilities temporarily suspended - BBC Sport", "Ukraine: Mark Drakeford attacks UK ministers' response - BBC News", "Queen pulls out of attending Commonwealth Service - BBC News", "Ben Nevis victim was father-to-be Samuel Crawford from Newtownards - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Huge fireball lights up night sky over Lutsk - BBC News", "Six Nations 2022: Ireland see off brave 14-man England - BBC Sport", "Disney apologises for 'silence' on 'Don't Say Gay' bill - BBC News", "England in West Indies: Zak Crawley hits hundred as tourists dominate day four in Antigua - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: Pictures of war intensifying in third week - BBC News", "Evgeny Lebedev: I am not some agent of Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin seeks foreign volunteers to fight in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Protests after Russians 'abduct' Melitopol mayor - BBC News", "Body of missing hillwalker found in Glen Coe - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Husband looks forward to 'new life' - BBC News", "Covid: New Zealand's border reopens and Heathrow Airport drops face mask rule - BBC News", "Queen holds afternoon tea for Canada's governor general after missing service - BBC News", "Ukraine UK refugee hosting scheme: Mum-of-four opens home to refugees - BBC News", "War in Ukraine - BBC News", "Heathrow Airport drops Covid face mask rules - BBC News", "Putin changes law on leased jets to keep them flying - BBC News", "Manchester United 0-1 Atletico Madrid (agg 1-2): Renan Lodi puts Diego Simeone's side into quarter-finals - BBC Sport", "Fox News' Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshinova killed in Kyiv - BBC News", "Boris Johnson: Ukraine paying the price for West's failure over Putin - BBC News", "North Korea fires missile but launch fails, says South - BBC News", "Ukraine's wartime rail chief has to be faster than the Russians tracking him - BBC News", "Who are the dual nationals jailed in Iran? - BBC News", "Russia attacks theatre sheltering civilians, Ukraine says - BBC News", "Russia sanctions Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and others - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has UK passport returned, MP says - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Infection and hunger as hundreds hide in Mariupol cellar - BBC News", "Arsenal 0-2 Liverpool: Visitors close in on leaders Manchester City with deserved victory - BBC Sport", "Diesel rises again to hit a record £1.76 a litre - BBC News", "Chelsea: Chicago Cubs owners and consortium featuring Lord Coe intend to bid for club - BBC Sport", "Preston man detained for Army veteran's one-punch death - BBC News", "Anoosheh Ashoori: Iranian-Briton's family delighted at his release - BBC News", "Teddie Mitchell: Baby murderer's ex warned police he would kill - BBC News", "Nigerian volunteer: 'Fighting in Ukraine is better than living here' - BBC News", "Lighter started Paisley fire that killed three children - BBC News", "Earthquake: Two dead after Japan hit by tremor - BBC News", "Russians to give American astronaut ride to Earth in spite of tensions - BBC News", "Church of England pressures TotalEnergies over Russia business - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Zelensky invokes 9/11 in plea to US Congress - BBC News", "Met Police apologises for strip-search of Hackney schoolgirl - BBC News", "Learn how the BBC is working to strengthen trust and transparency in online news - BBC News", "Out-of-date adoption laws in Northern Ireland set to change - BBC News", "Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba reveals burglary at his home - BBC Sport", "St Patrick’s Day parade in Belfast ‘for everyone’ - BBC News", "Lloyd's of London fines insurer Atrium over initiation games - BBC News", "The Western brands unable to leave Russia - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Fears Russian aggression could spill into Poland - BBC News", "Ukraine: Nick Robinson on how Germany is reversing decades of closer ties with Russia - BBC News", "Edward Meenan trial: One man guilty of murder, another of manslaughter - BBC News", "Homes for Ukraine: NI 'fully looped into' scheme says Michael Gove - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Kyiv residential buildings hit in Russian strikes - BBC News", "Secondary breast cancer: Call for better care in Northern Ireland - BBC News", "Stormont ‘doing a disservice to deaf community in Northern Ireland' - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Why has she been freed now? - BBC News", "As it happened: Kremlin fury over Biden 'war criminal' comment - BBC News", "Ukraine war: European leaders risk train ride to meet Zelensky - BBC News", "Government overseen years of decline in NHS - MPs - BBC News", "UK gets first new-style pylons in a century - BBC News", "Wayne Couzens: Met PCs deny sharing offensive messages with killer - BBC News", "Russia's state TV hit by stream of resignations - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: Fourth Russian general killed - Zelensky - BBC News", "The BBC News app keeps you informed with live and breaking news you can trust - BBC News", "Covid in Scotland: Mask rules will stay in force until April - BBC News", "RSPCA start process of prosecuting Kurt Zouma and brother Yoan over cat video - BBC Sport", "Ukraine war: A baby born under bombardment in Bucha - BBC News", "The tragedy of Afghanistan's malnourished children - BBC News", "Braemar Lodge Hotel evacuated after major fire and explosion - BBC News", "Stormzy tour review: Star praises fans who waited two years to see him - BBC News", "Royal Society of Chemistry report says racism 'pervasive' - BBC News", "BBC Radio 4 - Nazanin, Episode 1", "Ukraine: Putin will search for a way to save face - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband on her return - BBC News", "War in Ukraine - BBC News", "Pregnant women should be asked how much they drink - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Protester exposes cracks in Kremlin's war message - BBC News", "Children with mental health problems were at 'serious risk' in care home - BBC News", "Climate - BBC News", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe talks moving forward, PM says - BBC News", "Ukraine: Poots warns of grain shortages as war continues - BBC News", "Saudi Arabia: Johnson says he raised human rights in energy talks - BBC News", "Bahrain Grand Prix: Charles Leclerc wins as both Red Bulls retire - BBC Sport", "Ukraine conflict: Scores feared dead after Russia attack on Mykolaiv barracks - BBC News", "Saudi Aramco ramps up investment to boost production - BBC News", "P&O Ferries' sackings were appalling, says Sunak - BBC News", "Ukraine war: North Moreton opens its arms to refugees - BBC News", "Ukraine: Johnson tells Zelensky UK will do more to help - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Zelensky tells Moscow 'it's time to talk' - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Boris Johnson sparks fury after comparison to Brexit - BBC News", "Anonymous: How hackers are trying to undermine Putin - BBC News", "Russia claims first use of hypersonic Kinzhal missile in Ukraine - BBC News", "Russia denies cosmonauts board space station in Ukrainian colours - BBC News", "Murder charge after body found buried in Northampton garden - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Western agents seek to get inside Putin's head - BBC News", "Six Nations: France beat England to sweep to Grand Slam - BBC Sport", "Murder arrest over Sabita Thanwani Clerkenwell death - BBC News", "War in Ukraine: America is learning the art of humility - BBC News", "FA Cup: Nottingham Forest tribute to Hillsborough victims - BBC News", "Middlesbrough 0-2 Chelsea: Blues beat Championship side to reach FA Cup semi-finals - BBC Sport", "Gorseinon: Girls arrested after crash into opticians - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Drone footage shows level of devastation in Mariupol - BBC News", "William and Kate dance and taste chocolate during day two of Belize tour - BBC News", "Nottingham Forest 0-1 Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp's side set up semi-final date against Man City after edging past hosts - BBC Sport", "LeBron James becomes second all-time leading scorer but Los Angeles Lakers lose to Washington Wizards - BBC Sport", "In Mariupol, children bear the brunt of Vladimir Putin's war - BBC News", "William and Kate arrive in Belize for jubilee Caribbean tour - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Putin lays out his demands in Turkish phone call - BBC News", "Ukraine: Putin will search for a way to save face - BBC News", "Mariupol theatre: 'We knew something terrible would happen' - BBC News", "Sheffield boy steals Covid van then crashes it into car - BBC News", "How Poland's business community is helping Ukrainians - BBC News", "Ukraine war: 'Tanks in streets' as fighting hits Mariupol centre - BBC News", "P&O Ferries: Larne Port protest over P&O Ferries sackings - BBC News", "Ukraine: What have been Russia's military mistakes? - BBC News", "Sabita Thanwani killing: Manhunt continues over Clerkenwell death - BBC News", "Wirral marshland fire may have been started deliberately - BBC News", "P&O treatment of workers a disgrace says Sir Jeffrey Donaldson - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Emotional reunion of Ukrainian sisters at UK airport - BBC News", "Canada mosque: Worshippers stop axe wielding attacker - BBC News", "Child Q: Hackney march over strip-searched girl - BBC News", "UK grounds private jet with possible Russian links - Shapps - BBC News", "Six killed after car drives into crowd in Belgium - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted - BBC News", "Coronavirus: Spring booster offered to elderly and vulnerable in England - BBC News", "Isle of Wight e-scooter complaints exceed 1,000 - BBC News", "Clerkenwell: Woman, 19, killed at student accommodation - BBC News", "How Kremlin accounts manipulate Twitter - BBC News", "Ukrainian city of Mariupol 'near to humanitarian catastrophe' after bombardment - BBC News", "Toxteth shooting: Teenage girl seriously hurt and two arrested - BBC News", "Colwyn Bay man died after 200-coffee caffeine overdose - BBC News", "Banksy works sell for millions at auction - BBC News", "Journalist wins 'kleptocrat' book High Court libel case - BBC News", "Northern Ireland's 'hidden homeless' living life in limbo - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Biden threatens to punish Putin over invasion - BBC News", "UK allows emergency use of bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticide - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Crypto exchange boss rejects Russian user ban - BBC News", "Russian activist sets fire to passport at Ukraine vigil in Edinburgh - BBC News", "Sainsbury’s to close 200 cafes putting 2,000 jobs at risk - BBC News", "Ukraine: Vladimir Putin using barbaric tactics, Boris Johnson says - BBC News", "As it happened: Zelensky asks Putin for talks as humanitarian crisis grows - BBC News", "Kim Kardashian declared legally single in divorce with Ye - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Videos show locals confronting Russian forces - BBC News", "Ukraine: Fighting escalates despite ceasefire talks - BBC News", "Suffolk County Council to end contract with Russian-owned Gazprom - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Kharkiv and Chernihiv cities hit by heavy shelling - BBC News", "Apple, Nike and Google join brands limiting services - BBC News", "Ukraine: Roman Abramovich must face sanctions, says Sir Keir Starmer - BBC News", "Ukraine: Putin's miscalculations could see him strike harder - BBC News", "Chelsea: Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell club - BBC Sport", "Netflix pauses future projects in Russia - BBC News", "‘Terror against Ukraine’: Residents flee as rockets rain down on Kharkiv - BBC News", "H&M temporarily suspends all sales in Russia - BBC News", "Aliny Godinho: Police 'regretful' over failings before murder - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: UK sanctions Belarus for role in Russian invasion - BBC News", "White people at much higher risk of most cancers in England, study finds - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: MPs applaud Ukrainian ambassador in UK Parliament - BBC News", "Building hit by missile in Kharkiv's Freedom Square - BBC News", "Ukrainian's tearful question for UK PM - BBC News", "Martin O'Hagan: Police 'did not act' on journalist murder tip-off - BBC News", "Ukraine: Calls for no-fly zone rejected by defence secretary - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Oil hits $113 a barrel despite emergency measures - BBC News", "Ukraine invasion: Crowd surround car with Russian markings - BBC News", "Oil price rises again as buyers shun Russian crude - BBC News", "Ukraine war: Prince Charles praises people's bravery amid Russian aggression - BBC News", "'Putin has to be stopped' - the Britons preparing to fight in Ukraine - BBC News", "Ukraine: Polish communities help people fleeing war - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Mother cries describing fleeing with 10-month-old baby - BBC News", "OneWeb: UK rejects Russian demand to sell share in satellite firm - BBC News", "Ukraine: Watching the war on Russian TV - a whole different story - BBC News", "Driver killed by passing train near West Worthing station after leaving cab - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Kyiv TV tower struck by Russian missile - BBC News", "London Tube strike: Second 24-hour Tube walkout set to cause disruption - BBC News", "Ryanair boss: Air fares will be higher this summer - BBC News", "Russian oligarch Fridman warns sanctions will not stop war - BBC News", "‘Every child deserves to live in a free country’ - BBC News", "As it happened: Ukraine live updates: Deadly blast at Kyiv TV tower after Russia warns capital - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Russia doubles interest rate after rouble slumps - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: EA removes Russian teams from Fifa 22 game - BBC News", "Woman charged with murdering Jim Crossley in west Belfast - BBC News", "Ulster Hospital: Woman dies after eight-hour ambulance wait - BBC News", "Babyn Yar: Anger as Kyiv's Holocaust memorial is damaged - BBC News", "Ship carrying 4,000 luxury cars sinks off the Azores - BBC News", "Ukraine: Putin has already carried out war crimes - Boris Johnson - BBC News", "Covid: Compulsory jabs scrapped, and the rise in eating disorders - BBC News", "Winter Paralympics 2022: Russia and Belarus athletes classed as neutral after Ukraine invasion - BBC Sport", "Ros Atkins on... Russia’s nuclear threat - BBC News", "Divorced couple found dead in Cheltenham and Cotswolds - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: What message was Biden sending to Putin? - BBC News", "Essex lorry deaths: Smuggler to pay £6,000 to victims' families - BBC News", "MPs to get £2,200 pay rise next month - BBC News", "Compulsory Covid jabs for care home staff scrapped - BBC News", "Ukraine crisis: Walkout at UN as Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov speaks - BBC News", "Shop prices rise at fastest rate in a decade, says BRC - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Half a million flee as fighting rages - BBC News", "Ukraine conflict: Mum in Poland takes in fleeing families - BBC News"], "published_date": ["2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", "2022-03-21", 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says Indian seafarers recruited to work in Dover are on rock bottom rates.", "The family of Morad Tahbaz, who has cancer, says it is distraught that Iran has not yet freed him.", "The British-Iranian woman tells of the \"very emotional moment\" she was reunited with her husband and daughter.", "The UK blames Russia for the call targeted at Ben Wallace during a visit to Poland last week.", "Fiona Beal is accused of killing Nicholas Billingham between 30 October and 10 November.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.", "Boris Romantschenko was killed in Kharkiv 77 years after surviving the Buchenwald concentration camp.", "But chancellor Rishi Sunak says it was \"general observations about freedom\", not a direct comparison.", "The BBC speaks to hacktivists about past and future attacks in their \"cyber war\" against Vladimir Putin.", "Downing Street has also revealed that Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries was unsuccessfully targeted.", "Fiona Beal has been charged with murder after being arrested at a hotel in Cumbria.", "Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine shook the West. Now its leaders are trying to predict his next move.", "Logan Mwangi suffered 56 injuries - including extensive bruising, grazes and scratches on his body.", "Video shows destroyed blocks of flats and a shopping mall in the besieged Ukrainian port city.", "Maher Maaroufe has been arrested on suspicion of murder over the death of Sabita Thanwani, 19.", "They will be relabelled \"barn eggs\" because hens have been kept inside for weeks to tackle bird flu.", "\"They were shaking their waists like nobody's business,\" said a local woman who danced with the duke.", "The ammonia leak has been contained but prompted a warning residents should stay indoors.", "The Boeing 737 crashed into a hillside in southern China and there are fears no-one survived.", "London-Tehran relations are better, and Iran no longer feels it needs Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as leverage.", "Liverpool will play Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley after they edge past Nottingham Forest in a pulsating quarter-final at the City Ground.", "The most bombarded city in Ukraine’s war with Russia is key to Moscow’s military campaign.", "At a children's hospital near the besieged city, the true impact of Russia's tactics are on display.", "Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to President Zelensky, says the change has helped encourage a dialogue between the nations.", "Experts say it will help keep the most vulnerable protected against severe illness amid rising infections.", "Kaden Reddick suffered a fatal head injury at the store in Reading during a family shopping trip.", "The boy was arrested and the driver of the car was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital.", "Several Apple services were down on Monday, including the App Store. The company says the outages have now been resolved.", "The Met says officers have begun interviewing people about the lockdown gatherings in Downing Street.", "Members of Unite are taking action over a local government pay offer of 1.75%.", "Duke of York to make first appearance at a public event since his court case settlement.", "A nearby camera captured the moment the shopping centre in Kyiv was struck by a missile.", "Delay puts lives at risk, says Sadiq Khan as he says London Fire Brigade have made changes asked of them.", "Street fighting hampers efforts to rescue civilians trapped in a bombed theatre, the mayor says.", "A woman who left Mariupol's theatre a day before the bombing says Russia had been targeting the area.", "Senior Western defence and intelligence experts outline the battlefield errors made by Moscow.", "Hundreds of people marched through north London. Their message? Let black girls be black girls.", "A record 2,128 patients in Scotland have Covid-19, the highest number since the start of the pandemic.", "As Dmytro Kotenko was laid to rest, his parents were 600 miles away, trapped under Russian bombs.", "Stena Line will put on additional ferry services from Scotland to Northern Ireland on Tuesday.", "Protesters in Kherson scattered as explosions are heard and shots were fired by Russian soldiers.", "Emergency services renew warnings to stay safe in the water and check tide times.", "A trial hears the man accused of killing Sir David Amess also carried out research on Michael Gove.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she has missed holding her seven-year-old, and brushing her hair.", "Relatives of Sabita Thanwani say she was \"ripped away from those who loved her so very dearly\".", "The 15-year-old schoolgirl was taken out of an exam and strip-searched by two female Met officers.", "After years of campaigning, a relative says Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's return is \"mind-blowing\".", "Fears that Russia wants to starve Mariupol into surrender, and a young soldier isolated from his family is buried.", "Dozens more are injured in the crash, which the mayor of the town says is a \"national catastrophe\".", "UN Secretary General says climate goals are in danger if countries turn to coal because of Ukraine.", "England's deputy medical officer can now drive sheep across a bridge in his home town of Boston.", "Because of his miscalculations, there's a new iron curtain at the Russian leader’s door - writes Allan Little", "There's likely to be a new emphasis on technology to suck CO2 from the air in IPCC report on mitigation.", "Complaints include riding on the pavement, anti-social behaviour and underage use.", "The British-Iranian was speaking publicly for the first time since her release from Iran last week.", "The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he believes hundreds of people have died in the Russian onslaught.", "Opposition MPs argue the Windrush compensation scheme should be taken away from the Home Office.", "Polina and her family are trying to flee Kharkiv after spending days sheltering in their basement.", "The High Court dismisses a post-Soviet mining firm's claim an author's book about dirty money was libellous.", "Tributes are paid to Clive and Valerie Warrington whose deaths have started a murder investigation.", "Culture and sport bodies should continue to \"exile Putin's Russia from their ranks\", a minister says.", "For thousands like Donald Dick, living in temporary accommodation is an ongoing struggle.", "Footage shows how flats and Russian military vehicles were destroyed in Borodyanka.", "Boris Johnson sacked the Tory MP from the cabinet last year amid criticism of his performance.", "The famous couple were married nearly eight years ago and share four children.", "Videos from social media show tanks retreating and locals telling soldiers to go back to Russia.", "As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, does what we’re witnessing amount to war crimes?", "The cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv suffer fierce shelling despite talks between Russia and Ukraine.", "Our chief international correspondent on the seven days that sparked a burning patriotic resolve in Ukraine.", "Billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian ex-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov face UK sanctions.", "Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell the Premier League club.", "The government says changes are needed to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender.", "The death of Mikhail Watford in Wentworth, Surrey, is not being treated as suspicious by police.", "The Australian TV soap's future has been uncertain since Channel 5 dropped it from its schedules.", "US technology giants Netflix and Oracle are the latest to move to distance themselves from Russia", "As Russia pounds Ukraine's second largest city with artillery, residents flee or hunker underground.", "One of the world's biggest fashion retailers said it was deeply concerned about conflict in Ukraine.", "Surrey Police failed to recognise Aliny Godinho was high risk before her ex-husband killed her.", "An anti-inflammatory for rheumatoid arthritis can cut Covid death risk by about a fifth.", "A total of 12 candidates are standing for the seat, with the result expected on Friday morning.", "Legendary Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh dies aged 74 after suffering a heart attack.", "The BBC's Fergal Keane is in the city of Lviv where refugees are waiting for a train out of Ukraine.", "The foreign secretary says Belarus \"actively aids and abets Russia’s illegal invasion\" of Ukraine.", "Watch the moment a huge explosion happens just as Charlie D'Agata from CBS News finishes his report.", "The UK culture secretary gives her \"heartfelt thanks and admiration\" to members of the press in Ukraine.", "The surging prices mean household energy bills are expected to rise further than previously estimated.", "Watch as politicians stand and clap for Vadym Prystaiko, who was attending Prime Minister's Questions.", "No one was arrested immediately after the killing of Martin O'Hagan, despite individuals being named, BBC finds.", "Ros Atkins looks at how Russian gas and oil connects to war in Ukraine, and EU efforts to cut ties with Russia.", "Eleven of the temporary courts, set up in hotels and conference suites as Covid hit in 2020, will shut.", "Svetlana Murphy says it is \"overwhelming\" to be reunited with her mother Galina in Northern Ireland.", "Watch as a crowd in the north-eastern city of Kupiansk try to stop the vehicle from leaving.", "We talk to some of the people responding to President Zelensky's appeal for foreigners to join in the defence of his country", "The International Criminal Court's prosecutor opens an inquiry, after Russia is accused of bombing civilians.", "The war in Ukraine has led to outrage in the West, but in Russia TV viewers see a very different story.", "French authorities implement sanctions but the UK faces criticism over delays.", "A second 24-hour strike in a week severely affects all London Underground services.", "The Scottish Conservatives say the \"horrendous blunder\" could have put the public at risk.", "Two leading medical organisations have told the BBC more funding for specialist care is needed.", "Athletes from Russia and Belarus will not be allowed to compete at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing, the International Paralympic Committee says.", "Polish people in Northern Ireland are among those collecting supplies for people fleeing Ukraine.", "Reputational risk and practical difficulties means the exodus of firms is growing but some remain.", "Julie-Ann McIlwaine stabbed Jim Crossley at her Dunmurry home on Tuesday.", "The Russian currency sinks to a record low against the dollar after Western countries impose new sanctions.", "The TV news network disappears as a result of sanctions imposed by the European Union.", "The Russian president risks his country being isolated for decades over Ukraine, Ben Wallace says.", "The games publisher says it \"stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people\".", "Jim Crossley died after he was stabbed at a house in Filbert Drive on Tuesday night.", "Rodney Jackson has been homeless for 18 months and wants to live near his children on the north coast.", "Billionaire Denise Coates, founder of gambling firm Bet365, takes a £170m cut in pay and dividends.", "The attack near Babyn Yar, where thousands of Jews were murdered, is tragically symbolic, Jewish leaders say.", "The measures are tougher than anything Vladimir Putin has faced. But more could be coming.", "All six-crew members of the Helt have been saved after an explosion near Ukraine's port of Odesa.", "Russia's bombing of innocent civilians in Ukraine already amounts to war crimes, prime minister says.", "But the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators yield only limited concrete progress.", "Volunteers are working everywhere from salons to car parks - but some have been overwhelmed.", "Adnan Arib contacted two girls, aged 15 and 16, after meeting them while on duty.", "Ros Atkins looks at the history of nuclear tensions and deals between the US and Russia.", "An onlooker films the moment the pick-up smashes into the store, before passers-by are threatened.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning.", "A man known to Clive Warrington, 67, and his ex-wife Valerie Warrington, 73, has been arrested.", "The blackout reportedly happened after an accident at a power plant in southern Taiwan.", "More of Vladimir Putin allies' assets are expected to be frozen, as the war in Ukraine continues.", "A total of 39 Vietnamese people were found dead after a failed people-smuggling operation in 2019.", "The board of London-based OneWeb, part-owned by the UK government, votes to stop using Soyuz rockets.", "Hundreds of casualties are reported as major cities remain under attack from Russian forces.", "Joanna is opening her home in Poland to Ukraine refugees seeking shelter after reaching the border.", "Formula 1 terminates its contract with the Russian Grand Prix and the sport will not race in Russia for the foreseeable future.", "What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining?", "The corporation says it apologises unreservedly to Patrick Jephson and has paid his legal costs.", "Richard Ratcliffe said he was \"deeply grateful\" for his wife's release from Iran after nearly six years.", "Vadym Boichenko tells the BBC \"there is no city left\" as Russia intensifies its attacks on Mariupol in Ukraine.", "He was well known for starring opposite Penelope Keith in the BBC comedy, plus ITV's Victoria.", "Double Olympic champion Brittney Griner was arrested in February for alleged cannabis oil possession.", "Boris Johnson says governments failed to \"understand the threat” Vladimir Putin posed after he annexed Crimea.", "President Zelensky said the theatre in the besieged Ukrainian city was being used as a shelter by hundreds of people.", "Ukraine's president accuses Germany of helping Russia create a new type of Berlin Wall.", "A woman who left Mariupol's theatre a day before the bombing says Russia had been targeting the area.", "Ryan Herbert has made \"significant changes to his life\" while in jail, the Parole Board is told.", "An unknown number are in prison, with some serving long sentences and others sentenced to death.", "Manchester Airport blames unexpectedly high passenger numbers as hundreds face delays.", "The building in the besieged city of Mariupol was sheltering up to 1,200 people, the deputy mayor says.", "Chris Parker says it \"won't work\" to have increased passenger numbers with current restrictions.", "The Pride of York and the Pride of Bruges stopped their nightly crossings in December.", "With no medical help, some are falling ill while sheltering from attacks in besieged Mariupol.", "The Labour Party's deputy leader says the abuse has left her \"constantly watching my back\".", "Boris Johnson's call to limit the hours MPs spend on outside work is not practical, a minister says.", "Liverpool close the gap on Premier League leaders Manchester City to a single point after beating Arsenal, who miss the chance to consolidate their place in the top four.", "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has rocked global oil prices and pushed up the cost of fuel in the UK.", "Frank Fishwick, 86, died after he confronted a group of youths outside his flat in Preston.", "The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and Darren Conway are in Kharkiv, where Ukraine's army has repelled Russia for three weeks.", "The footballer's brother says the family will \"never really believe\" he is dead.", "Anoosheh Ashoori's relatives say his release from Iran after five years \"has been a long time coming\".", "A sense of humour and dealing with all kinds of weather are among the qualities needed for a new ferry operator.", "The quake in the north-east derails a bullet train and briefly cuts power to millions of homes.", "The US president held a virtual meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin to celebrate St Patrick's Day.", "The \"Inclusive Britain\" plan was developed in response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.", "Large parades were held across Northern Ireland on Thursday for the first time in three years.", "Ukrainian Andriy Yarmolenko scores the winning goal for West Ham as they beat Sevilla to reach the Europa League quarter-finals on an emotional night.", "A 13-year-old was driving a truck that collided with a van carrying student athletes, officials say.", "The organisation warns the conflict in the region could reduce global economic growth by more than 1%.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning.", "Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says his home was burgled during his side's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.", "Belfast is set to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade since the coronavirus pandemic.", "Atrium Underwriters admits three charges relating to bullying and misconduct on 'boys' nights out'.", "The rapper used a racial slur in reference to Trevor Noah after the comedian criticised his behaviour.", "More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in the capital.", "The Ragnar is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, who has been linked to Vladimir Putin.", "Sixteen women with incurable secondary breast cancer are campaigning for access to better services.", "Criminalising sending obscene images using social media has been added to plans to be debated by MPs.", "The online grocer says its sales have fallen in recent months as people revert to pre-pandemic habits.", "Researchers say they have solved one of science's biggest paradoxes, first identified by Prof Stephen Hawking.", "A sign language bill is being developed, but executive approval is needed, says Deirdre Hargey.", "London-Tehran relations are better, and Iran no longer feels it needs Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as leverage.", "The boy, who cannot be named, is accused of targeting Claridge's and the Four Seasons among others.", "The row comes as Russia strikes reportedly hit civilians, including a theatre turned shelter in Mariupol.", "The decision to close the route and reduce other services has been prompted by the pandemic.", "Russia's president revealed his peace conditions in a phone call - the BBC spoke to someone who listened in.", "Last week the US actor was sentenced to prison for lying about being the victim of a hate crime.", "Two weeks since the last official death toll, funerals of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine continue.", "Marina Ovsyannikova's protest highlighted a growing number of journalists leaving their jobs at Kremlin-run TV channels.", "The news raises questions over why senior Russian officers are getting so close to the fighting.", "Marina Ovsyannikova, who interrupted a broadcast to protest against the war in Ukraine, speaks to the BBC.", "The company confirms it will not run services \"for the next few days\" after abruptly sacking 800 staff.", "The off-the-cuff remark prompts Russia to call the comment \"unforgiveable rhetoric\".", "Two music experts offer differing opinions on whether the star copied the work of another writer.", "A birth amid a revolution, and an unpaid arms deal debt having ramifications decades on.", "Bank of England increases rates for the third time in four months as the cost of living rises.", "The defence and home secretaries blame Russia after receiving calls from imposters this week.", "What might Putin want, to be able to come out of the war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband is awaiting his wife's return from Iran after years of campaigning.", "The justice minister says an inquiry into the deaths of three teens could prejudice criminal proceedings.", "David Carrick is accused of a total of 41 crimes against 11 women between 2003 and 2020.", "More than a fortnight after falling under Russian occupation, the residents of Kherson are wrestling with acute shortages while protesting against the Kremlin's forces.", "About 40% of Northern Ireland's corn supply is sourced from Ukraine, the agriculture minister says.", "David Bain will serve a minimum of 16 years for killing Clifford Anderson in Aberdeen in 2020.", "Rory and Finn McCullough climbed NI's highest peaks for their friend who was diagnosed with cancer.", "Vadym Prystaiko tells a Downing Street rally his country will fight and will bring Putin down.", "From an airstrike bunker to his mum's relieved hugs, Vishnu tells how he and his dog fled Ukraine to India.", "A council urges people not to attempt road repairs themselves after the singer was filmed doing it.", "The 16-year-old is in custody after being arrested on suspicion of the man's murder on Saturday.", "The first ministers want Ukrainians to be housed quickly and given help with safeguarding and services.", "Blind staff at failed 168-year-old business say they are owed pay, redundancy and furlough money.", "The singer shovels gravel on the road and claims his Ferrari cannot get through the potholes.", "The UK says it is sending more medical aid to Ukraine after 25 attacks on health centres.", "Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.", "Under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, those fleeing war will be able to stay rent-free in the properties.", "Hundreds of Liverpool parents could appeal after their children failed to get into their chosen schools.", "Chelsea snatch a dramatic late winner to beat Newcastle in the first game at Stamford Bridge since Blues' Russian owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government.", "John Rutherford has already hosted two refugees, and is open to offering a room to a Ukrainian.", "An estimated 50,000 people watched the parade as it returned to central London after a two-year gap.", "England have to settle for a draw in the first Test against West Indies despite a spirited performance on the final day in Antigua.", "Protesters demand change a year since clashes with police at an unauthorised vigil for Sarah Everard.", "On Sunday Morning are Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser.", "Ministers delivered the long-awaited apology, which was a key recommendation of a 2017 report.", "Minister says process to become peer is \"rigorous\" after questions about businessman's appointment.", "Leigh Wood produces a brutal last-round knockout of Michael Conlan to retain his WBA 'Regular' featherweight title amid worrying scenes.", "Cristiano Ronaldo scores a hat-trick as Manchester United beat Tottenham to move into the Champions League places.", "'Ireland has never experienced anything on this scale before', says Taoiseach Micheál Martin.", "Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a toxic cowboy, Power of the Dog won best film and best director.", "New attempts are under way to get civilians out of bombed Ukrainian cities as Russia's attack intensifies.", "The picturesque western city of Lviv is racing to protect is cultural and religious artefacts.", "His roles ranged from acclaimed 1980s dramas to playing General Thaddeus Ross in five Marvel films.", "Micheál Martin says EU-UK cooperation on Ukraine suggests it should be possible to resolve protocol.", "Train operators are talking to unions about how to address job changes in a bid to modernise the railways", "As Russian forces continue their slow advance, Kyiv's residents fear the worst for their city.", "The Premier League disqualifies Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a director of the club and sleeve sponsor Hyundai suspend deal with the European champions.", "In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian forces are battling to stop the Russian advance.", "Hundreds of children were abused at Church and state-run institutions over seven decades.", "Social media channels and private messaging groups are being used to recruit, the BBC has learned.", "The range of charges on which the men were convicted included terrorism and holding \"deviant beliefs\".", "Denis Donaldson was shot dead in 2006 after he was exposed as a Security Service spy.", "Ukraine's president gives medals to injured troops and the hospital workers caring for them.", "Former world number one Naomi Osaka is brought to tears by a heckler during her 6-0 6-4 defeat by Veronika Kudermetova at Indian Wells.", "The department is trying to convince an increasingly sceptical nation it has control of the situation.", "Samuel Crawford, 28, was \"one of the brightest lights in our congregation\" says his family minister.", "St Nicholas the Wonderworker Church in Oxford was broken into early on Saturday, its rector says.", "Ireland keep their hopes of a Six Nations title alive as they finally see off a valiant, spirited England.", "Young volunteers swap their studies for assault rifles as they prepare to defend Kyiv from Russian forces.", "Many Russians who can afford it have fled to nearby countries since Russia invaded Ukraine.", "\"It doesn't matter where you live\" - fear after a deadly attack on military base close to Polish border.", "The news comes as Ukraine says Russia is trying to create \"pseudo-republics\" to break up the country.", "Daniel Litvak helped Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich obtain Portuguese citizenship.", "It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.", "Images from Russia's invasion of Ukraine show a conflict turning deadlier nearly three weeks on.", "The president accuses the Russians of \"moving to a new stage of terror\" as Melitopol residents protest.", "A military base near the Polish border is attacked, and the UK announces a scheme to house refugees.", "Neil Gillingham, from Kilmarnock, went missing on a walk with his dog last Sunday on Stob Coire Sgreamhach.", "Within hours of Russia’s invasion, all over Ukraine, volunteers offered their services.", "People gather at a church in Kent to mark the 1987 ferry disaster which claimed 193 lives.", "Investors fear a global economic shock, with rising fuel bills causing more pain for households.", "The rules are put in place after a dead goose at Jersey Zoo tested positive for Avian Influenza.", "In Ukraine, families are having to adapt to being at war. But what do you tell the children?", "The oil giant confirmed it made a purchase of Russian crude oil on Friday but said it had \"no alternative\".", "Food and drink giants have been criticised on social media for failing to speak out on Ukraine's invasion.", "Meanwhile, the German chancellor says there is no alternative to Russian supplies at the moment.", "Seven people are dead after tornadoes packing winds of up to 138 mph (222kph) tore through Iowa.", "Even after a mild infection, the overall size of the brain had shrunk, researchers found.", "Several US presidents have failed to get the measure of him but now Europe has joined the fray things may change.", "A 19-year-old Irish woman living in Sumy is trying to leave the country amid Russian attacks.", "The Ukrainian president says the country will not forgive or forget those who murder its civilians.", "Boris Johnson says the UK will be \"very generous\" - but is facing calls to help more people fleeing.", "The grime artist was found guilty of assaulting his former partner in London last year.", "The parents of the Manchester Arena bombing's youngest victim speak about their life since she died.", "The Queen returns to in-person meetings with what appears to be a subtle show of support for Ukraine.", "In the second week of war, the BBC's Ukrainian editor says empty shelves are an increasing reality.", "The Ukrainian president will speak via video link to British politicians on Tuesday.", "\"No visa for at least another week,\" said Misha, simply. \"No-one can help us in Calais.\"", "A man and woman are arrested on suspicion of a dangerous dogs offence after a three-month-old dies.", "Thai police say there's no sign of foul play in the cricketer's death while on holiday on Koh Samui.", "One of the world's biggest fertiliser firms says the conflict could deliver a shock to food supplies.", "In the week after the invasion, the average price for 900 litres of oil went up by more than £200.", "An inquest is being held after Corrie Mckeague vanished after a night out in Suffolk.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.", "Large flames and smoke were seen billowing out of the 17th floor of the high-rise building.", "Ukraine's youngest cabinet minister, 31-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov, is leading a cyber-battle against Russia.", "Maxim, a 27-year-old city resident, tells the BBC what happened after the first ceasefire collapsed.", "The head of the UK's armed forces also rejects Ukraine's call for a no-fly zone, saying it will not help.", "People have been held in 53 cities, from St Petersburg in the west to Vladivostok in the east.", "An \"ambitious oral health strategy\" is needed in Northern Ireland, the British Dental Association says.", "The actress played Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the sitcom, and appeared in Come Outside and EastEnders.", "Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak is being investigated after wearing a national war symbol on his leotard as he stood next to a Ukrainian rival on the podium in Qatar on Saturday.", "The home secretary says she is \"surging capacity\" as about 1% of 5,500 applications are granted.", "Silent and weeping, a stream of civilians with backpacks try to outpace the Russian shells.", "TikTok suspends live streaming and new content from its platform, while Russians can no longer access Netflix.", "The pop singer is accused by two songwriters of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape Of You.", "In Russia, the 'Z' is fast becoming seen as a staunchly pro-war symbol - what does it mean?", "Shane Warne's family accept the offer of a state funeral for the Australia legend, says Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.", "At the central train station in Lviv, many thousands arrive after fleeing bombed out cities further east.", "Conspiracy theories and trolls are adding to the chaos of war.", "Three crew were flown to hospital after being found on the keel of the boat which sailed from Peterhead.", "A Polish couple, messaged from Taiwan, have come to meet a Ukrainian refugee - welcome to Przemysl.", "Sir Keir expresses concern over reports PM helped Evgeny Lebedev join the Lords amid security fears.", "Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent time with two fighters since the very start.", "The liquefied natural gas deal with US is part of EU attempts to reduce reliance on Russian energy.", "European champions Italy will not play in the 2022 World Cup after being stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off in Palermo.", "The mayor of Voznesensk hails the \"fighting spirit\" of local people who drove Russian troops back.", "Detectives confirm an American Bully XL dog killed 17-month-old Bella-Rae Birch in St Helens.", "Motoring group the RAC says the number may still be insufficient for growing demand.", "Gareth Bale scores two brilliant goals to take Wales a step closer to qualifying for their first World Cup since 1958 with victory over Austria in their play-off semi-final.", "Joe Biden is meeting allies at a moment of international crisis. Here are his most pressing concerns.", "Liverpool's Jordan Henderson says it would \"would make sense\" to have switched the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Manchester City from Wembley.", "A risky night-time race to safety lies ahead for exhausted families fleeing Kyiv each day.", "The UK's largest dairy says its farmers are struggling to cover costs due to rising production prices.", "Kyrell Matthews suffered weeks of abuse before he died, much of it caught on harrowing recordings.", "Inmate John Henry Ramirez wants a pastor to touch him and say a prayer during his execution in Texas.", "The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is expected to go ahead as planned after hours of meetings following a missile attack near the track in Jeddah.", "The chancellor's wife has a stake in an Indian multinational that has kept its office in Moscow.", "\"What's happening is a disgrace,\" says Elena, who was carried away by police for anti-war protests.", "The school's governing body says teachers were not aware a strip-search was taking place.", "The UN has documented almost 40 cases of politicians, journalists and activists being abducted.", "William and Catherine saw a traditional parade and visited a school on the last day of their tour.", "She was originally meant to visit the Staffordshire firm - but it arranged to bring its wares to Windsor.", "The BBC speaks to survivors of the Mariupol theatre attack, who describe for the first time what happened.", "The judge says attackers believed gay men they targeted would be less likely to report the crime.", "Text messages reveal Virginia Thomas pushed ex-President Trump's staff not to concede the election.", "Boris Johnson warns if Vladimir Putin uses chemical weapons in Ukraine the consequences will be \"catastrophic for him\".", "Sir Philip Pullman says he cannot express personal opinions as president of the Society of Authors.", "Boris Johnson backs Grant Shapps' call for Peter Hebblethwaite to quit after not consulting on sackings.", "Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to the Russian nerve agent Novichok in Wiltshire in 2018.", "The president's trip to the continent is welcomed with wariness in Brussels, says BBC Europe Editor Katya Adler.", "Peter Hebblethwaite admits P&O should have consulted unions before sacking 800 ferry workers.", "The BBC's Frank Gardner looks at four themes that have defined Ukraine's reaction to Russia's invasion.", "Official estimates suggest 473,800 people in Scotland had the virus in the week ending 20 March.", "It comes after 800 of the firm's staff were sacked and replaced with workers on cheaper wages.", "In Irpin, only a few civilians remain as volunteers bolster defences a few miles from Kyiv.", "The Hwasong-17 is a new, powerful intercontinental ballistic missile – and the country's largest weapon.", "We now have a clearer idea of when these islands were sodden or parched going back almost 200 years.", "Mr Putin referenced the Harry Potter author during a speech condemning \"cancel culture\" in the West.", "Sheikh Mohammed's ex-wife will have sole responsibility for their children as a court rules he was abusive.", "The US president made the comments during an unprecedented day of emergency summits in Brussels.", "Palace staff must be wondering how the defining image of the royal trip was not the joy that greeted them.", "The civil war has left millions needing food aid, yet none has been delivered to Tigray for months.", "An Indian software giant part-owned by the chancellor's wife has kept its presence in Moscow.", "Prince Charles and Camilla meet Ashling Murphy's family during a visit to County Tipperary.", "A woman had recently travelled to Central Asia where the tick bite viral disease is endemic.", "About 4.3 million people - or one in every 16 - are thought to have the virus, compared to 3.3 million the week before.", "Officers are heard shouting \"drop the knife\" as they confront the suspected killer of David Amess.", "Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.", "The test gives an early warning of a condition that can be fatal for the mother and baby, new guidelines say.", "The shooting of a Ukrainian priest by Russian soldiers is being logged as a suspected war crime.", "The government is looking at lowering people's energy bills based on how close they are to onshore wind turbines.", "The chancellor's mini-Budget is under scrutiny, as Boris Johnson hints at more help for hard-pressed families.", "Jeremy's autistic daughter, Bethany, was locked in a hospital \"cell\" for nearly two years.", "The firm says it didn't break law over sackings as it shares details of £36.5m compensation plan.", "President Joe Biden tells US troops in Poland that global democracy is at risk amid Ukraine war.", "Screenwriter and director Richard Curtis says awards voters often overlook comedy and its actors.", "Police hunt for killer Shane Farrington after he absconded from HMP Thorn Cross in Cheshire.", "West Indies edge into the ascendency in the third Test against England by opening a slim first-innings lead in Grenada.", "The Old Bailey hears the man accused of killing Sir David Amess told police it was a terrorist attack.", "More than a fortnight after falling under Russian occupation, the residents of Kherson are wrestling with acute shortages while protesting against the Kremlin's forces.", "New laws threaten jail for people accused of spreading \"fake news\" about Russia's armed forces.", "The UK blames Russia for the call targeted at Ben Wallace during a visit to Poland last week.", "The mayor of Voznesensk hails the \"fighting spirit\" of local people who drove Russian troops back.", "Ministers are preparing plans to produce more energy in England but are at odds over how to do it.", "After fatally attacking Sir David Amess, Ali Harbi Ali threatened to kill others, court is told.", "Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine shook the West. Now its leaders are trying to predict his next move.", "The Boeing 737 crashed into a hillside in southern China and there are fears no-one survived.", "Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says four new battlegroups will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.", "The Met says officers have begun interviewing people about the lockdown gatherings in Downing Street.", "The van driver is with police but has not been arrested over the death of the girl, believed to be 14.", "Protesters in Kherson scattered as explosions are heard and shots were fired by Russian soldiers.", "Crash investigators do not yet know why a flight carrying 132 people plunged out of the sky.", "Jakub and Gosia Golata return to Poland from the UK to help those in need fleeing Russian invasion.", "Food poisoning and gastroenteritis outbreaks halved in England, as people stayed at home.", "The report comes after the failed investigation into the 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.", "Billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian ex-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov face UK sanctions.", "The British-Iranian was speaking publicly for the first time since her release from Iran last week.", "Banned from radio stations and rumoured black lists, artists against the war face a difficult moment.", "Staff who uncovered the Post Office IT scandal but missed out on full compensation will get payouts.", "The former tennis champion is accused of spending the money on school fees and designer clothes.", "The BBC speaks to survivors of the Mariupol theatre attack, who describe for the first time what happened.", "The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and Darren Conway are in Kharkiv, where Ukraine's army has repelled Russia for three weeks.", "The most bombarded city in Ukraine’s war with Russia is key to Moscow’s military campaign.", "Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway are with Ukrainian forces fighting to stop the Russian advance on the country's second city.", "Kaden Reddick suffered a fatal head injury at the store in Reading during a family shopping trip.", "Members of Unite are taking action over a local government pay offer of 1.75%.", "A nearby camera captured the moment the shopping centre in Kyiv was struck by a missile.", "Jurors heard two weeks of evidence about the disappearance of the RAF's Corrie Mckeague on a night out.", "The former foreign secretary insists he did all he could but calls for an independent inquiry.", "A Ukrainian sailing team protest against the arrival of a superyacht linked to Roman Abramovich in Turkey.", "As Dmytro Kotenko was laid to rest, his parents were 600 miles away, trapped under Russian bombs.", "Stena Line will put on additional ferry services from Scotland to Northern Ireland on Tuesday.", "A trial hears the man accused of killing Sir David Amess also carried out research on Michael Gove.", "An unprecedented supply of images gives a unique overview of events unfolding on the ground.", "Campaigners are challenging the use of messaging apps to discuss government business in the High Court.", "England's deputy medical officer can now drive sheep across a bridge in his home town of Boston.", "Secretary of State Brandon Lewis says the move from a severe to substantial level is based on MI5 intelligence.", "Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial ties to Everton, has his assets frozen by the European Union.", "Maher Maaroufe is charged with murdering Sabita Thanwani, who died at her student accommodation.", "Music industry revenues went up by 18.5% in 2021 thanks to hits by Adele, Taylor Swift and BTS.", "The BBC understands the UK division of Russian gas giant Gazprom could be placed into administration.", "The RMT union says Indian seafarers recruited to work in Dover are on rock bottom rates.", "The chancellor will give his economic update to the Commons as the cost of living crisis continues.", "Boris Romantschenko was killed in Kharkiv 77 years after surviving the Buchenwald concentration camp.", "A court rules Chris Mullin may guard a source over the Birmingham pub bombings despite police pressure.", "The star's lawyer says a copyright case over the song Shape of You should never have gone to court.", "Several Apple services were down on Monday, including the App Store. The company says the outages have now been resolved.", "The man tasked with tackling racism in the police says racist incidents have been damaging.", "Average petrol prices fall slightly from record high of £1.67 per litre, the RAC says.", "Duke of York to make first appearance at a public event since his court case settlement.", "The chancellor does not want expanded spending to define him, says our economics editor.", "An 18-year-old student is arrested on suspicion of murder after two deaths in the city of Malmö.", "The oil giant is looking again at the Cambo oil field in the Atlantic, as crude prices rise.", "Yvan Colonna's strangling by a fellow inmate had sparked violent protests on the French island.", "The deal follows similar agreements the US has reached with allies including the European Union.", "Belarusian dissident Pavel Kulazhanka left his life in New York to join the fight against Russia.", "Millions of people may have to spend less on food and clothing to afford higher bills, an energy boss says.", "Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to President Zelensky, says the change has helped encourage a dialogue between the nations.", "The firm says it didn't break law over sackings as it shares details of £36.5m compensation plan.", "Senior Western defence and intelligence experts outline the battlefield errors made by Moscow.", "Hundreds of Ukrainian women are pregnant with other people's children - creating a web of complex problems.", "Rafael Nadal is ruled out for between four and six weeks because of a stress fracture of the rib, with the French Open starting on 22 May.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she has missed holding her seven-year-old, and brushing her hair.", "Emergency services renew warnings to stay safe in the water and check tide times.", "The former child star was placed under the legal guardianship after drug and mental health problems.", "After years of campaigning, a relative says Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's return is \"mind-blowing\".", "Fears that Russia wants to starve Mariupol into surrender, and a young soldier isolated from his family is buried.", "Because of his miscalculations, there's a new iron curtain at the Russian leader’s door - writes Allan Little", "The dog that attacked 17-month-old Bella-Rae Birch in St Helens was killed by police.", "At least one person was killed when the residential building in the Ukrainian capital was hit.", "A council urges people not to attempt road repairs themselves after the singer was filmed doing it.", "Vadym Prystaiko tells a Downing Street rally his country will fight and will bring Putin down.", "The boss of food firm 2 Sisters warns prices will jump as a result of the war in Ukraine.", "The woman held a sign reading \"no war\" behind a newsreader on Russian state-controlled TV.", "Harley Crane is discharged after 140 days in hospital, a week after her brother Harry.", "Those wanting to host an individual or family from Ukraine can now register their interest online.", "Chelsea snatch a dramatic late winner to beat Newcastle in the first game at Stamford Bridge since Blues' Russian owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government.", "John Rutherford has already hosted two refugees, and is open to offering a room to a Ukrainian.", "Russia has denied asking Beijing for help, with Beijing calling the claim \"disinformation\".", "The band will play in Liverpool and London as part of their 60th anniversary European tour.", "Sami Chokri says he was \"belittled\" by Ed Sheeran after noticing similarities between their songs.", "Thousands of civilians have been trapped in the Ukrainian port city for nearly two weeks", "England's hopes of defending the Women's World Cup are hanging by a thread after an agonising three-wicket defeat by South Africa.", "Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton says he will change his name to incorporate his mother's surname.", "Fuel prices are expected to peak this week before falling due to the price of oil dropping globally.", "The Russian president signs new law allowing foreign-leased jets to keep flying in Russia.", "Foster family of boy accused of murdering five-year-old tell a court they were \"terrified\" of him.", "After a two-year break because of Covid, in-person events are due to take place in Washington.", "The children and their families arrived on an urgent flight after a plea from Polish officials.", "Minister says process to become peer is \"rigorous\" after questions about businessman's appointment.", "Drone footage shows destruction of Mariupol, and protesters target an oligarch's London mansion.", "Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a toxic cowboy, Power of the Dog won best film and best director.", "His roles ranged from acclaimed 1980s dramas to playing General Thaddeus Ross in five Marvel films.", "The local authority announces a plan of action after Sir Rod posts videos of himself with a shovel.", "The woman, seen in a widely shared image after a maternity hospital was hit, dies along with her baby.", "Train operators are talking to unions about how to address job changes in a bid to modernise the railways", "The Scottish Tory leader says the Russian president would try to exploit any signs of division.", "The placard she held read: “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you”.", "In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian forces are battling to stop the Russian advance.", "Social media channels and private messaging groups are being used to recruit, the BBC has learned.", "Ukraine's president gives medals to injured troops and the hospital workers caring for them.", "US officials say Russia asked China for military support and help in evading sanctions.", "Benjamin Hall, 39, was reportedly news gathering outside Kyiv at the time of Monday's incident.", "A military base near the Polish border is attacked, and the UK announces a scheme to house refugees.", "Young volunteers swap their studies for assault rifles as they prepare to defend Kyiv from Russian forces.", "Many Russians who can afford it have fled to nearby countries since Russia invaded Ukraine.", "\"It doesn't matter where you live\" - fear after a deadly attack on military base close to Polish border.", "Lord Sentamu warns the Royal Family and prime minister of destruction, as the Queen misses the Commonwealth Service.", "The Old Hem pub in Kharkiv was a well-known hangout for young poets and musicians.", "Pet collars and frozen Yorkshire puddings are other goods now used to measure changes in the cost of living.", "Tom Brady, one of the greatest players in NFL history, is coming back for his 23rd season only six weeks after retiring.", "UK petrol prices reach record highs, but there are objections to the move after 81 men were executed in Saudi Arabia.", "The transport secretary has confirmed that all remaining travel measures for UK arrivals will be scrapped.", "The news comes as Ukraine says Russia is trying to create \"pseudo-republics\" to break up the country.", "As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, many are looking to China's response.", "It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.", "Human rights activist is threatened with jail for \"collusion with foreign forces\" over Hong Kong campaign.", "Street cleaners are collecting bodies as besieged locals resort to burying civilians in trenches.", "Protesters wanted the property, believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska, to house Ukrainian refugees.", "BBC Panorama uncovers new evidence on the corrupt deals that helped Chelsea's owner make his fortune.", "A father threw his son, 3, from the window of a burning building down to first responders.", "An unexploded 500kg (1102lb) bomb was discovered in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine.", "A hospital is attacked as civilians try to escape. Here is your guide to the 14th day of fighting.", "A care worker manager and a mobile beautician are among those faced with difficult decisions.", "More than 1,000 visas have been issued but Boris Johnson says that number will 'climb very steeply'.", "The foreign secretary uses a speech in Washington to argue for stronger action against Russia.", "Relatives of people trapped in Mariupol face agonising difficulties contacting their loved ones.", "Novak Djokovic withdraws from Indian Wells and the Miami Open - the first two Masters Series events of the year - because of US coronavirus rules.", "The US president restated that his country's military would not directly intervene against Russia.", "Russia will halt exports of some types of timber and other goods until the end of 2022.", "Details of a sponsorship visa scheme to host Ukrainians will be revealed on Monday, Boris Johnson says.", "Roman Abramovich's attempt to sell Chelsea is halted as the oligarch is sanctioned by the UK government as part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.", "False claims about chemical weapon development are a Russian ploy to justify more attacks, says Jen Psaki.", "On the frontline in the battle for Kharkiv - and Ukrainians rescue their grandmothers from Russian shelling.", "Billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian ex-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov face UK sanctions.", "Corrie Mckeague's inquest hears he was an \"extreme\" drinker who downed a bottle of wine in 17 seconds.", "Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell the Premier League club.", "The PM claimed the UK had done more to resettle vulnerable people than any other European country.", "Karim Benzema scores a superb second-half hat-trick as Real Madrid produce a stirring fightback at a raucous Bernabeu to reach the Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of Paris St-Germain.", "The SNP's Westminster leader insisted that party MPs are behind him in \"getting on with the job\".", "Drone footage appears to show Russian tanks under attack on the outskirts of Kyiv.", "After tumultuous years, the EU seems to have fresh purpose - has Russia prompted a Brussels rebirth?", "Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway are with Ukrainian forces fighting to stop the Russian advance on the country's second city.", "Kyiv's FM says Russian demands amount to a surrender, Moscow's FM says the invasion is going to plan.", "A veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war is among many older Ukrainians now seeking refuge abroad.", "The chancellor must decide whether to borrow more or allow household budgets to be squeezed further, the think tank says.", "Pippa Griffiths died after midwives failed to realise the \"urgency\" of her condition, a panel says.", "The snakes and horned lizards were \"concealed in the man's jacket, pants pockets and groin area\".", "The department is trying to convince an increasingly sceptical nation it has control of the situation.", "The loyalty offer was axed during Covid but a few stores will trial a comeback, says Waitrose's boss.", "The US says Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi blew himself up during a raid in Syria last month.", "Farmers are calling for urgent government action to help them produce enough to feed the nation.", "President Putin has for years warned Russia's richest to protect themselves against sanctions.", "Chelsea beat bottom club Norwich as Mason Mount scores one and makes another on the day his club's long-term future is thrown into uncertainty.", "Luke Morgan has spent the last fortnight helping his wife's family get to the UK from Ukraine.", "Posts from the Russian embassy in the UK claiming the bombing of a maternity hospital was faked have been taken down.", "When his neighbour's house was hit by a tank, Dmytro decided to get out of the town of Bucha fast.", "Ukraine officials say the strike destroyed a maternity and a children's ward, with reports of many dead and injured.", "Anthony Russell is found guilty of raping his final victim, moments before strangling her.", "The man died two months after operation, says the hospital that carried out the world-first surgery.", "The UK has already delivered 2,000 and is now sending another 1,615, the defence secretary says.", "The British TikTok star will perform his song Space Man at the global music event in Turin.", "The probe will look at areas including preparedness and the public health response to the pandemic.", "Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra says it would be inappropriate to play the Russian composer's music.", "Douglas Ross says debate over Boris Johnson's future \"should be put on pause while there is war in Europe\".", "The Wall Street bank and the money transfer giant pull out of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.", "Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.", "Nelia and her three children left their war-torn country and travelled through Europe to reach safety.", "Mark Page used charity and business as a cover to meet children as young as 12 in the Philippines.", "Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich one of seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government.", "Fewer people need intensive care but large numbers are affecting available beds and other services.", "What do sanctions imposed on Roman Abramovich mean for Chelsea and the club's supporters? BBC Sport answers some of the key questions.", "The competition watchdog calls the market for children's home and foster care places \"dysfunctional\".", "After a series of seismic changes in Brussels because of the war in Ukraine, an energy revolution looms.", "Three teenagers died as hundreds queued outside Cookstown's Greenvale Hotel on St Patrick's Day 2019.", "Fact vs. propaganda.", "In a BBC interview, the Ukraine central bank boss proposes a list of extra financial sanctions on Russia.", "There is confusion over whether major oil producers will help to plug a gap in supplies from Russia.", "The Army says it's \"actively and strongly encouraging\" the soldiers to return to the UK.", "Ryan Coogler was arrested trying to withdraw money from his own bank account in Atlanta, Georgia.", "Ukrainians are determined to defend their capital city as Russian troops prepare for an assault.", "Sgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police, is jailed for 10 years after being convicted of rape.", "Paulette Hamilton is Birmingham's first black MP, in an election held after the death of Jack Dromey.", "Opposition MPs argue the Windrush compensation scheme should be taken away from the Home Office.", "Footage shows how flats and Russian military vehicles were destroyed in Borodyanka.", "People hoping to escape besieged cities in Ukraine are forced back to shelters, as fresh shelling is reported elsewhere.", "Boris Johnson sacked the Tory MP from the cabinet last year amid criticism of his performance.", "Meanwhile the Russian president insists his invasion is \"going to plan\", despite only taking one major city.", "Customers won't be able to use Apple Pay, while sportswear firm Nike is no longer taking online orders.", "Connectivity watchers accuse Moscow of \"limiting the free flow of information at a time of crisis\".", "Our chief international correspondent on the seven days that sparked a burning patriotic resolve in Ukraine.", "The home secretary is urged to do more for refugees as she launches a family visa scheme in Poland.", "Channel TV Rain stops operating after coming under pressure over its coverage of the war in Ukraine.", "Billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Russian ex-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov face UK sanctions.", "The government says changes are needed to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender.", "These images show the aftermath of devastating Russian missile attacks on civilian areas across Ukraine.", "The Russian communications regulator said on Friday that Facebook has been blocked in the country.", "Kyrell Matthews suffered weeks of abuse before he died, much of it caught on distressing recordings.", "Ukrainians with family in the UK say the government should make more effort to provide refuge.", "A total of 12 candidates are standing for the seat, with the result expected on Friday morning.", "The woman in her 80s is killed after an incident involving a helicopter landing at Derriford Hospital.", "Legendary Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh dies aged 74 after suffering a heart attack.", "Household bills for energy, food and petrol likely to worsen after commodities rise, analysts warn.", "There are both strategic and historical reasons why the offensive in southern Ukraine is vital for Russia.", "A judge has frozen UK accounts run by Graham Bonham-Carter over alleged links to Oleg Deripaska.", "The temporary suspension comes in response to a new Russian law which threatens reporters with prison.", "Clyde say they will terminate a loan deal for David Goodwillie after a furious reaction to re-signing the former Scotland striker, who was ruled a rapist in civil court.", "The Scottish actor was also well known for playing Inveradarroch in soap opera Take The High Road.", "Chanel, LVMH and Hermes announced on Friday they would temporarily suspend sales in the country.", "The Moon's far side should now have a new crater after being hit by a large chunk of space junk.", "Royal Mail says letter deliveries are continuing to decline, but operating costs are going up.", "After Russia seizes two nuclear plant sites, experts weigh the risk to Ukraine and the world at large.", "Ros Atkins looks at how Russian gas and oil connects to war in Ukraine, and EU efforts to cut ties with Russia.", "The UK government was too slow to offer help after it withdrew from Afghanistan, a report finds.", "“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor and traitors get shot,” Guy Reffitt is alleged to have told his son.", "President Putin's spokesman is one of the latest Russians targeted in the new round of sanctions.", "The woman says one Greater Manchester Police officer treated her like she was \"just being silly\".", "Legendary Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, dies of a suspected heart attack aged 52.", "A union urges the government to clarify sanctions rules to include vessels carrying Russian cargo.", "Jack Ritchie was failed by \"woefully inadequate\" warnings about dangers of betting, a coroner says.", "The Russian president risks his country being isolated for decades over Ukraine, Ben Wallace says.", "Residents of Chernihiv and other cities say apartments, hospitals and schools are being destroyed.", "William Warrington is due before magistrates over the deaths of Clive and Valerie Warrington.", "Billionaire Denise Coates, founder of gambling firm Bet365, takes a £170m cut in pay and dividends.", "Police question suspects over the blaze at Dalton Mills, once Yorkshire's largest textile mill.", "The foreign secretary says she will work with counterparts to \"tighten the vice around Putin's war machine\".", "The Fedko family was trying to flee fighting when Russian troops allegedly opened fire on their car.", "Sections of the 40-mile convoy are modelled in 3D using satellite imagery, showing its scale from above.", "The measures are tougher than anything Vladimir Putin has faced. But more could be coming.", "All six-crew members of the Helt have been saved after an explosion near Ukraine's port of Odesa.", "But the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators yield only limited concrete progress.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko thanks the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport.", "Aid charities are working in Ukraine while grassroots groups are ready to support refugees.", "The government says the law will change to allow more allies of President Putin to face punishment.", "These Ukrainians say their Russian relatives only trust the narratives they see on TV at home.", "Most London Underground lines are running a normal service but the network remains disrupted.", "Video footage from Irpin, just outside the capital, shows multiple projectiles hitting an apartment block.", "An onlooker films the moment the pick-up smashes into the store, before passers-by are threatened.", "All Covid rules in Wales, including wearing face masks, are set to end at the end of March.", "Ivan Lendl and Andy Murray are getting back together again, with the two due to start work in the United States next month.", "Sainsbury's also announces it will rename chicken Kiev as chicken Kyiv in support of Ukraine.", "The war will cut growth and push up living costs globally, the World Bank tells the BBC.", "Alongside the conventional war in Ukraine, a cyber-conflict is also being fought, says the government.", "China's rights holders have pulled Premier League coverage for this weekend over support for Ukraine.", "What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining?", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a fire at the facility.", "Prince Charles and Camilla meet Ashling Murphy's family during a visit to County Tipperary.", "The laws changed in 2020 but the commissioning of services has stalled due to political disagreement.", "England set for another humiliating defeat after enduring a disastrous third day of the decisive third Test against West Indies in Grenada.", "William and Catherine saw a traditional parade and visited a school on the last day of their tour.", "The two planes belong to Eugene Shvidler, an associate of Roman Abramovich, the government says.", "Lateral flow tests will remain free for now, but routine contact tracing is to be phased out.", "The drummer with US rock group Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins, has died aged 50.", "The Netflix musical \"wins\" five Razzie Awards, which name and shame the year's worst films.", "Harry Kane moves level with Sir Bobby Charlton on 49 England goals as the Three Lions come from behind to beat Switzerland at Wembley.", "The BBC speaks to survivors of the Mariupol theatre attack, who describe for the first time what happened.", "Highlights of Foo Fighters' set at Glastonbury 2017.", "The shooting of a Ukrainian priest by Russian soldiers is being logged as a suspected war crime.", "Red Bull's Sergio Perez beats Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.", "The judge says attackers believed gay men they targeted would be less likely to report the crime.", "There have been calls for Jamaica to become a republic, months after Barbados chose a new head of state.", "It comes after 800 of the firm's staff were sacked and replaced with workers on cheaper wages.", "In Irpin, only a few civilians remain as volunteers bolster defences a few miles from Kyiv.", "Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping tells BBC Sport how he rebuilt his career after going blind in one eye.", "A risky night-time race to safety lies ahead for exhausted families fleeing Kyiv each day.", "Boris Johnson backs Grant Shapps' call for Peter Hebblethwaite to quit after not consulting on sackings.", "The picturesque western city of Lviv is racing to protect is cultural and religious artefacts.", "Musicians performed the concert at a metro station in Kharkiv, being used as a makeshift shelter.", "Police say the man escaped a prison van after assaulting security officers in Poole.", "The London mayor calls the actions of the government \"embarrassing\" compared with other countries.", "The band said they were \"devastated\" by the loss of Hawkins, who has drummed with them since 1997.", "One demonstrator said: \"I want our generation to be free and to flourish, not just to shed tears at home.\"", "Anna Pepper struggled with her mental health until she discovered a passion for taking pictures.", "President Joe Biden tells US troops in Poland that global democracy is at risk amid Ukraine war.", "Western officials believe low morale among Russian troops is forcing generals to the battlefield.", "Mr Putin referenced the Harry Potter author during a speech condemning \"cancel culture\" in the West.", "Kyrell Matthews suffered weeks of abuse before he died, much of it caught on harrowing recordings.", "An inquiry is under way after the house was \"severely damaged\" and nearby properties evacuated.", "With Russia still a powerful force, wide-eyed realism is what Ukraine needs from the US and Europe.", "The total tax debt in the UK now stands at £39bn, more than double what it was before the pandemic.", "There are safety concerns over using cheaper replacement crews, as one ship is found to be \"unfit to sail\".", "Video captured by a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show Russian forces shooting at civilians.", "Crews waste their time by attending fires started on purpose - but legally - by landowners.", "The World Health Organization has verified more than 70 attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities.", "A post-mortem examination was carried out on the remains of 42-year-old Nicholas Billingham.", "West Indies edge into the ascendency in the third Test against England by opening a slim first-innings lead in Grenada.", "Troy Kotsur is a star of CODA and the first deaf male actor ever to be nominated for an Oscar.", "Residents of a town neighbouring Mariupol ready themselves for Russian missile and rocket attacks.", "The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is expected to go ahead as planned after hours of meetings following a missile attack near the track in Jeddah.", "Lviv has become a hub for thousands of refugees fleeing other parts of Ukraine since Russia's invasion.", "The Old Bailey hears the man accused of killing Sir David Amess told police it was a terrorist attack.", "Eleven sitting MLAs have so far said they will not contest the upcoming election on 5 May.", "New laws threaten jail for people accused of spreading \"fake news\" about Russia's armed forces.", "Organisers say the band cannot play as their charities must avoid association with the military.", "Apple TV's film about the hearing daughter of a deaf family wasn't expected to win best picture.", "Russia is spreading untruths about Nazis in Ukraine - one of Putin's justifications for his invasion.", "The school's governing body says teachers were not aware a strip-search was taking place.", "Rescue teams have found both black boxes at the site of the plane crash in Guangxi.", "The UN has documented almost 40 cases of politicians, journalists and activists being abducted.", "Officers are heard in footage saying it was \"odd\" the man was wearing a coat in warm weather.", "Fear of Russian saboteurs operating in Ukraine has soared, but is it based on intelligence and arrests?", "About 4.3 million people - or one in every 16 - are thought to have the virus, compared to 3.3 million the week before.", "Charities say they've been \"deluged\" with calls as they await further detail from the government.", "Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Matt Lucas and David Walliams featured in the Red Nose Day broadcast.", "Rachael Blackmore creates history as A Plus Tard beats Minella Indo to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.", "Vadym Boichenko tells the BBC \"there is no city left\" as Russia intensifies its attacks on Mariupol in Ukraine.", "A dogged unbeaten century from Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood's 102 blunts England on day three of the second Test in Barbados.", "The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and Darren Conway are in Kharkiv, where Ukraine's army has repelled Russia for three weeks.", "Russia accuses Canada of 'kindergarten' diplomacy in spat over a Russian letter sent to UN members.", "The Ragnar is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, who has been linked to Vladimir Putin.", "Double Olympic champion Brittney Griner was arrested in February for alleged cannabis oil possession.", "The company confirms it will not run services \"for the next few days\" after abruptly sacking 800 staff.", "A group of women work 24/7 to help find loved ones separated by the war in Ukraine.", "The footballer's brother says the family will \"never really believe\" he is dead.", "The 15-year-old black girl was taken out of an exam and strip-searched by two female Met officers.", "Joanne Tulip was stabbed 60 times on Christmas Day 1997 by Steven Ling, who she had met that day.", "The Space Launch System vehicle rolls out for a practice countdown ahead of a flight this summer.", "As Russian warships circle off the coast, Odesans face a difficult decision on whether to leave.", "The boy, who cannot be named, is accused of targeting Claridge's and the Four Seasons among others.", "A big study of teenagers attitudes finds significant differences between boys and girls.", "President Zelensky said the theatre in the besieged Ukrainian city was being used as a shelter by hundreds of people.", "Ukraine's president accuses Germany of helping Russia create a new type of Berlin Wall.", "A sense of humour and dealing with all kinds of weather are among the qualities needed for a new ferry operator.", "Russia's president revealed his peace conditions in a phone call - the BBC spoke to someone who listened in.", "The defence and home secretaries blame Russia after receiving calls from imposters this week.", "From chefs to suppliers, the country's food industry is pulling together to feed the population at war.", "A woman who left Mariupol's theatre a day before the bombing says Russia had been targeting the area.", "The alleged offences are said to have taken place when Wayne Couzens was still a Met officer.", "The US president held a virtual meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin to celebrate St Patrick's Day.", "Bank of England increases rates for the third time in four months as the cost of living rises.", "One worker, who lost his job, describes treatment of staff on Thursday as \"absolutely brutal\".", "Large parades were held across Northern Ireland on Thursday for the first time in three years.", "Passenger locator forms and tests for unvaccinated arrivals are no longer required.", "Russian state-backed news channel RT's licence to broadcast in UK is revoked \"with immediate effect\".", "The jump in oil prices since Russia invaded Ukraine is set to lead to higher airfares.", "Holders Chelsea face Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, while Manchester City will play Atletico Madrid and Liverpool play Benfica.", "One in 20 people infected, with record high rates in elderly people due a spring Covid booster vaccine.", "The justice minister says an inquiry into the deaths of three teens could prejudice criminal proceedings.", "The transport secretary has questioned whether the firm's dismissal of 800 staff was legal.", "Artem Datsyshyn, a former soloist at the National Opera of Ukraine, died in hospital, reports say.", "Rescuers saved a few pilot whales but 31 died in another mass stranding at the South Island bay.", "Two weeks since the last official death toll, funerals of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine continue.", "Ukrainian Andriy Yarmolenko scores the winning goal for West Ham as they beat Sevilla to reach the Europa League quarter-finals on an emotional night.", "A 13-year-old was driving a truck that collided with a van carrying student athletes, officials say.", "A bill requiring public bodies to promote sign language is backed by MPs.", "The cabinet minister says war in Ukraine has returned a sense of \"fundamental seriousness\" to politics.", "Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham are in the running to succeed Coventry.", "Eight years after Russia seized Crimea, the event is being celebrated with a concert and in schools.", "In the video the actor warns Russians they are being fed misinformation over the Ukraine war.", "Staff, unions and MPs have expressed outrage and travellers have been told to expect disruption.", "Scotland Yard says the decision to appeal \"is important for policing and the public\".", "Marina Ovsyannikova, who interrupted a broadcast to protest against the war in Ukraine, speaks to the BBC.", "Researchers find that \"brown carbon\" from wildfire smoke is helping to melt Arctic snow and ice.", "The US has grounded 100 Russia-affiliated aircraft believed to have violated US export controls.", "The US bans Russian oil, targeting the Russian economy's \"main artery\" over its invasion of Ukraine.", "Investors fear a global economic shock, with rising fuel bills causing more pain for households.", "The Ukraine war could push millions closer to starvation, the boss of the World Food Programme says.", "In Ukraine, families are having to adapt to being at war. But what do you tell the children?", "A US judge has signed off court papers concluding the court case brought by Virginia Giuffre.", "Food and drink giants have been criticised on social media for failing to speak out on Ukraine's invasion.", "The star serenades London's High Court in an attempt to prove he didn't copy his hit Shape of You.", "A survey for the BBC suggests 43% of women have experienced unwelcome touching in public.", "Seven people are dead after tornadoes packing winds of up to 138 mph (222kph) tore through Iowa.", "The package of financial support for Ukraine includes a $100m pledge from the UK.", "Several US presidents have failed to get the measure of him but now Europe has joined the fray things may change.", "Even after a mild infection, the overall size of the brain had shrunk, researchers found.", "Western companies are turning their backs on Russia amid sanctions and violence in Ukraine.", "He failed to disclose on a jury sheet that he had been abused, so Maxwell's lawyers are demanding a retrial.", "Two people die as flash-flooding inundates roads and homes in Australia's most populous city.", "A buyer hasn't been found for the ailing supplier, so the the taxpayer will have to keep funding it.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning.", "The joint committee met on Tuesday to discuss issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol.", "The Oxford group's hit Heat Waves finally reaches number one after 59 weeks, the longest ever ascent.", "Some civilians are finally able to escape Russian bombardment. Here's your guide to day 13 of the war.", "Russian has struggled to gain air supremacy as Ukrainian forces make use of missiles supplied by the West.", "Watchdog says the ex-Speaker should not have a parliamentary pass but Mr Bercow says the inquiry was \"amateurish\".", "The founder of the Japanese retailer says Russians 'have the same right to live as we do'", "A top official says Russia may close its gas lines to Germany if the West halts oil imports.", "The grime artist was found guilty of assaulting his former partner in London last year.", "Hundreds of refugees trying to reach the UK are stuck in north-west France, unable to get visas.", "Pasha Lee, 33, had signed up to defend his country at the start of the war.", "Ukraine officials say the strike destroyed a maternity and a children's ward, with reports of many dead and injured.", "The Queen returns to in-person meetings with what appears to be a subtle show of support for Ukraine.", "The Ukrainian president will speak via video link to British politicians on Tuesday.", "\"No visa for at least another week,\" said Misha, simply. \"No-one can help us in Calais.\"", "Journalists' work was put on hold last week after the introduction of a strict new media law.", "The war in Ukraine will lead to an even tighter squeeze on living standards this spring, a think tank says.", "A man and woman are arrested on suspicion of a dangerous dogs offence after a three-month-old dies.", "In parts of Northern Ireland, petrol is now £1.65 per litre and diesel close to £1.80 per litre.", "Hassan travelled 1,200km to Slovakia with two bags, a passport and his relatives' phone number.", "The daughter of a Ukrainian refugee tells of anger and frustration as MPs criticise the UK visa system.", "Families of Russian soldiers in Ukraine tell the BBC the men had no idea what they were getting into.", "Legislation may be brought forward to pardon those convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1563.", "Ukrainian president calls for Russia to be recognised as a \"terrorist state\" in a speech to the Commons.", "After a series of seismic changes in Brussels because of the war in Ukraine, an energy revolution looms.", "Ros Atkins looks at the UK's response to refugees fleeing Ukraine, and its family visa scheme.", "The BBC's Fergal Keane travels on a bus with disabled children fleeing the bombed city of Kharkiv.", "President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the House of Commons and pledges to keep on fighting against Russia.", "The world's largest rainforest is fast losing its ability to bounce back from human impacts, researchers say.", "Maxim, a 27-year-old city resident, tells the BBC what happened after the first ceasefire collapsed.", "The actress played Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the sitcom, and appeared in Come Outside and EastEnders.", "The presenter reflects on the indomitable locals he met in Kyiv - convinced they would defeat the Russians.", "Silent and weeping, a stream of civilians with backpacks try to outpace the Russian shells.", "Russia continues to bombard Mariupol, Kharkiv and other key cities despite offering escape routes, Ukraine officials say.", "The pop singer is accused by two songwriters of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape Of You.", "Doctors hope the pioneering procedure, believed to be a world first, marks a new chapter for transplant surgery.", "James Brittain-McVey tells MPs he wishes he had talked to friends about worries over how he looked.", "In Russia, the 'Z' is fast becoming seen as a staunchly pro-war symbol - what does it mean?", "Valerisssh has posted videos online of her standing outside shelled buildings.", "At the central train station in Lviv, many thousands arrive after fleeing bombed out cities further east.", "A judge rules the 17-year-old should be given the chance of a potentially life-saving operation.", "The energy giant says it will also close all its petrol stations in Russia and stop buying oil there.", "The finder says the sale is a \"life-changing amount of money\" and is hoping to buy a new car.", "The CDC says 92% of reported side effects after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mild.", "President Putin has for years warned Russia's richest to protect themselves against sanctions.", "Sgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police, is jailed for 10 years after being convicted of rape.", "The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he believes hundreds of people have died in the Russian onslaught.", "Ken Smith left his log cabin for the premiere of a documentary about his 40 years in isolation.", "The Russian communications regulator said on Friday that Facebook has been blocked in the country.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko thanks the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport.", "The Russian president also warned against any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.", "Inditex, which owns Zara and several other major brands, will close all of its 502 stores in Russia.", "The BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from a metro station where people have been sheltering from attacks.", "Correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his crew miraculously survived after their car was fired on.", "Elizabeth Hurley remembers her former fiance as her son Damian describes him as a father figure.", "Zelensky said Nato has given Russia \"a green light\" to continue bombing Ukrainian towns and cities.", "US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells the BBC the Ukrainian people's defeat is not inevitable.", "Great Britain's Millie Knight and guide Brett Wild win women's visually-impaired downhill bronze on day one of the Beijing Winter Paralympics.", "The government says the law will change to allow more allies of President Putin to face punishment.", "The woman in her 80s is killed after an incident involving a helicopter landing at Derriford Hospital.", "Russia answers resistance with big guns and sieges. Ukrainians pray that will not happen to them, writes the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Kyiv.", "These Ukrainians say their Russian relatives only trust the narratives they see on TV at home.", "There are both strategic and historical reasons why the offensive in southern Ukraine is vital for Russia.", "Mass evacuation postponed because of continued Russian shelling.", "Video footage from Irpin, just outside the capital, shows multiple projectiles hitting an apartment block.", "The PM wants a renewed effort from world leaders to tackle Vladimir Putin's \"barbarous assault\" on Ukraine.", "Footage shows how flats and Russian military vehicles were destroyed in Borodyanka.", "A judge has frozen UK accounts run by Graham Bonham-Carter over alleged links to Oleg Deripaska.", "Workers at Stanlow Oil Refinery will not unload the cargo from a German-flagged ship, a union says.", "The temporary suspension comes in response to a new Russian law which threatens reporters with prison.", "Little gifts are being found around Donaghadee, County Down, in memory of Greg Robinson.", "The shifting of European history's tectonic plates is not really that unexpected, explains Kevin Connolly.", "Tributes pour in for cricketing great Shane Warne, who died on Friday, with a stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to be named after him and a minute's silence held before Australia men and women's matches.", "James Waterhouse reports on how lives across Ukraine have changed irrevocably.", "Legendary Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, dies of a suspected heart attack aged 52.", "The Scottish actor was also well known for playing Inveradarroch in soap opera Take The High Road.", "Crowds are leaving the town of Irpin outside Kyiv as Russian shelling strikes residential areas.", "Chanel, LVMH and Hermes announced on Friday they would temporarily suspend sales in the country.", "Julie-Ann McIlwaine stabbed Jim Crossley at her Dunmurry home on Tuesday.", "The Black Sea port is Ukraine's only big city to have been captured by Russia in the war so far.", "Australia Test captain Pat Cummins calls Shane Warne a \"once-in-a-century cricketer\" as he leads tributes to the iconic leg-spinner who died on Friday aged 52.", "After Russia seizes two nuclear plant sites, experts weigh the risk to Ukraine and the world at large.", "Residents of Chernihiv and other cities say apartments, hospitals and schools are being destroyed.", "Ukraine top the medal table with three golds on the first day of the Winter Paralympics in Beijing.", "An 18-year-old man is charged with attempted murder after a 15-year-old girl was shot on Tuesday.", "It is not time to walk away from government but instead to lead, Naomi Long says.", "Connectivity watchers accuse Moscow of \"limiting the free flow of information at a time of crisis\".", "Police continue to investigate the death of an 87-year-old woman at Derriford Hospital on Friday.", "Svetlana Murphy says it is \"overwhelming\" to be reunited with her mother Galina in Northern Ireland.", "A third of UK households could be fuel poor from October if bills rise to £3,000 a year, as feared.", "William Warrington has appeared before magistrates over the deaths of Clive and Valerie Warrington.", "Formula 1 team Haas terminate the contract of Russian driver Nikita Mazepin and ends a sponsorship agreement with a chemicals company part-owned by his father.", "Andrew Whitney owns two Ramsay Street properties made famous by the long-running hit soap Neighbours.", "People are leaving Russia, as rumours abound that President Vladimir Putin may impose martial law.", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a fire at the facility.", "The former International Criminal Court judge will advise Ukraine's prosecutor, attorney general says.", "Radio and online are unaffected as the regime stops local TV showing international partner content.", "England set for another humiliating defeat after enduring a disastrous third day of the decisive third Test against West Indies in Grenada.", "French developer EDF will also take a 20% stake in the £20bn power station at Sizewell, in Suffolk.", "Kyle Eglington assaulted a security officer in Poole before making off from a prison van, police say.", "England slump to a chastening 10-wicket defeat early on the fourth day of the third Test to lose their series against West Indies 1-0.", "The two planes belong to Eugene Shvidler, an associate of Roman Abramovich, the government says.", "Three ex-British Army soldiers now in Ukraine on what has led them to fight for another country.", "Trafficking rings are notoriously active in and around Ukraine - and the fog of war is perfect cover.", "Canada says its can provide more oil, gas and uranium to help solve the global energy crisis.", "Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi says he will set out new policy after the \"appalling\" incident.", "Harry Kane moves level with Sir Bobby Charlton on 49 England goals as the Three Lions come from behind to beat Switzerland at Wembley.", "The drummer with US rock group Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins, has died aged 50.", "Belfast director Sir Kenneth Branagh and actor Ciarán Hinds have left Covid isolation in time.", "The 38-year-old has been released on bail but a man who was also arrested remains in custody.", "On Sunday Morning are Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser.", "The BBC joins a Ukrainian defence unit carrying out aerial reconnaissance around Kyiv.", "Red Bull's Sergio Perez beats Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.", "The financial hub will be locked down in two phases, in China's biggest city-wide lockdown yet.", "All the latest on Will Smith hitting Chris Rock and Coda winning best film and supporting actor.", "In Irpin, only a few civilians remain as volunteers bolster defences a few miles from Kyiv.", "The prince was speaking after a tour that saw questions raised about the role of the royals in the Caribbean.", "Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping tells BBC Sport how he rebuilt his career after going blind in one eye.", "A risky night-time race to safety lies ahead for exhausted families fleeing Kyiv each day.", "\"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power,\" the US president says - but Moscow disagrees.", "The picturesque western city of Lviv is racing to protect is cultural and religious artefacts.", "Rescuers say the young man fell 15 metres and remained unconscious in the water for 10 minutes.", "Musicians performed the concert at a metro station in Kharkiv, being used as a makeshift shelter.", "Grant Shapps says the firm has \"one final opportunity\" to bring sacked staff back on previous wages.", "Police say the man escaped a prison van after assaulting security officers in Poole.", "The band said they were \"devastated\" by the loss of Hawkins, who has drummed with them since 1997.", "Russia says it will \"drastically reduce\" attacks in Kyiv and Chernihiv - but the US and UK warn actions are more important than words.", "The London mayor calls the actions of the government \"embarrassing\" compared with other countries.", "Western officials believe low morale among Russian troops is forcing generals to the battlefield.", "The US secretary of state spoke after President Biden said Vladimir Putin should not remain in power.", "England will face South Africa in the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup after an efficient defeat of Bangladesh in Wellington.", "The 62 deaths recorded on Saturday make it the country's most violent 24-hour period for 30 years.", "There are safety concerns over using cheaper replacement crews, as one ship is found to be \"unfit to sail\".", "Video captured by a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show Russian forces shooting at civilians.", "The 11-year-old actor, who is in LA for the Oscars, talks about rubbing shoulders with the A-listers.", "A post-mortem examination was carried out on the remains of 42-year-old Nicholas Billingham.", "Lviv has become a hub for thousands of refugees fleeing other parts of Ukraine since Russia's invasion.", "Russia must commit to no further aggression or face them being reimposed, the foreign secretary says.", "It comes under plans to boost standards and ensure children can reach their potential at school.", "Yasmin Begum, 40, was stabbed multiple times while her children were at school.", "It comes after Israel hosts an historic summit with foreign ministers from Arab League allies.", "Ukraine condemns Russia's alleged \"deportation\" of many civilians from devastated Mariupol.", "Belfast, Dune and West Side Story will also be in the running at the Academy Awards.", "The US President has made a series of unscripted remarks this week, souring US-Russia relations.", "Russia is spreading untruths about Nazis in Ukraine - one of Putin's justifications for his invasion.", "Marks & Spencer apologises for sending customers photos and locations of other people's parcels.", "Max Verstappen wins an intense race-long battle with Charles Leclerc to take his first victory of the season in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.", "Find out which films, actors and directors have won what at the Hollywood ceremony.", "Rescue teams have found both black boxes at the site of the plane crash in Guangxi.", "Fear of Russian saboteurs operating in Ukraine has soared, but is it based on intelligence and arrests?", "The new fund will offer one-off payments of £3,056 to families following the death of a child.", "Colombian investigators examining the death of Taylor Hawkins are yet to establish a cause.", "The US says the two recent tests were a 'serious escalation' and vows to further sanction N Korea.", "A Chicago judge told Jussie Smollett that he has \"turned his life upside down\" with the hoax.", "The actor played shop owner Luis, a character who was praised for not conforming to Latino stereotypes.", "A care worker manager and a mobile beautician are among those faced with difficult decisions.", "Relatives of people trapped in Mariupol face agonising difficulties contacting their loved ones.", "The US president restated that his country's military would not directly intervene against Russia.", "Delhi blames a \"technical malfunction\" for the incident, which it called \"deeply regrettable\".", "BBC correspondents Lyse Doucet and Jenny Hill answer readers' questions on Ukraine", "In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian forces are battling to stop the Russian advance.", "Russia will halt exports of some types of timber and other goods until the end of 2022.", "Details of a sponsorship visa scheme to host Ukrainians will be revealed on Monday, Boris Johnson says.", "According to eyewitness accounts from the area, a nearby airfield was hit by strikes.", "It comes after the BBC is shown a letter which also claims \"gay affection\" is cut from Pixar content.", "On the frontline in the battle for Kharkiv - and Ukrainians rescue their grandmothers from Russian shelling.", "Debutant Ollie Hill wins Britain's first Paralympic snowboard medal with bronze in the banked slalom LL2 event.", "Judge orders Manchester City's Benjamin Mendy to attend next court date ahead of sex charges trial.", "Images of the convoy's redeployment appear to signal a renewed push towards the Ukrainian capital.", "Anthony Russell admitted killing three people, raping his final victim before strangling her.", "Police forced the four vigil organisers to cancel their plans to mark the death of Sarah Everard.", "Drone footage appears to show Russian tanks under attack on the outskirts of Kyiv.", "Ministers delivered the long-awaited apology, which was a key recommendation of a 2017 report.", "Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway are with Ukrainian forces fighting to stop the Russian advance on the country's second city.", "The teenager appears in court charged with murder and is remanded in custody.", "As Russian forces continue their slow advance, Kyiv's residents fear the worst for their city.", "Hundreds of children were abused at Church and state-run institutions over seven decades.", "Official records say six million have died, but the true figure may be over 18 million, say researchers.", "A form of Omicron called BA.2 is now the most common variant in most of the UK, figures suggest.", "Pippa Griffiths died after midwives failed to realise the \"urgency\" of her condition, a panel says.", "Chelsea's credit card facilities are temporarily suspended while banks assess the implications of the sanctions imposed on Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.", "Photos and satellite images show the devastation caused to the southern Ukrainian city, which is encircled by Russian troops.", "The inquiry will gather evidence this year and give recommendations \"as soon as possible\", its chair says.", "Farmers are calling for urgent government action to help them produce enough to feed the nation.", "Perry will no longer have to pay the rapper Flame $2.8m after an appeals court ruled in her favour.", "Chelsea beat bottom club Norwich as Mason Mount scores one and makes another on the day his club's long-term future is thrown into uncertainty.", "Western allies also say they plan to revoke Russia’s status as an equal trade partner.", "Luke Morgan has spent the last fortnight helping his wife's family get to the UK from Ukraine.", "Posts from the Russian embassy in the UK claiming the bombing of a maternity hospital was faked have been taken down.", "When his neighbour's house was hit by a tank, Dmytro decided to get out of the town of Bucha fast.", "Politicians who voted to recognise two areas of Ukraine as independent have their UK assets frozen.", "The Financial Conduct Authority warns that all crypto-ATMs in the UK are operating illegally.", "Vladimir Putin paves the way for foreign fighters to join the war, while Russia widens its attacks.", "France keep alive their dreams of a first Grand Slam and Six Nations title since 2010 with a tense 13-9 victory over Wales.", "The Scottish Tory leader says the Russian president would try to exploit any signs of division.", "Reputational risk and practical difficulties means the exodus of firms is growing but some remain.", "Anthony Russell is found guilty of raping his final victim, moments before strangling her.", "As fuel prices reach fresh highs, one coach travel business says some services are becoming unviable.", "Zoe app co-founder says it could have been the tool to protect the UK from the next pandemic.", "Zak Crawley hits his second Test hundred as England dominate West Indies on day four of the first Test to set up an outside chance of victory.", "The probe will look at areas including preparedness and the public health response to the pandemic.", "Russian-British media mogul Evgeny Lebedev responds to reports he was flagged as a security risk.", "\"We need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,\" the Russian leader said.", "Mariana Vishegirskaya, a beauty blogger, has reportedly given birth to a baby girl.", "Douglas Ross says debate over Boris Johnson's future \"should be put on pause while there is war in Europe\".", "Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.", "Sections of the 40-mile convoy are modelled in 3D using satellite imagery, showing its scale from above.", "Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich one of seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government.", "Fewer people need intensive care but large numbers are affecting available beds and other services.", "Experts say a drone that crashed in Zagreb was a modified type dating back to the Soviet era.", "Extraction unit evacuating orphanages in the war zone say traffickers targeted children at the Ukraine border.", "Denis Donaldson was shot dead in 2006 after he was exposed as a Security Service spy.", "Three teenagers died as hundreds queued outside Cookstown's Greenvale Hotel on St Patrick's Day 2019.", "Fact vs. propaganda.", "A report says school closures damaged learning in England, with big regional differences.", "The Queen will not attend next week's service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace says.", "Ukrainians are determined to defend their capital city as Russian troops prepare for an assault.", "The monarch, 95, greeted Canada's governor general the day after the Commonwealth Service.", "Harley Crane is discharged after 140 days in hospital, a week after her brother Harry.", "Russia has denied asking Beijing for help, with Beijing calling the claim \"disinformation\".", "Mandi Arnold, 35, says welcoming more people into her busy home will mean \"more love, more memories\".", "The Russian president signs new law allowing foreign-leased jets to keep flying in Russia.", "Renan Lodi's first-half header puts Manchester United out of the Champions League and sends Atletico Madrid into the quarter-finals.", "Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshinova were killed when their vehicle was hit outside Kyiv.", "After a two-year break because of Covid, in-person events are due to take place in Washington.", "Ukraine's rail chief says his staff risk their lives to get others to safety amid Russia attacks.", "The placard she held read: “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you”.", "Companies that manage the Russian's assets own a mansion on land belonging to the British monarch.", "The measures block their entry into Russia but will not impede necessary high-level contacts.", "Lord Sentamu warns the Royal Family and prime minister of destruction, as the Queen misses the Commonwealth Service.", "Boris Johnson says negotiations to free the British-Iranian woman are \"going right up to the wire\".", "With no medical help, some are falling ill while sheltering from attacks in besieged Mariupol.", "The Old Hem pub in Kharkiv was a well-known hangout for young poets and musicians.", "Dmitry Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin's spokesman are among those to be hit with asset freezes and travel bans.", "What to watch out for as racing's four-day Cheltenham Festival starts on Tuesday with spectators back for the first time in two years.", "Thousands of civilians have been trapped in the Ukrainian port city for nearly two weeks", "Foster family of boy accused of murdering five-year-old tell a court they were \"terrified\" of him.", "The Ukrainian president says Russians who give themselves up will be treated \"as people, decently\".", "Logan Mwangi had to stand with his hands on a banister for 30 minutes for misbehaving, court hears.", "It was feared Mark Vande Hei might be left behind due to tensions over Russia's Ukrainian invasion.", "Non-religious ceremonies in England and Wales were first allowed outside during the pandemic.", "A safeguarding report concludes the drugs search was unjustified and racism was a \"likely\" factor.", "The bill is one of the most important to come before the assembly, says the health minister.", "A woman recounts the moment her husband and son were killed by a Russian shell in the town of Irpin.", "Boris Johnson says the West needs to \"build the widest coalition\" to stop being reliant on Russian oil.", "Protesters wanted the property, believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska, to house Ukrainian refugees.", "BBC Panorama uncovers new evidence on the corrupt deals that helped Chelsea's owner make his fortune.", "The influx of refugees and Russian security threats leaves Poland feeling vulnerable.", "The billionaire was seen at the airport, but it is not known if he boarded the flight.", "The woman held a sign reading \"no war\" behind a newsreader on Russian state-controlled TV.", "Children of the 1989 generation won't enjoy the same freedoms as their parents, writes Nick Robinson in Berlin.", "Motoring groups call for fuel prices to fall as Brent crude drops to its lowest for two weeks.", "Edward Meenan's body was found in an alleyway in Creggan Street in Londonderry on 25 November 2018.", "NI can play a full role in housing refugees despite Stormont's absence, Michael Gove says.", "More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in the capital.", "The company that has run the lottery since its launch in 1994 will be replaced by Allwyn in 2024.", "The row comes as Russia strikes reportedly hit civilians, including a theatre turned shelter in Mariupol.", "People will have to continue wearing face coverings on public transport and shops until early April.", "Chelsea say Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough should be played behind closed doors because their fans can no longer buy tickets.", "Ukraine is facing a severe recession as a result of the Russian invasion, the IMF said.", "After a perilous train journey from Poland to Kyiv, European leaders tell Ukraine \"you're not alone\".", "Christian Eriksen is named in Denmark's squad for the first time since his cardiac arrest while playing at Euro 2020 last summer.", "The new style of electricity pylon is designed to reduce the impact on the local environment.", "Boris Johnson says the West allowed President Putin to \"get away\" with annexing the peninsula in 2014.", "At least one person was killed when the residential building in the Ukrainian capital was hit.", "Other restrictions will be dropped on 21 March, but masks will remain due to a rise in Covid cases.", "Unable to flee, Anna gave birth at home in Ukraine without medical assistance, electricity or running water.", "Those wanting to host an individual or family from Ukraine can now register their interest online.", "Fuel prices are expected to peak this week before falling due to the price of oil dropping globally.", "Drone footage shows destruction of Mariupol, and protesters target an oligarch's London mansion.", "The local authority announces a plan of action after Sir Rod posts videos of himself with a shovel.", "Marina Ovsyannikova's moment of protest on TV was extraordinary - but she now faces prosecution.", "The retailer says it made a mistake by telling staff they could continue to work if they tested positive.", "US officials say Russia asked China for military support and help in evading sanctions.", "Frankie Smith's eight-year term for allowing her daughter's death is extended to 12 years on appeal.", "Chelsea withdraw their request to play Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough behind closed doors.", "RQIA inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in a care home run by the Charity Praxis Care.", "Benjamin Hall, 39, was reportedly news gathering outside Kyiv at the time of Monday's incident.", "The UK's only two shale gas wells are set to be put permanently out of use at the end of June.", "There were 4.3 million NHS referrals for conditions such as anxiety and depression in 2021 across England.", "The transport secretary has confirmed that all remaining travel measures for UK arrivals will be scrapped.", "Street cleaners are collecting bodies as besieged locals resort to burying civilians in trenches.", "The government grants more than £4m to the World Service to help fight Russian disinformation.", "Preparing to defend Kyiv, Ukraine's new recruits must learn a new way of life - how to fight.", "The mayor of Voznesensk hails the \"fighting spirit\" of local people who drove Russian troops back.", "Ministers are preparing plans to produce more energy in England but are at odds over how to do it.", "Crews had struggled against rain and flooded terrain to find key clues to the plane’s sudden fall.", "Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine shook the West. Now its leaders are trying to predict his next move.", "Girls' high schools were ordered shut hours after they re-opened, sparking anger and frustration.", "Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says four new battlegroups will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.", "The chancellor says he wants to cut taxes - but figures show how taxes have risen under his watch.", "A murder trial is told a piercing scream was heard minutes after Ali Harbi Ali met Sir David Amess.", "The Swiss food giant drops some popular brands, but will still sell baby food and medical nutrition.", "Girls were in shock after high schools were abruptly shut after re-opening for the first time in months.", "Jakub and Gosia Golata return to Poland from the UK to help those in need fleeing Russian invasion.", "A report finds some issues \"were impossible to rectify\" in centuries-old court buildings.", "The Wikileaks founder is being held in the high-security prison while the US seeks to extradite him.", "Evan Neumann fled to Europe after being charged in connection with the 6 January riot.", "Tributes are paid to the Czech immigrant who was the first woman to become the top US diplomat.", "The children, who were evacuated from Dnipro, can stay in Scotland until it is safe to return home.", "A further 467 people were intercepted by French authorities attempting to cross, the Home Office says.", "The BBC speaks to survivors of the Mariupol theatre attack, who describe for the first time what happened.", "Almost 80 people suffer breathing problems at the Olympic Park in Stratford, with 29 taken to hospital.", "The chancellor cuts fuel duty and eases National Insurance rise but soaring prices threaten tough times.", "Jurors heard two weeks of evidence about the disappearance of the RAF's Corrie Mckeague on a night out.", "The chancellor says sanctions imposed on Russia are \"of unprecedented scale and scope”.", "Authorities in the town of Makariv, near the capital, say Ukrainian flags are flying there again.", "A Ukrainian sailing team protest against the arrival of a superyacht linked to Roman Abramovich in Turkey.", "Campaigners are challenging the use of messaging apps to discuss government business in the High Court.", "Pride director Paul Kemp said George Montague was \"a lovely spirit\" who \"died a happy man\".", "The RMT union says Indian seafarers recruited to work in Dover are on rock bottom rates.", "The chancellor will give his economic update to the Commons as the cost of living crisis continues.", "Taxes on working families will be cut, says Rishi Sunak in his Spring Statement.", "The huge marble tribute in Sheffield has become a minor attraction - but its future is in doubt.", "Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says he experienced depression after falling out with former boss Jose Mourinho.", "The former tennis star, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, is accused of failing to hand over assets.", "The Fords are a busy family and, like many, they’ve noticed the impact of rising prices.", "Angel Lynn was left with life-changing injuries after being kidnapped by her then boyfriend.", "The star's lawyer says a copyright case over the song Shape of You should never have gone to court.", "Average petrol prices fall slightly from record high of £1.67 per litre, the RAC says.", "Florida governor Ron DeSantis signs a proclamation recognising runner-up Emma Weyant as the winner of the highest US national college swimming title.", "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also visit Bob Marley's neighbourhood in Kingston.", "Don't roll the drums for big financial drama when the chancellor delivers his speech on Wednesday.", "Inflation hit 6.2% in February as fuel, energy and food costs surged.", "Firefighters say the incidents in recent days have put an additional strain on their resources.", "The BBC's Sarah Rainsford travelled around Ukraine as the war started and lives were shattered.", "Described as the quintessential Aussie, Ashleigh Barty has ended the long wait for an Australian Open singles champion.", "Seafarers felt \"like a traitors\" when they heard they were taking over from sacked staff at Cairnryan.", "Hackney's mayor says he has no confidence in the school leadership after a black pupil was strip-searched.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.", "Laura Kuenssberg, Faisal Islam and Simon Jack review the headlines and reaction to the chancellor's update on the UK economy.", "The cut aims to deal with soaring costs, but the RAC says prices will remain at a high level.", "The deal follows similar agreements the US has reached with allies including the European Union.", "Anatoly Chubais, who was a special international envoy of the president, is said to have left Russia.", "Belarusian dissident Pavel Kulazhanka left his life in New York to join the fight against Russia.", "The book claimed to have discovered who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis.", "Wages will lag soaring prices meaning the biggest drop in standards since 1956, says the OBR.", "There is doubt over a Boris Johnson claim that P&O Ferries may have broken a law by sacking 800 staff suddenly.", "The firm says it didn't break law over sackings as it shares details of £36.5m compensation plan.", "Hundreds of Ukrainian women are pregnant with other people's children - creating a web of complex problems.", "The former child star was placed under the legal guardianship after drug and mental health problems.", "But households still face the biggest fall in living standards since records began, the Office of Budget Responsibility warns.", "Because of his miscalculations, there's a new iron curtain at the Russian leader’s door - writes Allan Little", "The dog that attacked 17-month-old Bella-Rae Birch in St Helens was killed by police.", "A source tells the BBC that up to 200 soldiers were at the Mykolaiv barracks when missiles hit.", "Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Matt Lucas and David Walliams featured in the Red Nose Day broadcast.", "Six Nations title hopefuls Ireland seek victory over Scotland on Saturday to pile the pressure on leaders France - match preview, team news and stats.", "Vadym Boichenko tells the BBC \"there is no city left\" as Russia intensifies its attacks on Mariupol in Ukraine.", "A dogged unbeaten century from Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood's 102 blunts England on day three of the second Test in Barbados.", "The Ukrainian president's appeal comes as fierce fighting continues, 23 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.", "But chancellor Rishi Sunak says it was \"general observations about freedom\", not a direct comparison.", "The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and Darren Conway are in Kharkiv, where Ukraine's army has repelled Russia for three weeks.", "Russia says it fired a Kinzhal missile at a Ukrainian arms depot, in an apparent change of strategy.", "The decision to ditch standard Russian uniforms was interpreted as a show of solidarity for Ukraine.", "A 15-year-old girl has also been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving, police say.", "Russia accuses Canada of 'kindergarten' diplomacy in spat over a Russian letter sent to UN members.", "France strut to a first Grand Slam in 12 years as they run in three tries to comfortably see off England in front of a jubilant Stade de France.", "Romelu Lukaku scores his 12th goal of the season as Chelsea beat Championship side Middlesbrough to reach the FA Cup semi-finals.", "Video shows destroyed blocks of flats and a shopping mall in the besieged Ukrainian port city.", "A group of women work 24/7 to help find loved ones separated by the war in Ukraine.", "The 15-year-old black girl was taken out of an exam and strip-searched by two female Met officers.", "Ireland beat Scotland to clinch first Triple Crown in four years before Six Nations title hopes are ended by new champions France defeating England.", "Joanne Tulip was stabbed 60 times on Christmas Day 1997 by Steven Ling, who she had met that day.", "Chicago Cubs owners, a consortium featuring Lord Coe and another group led by British property investor Nick Candy all submit offers to buy Chelsea.", "As Russian warships circle off the coast, Odesans face a difficult decision on whether to leave.", "Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to President Zelensky, says the change has helped encourage a dialogue between the nations.", "The couple were all smiles as they began their week-long tour celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.", "A woman who left Mariupol's theatre a day before the bombing says Russia had been targeting the area.", "Street fighting hampers efforts to rescue civilians trapped in a bombed theatre, the mayor says.", "Around 20 hooded attackers used fireworks to steal €300,000 worth of equipment from the crew.", "Senior Western defence and intelligence experts outline the battlefield errors made by Moscow.", "One in 20 people infected, with record high rates in elderly people due a spring Covid booster vaccine.", "The transport secretary has questioned whether the firm's dismissal of 800 staff was legal.", "Experts say the UK should reduce the amount of toxic \"forever chemicals\" allowed in drinking water.", "Six fire appliances were sent to deal with the massive blaze on the Wirral Peninsula.", "Two weeks since the last official death toll, funerals of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine continue.", "The US has grounded 100 Russia-affiliated aircraft believed to have violated US export controls.", "The DUP leader says his party will do \"everything in our power\" to ensure workers get support.", "Gordon Brown and Sir John Major join calls for an international tribunal to investigate Russia.", "A man is pulled alive from the rubble of a teaching building in Ukraine, after Russian shelling.", "The jet is being held at London Biggin Hill airport while it is investigated if it falls under UK sanctions.", "Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham are in the running to succeed Coventry.", "Eight years after Russia seized Crimea, the event is being celebrated with a concert and in schools.", "In the video the actor warns Russians they are being fed misinformation over the Ukraine war.", "Because of his miscalculations, there's a new iron curtain at the Russian leader’s door - writes Allan Little", "A woman has died after being found with serious injuries at a student halls in central London.", "One of the prime sources for fake news on Twitter comes straight from the Kremlin's network of Twitter accounts.", "People gather at a church in Kent to mark the 1987 ferry disaster which claimed 193 lives.", "The oil giant confirmed it made a purchase of Russian crude oil on Friday but said it had \"no alternative\".", "Britain's Neil Simpson and his brother Andrew win visually-impaired super-G gold at the Beijing Winter Paralympics", "In Ukraine, families are having to adapt to being at war. But what do you tell the children?", "The line is tested every day, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin tells the BBC's Sunday Morning Programme.", "President Putin has for years warned Russia's richest to protect themselves against sanctions.", "The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he believes hundreds of people have died in the Russian onslaught.", "Ken Smith left his log cabin for the premiere of a documentary about his 40 years in isolation.", "Several US presidents have failed to get the measure of him but now Europe has joined the fray things may change.", "Polina and her family are trying to flee Kharkiv after spending days sheltering in their basement.", "On Sunday Morning are Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and Dr Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko thanks the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport.", "Thomas Tuchel criticises Chelsea supporters' vocal backing for owner Roman Abramovich during their 4-0 win over Burnley at Turf Moor.", "Inditex, which owns Zara and several other major brands, will close all of its 502 stores in Russia.", "In a rallying cry, the Ukrainian president says the country has withstood the invasion \"together\".", "Elizabeth Hurley remembers her former fiance as her son Damian describes him as a father figure.", "Correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his crew miraculously survived after their car was fired on.", "American Express is also pulling out of the Russian market in protest at its invasion of Ukraine.", "The Ukrainian president says the country will not forgive or forget those who murder its civilians.", "The government says the law will change to allow more allies of President Putin to face punishment.", "Russia answers resistance with big guns and sieges. Ukrainians pray that will not happen to them, writes the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Kyiv.", "Kevin de Bruyne and Riyad Mahrez score twice each as Manchester City outclass rivals Manchester United to move six points clear at the top of the table.", "Former PM tells archbishop he \"may have been wrong\" but defended his calls on Iraq and Afghanistan.", "Mass evacuation postponed because of continued Russian shelling.", "The PM wants a renewed effort from world leaders to tackle Vladimir Putin's \"barbarous assault\" on Ukraine.", "President Putin's devastating attack on Ukraine leaves countries in the region worried about their future.", "In the second week of war, the BBC's Ukrainian editor says empty shelves are an increasing reality.", "Footage shows how flats and Russian military vehicles were destroyed in Borodyanka.", "People hoping to escape besieged cities in Ukraine are forced back to shelters, as fresh shelling is reported elsewhere.", "Workers at Stanlow Oil Refinery will not unload the cargo from a German-flagged ship, a union says.", "Little gifts are being found around Donaghadee, County Down, in memory of Greg Robinson.", "The shifting of European history's tectonic plates is not really that unexpected, explains Kevin Connolly.", "Production at Plant Oxford is stopping until 18 March due a shortage of parts from Ukraine.", "WNBA side Phoenix Mercury are concerned for Brittney Griner's \"safety, physical and mental health\" after she was detained in Russia on drug smuggling charges.", "Crowds are leaving the town of Irpin outside Kyiv as Russian shelling strikes residential areas.", "The Black Sea port is Ukraine's only big city to have been captured by Russia in the war so far.", "In the week after the invasion, the average price for 900 litres of oil went up by more than £200.", "The head of the UK's armed forces also rejects Ukraine's call for a no-fly zone, saying it will not help.", "People have been held in 53 cities, from St Petersburg in the west to Vladivostok in the east.", "Maxim, a 27-year-old city resident, tells the BBC what happened after the first ceasefire collapsed.", "Ukraine's youngest cabinet minister, 31-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov, is leading a cyber-battle against Russia.", "The home secretary says she is \"surging capacity\" as about 1% of 5,500 applications are granted.", "Residents of Chernihiv and other cities say apartments, hospitals and schools are being destroyed.", "Russia continues to bombard Mariupol, Kharkiv and other key cities despite offering escape routes, Ukraine officials say.", "TikTok suspends live streaming and new content from its platform, while Russians can no longer access Netflix.", "It is not time to walk away from government but instead to lead, Naomi Long says.", "Police continue to investigate the death of an 87-year-old woman at Derriford Hospital on Friday.", "Shane Warne's family accept the offer of a state funeral for the Australia legend, says Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.", "Conspiracy theories and trolls are adding to the chaos of war.", "Formula 1 team Haas terminate the contract of Russian driver Nikita Mazepin and ends a sponsorship agreement with a chemicals company part-owned by his father.", "The Russian president also warned against any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.", "Sir Keir expresses concern over reports PM helped Evgeny Lebedev join the Lords amid security fears.", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a fire at the facility.", "Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent time with two fighters since the very start.", "The government grants more than £4m to the World Service to help fight Russian disinformation.", "European champions Italy will not play in the 2022 World Cup after being stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off in Palermo.", "Lateral flow tests will remain free for now, but routine contact tracing is to be phased out.", "The mayor of Voznesensk hails the \"fighting spirit\" of local people who drove Russian troops back.", "Sheffield City Council says the giant tribute to William Collins is different from plans it approved.", "Detectives confirm an American Bully XL dog killed 17-month-old Bella-Rae Birch in St Helens.", "Gareth Bale scores two brilliant goals to take Wales a step closer to qualifying for their first World Cup since 1958 with victory over Austria in their play-off semi-final.", "Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says four new battlegroups will be sent to Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.", "Joe Biden is meeting allies at a moment of international crisis. Here are his most pressing concerns.", "The Met says officers who conducted a search of a black pupil left public-facing roles last week.", "A murder trial is told a piercing scream was heard minutes after Ali Harbi Ali met Sir David Amess.", "The Swiss food giant drops some popular brands, but will still sell baby food and medical nutrition.", "Inmate John Henry Ramirez wants a pastor to touch him and say a prayer during his execution in Texas.", "Girls were in shock after high schools were abruptly shut after re-opening for the first time in months.", "\"What's happening is a disgrace,\" says Elena, who was carried away by police for anti-war protests.", "The Wikileaks founder is being held in the high-security prison while the US seeks to extradite him.", "Tributes are paid to the Czech immigrant who was the first woman to become the top US diplomat.", "Orchards are in big decline, with an area the size of the Isle of Wight lost since 1900, research finds.", "The children, who were evacuated from Dnipro, can stay in Scotland until it is safe to return home.", "Police say they've arrested seven teenagers as part of their investigation into a hacking group.", "Seven passengers died and 61 were injured when a tram derailed in south London in 2016.", "The BBC speaks to survivors of the Mariupol theatre attack, who describe for the first time what happened.", "It is the first time such a missile, which puts the US within reach, has been tested since 2017.", "The chancellor cuts fuel duty and eases National Insurance rise but soaring prices threaten tough times.", "Boris Johnson warns if Vladimir Putin uses chemical weapons in Ukraine the consequences will be \"catastrophic for him\".", "\"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power,\" the US president says - but Moscow disagrees.", "Authorities in the town of Makariv, near the capital, say Ukrainian flags are flying there again.", "The Duke of Sussex is challenging the government's decision to refuse him police security during visits.", "The China Eastern plane was carrying 132 people, and there has been no sign of survivors so far.", "Video game developers, publishers and players come together to raise millions for Ukraine.", "The financier was accused of sexually abusing girls on one of the two Caribbean islands on sale.", "The clothing and homeware retailer increases its predicted price rises for the second half of 2022.", "Peter Hebblethwaite admits P&O should have consulted unions before sacking 800 ferry workers.", "The BBC's Frank Gardner looks at four themes that have defined Ukraine's reaction to Russia's invasion.", "The former tennis star, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, is accused of failing to hand over assets.", "The Fords are a busy family and, like many, they’ve noticed the impact of rising prices.", "Ahead of the ceremony, executive Scott Stuber says it would be \"terrible\" if Netflix killed cinema.", "Sheikh Mohammed's ex-wife will have sole responsibility for their children as a court rules he was abusive.", "Firefighters say the incidents in recent days have put an additional strain on their resources.", "President Joe Biden joins leaders of Nato, the EU and G7 in response to the invasion of Ukraine.", "Northern Ireland's mental health champion gives an assessment of how restrictions affected children.", "The fire service says the incidents are \"taking a toll\" physically on firefighters.", "Rachel Zegler plays Maria in the new West Side Story, which has seven Academy Award nominations.", "The Duke of Cambridge condemns the slave trade, saying it \"forever stains\" the UK's history.", "An Indian software giant part-owned by the chancellor's wife has kept its presence in Moscow.", "The laws changed in 2020 but the commissioning of services has stalled due to political disagreement.", "Officers are heard shouting \"drop the knife\" as they confront the suspected killer of David Amess.", "Wales are looking to take a step closer to their first football World Cup since 1958.", "Laura Kuenssberg, Faisal Islam and Simon Jack review the headlines and reaction to the chancellor's update on the UK economy.", "Police are warning people to be on their guard after the couple were conned over the telephone.", "The cut aims to deal with soaring costs, but the RAC says prices will remain at a high level.", "Anatoly Chubais, who was a special international envoy of the president, is said to have left Russia.", "Ukraine's navy says the Orsk, which was used to ferry Russian troops, was hit in Berdyansk.", "Wages will lag soaring prices meaning the biggest drop in standards since 1956, says the OBR.", "The government is looking at lowering people's energy bills based on how close they are to onshore wind turbines.", "The chancellor's mini-Budget is under scrutiny, as Boris Johnson hints at more help for hard-pressed families.", "There is doubt over a Boris Johnson claim that P&O Ferries may have broken a law by sacking 800 staff suddenly.", "The firm says it didn't break law over sackings as it shares details of £36.5m compensation plan.", "The UK reveals more sanctions as Boris Johnson and other Nato leaders meet to discuss the war in Ukraine.", "Oksana Baulina died while filming destruction caused by Russian shelling in a Kyiv neighbourhood.", "Mariana Vishegirskaya, a beauty blogger, has reportedly given birth to a baby girl.", "Images of the convoy's redeployment appear to signal a renewed push towards the Ukrainian capital.", "Parents seeking gender transition for their children may not be investigated for so-called abuse.", "The UK says it is sending more medical aid to Ukraine after 25 attacks on health centres.", "Ukrainian cities are now occupied by Russian troops, and residents are not making them feel welcome.", "Russia has denied asking Beijing for help, with Beijing calling the claim \"disinformation\".", "England have to settle for a draw in the first Test against West Indies despite a spirited performance on the final day in Antigua.", "Protesters demand change a year since clashes with police at an unauthorised vigil for Sarah Everard.", "Politicians who voted to recognise two areas of Ukraine as independent have their UK assets frozen.", "The Financial Conduct Authority warns that all crypto-ATMs in the UK are operating illegally.", "Vladimir Putin paves the way for foreign fighters to join the war, while Russia widens its attacks.", "An analysis by the Trades Union Congress suggests bills will rise 14 times faster than pay this year.", "Cristiano Ronaldo scores a hat-trick as Manchester United beat Tottenham to move into the Champions League places.", "New attempts are under way to get civilians out of bombed Ukrainian cities as Russia's attack intensifies.", "The picturesque western city of Lviv is racing to protect is cultural and religious artefacts.", "The US president restated that his country's military would not directly intervene against Russia.", "Delhi blames a \"technical malfunction\" for the incident, which it called \"deeply regrettable\".", "France keep alive their dreams of a first Grand Slam and Six Nations title since 2010 with a tense 13-9 victory over Wales.", "Micheál Martin says EU-UK cooperation on Ukraine suggests it should be possible to resolve protocol.", "Extraction unit evacuating orphanages in the war zone say traffickers targeted children at the Ukraine border.", "As Russian forces continue their slow advance, Kyiv's residents fear the worst for their city.", "The Premier League disqualifies Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a director of the club and sleeve sponsor Hyundai suspend deal with the European champions.", "In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian forces are battling to stop the Russian advance.", "BBC correspondents Lyse Doucet and Jenny Hill answer readers' questions on Ukraine", "Funerals are held for the first Ukrainian victims of the Ukraine-Russia war.", "Social media channels and private messaging groups are being used to recruit, the BBC has learned.", "The range of charges on which the men were convicted included terrorism and holding \"deviant beliefs\".", "A form of Omicron called BA.2 is now the most common variant in most of the UK, figures suggest.", "A Norwegian computer expert has made a system for volunteers to email millions of Russian people about the war", "Lucas was given only a 15% chance of survival when he was born at Liverpool Women's Hospital.", "England have promised physicality, but will also need unseen accuracy and ambition to derail a resurgent Ireland in Twickenham showdown.", "Chelsea's credit card facilities are temporarily suspended while banks assess the implications of the sanctions imposed on Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.", "Wales' first minister strongly criticises UK government's handling of Ukrainian refugee crisis.", "The Queen will not attend next week's service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace says.", "Samuel Crawford, 28, was \"one of the brightest lights in our congregation\" says his family minister.", "According to eyewitness accounts from the area, a nearby airfield was hit by strikes.", "Ireland keep their hopes of a Six Nations title alive as they finally see off a valiant, spirited England.", "It comes after the BBC is shown a letter which also claims \"gay affection\" is cut from Pixar content.", "Zak Crawley hits his second Test hundred as England dominate West Indies on day four of the first Test to set up an outside chance of victory.", "Images from Russia's invasion of Ukraine show a conflict turning deadlier nearly three weeks on.", "Russian-British media mogul Evgeny Lebedev responds to reports he was flagged as a security risk.", "\"We need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,\" the Russian leader said.", "The president accuses the Russians of \"moving to a new stage of terror\" as Melitopol residents protest.", "Neil Gillingham, from Kilmarnock, went missing on a walk with his dog last Sunday on Stob Coire Sgreamhach.", "Richard Ratcliffe said he was \"deeply grateful\" for his wife's release from Iran after nearly six years.", "Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.", "The monarch, 95, greeted Canada's governor general the day after the Commonwealth Service.", "Mandi Arnold, 35, says welcoming more people into her busy home will mean \"more love, more memories\".", "War in Ukraine", "The UK's largest airport joins British Airways and Virgin Atlantic in easing mask-wearing rules.", "The Russian president signs new law allowing foreign-leased jets to keep flying in Russia.", "Renan Lodi's first-half header puts Manchester United out of the Champions League and sends Atletico Madrid into the quarter-finals.", "Pierre Zakrzewski and Oleksandra Kuvshinova were killed when their vehicle was hit outside Kyiv.", "Boris Johnson says governments failed to \"understand the threat” Vladimir Putin posed after he annexed Crimea.", "It comes as the hermit country has in recent weeks stepped up its weapons testing.", "Ukraine's rail chief says his staff risk their lives to get others to safety amid Russia attacks.", "An unknown number are in prison, with some serving long sentences and others sentenced to death.", "The building in the besieged city of Mariupol was sheltering up to 1,200 people, the deputy mayor says.", "The measures block their entry into Russia but will not impede necessary high-level contacts.", "Boris Johnson says negotiations to free the British-Iranian woman are \"going right up to the wire\".", "With no medical help, some are falling ill while sheltering from attacks in besieged Mariupol.", "Liverpool close the gap on Premier League leaders Manchester City to a single point after beating Arsenal, who miss the chance to consolidate their place in the top four.", "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has rocked global oil prices and pushed up the cost of fuel in the UK.", "The Ricketts family, who own Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs, and a consortium featuring Lord Coe, both intend to make a bid for Chelsea by Friday's deadline.", "Frank Fishwick, 86, died after he confronted a group of youths outside his flat in Preston.", "Anoosheh Ashoori's relatives say his release from Iran after five years \"has been a long time coming\".", "The ex-partner of Teddie Mitchell's killer says she \"tried so hard to tell everybody what he was like\".", "Hundreds of young men across Africa say they want to take up arms in Ukraine.", "Investigators found that the blaze in Paisley in June 2020 began when bedding was set on fire.", "The quake in the north-east derails a bullet train and briefly cuts power to millions of homes.", "It was feared Mark Vande Hei might be left behind due to tensions over Russia's Ukrainian invasion.", "The church's investment funds want TotalEnergies to leave Russia, like rivals BP and Shell.", "Ukraine's leader invoked the horror of the 2001 attacks on the US as he pleaded for more military aid.", "A safeguarding report concludes the drugs search was unjustified and racism was a \"likely\" factor.", "Identifying credible journalism on the internet can be a confusing experience - this is why we are making greater efforts to explain what type of information you are reading or watching on our site.", "The bill is one of the most important to come before the assembly, says the health minister.", "Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says his home was burgled during his side's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.", "Belfast is set to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade since the coronavirus pandemic.", "Atrium Underwriters admits three charges relating to bullying and misconduct on 'boys' nights out'.", "Marks and Spencer, Burger King, Marriott and Accor say they cannot shut outlets due to franchise deals.", "The influx of refugees and Russian security threats leaves Poland feeling vulnerable.", "Children of the 1989 generation won't enjoy the same freedoms as their parents, writes Nick Robinson in Berlin.", "Edward Meenan's body was found in an alleyway in Creggan Street in Londonderry on 25 November 2018.", "NI can play a full role in housing refugees despite Stormont's absence, Michael Gove says.", "More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in the capital.", "Sixteen women with incurable secondary breast cancer are campaigning for access to better services.", "A sign language bill is being developed, but executive approval is needed, says Deirdre Hargey.", "London-Tehran relations are better, and Iran no longer feels it needs Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as leverage.", "The row comes as Russia strikes reportedly hit civilians, including a theatre turned shelter in Mariupol.", "After a perilous train journey from Poland to Kyiv, European leaders tell Ukraine \"you're not alone\".", "Failures in England pre-date the pandemic, as waiting times rise, a cross-party group says.", "The new style of electricity pylon is designed to reduce the impact on the local environment.", "PC Jonathon Cobban, PC William Neville and ex-officer Joel Borders will stand trial in July.", "Marina Ovsyannikova's protest highlighted a growing number of journalists leaving their jobs at Kremlin-run TV channels.", "The news raises questions over why senior Russian officers are getting so close to the fighting.", "Get our news coverage on your phone or tablet and discover a range of compelling features.", "Other restrictions will be dropped on 21 March, but masks will remain due to a rise in Covid cases.", "The RSPCA says it has \"started the process of bringing a prosecution\" against West Ham's Kurt Zouma and brother Yoan for their roles in filming Kurt kicking a cat.", "Unable to flee, Anna gave birth at home in Ukraine without medical assistance, electricity or running water.", "The country's very youngest are casualties of a hunger crisis.", "The occupants of Braemar Lodge Hotel in Aberdeenshire escaped uninjured after the alarm was raised.", "The star thanks fans who held onto tickets for two years as his Heavy Is The Head tour launches.", "Racism is \"pervasive\" in chemical sciences, according to an investigation by the Royal Society of Chemistry.", "A birth amid a revolution, and an unpaid arms deal debt having ramifications decades on.", "What might Putin want, to be able to come out of the war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband is awaiting his wife's return from Iran after years of campaigning.", "War in Ukraine", "Recording drinking in patients' notes will help spot patterns that can harm babies, advice for the NHS says.", "Marina Ovsyannikova's moment of protest on TV was extraordinary - but she now faces prosecution.", "RQIA inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in a care home run by the Charity Praxis Care.", "Climate", "Boris Johnson says negotiations to free the British-Iranian woman are \"going right up to the wire\".", "About 40% of Northern Ireland's corn supply is sourced from Ukraine, the agriculture minister says.", "Boris Johnson's visit aims to build a coalition against President Putin, and secure energy supplies.", "Charles Leclerc wins a close battle with Red Bull's Max Verstappen before taking a classy victory in a dramatic season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.", "A source tells the BBC that up to 200 soldiers were at the Mykolaiv barracks when missiles hit.", "The state energy firm Saudi Aramco said it would increase investment after profits more than doubled in 2021.", "The government is examining the legality of the ferry firm's actions, the chancellor confirms.", "North Moreton, in Oxfordshire, is hoping to take in up to 60 people who have fled the war.", "Boris Jonson says he spoke to the Ukrainian president by telephone on Friday morning.", "The Ukrainian president's appeal comes as fierce fighting continues, 23 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.", "But chancellor Rishi Sunak says it was \"general observations about freedom\", not a direct comparison.", "The BBC speaks to hacktivists about past and future attacks in their \"cyber war\" against Vladimir Putin.", "Russia says it fired a Kinzhal missile at a Ukrainian arms depot, in an apparent change of strategy.", "The decision to ditch standard Russian uniforms was interpreted as a show of solidarity for Ukraine.", "Fiona Beal has been charged with murder after being arrested at a hotel in Cumbria.", "Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine shook the West. Now its leaders are trying to predict his next move.", "France strut to a first Grand Slam in 12 years as they run in three tries to comfortably see off England in front of a jubilant Stade de France.", "Maher Maaroufe has been arrested on suspicion of murder over the death of Sabita Thanwani, 19.", "Forget shock and awe, this is an era of caution for a superpower using diplomacy not military force.", "Nottingham Forest and Liverpool will face each other in the FA Cup for the first time since 1989.", "Romelu Lukaku scores his 12th goal of the season as Chelsea beat Championship side Middlesbrough to reach the FA Cup semi-finals.", "A 15-year-old girl has also been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving, police say.", "Video shows destroyed blocks of flats and a shopping mall in the besieged Ukrainian port city.", "\"They were shaking their waists like nobody's business,\" said a local woman who danced with the duke.", "Liverpool will play Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley after they edge past Nottingham Forest in a pulsating quarter-final at the City Ground.", "LeBron James passes Karl Malone to become the NBA's second all-time leading scorer, despite the Los Angeles Lakers' loss to the Washington Wizards.", "At a children's hospital near the besieged city, the true impact of Russia's tactics are on display.", "The couple were all smiles as they began their week-long tour celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.", "Russia's president revealed his peace conditions in a phone call - the BBC spoke to someone who listened in.", "What might Putin want, to be able to come out of the war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?", "A woman who left Mariupol's theatre a day before the bombing says Russia had been targeting the area.", "The boy was arrested and the driver of the car was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital.", "Small and medium sized firms, including recruiters, are organising support for arriving refugees.", "Street fighting hampers efforts to rescue civilians trapped in a bombed theatre, the mayor says.", "One worker, who lost his job, describes treatment of staff on Thursday as \"absolutely brutal\".", "Senior Western defence and intelligence experts outline the battlefield errors made by Moscow.", "Detectives want to speak to Maher Maaroufe, 22, following the death of 19-year-old Sabita Thanwani.", "Six fire appliances were sent to deal with the massive blaze on the Wirral Peninsula.", "The DUP leader says his party will do \"everything in our power\" to ensure workers get support.", "Iryna has been waiting anxiously to find out if her sister Olya and her family would make it to the UK.", "Police have charged a 24-year-old man in what they allege was a \"hate-motivated incident\".", "The 15-year-old schoolgirl was taken out of an exam and strip-searched by two female Met officers.", "The jet is being held at London Biggin Hill airport while it is investigated if it falls under UK sanctions.", "Dozens more are injured in the crash, which the mayor of the town says is a \"national catastrophe\".", "Because of his miscalculations, there's a new iron curtain at the Russian leader’s door - writes Allan Little", "Up to five million elderly and vulnerable people will be eligible, with the first invites sent this week.", "Complaints include riding on the pavement, anti-social behaviour and underage use.", "A woman has died after being found with serious injuries at a student halls in central London.", "One of the prime sources for fake news on Twitter comes straight from the Kremlin's network of Twitter accounts.", "The deputy mayor of Mariupol says he believes hundreds of people have died in the Russian onslaught.", "Two men are arrested after the teenager was shot in Liverpool while waiting for a bus after school.", "Personal trainer Tom Mansfield died after miscalculating the amount of caffeine powder in drink.", "The two pieces, owned by Robbie Williams, went under the hammer in London on Wednesday.", "The High Court dismisses a post-Soviet mining firm's claim an author's book about dirty money was libellous.", "For thousands like Donald Dick, living in temporary accommodation is an ongoing struggle.", "The US president calls Russia's president a \"dictator\" and vows to punish him over the Ukraine invasion.", "The UK government has authorised the emergency use of a type of pesticide almost entirely banned in the EU because of the harm it can cause to bees.", "The decision comes amid warnings the war in Ukraine could become a \"crypto conflict\".", "Anna Jakubova, from Moscow, says she is horrified and ashamed by what is happening in Ukraine.", "The supermarket chain says it is planning to close 200 of its in-store cafes next month.", "Russia has underestimated Ukraine and the West's resolve, says PM as he meets allies overseas.", "Meanwhile the Russian president insists his invasion is \"going to plan\", despite only taking one major city.", "The famous couple were married nearly eight years ago and share four children.", "Videos from social media show tanks retreating and locals telling soldiers to go back to Russia.", "The cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv suffer fierce shelling despite talks between Russia and Ukraine.", "Suffolk County Council says it is working to end the partnership due to the invasion of Ukraine.", "Dozens of people have been killed in Russian missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials say.", "Customers won't be able to use Apple Pay, while sportswear firm Nike is no longer taking online orders.", "The Labour leader urges Boris Johnson to sanction more individuals linked to Vladimir Putin's regime.", "The Russian leader has always refused to back down in the past, says the BBC's John Simpson.", "Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he plans to sell the Premier League club.", "US technology giants Netflix and Oracle are the latest to move to distance themselves from Russia", "As Russia pounds Ukraine's second largest city with artillery, residents flee or hunker underground.", "One of the world's biggest fashion retailers said it was deeply concerned about conflict in Ukraine.", "Surrey Police failed to recognise Aliny Godinho was high risk before her ex-husband killed her.", "The foreign secretary says Belarus \"actively aids and abets Russia’s illegal invasion\" of Ukraine.", "But preventable cases of the disease could surge in black and Asian groups, analysis suggests.", "Watch as politicians stand and clap for Vadym Prystaiko, who was attending Prime Minister's Questions.", "Video show a deadly Russian strike in Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv.", "Boris Johnson is confronted by a visibly angry Ukrainian who questions some of the sanctions on Russia.", "No one was arrested immediately after the killing of Martin O'Hagan, despite individuals being named, BBC finds.", "Efforts to keep Russian jets away from Ukraine could lead to a larger war in Europe, Ben Wallace warns.", "Members of the International Energy Agency agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from stockpiles.", "Watch as a crowd in the north-eastern city of Kupiansk try to stop the vehicle from leaving.", "Oil and gas prices continue to march upward as Western nations clamp down on major producer Russia.", "He said he was deeply moved by Ukrainians' strength amid \"terrible aggression\" from Russia.", "We talk to some of the people responding to President Zelensky's appeal for foreigners to join in the defence of his country", "Communities across Poland, and particularly along the border, are rallying to help people who have fled Ukraine.", "Liza Grach emotionally recounts escaping to Germany with her child - but without her husband.", "Russia's space agency is refusing to launch OneWeb satellites part-owned by the UK government.", "The war in Ukraine has led to outrage in the West, but in Russia TV viewers see a very different story.", "The train driver left his cab in a spot he wouldn't normally be expected to, investigators said.", "Authorities say five people were killed in the Russian attack on the civilian-run tower in the capital.", "More disruption is set for Thursday, as Londoners continue to feel the impact of Tuesday's action.", "Soaring oil prices and Covid effects will push up air fares this summer, says Michael O'Leary.", "But Mikhail Fridman avoids criticising President Putin as it could be risky for himself and staff.", "Polish people in Northern Ireland are among those collecting supplies for people fleeing Ukraine.", "Ukraine says Russia has attacked the main television tower in the capital, killing five people.", "The Russian currency sinks to a record low against the dollar after Western countries impose new sanctions.", "The games publisher says it \"stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people\".", "Jim Crossley died after he was stabbed at a house in Filbert Drive on Tuesday night.", "The Southern Trust says medical teams did everything possible to resuscitate the patient.", "The attack near Babyn Yar, where thousands of Jews were murdered, is tragically symbolic, Jewish leaders say.", "A ship carrying thousands of luxury cars has sunk nearly two weeks after it caught fire.", "Russia's bombing of innocent civilians in Ukraine already amounts to war crimes, prime minister says.", "Four things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.", "Athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete as neutrals at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing.", "Ros Atkins looks at the history of nuclear tensions and deals between the US and Russia.", "A man known to Clive Warrington, 67, and his ex-wife Valerie Warrington, 73, has been arrested.", "His primetime speech to the American people was actually dominated by one big issue.", "A total of 39 Vietnamese people were found dead after a failed people-smuggling operation in 2019.", "The 2.7% increase will come in the same week millions of workers face a National Insurance hike.", "Regulations requiring care workers to be vaccinated against Covid are being lifted from mid-March in England.", "Watch the moment diplomats in Geneva turned their backs on Sergey Lavrov as he spoke via video link.", "In February, shop prices rose at their fastest rate in over 10 years, according to one industry group.", "Hundreds of casualties are reported as major cities remain under attack from Russian forces.", "Joanna is opening her home in Poland to Ukraine refugees seeking shelter after reaching the border."], "section": [null, "Business", "Europe", "Business", "Business", "UK", "UK", "UK Politics", "Northampton", "UK", "Europe", "UK Politics", "Technology", "UK Politics", "Northampton", "Europe", "Wales", null, "London", "Business", "UK", "Europe", "China", "UK", null, "Europe", "Europe", "Europe", "Health", "Berkshire", "Sheffield & South Yorkshire", "Technology", "UK Politics", "Northern Ireland", "UK", null, "UK", "Europe", "Europe", "World", "UK", "Scotland", "Europe", 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failure at the first corner of the final lap leaving Lewis Hamilton to take the final podium place for Mercedes.\n\nHamilton had looked set for fifth place as Mercedes' pace problems became ever clearer during the race but Red Bull's nightmare provided the seven-time champion an unexpected boost.\n\nThe irony that Hamilton gained from Red Bull's misfortune in the first race after he lost the world title in the controversial climax to last season will be lost on few.\n\nLeclerc's victory was out of the top drawer and underlined his quality as one of the leading lights of the new generation.\n\nAnd if Ferrari can stay competitive throughout this long, 23-race season, he will be a serious contender for the championship.\n\nIt was clean getaway for every car at the start\n\nVerstappen should have taken second place but he suffered as Red Bull's day imploded in the final three laps.\n\nThe Dutchman tried his best, fighting vigorously with Leclerc after their first pit stops but ultimately losing out in the fight, and was looking set for a frustrated second place before his race unravelled.\n\nHe had already started to complain about heavy steering, and then a lap into the final sprint after the safety car he asked what was happening with the battery. He slowed and pulled into the pits with three laps to go.\n\nSainz moved into second and Perez was left holding off Hamilton for third place.\n\nThe Mexican was also suffering problems but was managing to keep Hamilton just at bay when he spun at the start of the final lap as the engine suddenly stopped and Red Bull went from second and fourth to nothing in a few moments.\n\nTeam principal Christian Horner said he did not yet know what had gone wrong but it \"looks like an issue in the fuel system\" for both cars.\n\nVerstappen said: \"It looked like there was no fuel coming to the engine and everything just turned off so I just rolled into the pit lane.\"\n\nAfter snatching pole position from Verstappen with the very final lap of qualifying, Leclerc held off the Dutchman's charge at the first corner and consolidated his lead through the first stint.\n\nThe Monegasque was 3.7 seconds in front by the time Verstappen made his first pit stop, but when Leclerc stopped the next time around, the Red Bull was right on the Ferrari's tail.\n\nThe defining period of the race followed.\n\nVerstappen tracked Leclerc for a lap before diving down the inside into the lead into Turn One at the start of lap 17.\n\nLeclerc repassed Verstappen around the outside into Turn Four, cutting across Verstappen as he edged ahead, but remained under threat.\n\nVerstappen passed again at Turn One the next time around, and again Leclerc re-took the lead into Turn Four, this time diving to the inside.\n\nVerstappen tried again into Turn One for a third time the next time around, but locked his front tyre, and slid straight on, allowing Leclerc to retake the lead.\n\nFrom there, the Ferrari driver eked out his advantage again, building a lead of close to five seconds.\n\nThe last few crazy laps\n\nAfter that, the Ferrari driver had just that bit too much pace for Verstappen.\n\nRealising they had nothing to lose, Red Bull threw the dice with just over 10 laps to go, fitting soft tyres to Verstappen's and Perez's cars for a final sprint to the flag.\n\nFerrari chose not to follow Verstappen in with Leclerc but the new dynamic had no time to play out as Pierre Gasly pulled off with his Alpha Tauri in flames and the safety car was deployed.\n\nLeclerc judged the restart beautifully, while Verstappen's attempt to harry Leclerc before he bolted from the last corner backfired and he came under pressure from Sainz.\n\nHe held him off, only for his race to unravel.\n\nGeorge Russell took fourth for Mercedes ahead of the revived Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas' Alfa Romeo, a strong drive from the Finn after a dreadful start dropped him right down the field from his sixth place on the grid.\n\nThe new rules introduced this year with the aim of closing up the field and making overtaking easier have certainly shuffled the pack, with Mercedes and McLaren the biggest losers and Ferrari and Haas gaining most.\n\nBut the race did not provide sufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion to be drawn as to whether their prime intentions have succeeded.\n\nWhat happens next?\n\nThe Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next weekend - last year's maiden race on the fast Jeddah street circuit was dramatic.", "Many English councils have already said they intend to end their deals with the Russian energy giant\n\nThe UK arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom could be placed into administration in the coming days, the BBC understands.\n\nBloomberg reported the government is preparing to step in and temporarily run Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail Ltd, which supplies thousands of organisations across the UK.\n\nIt is understood the government is looking at all options and monitoring the situation closely.\n\nOne possibility could be to put the company into special administration, where it is temporarily run on behalf of the government.\n\nLast November, the UK energy company Bulb was placed into special administration, with £1.7bn in government funds set aside to keep it trading.\n\nThe company's UK retail operation does not sell gas from its parent company in Russia, but a number of companies and councils are thought to be trying to end their contracts with the company in protest at Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGazprom itself has also been sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nEarlier this month, a number of councils in England told the BBC they were looking to end their Gazprom contracts as soon as possible.\n\nAccording to the public services data firm Tussell, UK public sector contracts amounted to £107m in total between 2016 and 2021.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid also urged NHS trusts to stop using energy supplied by Gazprom.\n\nA government spokesperson would not be drawn on its plans for Gazprom's UK unit but said the UK \"was in no way\" dependent on Russian gas.\n\n\"Our highly diverse sources of gas supply and a diverse electricity mix ensures that households, businesses, and heavy industry get the energy they need,\" they said.\n\n\"We are aware that Gazprom Energy has a large presence in the non-domestic energy retail market.\n\n\"Gazprom's retail business continues to trade in the UK and customers should exercise their own commercial judgement with regards to energy supply contracts they have in place at the moment.\"\n\nGazprom has been approached for comment.\n\nA spokesperson for McDonald's said it was trying to exit its deal \"at the earliest opportunity\" while Siemens UK said it was looking at the terms of cancelling supply contracts with Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail.\n\n\"We support the severe and broad sanctions applied by western governments and are ensuring that we act in compliance with them,\" it said.", "A few days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one of Russia's largest media companies, Russian Media Group (RMG), released a statement explaining why it would no longer be playing certain artists on its popular radio stations or music TV channel.\n\n\"The reason for this decision was the harsh statements these musicians made towards Russia in the context of the difficult situation between Russia and Ukraine,\" the statement read.\n\nIt explained that respect for its listeners was the company's top priority, and the \"arrogant and contemptuous attitude of the musicians towards Russian listeners\" left it no choice but to terminate its contract with the artists.\n\nThe list included several Ukrainian musicians and three Russian acts, including legendary rock group Aquarium, whose lead singer, Boris Grebenshchikov, had called the war \"madness\" in a post on Instagram. He is no stranger to political pressure.\n\n\"I've spent half my life under some sort of ban\", Mr Grebenshchikov told the BBC. \"There were bans in the 70s, bans in the 80s - there's nothing unusual about it. Then the same people who ban you give you prizes.\"\n\nThe pressure on dissenting voices in the music industry marks a stark contrast to those artists who are loyal to the Kremlin, some of whom performed last week at a glitzy, made-for-TV stadium concert which featured Vladimir Putin as the headline act.\n\nTens of thousands of people waved Russian flags and chanted pro-Russian slogans at the event celebrating the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Many of them told the BBC they had been pressured to be there.\n\nOleg Gazmanov performed at a pro-Kremlin rally to celebrate the annexation of Crimea\n\nOn the first day of the war, Ukrainian singer Ivan Dorn published a video on Instagram calling for Russians to \"end this catastrophe\" and \"not to participate in this murderous war\".\n\nDays later he found himself on the list of acts banned by the Russian Media Group, and his name appeared on another \"black list\" leaked to Russian media, demanding that certain musicians are banned from performing because of their anti-war views. The list was reportedly circulated to music venues and promoters in Russia.\n\nBut Mr Dorn told the BBC that being blacklisted in Russia made no difference to him.\n\n\"Any cooperation with Russia was impossible even before the announcement of any list,\" he said.\n\n\"Does anyone within the organs of the Russian state really think we want to work with the aggressors who are exterminating the Ukrainian nation, murdering thousands of innocent people, building a totalitarian regime and putting their own people in jail for dissent?\"\n\nUkrainian singer Ivan Dorn called on Russians to \"stop this catastrophe\"\n\nIt isn't clear who created the \"black list\" or where it originated, and the BBC cannot confirm its authenticity, but music industry insiders say such documents are not uncommon.\n\n\"It's never indicated where they come from - no name, phone number, email, official stamp. It can look like a fake - just a printed list with the names of musicians, writers or comedians,\" music manager Elena Saveleva told the BBC. Her client, rapper Noize MC, is on the list.\n\nAccording to Ms Saveleva, pressure on promoters usually comes from regional security services, with officials turning up at concert halls and threatening them with closures and fines.\n\nThe art director of Moscow's oldest club, 16 Tons, believes the document could be fake.\n\n\"I haven't seen it and no officials have come to see me, even though usually we are the first club they visit,\" Pavel Kamakin told the BBC.\n\nThe ambiguity surrounding the list's origin makes it difficult for promoters, musicians and venue owners to know how seriously to take it.\n\nWhatever its origins, the list reflects the increasingly unpredictable environment for people in Russia who disagree with the war.\n\nFor some musicians, that means the only option is to perform abroad.\n\nRussian rapper Oxxxymiron, whose name appears on the \"black list\" circulated by Russian media, cancelled his upcoming tour in Russia and has instead organised charity concerts abroad - known as \"Russians Against War\" - to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.\n\nHe raised over $30,000 (£22,760) at a performance in Istanbul, and will appear in London later this week.\n\nAnnouncing the postponement of his Russian tour, Oxxxymiron explained that he could not \"entertain people while Russian rockets fall on Ukraine, while residents of Kyiv are forced to hide in their basements and the metro, and while people are dying\".", "P&O Ferries' sacking of 800 staff without warning last week was \"awful\" and \"wrong\", Chancellor Rishi Sunak has told the BBC.\n\nThe government is examining the legality of the firm's actions, the chancellor confirmed.\n\nHowever, the Sunday Times reports that ministers knew of the plan to sack crew beforehand, but failed to challenge it.\n\nThe Department for Transport said \"full details\" were not available at that stage.\n\nA memo sent to ministers by a senior Whitehall official - and seen by the Sunday Times - outlined P&O Ferries' strategy before the sackings took place, the newspaper said.\n\nAccording to the Sunday Times, the note said the sackings were designed to ensure P&O remained \"a key player in the UK market for years to come through restructuring\".\n\nThe memo, as reported in the newspaper, said: \"We understand that P&O Ferries have an intention to try and re-employ many staff on new terms and conditions or use agency staff to restart routes; they estimate disruption to services lasting 10 days.\"\n\nIt was circulated before Thursday's announcement, made over Zoom, telling 800 P&O staff that they were losing their jobs with immediate effect.\n\nThe news was met with outrage from trades unions representing crew and ministers responded with strong criticism, announcing they would review all government contracts with the firm.\n\nMr Sunak, speaking to Sophie Raworth on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, said P&O's approach was \"appalling in the way that they've treated their workers\".\n\nThe government does not appear to have voiced concerns directly to P&O before the sackings.\n\nThe Department for Transport (DfT) said it was standard practice for officials to outline what they had been told by a private firm in an internal memo.\n\n\"This was sent before ministers were advised of the full details and as soon as they were informed, they made clear their outrage at the way in which P&O staff had been dismissed,\" a DfT spokesperson said.\n\nThe DfT said the memo made clear that the department's priority was to \"work with unions to ensure workers' rights continue to be protected\".\n\nThe transport secretary had urged the company to \"sit down with workers and reconsider this action\", the DfT added. Grant Shapps has said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move.\n\nProtests have taken place outside the P&O head office near Dover\n\nLouise Haigh MP, Labour's shadow transport secretary, said: \"This bombshell letter proves that the government was not only aware of P&O ferries' scandalous action - but complicit in it.\n\n\"They knew people's livelihoods were on the line and they knew P&O was attempting to use exploitative fire and rehire practices. But they sat back and did nothing.\"\n\nIn a statement, P&O Ferries said: \"We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn't survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.\"\n\nChris Parker, a director at DFDS, one of P&O's competitors, told the BBC that his company is prepared to hire some of those sacked by P&O Ferries.\n\n\"We reduced the capacity of vessels quite sharply during the pandemic because of social distancing. We're increasing that back up again now and we're looking for some staff to come in and help us with that,\" he said.\n\nP&O Ferries is owned by Dubai logistics giant DP World which is, in turn, controlled by the Dubai sovereign wealth fund.\n\nLast year, DP World's revenue soared by more than a fifth to over £3.7bn ($4.9bn) as the global economy began to pick up after coronavirus lockdowns. The company received support of around £10m during the pandemic to furlough 1,100 workers.", "The RMT union has not offered proof of the hourly rate and P&O will not comment on agency workers' pay\n\nIndian agency workers hired to replace P&O Ferries crews in Dover are being paid £1.81 an hour, a union claims.\n\nThe Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said the low pay was a \"shocking exploitation\" and \"a betrayal of those who have been sacked\".\n\nP&O said the figure was inaccurate but said it could not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.\n\nSome of P&O's ferries are registered in Cyprus, meaning they do not have to pay the minimum wage required by UK law.\n\nFirms using UK ports often register ships in other countries, allowing them to pay lower wages.\n\nThe minimum wage in the UK for people aged 23 and above is £8.91 per hour.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told Parliament: \"Maritime employees have not, in this country, indeed throughout much of the world, received some of the same benefits and protections that exist otherwise for workers and this is simply not good enough and it's a practice we have been seeking to end.\"\n\nHe said ships in UK waters operated under international law governed by treaties, so UK law did not always apply.\n\n\"These complications allow for employers to take advantage in a way that we've seen I think with P&O Ferries,\" Mr Shapps added.\n\nMr Shapps told MPs that he first found out about the prospect of P&O redundancies at 20:30 GMT the evening before the workers were being sacked, but he said it wasn't until he was at the despatch box the next day that he was made fully aware of the scale.\n\nPreviously, officials at the Department of Transport had told the BBC that Mr Shapps and the maritime minister Robert Courts had not been informed until Thursday.\n\nShadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said government ministers had \"completely failed to act\" and the reported rates of pay were \"nothing short of a betrayal of the workers who protected this country's supply chain during the pandemic\".\n\nA spokesman for P&O said safety was the utmost priority and the new crewing management model was used by many competitors.\n\n\"They have recruited high-quality experienced seafarers, who will now familiarise themselves with the ships, going through all mandatory training requirements set out by our regulators,\" he said.\n\nMr Shapps said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O Ferries.\n\nHe had asked the insolvency service whether P&O had followed rules for redundancies - and if they had not, \"that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines\".\n\nMr Shapps also told MPs P&O Ferries should remove British references from their ships if they replace sacked workers with non-UK staff.\n\nThe Spirit of Britain, Pride of Canterbury and Pride of Hull are among the names used for the operator's ferries.\n\nThe Transport Secretary told MPs it would be \"completely inappropriate\" for the company to \"attach themselves to this country\" without having British workers.\n\nProtests took place close to Parliament and also outside the London offices of P&O owners, DP World on Monday.\n\nJohn, a former seafarer with P&O Ferries based in Dover said the redundancies were \"a catastrophe\" for all crew involved and he wants the company's chief executive to resign.\n\n\"A company who had built up its reputation over 180 years just to be trashed in one single morning of madness by those responsible.\n\n\"It's not just a job, it's a home and to be kicked off the ship in the most unceremonious way...it's a catastrophe for all our lives,\" John, who did not want to give his surname, added.\n\nHe expects to lose his severance pay for speaking out to media, but said he \"knew the difference between right and wrong\".\n\nRMT general secretary Mick Lynch said P&O staff were \"being replaced by exploited workers, vulnerable workers from overseas\".\n\n\"We have no beef with those people. We want those people to be paid the wages that we've negotiated for in this country,\" he said.\n\nThe union has called for a boycott of P&O services and is urging the government to look at legal options to reinstate the sacked workers.\n\nFerries between Liverpool and Dublin have restarted and other routes are expected to follow by the end of the week.\n\nProtests have taken place over the sackings\n\nServices were stopped on Thursday after P&O announced in a video call that 800 staff were being sacked with immediate effect.\n\nThe M20 in Kent will close between junctions 8 and 9 from 20:00 GMT while a barrier system is put in place to manage any disruption caused by P&O freight, National Highways said.\n\nThe motorway is expected to reopen at 06:00 GMT on Tuesday when lorries heading for the Port of Dover or the Eurotunnel will use the coastbound carriageway on the M20, where they will be queued if necessary.\n\nAll other traffic - including local freight and car drivers headed for the continent - should follow the signs and cross over to enter the contraflow on the M20 London bound carriageway, National Highways said.", "Morad Tahbaz and fellow conservationists were using cameras to track endangered species when they were arrested\n\nThe family of a British-US national who they expected to be freed by Iran last week as part of a deal with the UK has gone on hunger strike, they say.\n\nMorad Tahbaz, 66, who also has Iranian citizenship, has been confined to a hotel, the Foreign Office has said.\n\nHis sister Taraneh told the BBC his family was \"absolutely distraught\" and feared he would be forgotten about.\n\nThe Foreign Office says it is continuing to lobby Iran at the highest levels for Mr Tahbaz to be released.\n\nHopes had been raised that Mr Tahbaz would be freed when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released and flew back to the UK on Thursday, but he was returned to Evin prison on Friday.\n\nThe Foreign Office said it had been informed by the Iranians this move was in order for Mr Tahbaz to have an electronic ankle bracelet fitted. On Sunday, the Foreign Office said he had been moved to a hotel in Tehran.\n\nAppearing alongside Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe at a news conference on Monday, Mr Tahbaz's daughter, Roxanne, said the family had been led to believe her father would be released with the other dual nationals.\n\n\"From the outset, we were always assured by the [UK government] that my father would be included in any deal that was made to release all of the hostages.\n\n\"So we're truly devastated, knowing now that this was not the case.\"\n\nRoxanne Tahbaz said the family \"just want them [the UK government] to do whatever they have to do\" to bring her father and mother, who is also subject to a travel ban inside Iran, back home.\n\nSpeaking on the Today programme earlier, Taraneh Tahbaz said Mr Tahbaz had gone on hunger strike.\n\n\"He continues to be used as a pawn on a chessboard and it's very distressing,\" she said. \" We're agonised and we're absolutely distraught and we don't know what the next moves are.\"\n\nMr Tahbaz was doing conservation work when he was held in Iran in January 2018.\n\nFamily photo of Morad Tahbaz, as a younger man, with his family\n\nHe and seven other conservationists were accused of collecting classified information about Iran's strategic areas under the pretext of carrying out environmental and scientific projects.\n\nThe conservationists - members of Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation - had been using cameras to track endangered species including the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, according to Amnesty International.\n\nAll eight denied the charges and Amnesty International said there was evidence that they had been subjected to torture in order to extract forced \"confessions\".\n\nHe was sentenced to 10 years in prison with his colleagues on vague charges of spying for the US and undermining Iran's security.\n\nLast year, UN human rights experts warned that Mr Tahbaz, who has cancer and has twice had Covid, had been denied access to proper treatment in prison despite his health condition deteriorating.", "Morad 'should've come home with us'\n\nNazanin says there were many moments when her hopes were dashed while awaiting her release from prison. \"I felt like I was left behind,\" she says, adding that she fully understands what Morad Tahbaz is going through at the moment. \"You can easily lose faith in everything\" she says, and she herself had been through it at least twice over the course of six years. \"It should not have happened to Morad\" she says - or the other dual nationals still being held. \"He should have come home with us.\"", "Ben Wallace, shown here at the Conservative spring conference, revealed he was targeted last week\n\nTwo prominent Russian hoaxers have published footage from a call they made to the UK defence secretary.\n\nIn a recording posted online, Ben Wallace can be heard speaking to a man in a video call, made while Mr Wallace was visiting Poland on Friday.\n\nMr Wallace revealed the hoax last week, saying he had been targeted by an \"imposter\" posing as the Ukrainian PM.\n\nThe UK government has blamed Russia for targeting British ministers with fake calls about the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel revealed she had received a hoax call last week, whilst No 10 said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has also been targeted.\n\nThe recording of the video call to Mr Wallace was posted online by Vladimir \"Vovan\" Kuznetsov and Alexei \"Lexus\" Stolyarov.\n\nThe pair have targeted a number of politicians and public figures in the past. They were credited with a hoax call to then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson in 2018, in which he was targeted by a caller pretending to be the prime minister of Armenia.\n\nPrevious recordings of their alleged conversations have been aired on Russian TV.\n\nIn the published footage, which lasts around a minute, Mr Wallace, shown in a car, is asked questions about an alleged nuclear weapons programme for Ukraine.\n\nA defence source told the BBC the clip had been \"doctored\".\n\nAfter the video was published, Mr Wallace said: \"Things must be going so badly for the Kremlin that they are now resorting to pranks and video fakes.\"\n\nEarlier, Boris Johnson's spokesman told reporters that \"the Russian state was responsible for the hoax telephone calls made to UK ministers last week\".\n\nThe spokesman did not give further details, but added: \"This is standard practice for Russian information operations.\n\n\"Disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try to distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there.\"\n\nIt is understood that Mr Wallace was put through to a Microsoft Teams video call which lasted about 10 minutes.\n\nThe video call was set up after an email, purportedly from an aide at the Ukrainian embassy in London, was sent to a UK government department and then forwarded to the Ministry of Defence.\n\nA cross-department government inquiry into how the call happened is ongoing.\n\nAsked whether defences against hoax calls were strong enough, the No 10 spokesman said there was guidance on how such calls should be handled.\n\nThe Russian duo have also claimed to have interviewed politicians including Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and US Senator John McCain.", "Forensic teams attended a house in Moore Street, Northampton at the weekend\n\nA primary school teacher has appeared in court accused of murdering a man whose body was found buried in a back garden.\n\nNicholas Billingham, 42, was found at a house in Moore Street, in the Kingsley area of Northampton, on Saturday.\n\nFiona Beal, 48, who was arrested at a hotel in Cumbria on Wednesday, did not enter a plea at Northampton Magistrates' Court.\n\nShe is accused of killing him between 30 October and 10 November last year.\n\nWearing a grey tracksuit, Ms Beal, a teacher at Eastfield Academy primary school in Northampton, spoke quietly only to give her date of birth and her address, which is Moore Street.\n\nNicholas Billingham's remains have been taken to Leicester for examination\n\nMr Billingham's remains have been taken to Leicester for a forensic examination by a Home Office pathologist.\n\nThey were discovered following a three-day search involving forensic officers, a specialist search team and a cadaver dog, used to locate bodies.\n\nMagistrates committed the case to Northampton Crown Court for a hearing on Tuesday.\n\nMs Beal nodded when asked if she had understood the proceedings.\n\nA spokesperson for Eastfield Academy said the school had been \"shocked and saddened\" to learn Ms Beal had been charged.\n\nThey added: \"We are particularly mindful of the impact this news will have on the children, and will be doing everything we can to support both pupils and staff as we work through this difficult time together.\n\n\"This is an appalling tragedy that will shake our school community to its roots and it's at times like this that we must rally around each other, support each other, and be kind to each other.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.\n\nPeople eligible for an additional Covid jab as part of the spring booster rollout can now book an appointment. Those aged 75 and over, residents in care homes and with weakened immune systems in England are being urged to do so as infections continue to rise across the UK. Read more here.\n\nMost legal restrictions relating to Covid bar wearing face coverings have ended in Scotland. The change means businesses, for example, are no longer required to retain customers' contact details. Face coverings remain due to a surge in cases but the rules will be reviewed in April.\n\nWhile most countries are trying to live with coronavirus, China and Hong Kong have been trying to eliminate it. But they are currently seeing the worst outbreak in more than two years which has raised questions about the zero-Covid strategy. So how long can China hold on to this goal? Find out here.\n\nPost-primary school pupils in Northern Ireland no longer need to wear face coverings in classrooms. The rule introduced during the pandemic has been dropped, bringing Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK and the Irish Republic.\n\nCouncillor Jennifer Burke-Davies says remote council meetings introduced during the pandemic meant she could attend and watch her children. She believes this change has been helpful with childcare. And one academic says this surge in virtual meetings could boost the number of women in local government. Here's the full story.\n\nHere are the full details about who will be offered a Covid booster this spring.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Boris Romantschenko survived detention in four separate concentration camps between 1942 and 1945\n\nA Ukrainian man who survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two has been killed during a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv.\n\nBoris Romantschenko, 96, died during Russian shelling of his apartment block on Friday, relatives said.\n\nRussian forces have been relentlessly shelling Kharkiv, which lies just 30 miles (50km) from the border, for over three weeks.\n\nAt least 500 civilians have now been killed there, Ukrainian officials say.\n\nPolice said one of the victims has been identified as a nine-year old boy.\n\nThe Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation said it was \"deeply disturbed\" by Romantschenko's death.\n\nThe organisation, of which Romantschenko was vice-president, announced the news after being informed by his family and said he had \"worked intensely on the memory of Nazi crimes\".\n\n\"We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times,\" the foundation's statement added.\n\nRomantschenko's death comes more than three weeks after President Vladimir Putin sought to justify his invasion to the Russian people by telling them his goal is to\"de-Nazify Ukraine\".\n\nWestern leaders have condemned these claims and pointed out that Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish.\n\nRomantschenko was born in the north-eastern city of Bondari on 20 January 1926.\n\nHe was rounded up by Nazi troops at the age of 16 after the invasion of the Soviet Union and deported to Germany in 1942, where he was forced to do hard labour, the foundation said.\n\nAfter a failed escape attempt in 1943, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where some 56,545 people were murdered before its liberation in 1945 by the allies.\n\nHe also spent time in the subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora, as well as the infamous Bergen Belsen and Peenemünde camps.\n\nBoris Romantschenko reading at the memorial in 2012\n\nRomantschenko, who was not Jewish, returned to Buchenwald in 2012 to celebrate the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by US troops, where he recited the pledge made by survivors to create \"a new world where peace and freedom reign\".\n\nThe Nazi regime murdered over six million Jewish people across occupied Europe between 1941 and 1945.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson has been criticised for comparing the struggle of Ukrainians fighting Russia's invasion to people in Britain voting for Brexit.\n\nIn a speech he said Britons, like Ukrainians, had the instinct \"to choose freedom\" and cited the 2016 vote to leave the EU as a \"recent example\".\n\nThe comments have caused anger among politicians both in the UK and Europe.\n\nDonald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, called the comments offensive.\n\nConservative peer Lord Barwell said voting in a referendum was not \"in any way comparable with risking your life\" in a war, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said it was an \"insult\" to Ukrainians.\n\nThe row comes as the prime minister strongly urged China to condemn the Russian invasion in an interview with the Sunday Times. He suggested Beijing was having \"second thoughts\" about its neutral stance.\n\nMr Johnson likened the Ukrainians' fight to Brexit in a speech to the Conservative Party's spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday.\n\nHe said: \"I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples.\n\n\"When the British people voted for Brexit in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners.\n\n\"It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.\"\n\nMr Johnson also cited as an example British people choosing to get vaccinated against coronavirus because they \"wanted to get on with their lives\" and \"were fed up with being told what to do by people like me\".\n\nBut his remarks, intended to rally the Tory faithful, attracted criticism from political figures in the UK and Europe.\n\nMr Tusk tweeted \"Boris, your words offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense\", while Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, said the comparison was \"insane\".\n\nAsked about Mr Johnson linking the plight of Ukraine to Brexit, Chancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: \"I don't think the prime minister was making a direct comparison between these two things - clearly they're not directly analogous.\"\n\n\"He was making some general observations about people's desire for freedom,\" he added.\n\nMr Sunak said the prime minister had been galvanising global opinion to send a strong message to Vladimir Putin, and \"that's the thing we should be focused on\".\n\nShadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called for the prime minister to withdraw his comments and apologise.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The people of Ukraine, who are fighting for their lives - in any way to draw a parallel to voting to leave the European Union, it is shameless.\"\n\nShe pointed out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to join the EU - and that \"he clearly sees no such parallel\".\n\nLord Barwell, who served as Theresa May's chief of staff in No 10, said: \"Apart from the bit where voting in a free and fair referendum isn't in any way comparable with risking your life to defend your country against invasion, and the awkward fact the Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom to join the EU, this comparison is bang on.\"\n\nUkraine applied for fast-track membership of the European Union last month, shortly after the Russian invasion.\n\nMr Zelensky said on Friday he had spoken to the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and expected progress to be made on its application in the coming months.\n\nOthers who criticised Mr Johnson's comments included Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, who tweeted: \"Comparing the Ukrainian people's fight against Putin's tyranny to the British people voting for Brexit damages the standard of statecraft we were beginning to exhibit.\"\n\nThe Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed called the prime minister a \"national embarrassment\", adding: \"To compare a referendum to women and children fleeing Putin's bombs is an insult to every Ukrainian. He is no Churchill: he is Basil Fawlty.\"\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said Mr Johnson's comments were \"crass and distasteful\".\n\nMeanwhile in his interview with the Times, Mr Johnson has urged China to join in the global condemnation of Vladimir Putin's invasion.\n\nHe warned Beijing that supporting Russia was akin to choosing the wrong side in World War Two, describing it as a battle between good and evil.\n\nMr Johnson told the paper that he believed some in Xi Jinping's administration were having \"second thoughts\" about the neutral stance adopted by Beijing.\n\nIt comes just a few days after the US warned China that it would face consequences if it helped Russia evade sanctions.\n\n\"As time goes on, and as the number of Russian atrocities mounts up, I think it becomes steadily more difficult and politically embarrassing for people either actively or passively to condone Putin's invasion,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"There are considerable dilemmas now for people who thought they could sit this one out, who thought they could sit on the fence.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says he has told Volodymyr Zelensky he will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia", "The Anonymous hacktivist collective has been bombarding Russia with cyber-attacks since declaring \"cyber war\" on President Vladimir Putin in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. Several people operating under its banner spoke to the BBC about their motives, tactics and plans.\n\nOf all the cyber-attacks carried out since the Ukraine conflict started, an Anonymous hack on Russian TV networks stands out.\n\nThe hack was captured in a short video clip which shows normal programming interrupted with images of bombs exploding in Ukraine and soldiers talking about the horrors of the conflict.\n\nThe video began circulating on the 26 February and was shared by Anonymous social media accounts with millions of followers. \"JUST IN: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what happens in #Ukraine,\" one post read.\n\nIt quickly racked up millions of views.\n\nThe video was sent to a woman in the US, Eliza, by her father in Russia\n\nThe stunt has all the hallmarks of an Anonymous hack - dramatic, impactful and easy to share online. Like many of the group's other cyber-attacks it was also extremely hard to verify.\n\nBut one of the smaller groups of Anonymous hackers said that they were responsible, and that they took over TV services for 12 minutes.\n\nThe first person to post the video was also able to verify it was real. Eliza lives in the US but her father is Russian and called her when his TV shows were interrupted. \"My father called me when it happened and said, 'Oh my God, they're showing the truth!' So I got him to record it and I posted the clip online. He says one of his friends saw it happen too.\"\n\nRostelecom, the Russian company that runs the hacked services did not respond to requests for comment.\n\nThe hackers justified their actions saying innocent Ukrainians were being massacred. \"We will intensify the attacks on the Kremlin, if nothing is done to restore peace in Ukraine,\" they added.\n\nAnonymous says it has also taken down Russian websites and stolen government data, but Lisa Forte, a partner at cyber-security company Red Goat says most of these attacks have so far been \"quite basic\".\n\nHackers have mostly been using DDoS attacks, where a server is overwhelmed by a flood of requests, she said. These are relatively simple to carry out and only take websites offline temporarily.\n\n\"But the TV hack is incredibly creative,\" she said, \"and I would think quite difficult to pull off.\"\n\nAnonymous hackers have also defaced Russian websites. Forte says this involves gaining control of a website to change the content displayed.\n\nSo far, the attacks have caused disruption and embarrassment, but cyber-experts have become increasingly concerned by the explosion of hacktivism since the invasion.\n\nThey are worried that a hacker might accidentally knock out a hospital's computer network or interrupt critical communication links.\n\n\"I've never seen anything like this,\" says Emily Taylor from the Cyber Policy Journal.\n\n\"These attacks do carry risks. [They] could lead to escalation, or someone could accidentally cause real damage to a critical part of civilian life.\"\n\nAnonymous has not been this active in years. Roman, a Ukrainian tech entrepreneur who heads a group of hackers called Stand for Ukraine, had no links with the organisation until Russia invaded his country.\n\nBut he told me that when he and his team briefly defaced the website of the Russian state news agency, Tass, with an anti-Putin poster, they included an Anonymous logo.\n\nRoman works from his apartment in Kyiv, co-ordinating his team as they create websites, Android apps and Telegram bots to help Ukraine's war effort, and hack Russian targets.\n\n\"I am ready to go and pick up a rifle for Ukraine, but at the moment my skills are better used at the computer. So I'm here in my home with my two laptops, co-ordinating this IT resistance.\"\n\nRoman at work: \"Sometimes I see rockets in my sky\"\n\nHe says his group took a Russian regional train ticket service offline for a number of hours, although the BBC has not been able to verify this.\n\nHe defends his actions saying: \"These things are illegal and wrong until there is a threat to you or your relative.\"\n\nAnother group that has merged with Anonymous is a Polish hacking team called Squad 303, named after a famous Polish fighter squadron in World War Two.\n\n\"We work together with Anonymous all the time and I now consider myself a member of the Anonymous movement,\" says one of the group, who uses the name of WW2 pilot Jan Zumbach as his moniker.\n\nHe didn't want his photograph published but another member of his team, a Ukrainian, sent a picture of himself in a helmet and mask. He described his situation as \"on the barricade with a rifle during the day and hacking with the Squad/Anonymous at night\".\n\nSquad 303 has built a website allowing members of the public to send text messages to random Russian phone numbers, telling them the truth about the war. They claim to have facilitated more than 20 million SMS and WhatsApp messages.\n\nTwo Anonymous groups I spoke to cited this as the most impactful thing the collective has done so far for Ukraine.\n\nAsked how he justified the Squad's illegal activity, Jan Zumbach said they did not steal or share any private information and were only trying to speak to Russians, with the aim of winning the information war.\n\nHowever he also said they were planning a more impactful hack in the coming days.\n\nVigilante groups in Russia are also carrying out attacks on Ukraine, but seemingly on a smaller scale.\n\nThere have been three major waves of co-ordinated DDoS attacks against Ukraine since January, plus three incidents of more serious \"wiper\" attacks that deleted data on a small number of Ukrainian computer systems.\n\nOn Wednesday a manipulated video of President Zelensky appeared on the Ukraine 24 TV channel website after an apparent hack.\n\nIn the current environment, though, it's hard to know exactly who is behind any given cyber-attack.\n\n\"The Achilles heel of Anonymous is that anyone can claim to be Anonymous, including state actors operating against what we're fighting for,\" says long-standing Anonymous hacker Anon2World.\n\n\"With our current rise in popularity, it's (almost) a given that there will be obvious repercussions from a government entity. As for adding to the chaos, we're used to chaos, especially online.\"\n• None The return of the Anonymous hacker collective", "Ben Wallace and Priti Patel have revealed they were targeted by hoax callers last week\n\nThe UK government has publicly blamed Russia for hoax calls about the conflict in Ukraine made to British cabinet ministers.\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel said they had been contacted by imposters last week.\n\nDowning Street has now revealed an unsuccessful attempt was also made to contact Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.\n\nA No 10 spokesman added that further hoax calls to ministers are expected.\n\nThere is understood to be concern in government that doctored recordings of the calls may be made public to reinforce Russian claims about the war.\n\nOn Friday, Mr Wallace blamed \"Russian disinformation, distortion and dirty tricks\" for a man calling him pretending to be Ukrainian PM Denys Shmyhal.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel then revealed shortly afterwards that she had received a similar call earlier in the week.\n\nOn Monday, Boris Johnson's spokesman told reporters that \"the Russian state was responsible for the hoax telephone calls made to UK ministers last week\".\n\nThe spokesman did not give further details, but added: \"This is standard practice for Russian information operations.\n\n\"Disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try to distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there.\n\n\"We are seeing a string of distraction stories and outright lies from the Kremlin, reflecting Putin's desperation as he seeks to hide the scale of the conflict and Russia's failings on the battlefield.\"\n\nNadine Dorries entered the cabinet in September when she was made culture secretary\n\nIt is understood that Mr Wallace was put through to a Microsoft Teams video call which lasted about 10 minutes.\n\nThe video call was set up after an email, purportedly from an aide at the Ukrainian embassy in London, was sent to a government department and then forwarded to the Ministry of Defence.\n\nMr Wallace was apparently asked about whether the UK would send warships to the Black Sea, and if Ukraine should get nuclear weapons.\n\nThe defence secretary was also apparently asked about the prospect of Ukraine dropping its ambition to join Nato and becoming a \"neutral\" state.\n\nA cross-department government inquiry into how the call happened is ongoing.\n\nAsked whether defences against hoax calls were strong enough, the No 10 spokesman said there was guidance on how such calls should be handled.\n\nIt is not the first time that cabinet ministers have been targeted with hoax calls.\n\nIn 2018, UK diplomatic sources said they believed the Kremlin was behind a Russian prank caller targeting Mr Johnson, then foreign secretary, and pretending to be the prime minister of Armenia.\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's defence attache in the UK was summoned to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for a second time on Monday for a dressing down over Russian armed forces' tactics in Ukraine.\n\nThe department said senior official Laurence Lee \"protested in the strongest terms\" against the \"persistent and unjustified acts of violence being committed against innocent civilians by Russian forces\".\n\n\"Mr Lee emphasised that schools, theatres and hospitals are not legitimate military targets,\" the MoD added.\n\n\"He warned the UK will be collecting evidence of war crimes and repeated the UK's demand for the Russian Federation to withdraw its forces immediately\".", "Forensic teams have been at a house in Northampton\n\nA woman has been charged with murder after a body was found buried in a garden.\n\nThe body was found in the garden of a house in Moore Street, Kingsley in Northampton, on Saturday.\n\nFiona Beal, 48, was charged with murder just after midnight after being arrested at a hotel in Cumbria on Wednesday.\n\nThe body is believed to be that of a 42-year-old missing man.\n\nMs Beal, of Moore Street, is due to appear at Northampton Magistrates' Court on Monday.\n\nNorthamptonshire police said they began searching the property after being called to the house on Wednesday.\n\nThe remains are expected be taken to Leicester for examination\n\nForensic officers and specialist search teams, including a cadaver dog, were deployed and the body found on Saturday afternoon, the force said.\n\nThe remains are expected be taken to Leicester where they will be forensically examined by a Home Office pathologist.\n\nDet Ch Insp Adam Pendlebury said: \"Regrettably, I can confirm that a body has been found in the rear garden of the address.\n\nA police scene remains in place at the house on Moore Street\n\n\"We believe it to be that of a missing 42-year-old male, but formal identification has yet to take place.\"\n\nHe asked anyone with information to come forward.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Russia's leader Vladimir Putin is trapped in a closed world of his own making, Western spies believe. And that worries them.\n\nFor years they have sought to get inside Mr Putin's mind, to better understand his intentions.\n\nWith Russian troops seemingly bogged down in Ukraine, the need to do so has become all the more necessary as they try to work out how he will react under pressure.\n\nUnderstanding his state of mind will be vital to avoid escalating the crisis into even more dangerous territory.\n\nThere has been speculation that Russia's leader was ill, but many analysts believe he has actually become isolated and closed off to any alternative views.\n\nHis isolation has been evident in pictures of his meetings, such as when he met President Emmanuel Macron, the pair at far ends of a long table. It was also evident in Mr Putin's meeting with his own national security team on the eve of war.\n\nMr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.\n\nIt had been created, they say, by a tight \"conspiratorial cabal\" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing.\n\nWestern spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.\n\n\"The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow,\" explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. And even though his views are often made clear through public statements, knowing how he will act on them is difficult intelligence challenge.\n\n\"It is extremely hard in a system as well protected as Russia to have good intelligence on what's happening inside the head of the leader especially when so many of his own people do not know what is going on,\" Sir John Sawers, a former head of Britain's MI6, told the BBC.\n\nMr Putin, intelligence officials say, is isolated in a bubble of his own making, which very little outside information penetrates, particularly any which might challenge what he thinks.\n\n\"He is a victim of his own propaganda in the sense that he only listens to a certain number of people and blocks out everything else. This gives him a strange view of the world,\" says Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology and co-author of a forthcoming book The Psychology of Spies and Spying. The risk is what is called \"group think\" in which everyone reinforces his view. \"If he's a victim of group think we need to know who the group is,\" says Prof Furnham.\n\nThe circle of those Mr Putin talks to has never been large but when it came to the decision to invade Ukraine, it had narrowed to just a handful of people, Western intelligence officials believe, all of those \"true believers\" who share Mr Putin's mindset and obsessions.\n\nThe sense of how small his inner circle has become was emphasised when he publicly dressed down the head of his own Foreign Intelligence Service at the national security meeting just before the invasion - a move which seemed to humiliate the official. His speech hours later also revealed a man angry and obsessed with Ukraine and the West.\n\nThose who have observed him say the Russian leader is driven by a desire to overcome the perceived humiliation of Russia in the 1990s along with a conviction that the West is determined to keep Russia down and drive him from power. One person who met Mr Putin remembers his obsession with watching videos of Libya's Col Gaddafi being killed after he was driven from power in 2011.\n\nWhen the director of the CIA, William Burns, was asked to assess Mr Putin's mental state, he said he had \"been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years\" and described his views as having \"hardened\" and that he was \"far more insulated\" from other points of view.\n\nIs the Russian president crazy? That is a question many in the West have asked. But few experts consider it helpful. One psychologist with expertise in the area said a mistake was to assume because we cannot understand a decision like invading Ukraine we frame the person who made it as \"mad\".\n\nThe CIA has a team which carries out \"leadership analysis\" on foreign decision makers, drawing on a tradition dating back to attempts to understand Hitler. They study background, relationships and health, drawing on secret intelligence.\n\nAnother source are read-outs from the those who have had direct contact, such as other leaders. In 2014, Angela Merkel reportedly told President Obama that Mr Putin was living \"in another world\". President Macron meanwhile when he sat down with Mr Putin recently, was reported to have found the Russian leader \"more rigid, more isolated\" compared with previous encounters.\n\nDid something change? Some speculate, without much evidence, about possible ill-health or the impact of medication. Others point to psychological factors such as a sense of his own time running out for him to fulfil what he sees as his destiny in protecting Russia or restoring its greatness. The Russian leader has visibly isolated himself from others during the Covid pandemic and this also may have had a psychological impact.\n\n\"Putin is likely not mentally ill, nor he has changed, although he is in more of a hurry, and likely more isolated in recent years,\" says Ken Dekleva, a former US government physician and diplomat, and currently a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.\n\nBut a concern now is that reliable information is still not finding its way into Mr Putin's closed loop. His intelligence services may have been reluctant before the invasion to tell him anything he did not want to hear, offering rosy estimates of how an invasion would go and how Russian troops would be received before the war. And this week one Western official said Mr Putin may still not have the insight into how badly things are going for his own troops that Western intelligence has. That leads to concern about how he might react when confronted with a worsening situation for Russia.\n\nMr Putin himself tells the story of chasing a rat when he was a boy. When he had driven it into a corner, the rat reacted by attacking him, forcing a young Vladimir to become the one who fled. The question Western policymakers are asking is what if Mr Putin feels cornered now?\n\n\"The question really is whether or not he doubles down with greater brutality and escalates in terms of the weapon systems that he's prepared to use,\" said one western official. There have been concerns he could use chemical weapons or even a tactical nuclear weapon.\n\n\"The worry is that he does something unbelievably rash in a vicious press-the button way,\" says Adrian Furnham.\n\nMr Putin himself may play up the sense that he is dangerous or even irrational - this is a well-known tactic (often called the \"madman\" theory) in which someone with access to nuclear weapons tries to get his adversary to back down by convincing them that he may well be crazy enough to use them despite the potential for everyone to perish.\n\nFor Western spies and policymakers understanding Mr Putin's intentions and mindset today could not be more important. Predicting his response is pivotal in working out how far they can push him without triggering a dangerous reaction.\n\n\"Putin's self concept does not allow for failure or weakness. He despises such things\" says Ken Dekleva. \"A cornered, weakened Putin is a more dangerous Putin. It's sometimes better to let the bear run out of the cage and back to the forest.\"", "Logan was found dead in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend county, last July\n\nA five-year-old boy may have survived for \"up to several hours\" after receiving severe injuries to his abdomen, a court has heard.\n\nThe body of Logan Mwangi was found in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend county, last July with 56 injuries.\n\nThese included a liver tear and part of his small bowel torn from his pancreas.\n\nLogan's mother Angharad Williamson, 31, his stepfather John Cole, 40, and a 14-year-old boy deny murder at Cardiff Crown Court.\n\nDetails of injuries were given to jurors on Monday.\n\nForensic pathologist Dr John Williams outlined 56 external injuries, including extensive bruising and some grazes and scratches across the boy's head, chest, back, arms and legs.\n\nDr Williams described the injuries to Logan's bowel as \"rare\" in children, with possible causes a motor vehicle crash, a bicycle accident, or non-accidental injury.\n\nLogan's body was found in the River Ogmore on 31 July 2021\n\nIn the absence of a \"high velocity accident\", they were likely to have been caused by blows, kicks or \"impacts with a weapon\", he added.\n\nDr Williams said duodenal injures (part of the small bowel) are \"commonly recorded\" in abused children.\n\nHe told the jury there was evidence of changes to some of the abdominal injuries, suggesting the \"healing process had started\" which \"indicated a period of survival that may have potentially been up to several hours\".\n\nDuring cross-examination, Dr Williams accepted that it could have been the case that Logan survived for a much shorter period of time and clarified by saying: \"The features would dictate that death has not occurred immediately and that the injuries have not been sustained following death.\"\n\nAngharad Williamson and John Cole are both charged with Logan Mwangi's murder\n\nDr Williams said there was also evidence of \"extensive deep scalp bruising over the back of the head\" which was \"consistent with blunt force injuries\".\n\nA cause of death was given as \"blunt force abdominal injury and cerebral injury including brain swelling and traumatic brain injury\".\n\nDespite the fact Logan was found in a river, pathologists found no evidence he had drowned.\n\nLater on Monday, Dr George Lammie, a neuropathologist who examined Logan's brain and spinal cord, told the trial the boy's brain was \"significantly swollen\" and there was \"evidence of recent traumatic damage and evidence of damage due to a lack of oxygen\".\n\nHe said there was evidence of \"axonal injury\" which was generally caused by \"rapid acceleration or deceleration of a moving brain\".\n\nHe explained that to be able to detect that kind of injury, as well as some of the deterioration of cells, a certain time period had to have passed between injury and death.\n\nDr Lammie added it was possible Logan could have suffered more than one head injury and survived for \"several hours\" after being injured, but could not say for sure whether swelling from the brain or blood loss from abdominal injuries was the immediate cause of death.\n\nAll three defendants deny murder and are also accused of perverting the course of justice.\n\nMs Williamson and the youth have pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice, while Mr Cole admitted the charge.", "Blocks of flats and a shopping mall have been completely destroyed in Mariupol, Ukraine.\n\nThe besieged port city has faced constant shelling since the war started three weeks ago.\n\nThe Mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko told the BBC that fighting has reached the city centre.\n\nRead more on the attack on Mariupol here.\n\nThis video has no sound", "Police have named the 19-year-old victim as British student Sabita Thanwani\n\nA man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 19-year-old woman who died in student accommodation in central London.\n\nStudent Sabita Thanwani was found with neck injuries in the halls of residence in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell.\n\nPolice and medics went to Arbour House at about 05:10 GMT on Saturday but she died at the scene.\n\nMaher Maaroufe, understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Thanwani, has been arrested, police said.\n\nThe 22-year-old was also arrested on suspicion of assault on police. He remains in custody.\n\nMr Maaroufe was arrested by officers in Clerkenwell area after a police appeal to trace him.\n\nMs Thanwani attended City, University of London, which is near to the student accommodation where she died.\n\nArbour House, near City, University of London, is owned by Unite Students and houses 188 students\n\nDet Ch Insp Linda Bradley said Ms Thanwani's family were being supported by officers.\n\nShe said: \"Our deepest condolences are with them.\n\n\"I would ask everyone to respect their privacy at this indescribably devastating time for them as they come to terms with Sabita's murder.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination has also been arranged.\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone, of the Met Police, said he understood the student community and local people would be concerned.\n\nHe said: \"I share their sadness and their concerns. And I can assure them that a thorough homicide investigation is under way, led by skilled and experienced detectives who will work tirelessly to identify and arrest whoever is responsible.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "People can no longer buy free-range eggs in the UK due to the length of time hens have been kept indoors following outbreaks of bird flu.\n\nThe eggs in shops will be labelled as \"barn eggs\" due to birds being kept inside for more than 16 weeks.\n\nThe country is experiencing its largest ever outbreak of avian influenza and measures are in place to prevent the virus from spreading.\n\nAbout 55% of all eggs produced in the UK are free-range, says the RSPCA.\n\nIt means they come from birds that, during the daytime, enjoy unlimited access to outdoor pastures.\n\nSigns will be put in supermarkets to inform shoppers of the change from Monday, and free-range labelling will only return when hens are permitted to go outside again.\n\nAimee Mahony, chief poultry adviser at the National Farmers' Union, said the government's advice was that there was \"still a high level of risk\" to birds of catching flu.\n\n\"This is an incredibly difficult time for all bird owners and vigilance remains vital,\" she added.\n\nMs Mahony said farmers were following \"stringent biosecurity measures\" and adapting hen houses to make birds more comfortable.\n\nAvian flu is spread by close contact with an infected bird, whether it is dead or alive\n\nBoth \"barn\" and \"free range\" eggs meet the RSPCA's welfare standards, because the hens that lay them have freedom and space to move around, along with perches for roosting and nest boxes.\n\nThe difference is that for barn hens, this all happens inside, whereas free-range hens can access to the outside through \"popholes\" - although bird flu restrictions have put a stop to this.\n\nThe RSPCA says consumers buy more boxes of free range and barn eggs than those from caged hens.\n\nHowever, the charity says a large proportion of eggs used as ingredients in products like mayonnaise, cakes and sandwiches are still from hens kept in cages.\n\nIt says such cages provide less than the size of an A4 piece of paper of space per bird and have limited facilities for perching, nesting and scratching and do not meet its welfare standards.\n\nThe charity says about 35% of egg-laying hens are still kept in cages.\n\nCase numbers of the H5N1 strain of bird flu began rising in November last year. The virus - which is highly contagious and can destroy poultry flocks - was first discovered in North Yorkshire.\n\nIt poses an extremely low risk to humans, according to the NHS, although several people have been infected around the world and a number have died.\n\nThe outbreaks have resulted in the government enforcing an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone which made it a legal requirement for all bird keepers across the UK - whether they have pet birds, commercial flocks or just a few birds in a backyard flock - to keep them indoors and follow strict biosecurity measures.\n\nUnder such restrictions egg farmers have a 16-week \"grace period\" to maintain their free-range status, but this ended on Monday.\n\nAndrea Martinez-Inchausti, assistant director of food at the British Retail Consortium, said shops and supermarkets would \"continue to support British farmers\".\n\nIn a statement the government said it would work with farmers and retailers to implement the branding changings.\n\nA spokesman added: \"We are experiencing our largest ever outbreak of avian flu and housing measures remain in force to protect poultry and other birds from this highly infectious and unpleasant disease.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge show off their dance moves in Belize\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been dancing with locals and sampling chocolate at a cocoa farm as they explored Belize.\n\n\"They were shaking their waists like nobody's business,\" said Laura Cacho, a local festival organiser who danced with William.\n\nOn the second day of their Caribbean tour, the royals visited the Che 'il chocolate farm\n\nThey ground cacao nibs, before the future king jokingly asked for a job.\n\nThe duke and duchess were rewarded with a taste of the products at the family-run cocoa farm in the village of Maya Center in southern Belize, with Catherine admitting their children would be \"jealous\".\n\nThe duke and duchess later showed off their moves on the dancefloor as they experienced the culture of the Garifuna community in the coastal village of Hopkins.\n\nMs Cacho, 57, said it was a \"pleasure\" to dance with William.\n\n\"He shook his waist to the music. He had beautiful rhythm. It was a pleasure for me.\n\n\"Kate was excellent as well and definitely has Garifuna culture in her.\"\n\nThe duchess also had a shimmy to the delight of the Belize crowds\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge got stuck in to grind cacao nibs on a visit to a family-run chocolate farm in southern Belize\n\nEarlier, during the trip to the cocoa farm, the royal couple learnt first-hand about the work that goes into producing the chocolate.\n\nWilliam, 39, who had been pounding away with a mortar and pestle made from volcanic rock, quipped about swapping his royal day job for one on the farm, asking the owner, Julio Saqui: \"Do you take apprentices?\n\n\"Can I come and work for you? It's my kind of thing.\"\n\nThe duke and duchess were shown cocoa trees laden with fruit, with Catherine, 40, asking the owner's brother, Narcisio, how often they are harvested.\n\nAs they took a break from the blistering sun under a marquee, the royal couple heard from Narcisio about the importance of the cocoa bean.\n\nThe future king joked about swapping his royal day job for an apprenticeship on the farm\n\nWilliam and Catherine tasted the farm's fruit as they learnt about the importance of the cocoa bean\n\nThe Saqui family are part of Belize's Maya community, where the cocoa bean is sacred and has been a key part of their culture for thousands of years.\n\nThe cocoa bean was once considered more valuable than gold to the Maya people, who served it to royalty and continue to offer it to important guests.\n\nThe duke expressed his surprise after using a club to break open a cocoa pod - which was filled with white sticky seeds that have to be fermented, dried, roasted and ground to make chocolate - exclaiming: \"That's not what I expected at all.\"\n\nThe couple later got to taste some of the farm's goods as they dipped tortilla chips into chocolate fountains, and tried hot chocolate made from organic products.\n\nThe duchess admitted the couple's three children - Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three - would be \"very jealous\".\n\nWilliam and Catherine later met conservationists on the Hopkins' beach to learn about the area's marine environment and efforts to preserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Belize MFAFT 🇧🇿 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWilliam and Catherine's tour of the Che 'il chocolate farm came after a planned trip to a similar producer had to be axed after reported opposition from local residents.\n\nThe Cambridges' visit to the Akte 'il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village was cancelled amid a reported dispute between villagers and Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which has William as patron, over land owned by the conservation organisation.\n\nResidents are also reported to have raised concerns saying they were not consulted about plans for the couple's helicopter to land on a local football pitch.\n\nKensington Palace and the Belize government confirmed the schedule change, while a spokesman for FFI said the charity would \"support the livelihoods, educational opportunities and the customary rights of local people\" as part of its project in the area.\n\nOn landing at Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport on Sunday, the duke and duchess were greeted by Belize's governor general and a guard of honour from the Belize Defence Force.\n\nThey royal couple later met Prime Minister Johnny Briceno and his wife Rossana, with Mr Briceno telling them: \"We're so happy you're here.\"\n\nThe Cambridges landed at Belize City's airport on Sunday\n\nThe royal couple will also visit Jamaica and the Bahamas as part of their eight-day tour, with highlights set to include a sailing regatta in the Bahamas in honour of the Queen's 70-year reign, and a celebration of Jamaica's musical and sporting heritage.", "A Ukrainian soldier walks near a destroyed bridge in the Sumy region, which has been under regular attack\n\nRussian shells hit a chemical plant near the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, causing an ammonia leak, officials say.\n\nResidents of Novoselytsya, near Sumy, were told to stay indoors but the region's governor, Dmytro Zhyvytskyy, later said the leak had been contained.\n\nA 50-ton tank of the poison gas was damaged by the attack, local officials said, creating an ammonia cloud.\n\nAmmonia is largely used to make fertiliser and is corrosive.\n\nThe Sumykhimprom chemical plant was attended by emergency crews, and the cloud affected an area of about 2.5km (1.5 miles), Dmytro Zhyvytsky said.\n\nHe said one injury was reported - a worker at the plant. Residents of Novoselytsya were advised to shelter because of the wind direction.\n\nAmmonia is a common chemical that has several commercial uses, and the Sumykhimprom plant says its production is for making chemical fertiliser. It is a waste product of the human body and usually dealt with by the liver, but is toxic in large amounts.\n\nIn the air, it is invisible but has a distinct unpleasant smell, and in high concentrations is both and irritant and corrosive. It can cause pain and burns to the airway and injuries to the eyes. However, it is lighter than air, so does not remain on the ground as long as some other dangerous gases do.\n\nRussia has previously alleged, without any evidence, that Ukraine was planning to use chemical weapons in the ongoing war, pointing to the creation of industrial chemicals such as ammonia.\n\nEarlier this month, Russia's defence ministry alleged that Ukraine was plotting a \"false flag\" operation to blame Russia for using chemical weapons.\n\nYet Ukraine and its Western allies, including the US, have ridiculed such claims, and expressed their own concerns that Russia was setting the stage for its own false flag chemical weapons attack, which it would attempt to pin on Ukraine.\n\nAmmonia is not well-known as a chemical weapon, since the human body has ways of processing it and it disperses, being lighter than air.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Civilians flee Sumy, which is close to the Russian border and frontline", "A Chinese passenger plane with 132 people on board has crashed in a forested hillside in southern China.\n\nThe China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it plunged to earth in Guangxi province and caught fire.\n\nThe number of casualties and reason for the crash are not yet known. Rescuers have seen no signs of survivors.\n\nChinese airlines generally have a good safety record - the last major accident took place 12 years ago.\n\nThe crash has caused shock in China, where President Xi Jinping has ordered an immediate investigation to determine the cause. China Eastern Airlines has grounded all its 737-800s.\n\nFlight tracking data suggested the plane lost height rapidly from its cruising altitude before plummeting to the ground.\n\nMore than 600 emergency responders are said to be at the crash site. Firefighters reached the scene first and managed to extinguish a blaze in the hills caused by the crash.\n\nFootage taken by local villagers and shared on Chinese social media - and by state broadcasters - showed fire and smoke from the crash, with plane debris on the ground.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CGTN This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAir safety and aviation standards in China have improved vastly in recent decades, following a series of accidents in the 1990s, and crashes such as this are now very rare.\n\nThe country's last major plane accident was in August 2010, when a flight from Harbin crashed in north-east Yichun during foggy weather, killing 42 people.\n\nChina Eastern has set up a hotline for people seeking information about those on board. It expressed \"its deep condolences for the passengers and crew members who died\".\n\nEarlier, it greyed out its logo on its Weibo account and also changed its website to black and white in an apparent sign of mourning.\n\nAs a precaution, China Eastern's entire fleet of Boeing 737-800 jets has been grounded.\n\nIt took just two and a half minutes for an apparently normal flight to turn into a tragedy.\n\nThe aircraft was a 737-800, a well-proven design first produced in the late 1990s. It is a workhorse of the aviation world, with thousands still in service.\n\nIt has a strong safety record. Fatigue cracks have been found in some older planes, but this one was not quite seven years old.\n\nThere is no connection here with the 737 MAX, a newer version of the 737, which was grounded for more than a year and a half after a design flaw triggered two major accidents.\n\nInvestigators will be looking at many possible causes - among them deliberate action, such as terrorism, technical issues such as structural failure, or a mid-air collision.\n\nThey will look at communications from the pilots, examine the state of the wreckage - and search for the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.\n\nThose recorders should contain the information needed to confirm exactly what happened during those minutes and why.\n\nStaff at Guangzhou airport are directing worried relatives to a separate zone set up to receive them.\n\nOne woman waiting for news there told local media she had booked a seat on the flight, but ended up switching to an earlier plane.\n\n\"I feel very sad,\" she said. Her sister and four friends were on the crashed plane, AFP news agency reports.\n\nState-owned China Eastern is one of China's big three airlines, along with China Southern and Air China.\n\nFlight MU5735 left Kunming at 13:11 local time (05:11 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive in Guangzhou at 15:05.\n\nA file photo from 2015 of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed\n\nFlight tracking sites report the plane was in the air for just over an hour and was nearing its destination when it went down in Wuzhou, a verdant, hilly area prone to mixed weather at this time of year as China enters its annual flood season.\n\nThe weather was cloudy, but visibility was reported to have been good at the time of the crash.\n\nFootage said to be of Flight MU5735 plummeting vertically from the sky has been circulating on social media.\n\nThe plane dropped thousands of metres in three minutes, flight tracker data showed.\n\nAccording to FlightRadar24 data, the plane was cruising at 29,100ft, but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075ft. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.\n\n\"Usually the plane is on autopilot during cruise stage. So it is very hard to fathom what happened,\" Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert, told Reuters news agency.\n\nAnother expert, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge, told China's Global Times newspaper: \"It is very likely that the aircraft lost power at cruising altitude, resulting in the pilot losing control of the aircraft.\n\n\"This is a very serious technical failure in which the plane inevitably enters a high-speed descent.\"\n\nThe Boeing 737-800 plane was nearly seven years old, according to tracker websites. It is the predecessor model to the Boeing 737 Max line, which were the planes involved in deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.\n\nChina banned that model after those crashes.\n\nBoeing issued a statement on the crash of MU5735, saying: \"We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information.\"\n\nChina's Civil Aviation Administration said it had dispatched its investigators to the scene.", "It is almost six years since Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first detained by the Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nSince then there were repeated attempts to secure her release - all failed. So why has she now come home?\n\nThe basic answer is London-Tehran relations are better than they have been.\n\nThe International Revolutionary Guard and Iran's judiciary no longer feel they need Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe for leverage in relations with the UK.\n\nShe was a diplomatic pawn held hostage by the Iranian authorities to put pressure on London.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to make nice, they would treat her well, give her access to medical help, perhaps increase the frequency of visits, possibly even allow her a temporary furlough from jail.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to exert pressure on London, then her conditions might worsen and privileges might be withdrawn.\n\nThe UK paying the historic £400m debt for tanks sold but not delivered will have made a huge difference.\n\nFor years, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) claimed the two issues were not connected. But in practice, the Iranians made them one and the same issue.\n\nSome in the FCDO had wanted to pay the debt but were prevented initially by reluctance within the Treasury and the United States, fearing it would reward hostage-taking and even fund terrorism.\n\nThere were also fears the US would penalise any British financial institution that paid the money to the Iranian defence ministry in breach of international sanctions.\n\nThere is also the sheer relentlessness of the families' campaigning and the UK's diplomacy.\n\nAt first there were mistakes, such as Boris Johnson's false claim that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, a claim that prompted Iran to level fresh charges.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (right), pictured with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella, who is now seven, was first detained by Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nBut the tireless campaigning by Nazanin's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and others kept up the pressure on the UK government.\n\nAnd that was reflected by the work of British diplomats behind the scenes, refusing to let Iran forget about the case.\n\nThere was almost a deal to release the detainees last year. It fell through. But since then British diplomats have visited Iran several times to try to reach a fresh agreement.\n\nIranian officials at their Ministry of Foreign Affairs were frequently frustrated that this dispute got in the way of the rest of the UK-Iran relationship.\n\nMr Ratcliffe campaigned for his wife's release, including by going on hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office last October.\n\nBut the Iranian diplomats were not in charge - the IRGC and the judges were.\n\nEventually, enough people with the Iranian government seemed to have realised that a permanently hostile relationship with the UK was not in Tehran's best interests.\n\nThat might apply directly to the talks taking place in Vienna, designed to revive the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear activities in return for seeing economic sanctions lifted.\n\nIran's economy has been suffering, Iran clearly wants to agree a new deal, better relations with the UK might make that happen.\n\nThe deal has still not been agreed but diplomats say agreement is getting close.\n\nAnd in recent weeks, during the Ukraine conflict, Britain and Iran's interests have also come closer together.\n\nIf sanctions can be lifted and Iran can start selling its oil again, that could help reduce global energy prices.\n\nThat is in the interests of both the UK and Iran. In that context, both sides might want to clear the diplomatic decks and make a deal more likely.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nLiverpool will play Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley after edging past Nottingham Forest in a pulsating encounter at the City Ground.\n\nDiogo Jota scored the only goal of the game for the visitors, prodding in Konstantinos Tsimikas' cross from the left with 12 minutes remaining.\n\nJurgen Klopp's quadruple-chasing side dominated possession but were made to work for their victory by their relentless Championship opponents.\n\nSteve Cooper's side saw a late penalty appeal turned down by VAR when midfielder Ryan Yates fell after a challenge with Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson.\n\nThe hosts also regarded Philip Zinckernagel's miss as decisive to the outcome, the Danish winger side-footing wide from six yards from Brennan Johnson's inviting cross just a couple of minutes before Jota's goal.\n\n\"I think the game was decided on a defining two minutes - we had a good chance that we didn't take and they created one and did,\" said Cooper.\n\nWhile Forest had already beaten both Arsenal and Leicester in this season's competition, they found themselves taking a significant step up in class against Liverpool despite Klopp making seven changes to his starting XI.\n\nAnd while they were galvanised by the electric atmosphere in what was the first meeting between the clubs in the FA Cup since the rescheduled 1989 semi-final that followed the Hillsborough disaster, they spent long periods of the game under severe pressure.\n\nYates also had a chance to head a late equaliser, but Liverpool, who also carved open several excellent opportunities of their own, deservedly advanced to the last four.\n\nWhile Forest made an encouraging start despite the absence of three first-choice defenders, Liverpool's Premier League pedigree quickly became evident.\n\nThe visitors' slick movement repeatedly caused problems as did the hosts' own attempts to play out from the back.\n\nAnd had Roberto Firmino not fluffed a golden chance to open the scoring, Klopp's side would have headed into the interval with a deserved advantage and possibly having laid the platform for a more convincing performance.\n\nInstead the Brazilian's attempted dink was well saved by Forest goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, who bailed out his team after Jack Colback's glaring mistake.\n\n\"It was the game we expected, especially if you don't use your chances,\" said Klopp.\n\n\"We could have played better, but we should have scored in the first half. If we scored earlier it would be a completely different game. Everything was prepared to give us a knock as well but because we were prepared for a fight we came through.\"\n\nReinforcements were summoned just after the hour mark with Jordan Henderson, Thiago, Takumi Minamino and Luis Diaz all introduced to try and turn the contest in Liverpool's favour.\n\nBut having survived a scare at one end of the pitch it was Jota who made the difference with his 19th goal of the campaign - his best ever return in front of goal in a single season.\n\nAnd it ensured that Liverpool reached the semi-final of the competition for the first time under Klopp and maintained their superb domestic form which has seen them win 13 consecutive games plus the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea after a penalty shootout.\n\nForest were bottom of the Championship when Cooper took charge in September and the former England Under-17s boss has since overseen a significant upturn in fortunes.\n\nThis was only Forest's second defeat since the turn of the year and, while they will take heart from pushing one of Europe's elite clubs so close, they can now focus all of their attention on trying to join Liverpool in the Premier League next term.\n\nForest are three points off the Championship play-off positions with games in hand on all the sides around them in the table.\n\nAnd if the likes of Joe Worrall, Joe Garner and Keinan Davis continue to perform in the same vein as they did here, they appear to have the spine of a team capable of reaching the top flight for the first time since 1999.\n• None Attempt missed. Diogo Jota (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Takumi Minamino.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. Jordan Henderson tries a through ball, but Roberto Firmino is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Cafú (Nottingham Forest) right footed shot from the right side of the box is close, but misses the top right corner. Assisted by Tobias Figueiredo with a through ball.\n• None Attempt saved. Ryan Yates (Nottingham Forest) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Brennan Johnson with a cross.\n• None Brennan Johnson (Nottingham Forest) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Goal! Nottingham Forest 0, Liverpool 1. Diogo Jota (Liverpool) right footed shot from very close range to the top right corner. Assisted by Konstantinos Tsimikas with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. Philip Zinckernagel (Nottingham Forest) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Brennan Johnson with a cross following a fast break.\n• None Attempt blocked. Takumi Minamino (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Mariupol has become the most heavily bombed and damaged city in Ukraine's war with Russia - having suffered the brunt of sustained Russian attacks. It is key to Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine. But why?\n\nThere are four main reasons why taking the port city would be such a strategic win for Russia - and a major blow for Ukraine.\n\nGeographically, the city of Mariupol occupies only a tiny area on the map but it now stands obstinately in the way of Russian forces who have burst out of the Crimean peninsula.\n\nThey are pushing north-east to try to link up with their comrades and Ukrainian-separatist allies in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.\n\nGeneral Sir Richard Barrons - former commander of UK Joint Forces Command - says capturing Mariupol is vital to Russia's war effort.\n\n\"When the Russians feel they have successfully concluded that battle, they will have completed a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and they will see this as a major strategic success.\"\n\nIf Mariupol was seized, Russia would also end up with full control of more than 80% of Ukraine's Black Sea coastline - cutting-off its maritime trade and further isolating it from the world.\n\nBy holding out against advancing forces for the past three weeks, the defending Ukrainians have managed to preoccupy a large number of Russian troops. But that failure by Russia to secure a rapid capture of the city, has prompted Russian commanders to resort to a 21st Century version of mediaeval siege tactics.\n\nThey have pummelled Mariupol with artillery, rockets and missiles - damaging or destroying over 90% of the city. They have also cut off access to electricity, heating, fresh water, food and medical supplies - creating a man-made humanitarian catastrophe which Moscow now blames on Ukraine for refusing to surrender by an 05:00 deadline on Monday. A Ukrainian MP has accused Russia of \"trying to starve Mariupol into surrender\".\n\nUkraine has vowed to defend the city down to the last soldier. It may well come to that. Russian troops are slowly pushing into the centre and, in the absence of any kind of workable peace deal, Russia is now likely to intensify its bombardment - drawing little if any distinction between its armed defenders and the beleaguered civilian population which still numbers over 200,000.\n\nIf, and when, Russia takes full control of Mariupol this will free up close to 6,000 of its troops - organised into 1,000-strong battalion tactical groups - to then go and reinforce other Russian fronts around Ukraine.\n\nThere are a number of possibilities as to where they could be redeployed:\n\nMariupol has long-been a strategically important port on the Sea of Azov, part of the Black Sea.\n\nWith its deep berths, it is the biggest port in the Azov Sea region and home to a major iron and steel works. In normal times, Mariupol is a key export hub for Ukraine's steel, coal and corn going to customers in the Middle East and beyond.\n\nFor eight years now, since Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the city has been sandwiched uncomfortably between Russian forces on that peninsula and the pro-Kremlin separatists in the breakaway self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nLosing Mariupol would be a major blow to what is left of Ukraine's economy.\n\nMariupol is home to a Ukrainian militia unit called the Azov Brigade, named after the Sea of Azov which links Mariupol to the rest of the Black Sea. The Azov Brigade contains far-right extremists, historically including neo-Nazis.\n\nAlthough they form only the tiniest fraction of Ukraine's fighting forces, this has been a useful propaganda tool for Moscow, giving it a pretext for telling Russia's population that the young men it has sent to fight in Ukraine are there to rid their neighbour of neo-Nazis.\n\nAzov Battalion training camp at a former holiday resort near Mariupol, February 2019\n\nIf Russia manages to capture alive significant numbers of Azov Brigade fighters it is likely they will be paraded on Russian state-controlled media as part of the ongoing information war to discredit Ukraine and its government.\n\nThe capture of Mariupol by Russia, if it happens, will be psychologically significant for both sides in this war.\n\nA Russian victory in Mariupol would enable the Kremlin to show its population - through state-controlled media - that Russia was achieving its aims and making progress.\n\nFor President Putin, for whom this war appears to be personal, there is a historical significance to all this. He sees Ukraine's Black Sea coastline as belonging to something called Novorossiya (New Russia) - Russian lands that date back to the 18th Century empire.\n\nPutin wants to revive that concept, \"rescuing Russians from the tyranny of a pro-western government in Kyiv\" as he sees it. Mariupol currently stands in the way of him achieving that aim.\n\nBut to Ukrainians, the loss of Mariupol would be a major blow - not just militarily and economically - but also to the minds of the men and women fighting on the ground, defending their country. Mariupol would be the first major city to fall to the Russians after Kherson, a strategically much less important city that was barely defended.\n\nThere is another morale aspect here and that is of deterrence.\n\nDigging graves by the roadside in Mariupol, 20 March\n\nMariupol has put up fierce resistance - but look at the cost. The city is decimated, it lies largely in ruins. It will go down in history alongside Grozny and Aleppo, places that Russia eventually bombed and shelled into submission, reducing them to rubble. The message to other Ukrainian cities is stark - if you choose to resist like Mariupol did then you can expect the same fate.\n\n\"The Russians couldn't walk into Mariupol,\" says Gen Sir Richard Barrons, \"they couldn't drive in with their tanks, so they've pounded it to rubble. And that's what we should expect to see anywhere else that really matters to them.\"\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Survivors from the bombardment of Mariupol are receiving treatment nearby in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nIn his hospital bed, little Artem stares into space. He clutches a small yellow toy tractor but says nothing as specialist nurses monitor his condition. The Russian shell that blasted shrapnel into his belly also badly wounded his parents and grandparents as they tried to flee Mariupol. A victim of Putin's war and he's not yet three years old.\n\nIn the next bed to Artem lies 15-year-old Masha, also from near Mariupol. Her right leg was amputated after it was torn apart by the blast from a Russian shell last Tuesday.\n\nThe very worst of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and what the relentless Russian bombardment has done to the people trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol, can be seen at the Regional Children's Hospital in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia.\n\nMasha is among the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians injured in Russian shelling over the past three weeks\n\nHundreds of people have been evacuated here. Their physical wounds are obvious and may, to an extent, heal. The psychological trauma will live with them forever.\n\nDoctors here and the children's surviving relatives, asked us to tell their stories, among them Dr Yuri Borzenko, head of the Children's Hospital. He can't hide his contempt for what Russia has done.\n\n\"I hate Russia,\" says Dr Borzenko, without a flicker of emotion on his face. \"The girl who lost her leg (Masha) was so traumatised she wouldn't eat or drink for days. She couldn't mentally handle what had happened. We had to feed her intravenously.\"\n\n\"Another boy,\" says the doctor, \"a six-year-old, with shrapnel in his skull described - without any tears or emotion - watching his mother burn to death in their car after it was hit. Two days later he said 'dad buy me a new mum, I need someone to walk me to school'.\"\n\nWhat is happening in Mariupol is a humanitarian disaster, even - perhaps - a war crime. An estimated 90% of the city's buildings have been damaged or destroyed. After last week's destruction of a theatre where more than 1,000 people were sheltering, reports today that an arts school, with 400 people inside, has also been attacked.\n\nDr Yuri Borzenko has found himself leading a children's hospital at a time of war\n\nThose who've been able to escape Mariupol talk of unimaginable horrors. First-hand accounts of bodies lying in the streets, of homes destroyed. Carrying those memories they put as much physical distance as they can between themselves and what they went through.\n\nIn a café in the central city of Dnipro, which itself has come under Russian fire, we met Oksana Gusak. With her husband Andrii, and her parents, Oksana fled Mariupol last week through mined roads and a dozen hostile Russian army checkpoints.\n\nJust drinking a glass of water now feels like a luxury for Oksana, after they had run out of everything in Mariupol. They all politely turn down our offer of coffee, saying it would be an insult to the family members they left behind in parts of Mariupol from where it was impossible to flee.\n\nHer husband, Andrii, told me there was no water supply in the city, no power, no heating and no communications so they had no choice but to go.\n\nOksana Gusak and her family are among the 35,000 people who have been forced to flee from Mariupol\n\n\"Absolutely we were taking a risk but at that point I didn't care whether I'd die in Mariupol or die trying to get out,\" says Oksana.\n\n\"We knew there was a chance, we'd be targeted and we realised we had to take that chance. If we would have stayed, the chances of surviving would be zero.\"\n\nAndrii and Oksana are fortunate to have escaped unharmed and with each other. They know that.\n\nAt Zaporizhzhia's Children's Hospital, I came across one grief-stricken, inconsolable father whose family had been completely torn apart.\n\nHis daughter Natasha, who was 26, and his 4-year-old granddaughter Dominica, were killed when a Russian shell landed near the shelter where the whole family was seeking refugee from the bombardment of Mariupol.\n\n\"I looked at the ground and there lay my little granddaughter with her head completely torn to pieces,\" says Vladimir. \"She lay there without a single breath and right next to her was my daughter with her legs fractured, open fractures.\"\n\nVladimir with his family before the war\n\nDominica - whose pictures her grandfather almost caresses on his phone - was killed instantly. Her mother died from her injuries the next day.\n\nAs broken as he is, Vladimir is trying to stay strong for his second daughter, Diana. She was also critically wounded in the blast and was about to undergo emergency surgery.\n\nBut he could not hide his pain. \"God, why would you bring all this upon me? I was not supposed to bury my children, my lovely girls, I failed to protect you.\"", "Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters Image caption: Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters\n\nPavel Gomzyakov usually photographs the happiest days of people’s lives. He is an award-winning wedding photographer from Mariupol, southern Ukraine.\n\nBut, recently, he has been documenting life in the city as it has come under heavy Russian attack.\n\n“Before the start of the war, Mariupol was a peaceful Ukrainian city, a city in which 95% of people were Russian speaking, like me. My daughter used to study at a Russian school,” he tells BBC Panorama.\n\nAt the end of last week, he escaped, along with his wife and nine-year-old son. His elderly parents stayed behind and he hasn’t been able to contact them for days, as electricity has been cut.\n\nHe is now trying work out how he can unite with his eldest daughter, 17, who is alone in Germany. She was in the north-eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv at ballet school when the war started.\n\nPavel says it is if they have all woken up to a new, terrible reality.\n\nMore on Panorama Ukraine's Resistance: Standing Up to Putin on BBC One at 20:00 GMT", "People aged 75 and over, residents in care homes and those with weakened immune systems can now book an extra booster jab against Covid in England.\n\nIt comes as official figures show infection rates are rising in all age groups - including the over-70s.\n\nThe rollout follows recommendations from the UK's vaccine advisers who say additional jabs will help boost protection for the most vulnerable.\n\nSpring boosters are already being rolled out in Wales and Scotland.\n\nA wider booster programme - involving more people - is expected this autumn.\n\nIt comes as the UK is seeing rising cases of Covid, with an estimated one in every 20 people infected, according to latest figures.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid said that people with symptoms of the virus should \"behave sensibly\" but he said that it would be down to the individual to decide whether or not to take a test.\n\n\"I think we need to step back and think about how we learn to live with Covid and focus on our very best form of defence and that's the vaccination programme,\" he said.\n\nWhile vaccines have been shown to provide good protection against severe disease, protection wanes over time.\n\nAnd as many of the oldest received their last jab in autumn 2021, their immunity may now be declining, experts say.\n\nNow, a second booster - to be administered six months after the previous dose, or sooner if deemed appropriate - will be offered to:\n\nOver seven million people in the UK will be eligible to have the extra booster jab - with the first 600,000 people in England to be invited from this week.\n\nDr Nikki Kanani, GP and deputy lead for the NHS's vaccination programme, urged everyone eligible to book their boosters as soon as possible.\n\nShe said: \"With infections rising this is a really important opportunity for people who are eligible to come forward and get booked and get their spring booster.\"\n\nThe extra jabs will be given around six months after the last dose of vaccine.\n\nAcross the UK more than two-thirds of people aged over 12 have had two Covid vaccines plus a single booster jab.\n\nA first booster dose is currently available for everyone aged 16 and over, and at-risk children aged 12 to 15.\n\nBut up until now only people with severely weakened immune systems had been eligible for a fourth dose - three doses plus a booster.\n\nThe Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has suggested further boosters will be offered to a wider group of people in autumn.\n\nExperts believe winter is likely to be the season when the threat from Covid is greatest - for individuals, the NHS and care homes.\n\nRecent research from the UK Health Security Agency has shown that the NHS booster programme has helped prevent around 157,000 hospitalisations since mid-December.\n\nDespite this NHS hospitals have treated more than 100,000 patient with Covid since the start of the Omicron wave.\n• None How to get a Covid booster - NHS The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Kaden Reddick was fatally injured at Topshop in Reading's Oracle shopping centre\n\nTopshop and its former owners have been found guilty of health and safety breaches after a 10-year-old boy died when a queue barrier toppled on him.\n\nKaden Reddick suffered a fatal head injury at the Reading store during a family shopping trip in 2017.\n\nFollowing a two-month trial, Arcadia Group and Topshop/Topman were convicted of failing to discharge a health and safety duty.\n\nA jury found barrier manufacturer Realm Projects not guilty of the same charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV video showed the barrier at the Reading store \"wobble\" as people leaned on it\n\nStoneforce Ltd, which was contracted to fit the barriers, had earlier pleaded guilty to failing to discharge a health and safety duty.\n\nDuring the trial, Reading Crown Court heard the barrier was installed between 2013 and 2014, during a major store refit.\n\nThe plinth supporting the barrier at the store in Reading's Oracle shopping centre had only been fixed to the floor with two narrow screws and the \"wobbly\" barrier fell on Kaden, prosecutors said.\n\nArcadia, Topshop/Topman and Stoneforce Ltd will be sentenced at a later date.\n\nThe jury was shown a picture of the barrier around the time it was installed\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A child stole a Covid testing van and crashed it into a car before fleeing on foot, police have said.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said staff at a business on Weedon Street called officers at 04:15 GMT to report the van stolen.\n\nPolice spotted the van on Bramall Lane at 06:30 and it stopped on Queens Road after colliding with a silver Ford Ka.\n\nThe driver, a 13-year-old boy from Sheffield, was found nearby and detained, police said.\n\nThey said he had been arrested on suspicion of burglary/theft of a motor vehicle.\n\nThe driver of the car, a man in his 50s, was treated at the scene by Yorkshire Ambulance Service before being taken to hospital\n\nThe driver of the Ford KA, a man in his 50s, was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service also attended to help make the scene safe, and Queens Road was closed at the junction with Duchess Road for a time but has since reopened.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A number of Apple services experienced outages on Monday, Apple's support page has confirmed.\n\nThe areas affected included the App Store, iMessage, Maps, Apple Arcade, the iTunes store, podcasts and Apple TV+.\n\nApple's system status page now shows that all of its services are back up and running.\n\nSome of Apple's network was down for three hours.\n\nA number of iCloud services had been affected, including calendar and mail.\n\nApple confirmed to the BBC its systems had faced outages but has not commented on the reason for the issue.\n\nAccording to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, more than 4,000 users had reported issues with accessing Apple Music, while nearly 4,000 reported problems with iCloud.\n\nApple iMessage was also down for a short period.", "The government has faced intense pressure over gatherings held in and around Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. A police investigation into several of the events has now concluded, with more than 100 fines having been issued to attendees. Here is what we know about the gatherings and the restrictions in place at the time:\n\nA photo from May 2020 showed the prime minister and his staff with bottles of wine and a cheeseboard in the Downing Street garden. When asked about it, Boris Johnson said \"those people were at work talking about work\". Boris Johnson was pictured with his wife Carrie as well as Downing Street staff Legal restrictions at the time said you could not leave your house without a reasonable excuse and government guidance was that you could meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor setting while exercising. This event was not investigated by the police. About 100 people were invited by email to \"socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening\". Witnesses told the BBC the PM and his wife were among about 30 people who attended. Boris Johnson apologised to MPs for attending the event, saying he spent 25 minutes thanking staff, before returning to his office. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering took place in the Cabinet Office to mark the departure of a No 10 private secretary. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least one fine has been issued after the government's former head of ethics admitted receiving one and apologised for attending the event. On Boris Johnson’s birthday, up to 30 people gathered in the Cabinet Room at No 10 to present the prime minister with a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday, according to a report by ITV News. No 10 said staff had \"gathered briefly\" to \"wish the prime minister a happy birthday\", adding that he had been there \"for less than 10 minutes\". Restrictions at the time banned most indoor gatherings involving more than two people. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least three attendees have received fines from the police, with the PM, his wife Carrie Symonds and Chancellor Rishi Sunak all confirming they have paid fixed penalty notices. Two gatherings are understood to have taken place in Downing Street on this date: one to mark the departure of a special adviser and one in the Downing Street flat. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the gathering in the flat where Mr Johnson and his wife live was to celebrate the departure of Dominic Cummings, the PM's former senior adviser. A spokesman for Mrs Johnson denies the party took place. Boris Johnson pictured at a party, according to ITV News Eight days earlier Boris Johnson had announced a new lockdown in England. Indoor gatherings with other households were banned, unless they were for work purposes. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. A leaving event was held for No 10 aide, Cleo Watson, where people were drinking, and Mr Johnson made a speech, according to sources. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Education has confirmed it had an office gathering to thank staff for their work during the pandemic. It says drinks and snacks were brought by those who attended and no outside guests or support staff were invited. Eight days earlier, London had been placed in restrictions which banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Conservative Party has admitted that an \"unauthorised gathering\" took place at its HQ in Westminster. It was held by the team of the party's London-mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, who has since stepped down as chair of the London Assembly police and crime committee. In December, police said they would be contacting two people who attended the party. The gathering at the Conservative Party headquarters was described as ‘raucous’ This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. Multiple sources have told the BBC there was a Christmas quiz for No 10 staff last year. A photo - published by the Sunday Mirror - shows Boris Johnson taking part and sitting between two colleagues in No 10. Mr Johnson has denied any wrongdoing. Mr Johnson was pictured in the No 10 library under a portrait of Margaret Thatcher The rules: At this time, the rules in London banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Transport has apologised after confirming reports of a party in its offices, calling it \"inappropriate\" and an \"error of judgment\" by staff. This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. A leaving party was held at the Cabinet Office for the outgoing head of the civil service Covid taskforce - the team responsible for drawing up coronavirus restrictions. Kate Josephs, now chief executive of Sheffield City Council, apologised for the event, saying she was \"truly sorry that I did this and for the anger that people will feel as a result\". A second gathering was held in the Cabinet Office to hold an online Christmas quiz for the Cabinet Secretary’s private office. A third gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of a No 10 official The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or all of the events. Downing Street originally denied a report by the Daily Mirror that a party took place in Downing Street on this date. However, a video obtained by ITV News showed the prime minister's then-press secretary Allegra Stratton joking about reports of the event, saying: \"This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.\" The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of two private secretaries. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. Two parties were held by Downing Street staff at No 10, the night before Prince Philip's funeral. One of the events was a leaving party for the PM's then director of communications James Slack, who has apologised for the event and acknowledged it \"should not have happened at the time that it did\". Boris Johnson was not at either party. The rules had been eased in England on 12 April, but working from home continued to be recommended and socialising indoors with people from other households was not allowed. Meeting others outdoors was limited to groups of six people or two households. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. We know fines have been issued to some people who attended Mr Slack’s leaving party, but we do not know who they were issued to.", "Unite workers are on strike in a dispute over pay\n\nThe Unite union refused requests to exempt special school services from strike action, the Education Authority has claimed.\n\nThe authority said the union declined requests it made on Wednesday 16 March and Monday 21 March.\n\nThe Unite union has been contacted by BBC News NI for a response.\n\nMembers of Unite are taking action over a local government pay offer of 1.75%, which the union has called a \"real terms pay cut\".\n\nUnite is one of the largest public sector unions.\n\nThe union said its members in councils, the Education Authority and the Housing Executive expressed overwhelming support for the industrial action in ballots.\n\nGareth Scott, from Unite, told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster the offer was \"totally inadequate\".\n\n\"These local authority workers have seen their pay cut in real terms by 22% in last 12 years,\" he added.\n\n\"Over the last two years, during the pandemic, they have been essential workers and now we have the cost of living crisis - the response from employers was to offer a meagre 1.75% increase.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. We're not being offered a living wage'\n\nWhen asked if the union had considered making an exception for special schools, he said the problem lay with the employers.\n\n\"This could have been avoided by the employers making a fair and reasonable pay offer - something that goes a lot closer to meeting the cost of living,\" he said.\n\n\"Our members do not want to be on strike. But they have got to the point where they feel they have no alternative.\"\n\nSome school transport, meals, council bin collections, leisure services and Housing Executive maintenance will be disrupted by the week-long action by over 2,000 Unite members.\n\nSome special schools are expected to be particularly affected by the unavailability of Education Authority transport as they rely heavily on the so-called yellow buses.\n\nSome classroom assistants in special schools who are members of Unite may also be on strike.\n\nBut only one of 39 special schools - Glenveagh in Belfast - has said it cannot offer pupils face-to-face teaching \"due to lack of staffing\".\n\nThe Education Authority, though, said it had asked on Wednesday 16 March for classroom assistants at Glenveagh to be exempt from the strike.\n\nIt had also asked for yellow bus drivers in greater Belfast who transport wheelchair-using pupils to be allowed to continue to work.\n\nThe strikes may cause some disruption to school meals\n\nThe authority said that on Monday it had gone further and asked Unite to exempt all special school staff and bus drivers from the strike action.\n\nThe Education Authority's director of human resources Clare Duffield told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra that Unite had been asked to \"protect\" special schools.\n\n\"It is very disappointing that children with special educational needs are having their normal routine disrupted,\" she said.\n\n\"And it's really disappointing that those requests have been rejected at this stage.\"\n\n\"We have made the requests on a number of occasions and will continue to escalate those requests so that we can attempt to minimise the disruption throughout the week.\"\n\n\"We absolutely respect the right of a trade union and their members to take lawful industrial action but it's very disappointing when that impact son the most vulnerable children and young people.\"\n\nMs Duffield said that around 100 out of over 2,000 EA bus routes had been affected by strike action on Monday but that pupils from special schools has been most affected.", "Prince Andrew will make his first appearance in public since settling the court case\n\nThe Duke of York will attend next week's thanksgiving service for Prince Philip, says his spokesperson.\n\nIt will be Prince Andrew's first public appearance since the settlement of the civil sex assault case brought against him in the US by Virginia Giuffre.\n\nThe service at Westminster Abbey will celebrate the life of his father, Prince Philip, who died last year.\n\nPrince Philip's grandson, Prince Harry, who lives in the US, has already said he will not be attending.\n\nThe Queen would be expected to attend next Tuesday's service honouring the memory of her husband.\n\nBut there have been concerns about her mobility and last week she was unable to go to the Commonwealth Service held in Westminster Abbey.\n\nOther members of the Royal Family will take part in the service remembering Prince Philip's life and legacy - although Prince Harry has already confirmed he will not be travelling from the US.\n\nPrince Harry has been involved in a legal dispute over the provision of security when he visits the UK.\n\nIn the fall out from his high-profile court case, Prince Andrew lost the use of the title His Royal Highness and stepped back from public life, but his representative says he will attend the service commemorating his father.\n\nThis will be the first time he will have been seen at an event in public since agreeing to make payments to Ms Giuffre and her victims' rights charity in a settlement that ended the civil court case.\n\nPrince Andrew rejected any claims of wrongdoing, and the formal closure of the case earlier this month ended the prospect of a trial in New York.\n\nBut there have been questions about the prince's reputational damage and his future role in royal events.", "Video released by Ukraine's State Emergency Service captured the moment when a shopping centre in Kyiv was hit by a Russian missile.\n\nAuthorities say at least eight people were killed when the Podilskyi district of Kyiv was struck.\n\nFirefighters were seen trying to rescue people stranded beneath the rubble.", "The mayor of London says the government has \"failed to complete\" any of the 12 recommendations directed at them during phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower inquiry.\n\nLabour's Sadiq Khan said it was \"vital the government act now\" and pointed out London Fire Brigade has made 26 of the 29 requested of it in 2019 report.\n\nA government spokesman called the claim \"unfounded\" and said progress was being made on implementing their response.\n\nSeventy-two people died in the fire in a west London tower block in June 2017.\n\nThe initial report into the Grenfell Tower fire was published on 30 October 2019, following the conclusion of phase 1 of the inquiry - which looked at the events of the night of the fire, focusing on the fire itself, how it started and spread, and the emergency response to it.\n\nThe mayor said London Fire Brigade (LFB) had carried out all but three of the 29 recommendations directed at them - alongside other fire and rescue services - in the report three years ago.\n\nAmong the changes made by LFB in response to the report was the introduction of smoke hoods - to aid in the rescue of people in smoke-filled environments - and the deployment of 32m and 64m ladders to help tackle fires in high-rise buildings .\n\nIt has also rolled out an extensive training programme as it establishes new guidance for how the brigade responds to high-rise fires, including when the \"stay put\" guidance is no longer viable and a mass evacuation should be carried out, said the mayor.\n\nThe LFB was criticised in the report for its failure to revoke the \"stay put\" advice - in which residents were told to remain in their individual homes as the fire raged through the 24-storey tower block.\n\nSpeaking on Sunday, Mr Khan said London Fire Brigade had made \"significant changes\" and appeared committed to putting the recommendations in place \"as swiftly as possible\".\n\n\"However, I am extremely concerned the government has failed to complete a single recommendation from the first phase of the inquiry,\" he added.\n\n\"It is vital that the government and the housing and building industries act now and do not wait for the inquiry's next report to take action on such an important issue.\"\n\n\"Without faster action, the government is failing the Grenfell community, putting lives at risk and leaving residents feeling unsafe in their homes.\n\n\"The government, housing and building industries must not wait to implement the wholesale reforms that are needed to fix a broken system,\" said the mayor, adding no dates had been put forward by government.\n\nGrenfell Tower marked the greatest loss of life in a residential fire since the Second World War\n\n\"This claim is unfounded,\" said a spokesperson for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in response to Mr Khan.\n\n\"The government is making progress towards implementing the Grenfell Tower Inquiry's Phase 1 recommendations.\n\n\"We're introducing the biggest improvements in building safety for a generation- with tougher regulations that will give more rights and protections for residents and make homes safer.\n\nThe statement pointed out that a newly-established building safety regulator will enforce tighter rules on high-rise residential buildings.\n\nIn the report, inquiry chairman and retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick included 12 recommendations aimed primarily at the government. These recommendations include vital changes to legislation and national guidelines on building regulations, including those that relate to fire safety.\n\nThe government accepted in principle all the recommendations, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson promising at the time of publication \"not to allow the lessons of this tragedy to fall through the cracks\" adding that Westminster would \"legislate accordingly\".\n\nIt was created to examine the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the fire at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017.\n\nThe investigation has been separated into two phases: Phase 1 focused on the factual narrative of the events, and concluded on 12 December 2018.\n\nPhase 2 is examining the causes of these events, including how Grenfell Tower came to be in a condition which allowed the fire to spread in the way identified by Phase 1.", "Russian attacks have damaged or destroyed 80% of Mariupol's residential buildings, the mayor says\n\nEfforts to rescue hundreds of people trapped in the basement of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol are being hampered by intense battles in the area, the mayor says.\n\nVadym Boychenko told the BBC teams were only able to clear the rubble of the building during lulls in the fighting.\n\nUkrainian officials say Russia attacked the site, which was clearly marked as a civilian shelter. Moscow denies it.\n\nRussian forces have encircled the city, which has no electricity, water or gas.\n\nAbout 300,000 people are trapped inside, as food and medical supplies run out and Russia blocks the entry of humanitarian aid. Russian attacks have hit a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks, with local officials estimating that about 80% of residential buildings are either damaged or destroyed, a third of them beyond repair.\n\nMariupol has seen some of the fiercest battles since Russia invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. The location of the port city, on the Sea of Azov, is strategic for Russia, as it would help it create a land corridor between the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, controlled by Russian-backed separatists, and Crimea, the peninsula it invaded and annexed in 2014.\n\n\"[There is] street fighting in the city centre,\" Mr Boychenko said, confirming a claim made by Russia on Friday, when it said it was \"tightening the noose\" around the city.\n\n\"There are tanks... and artillery shelling, and all kinds of weapons fired in the area,\" the mayor said. \"Our forces are doing everything they can to hold their positions in the city but the forces of the enemy are larger than ours, unfortunately.\"\n\nCommunication with the city is difficult, with the phone network said to be operational only a few hours a day. Amid unrelenting Russian attacks, residents spend most of their days in shelters and basements, rarely coming outside.\n\nMr Boychenko said, in a previous interview, that there was no city centre left. \"There isn't a small piece of land in the city that doesn't have signs of war,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe intense fighting means it is too dangerous for teams to clear the rubble of the destroyed theatre and rescue people from the basement, which withstood Wednesday's attack. \"There's no opportunity to do that,\" Mr Boychenko said. \"When it gets quiet for a bit, rubble is being cleared and people get out.\"\n\nHe said he could not provide an update on how many had already left the site. A day earlier, the country's human rights ombudsman said 130 people had been rescued, and that about 1,300 remained trapped.\n\nSatellite images showed the Russian word for \"children\" had been emblazoned on the ground in two locations outside the imposing Soviet-era building, indicating the place was being used as a civilian shelter. Most of those inside are elderly people, women and children, who are living squeezed in dark rooms and corridors.\n\nIn a video address released on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the people rescued were \"seriously wounded\" but that, at the moment, there was no information of deaths.\n\nA picture of the theatre in Mariupol before the bombing, with the word \"children\" in Russian clearly visible\n\nPresident Zelensky also accused Russia of a \"war crime\" for blocking the access of humanitarian aid to the besieged cities. \"This is a totally deliberate tactic,\" he said. \"They [Russian forces] have a clear order to do absolutely everything to make the humanitarian catastrophe in Ukrainian cities an 'argument' for Ukrainians to co-operate with the occupiers.\"\n\nThe authorities in Mariupol say at least 2,500 people have been killed in the city since the start of the war, although they acknowledge that is an underestimate. Some of the dead are being left on streets, as it is too risky to collect them. Many end up being buried in mass graves.\n\nMr Boychenko, the Mariupol mayor, said 40,000 people had managed to leave the city in the last five days, and that 20,000 others were waiting to be evacuated. Residents are fleeing in private vehicles, he said, as attempts to create official humanitarian corridors have broken down, with Ukraine accusing Russia of attacking the city despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n• None 'We knew something terrible was coming'", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nCivilians are said to be emerging alive from the ruins of a theatre that, according to Ukrainian authorities, was bombed by Russia in the city of Mariupol. Despite pictures of devastation at the scene, many who were sheltering there are thought to have survived in a basement that withstood Wednesday's attack.\n\nFor 10 days, that basement was a refuge for Kate, a 38-year-old Mariupol native, and her son, who is 17. Their own home, like many others in the besieged city, had been destroyed by Russian attacks, and they thought the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama was a place where they would be relatively safe.\n\nMother and son squeezed in the building's dark rooms, corridors and halls with dozens of other families. Some women, Kate said, carried babies that were just four or five months old.\n\n\"In the beginning, it was really tough, because we didn't have a well-organised food supply. So on the first two days, adults didn't have any food,\" Kate, who used to work at the city's zoo shop and did not want to give her full name, said. \"We gave food only to the children.\"\n\nThey slept on improvised beds made with soft parts of auditorium seats which had been put together on the floor. The seats made of wood, she said, were cut in parts and used as firewood for them to cook. \"Around the theatre there wasn't enough trees we could use, and it was too dangerous to go outside\".\n\nFor almost three weeks, Mariupol has been under constant shelling by Russian forces, which have completely surrounded the city. About 300,000 people are trapped, with no electricity, gas or running water. Food and medicine are running low, as Russia has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nFour days after she arrived, Kate said, Ukrainian forces managed to send some food supplies and a field kitchen to the theatre, and \"we [started] cooking something\". They would have soup, and sometimes oatmeal, for lunch, and tea with biscuits for dinner.\n\nThe imposing Soviet-era building in Mariupol's city centre, next to the Sea of Azov waterfront, had been designated as a shelter for civilians. Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, said up to 1,200 people had been there. Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with evacuees, put that number at between 500 and 800.\n\nAs Russia's relentless assault continued, Kate said the buildings around the theatre had been either damaged or destroyed. \"We knew we had to run away because something terrible would happen soon,\" she said.\n\nA day before the attack, Kate and her son left the site. \"We jumped in a car while the theatre and the area were being shelled,\" she said. They shared the vehicle with a family of four, who had brought four dogs and a cat.\n\n\"We asked to go with them, because we didn't have our own [car],\" she said. They were part of convoy of about 2,000 cars that escaped Mariupol on Tuesday.\n\nMariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack \"deliberate and cynical\". Russia denied it had targeted the site but, in Mariupol alone, its attacks had already hit several civilian buildings including a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks.\n\nSatellite images released by the US company Maxar taken on Monday showed that the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters in two locations outside the building, to warn Russian jets away.\n\nA convoy of cars carrying evacuees from Mariupol arrives in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nVideo of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the building's collapsed façade. But with communications with the city almost completely cut off, the numbers of survivors or possible casualties were still not clear, almost 20 hours later.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and originally from Mariupol, said the shelter in the basement of the building withstood the attack, and that teams were trying to clear the rubble which covered the entrance to the site. \"It looks like most of them have survived and are OK,\" he said.\n\nBut the rescue efforts were tricky, he said, as Russia had continued to attack the area. \"Shelling never stops and artillery never stops and airplanes are dropping bombs,\" he said, \"so it's really difficult\".\n\nThe city council estimates about 80% to 90% of the city's buildings have either been damaged or destroyed by Russia, which has attacked the city almost non-stop since it invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned into wasteland.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAfter leaving Mariupol, Kate was headed to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, a region that has been largely spared of attacks. \"The first day after we managed to get out, I couldn't talk. We all just cried\", she said. \"But now it feels like there are no tears left. I don't think this pain will ever disappear.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as \"dismal\".\n\nIts military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, \"the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day\". So what has gone wrong? I have spoken to senior Western military officers and intelligence officials, about the mistakes Russia has made.\n\nRussia's first mistake was to underestimate the strength of resistance and the capabilities of Ukraine's own smaller armed forces. Russia has an annual defence budget of more than $60bn, compared with Ukraine's spending of just over $4bn.\n\nAt the same time, Russia, and many others, appear to have overestimated its own military strengths. President Putin had embarked on an ambitious modernisation programme for his military and he too may have believed his own hype.\n\nA senior British military official said much of Russia's investment had been spent on its vast nuclear arsenal and experimentation, that included developing new weapons such as hypersonic missiles. Russia is supposed to have built the world's most advanced tank - the T-14 Armata. But while it has been seen on Moscow's Victory Day Parade on Red Square, it has been missing in battle. Most of what Russia has fielded are older T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and rocket launchers.\n\nAt the start of the invasion Russia had a clear advantage in the air, with the combat aircraft it had moved near the border outnumbering Ukraine's air force by more than three to one. Most military analysts assumed the invading force would quickly gain superiority in the air, but it has not. Ukraine's air defences are still proving effective, limiting Russia's ability to manoeuvre.\n\nMoscow may have also assumed its special forces would play an important role, helping deliver a quick, decisive blow.\n\nA senior Western intelligence official told the BBC that Russia thought it could deploy lighter, spearhead units like the Spetsnatz and VDV paratroopers, \"to eliminate a small number of defenders and that would be it\". But in the first few days their helicopter assault on Hostomel Airport, just outside Kyiv, was repelled, denying Russia an airbridge to bring in troops, equipment and supplies.\n\nOn the parade ground but not the battleground - Russia's T-14 Armata tank\n\nInstead, Russia has had to transport its supplies mostly by road. This has created traffic jams and choke points which are easy targets for Ukrainian forces to ambush. Some heavy armour has gone off road, only to get stuck in mud, reinforcing an image of an army that has become \"bogged down\".\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's long armoured column from the north that was captured by satellites has still failed to encircle Kyiv. The most significant advances have come from the south, where it has been able to use rail lines to resupply its forces. The UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC that President Putin's forces \"have lost the momentum\".\n\n\"They're stuck and they are slowly but surely taking significant casualties.\"\n\nRussia had amassed a force of around 190,000 troops for this invasion and most of those have already been committed to the battle. But they have already lost about 10% of that force. There are no reliable figures for the scale of either Russian or Ukrainian losses. Ukraine claims to have killed 14,000 Russian troops, though the US estimates it is probably half that number.\n\nWestern officials say there is also evidence of dwindling morale among Russian fighters, with one saying it was \"very, very, low\". Another said the troops were \"cold, tired and hungry\" as they had already been waiting in the snow for weeks in Belarus and Russia before they were given the order to invade.\n\nRussia has already been forced to look for more troops to make up for its losses, including moving in reserve units from as far afield as the east of the country and Armenia. Western officials believe it is also \"highly likely\" that foreign troops from Syria will soon join the fight, along with mercenaries from its secretive Wagner group. A senior Nato military official said this was a sign it was \"scratching the bottom of the barrel\".\n\nRussia has struggled with the basics. There is an old military saying that amateurs talk tactics while professionals study logistics. There is evidence that Russia has not given it enough consideration. Armoured columns have run out of fuel, food and ammunition. Vehicles have broken down and been left abandoned, then towed away by Ukrainian tractors.\n\nWestern officials also believe Russia may be running low on some munitions. It has already fired between 850 and 900 long-range precision munitions, including cruise missiles, which are harder to replace than unguided weapons. US officials have warned Russia has approached China to help address some of its shortages.\n\nDefence support announced by the US is expected to include the Switchblade \"kamikaze\" drone\n\nIn contrast, there has been a steady flow of Western-supplied weapons going into Ukraine, which has been a boost for its morale. The US has just announced it will be providing an additional $800m in defence support. As well as more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, it is expected to include Switchblade, which is a small, US-developed, \"kamikaze\" drone that can be carried in a backpack before being launched to deliver a small explosive at targets on the ground.\n\nWestern officials still warn that President Putin could \"double down with greater brutality\". They say he still has enough firepower to bombard Ukrainian cities for a \"considerable period of time\".\n\nDespite the setbacks, one intelligence official said President Putin was, \"unlikely to be deterred and may instead escalate. He likely remains confident that Russia can militarily defeat Ukraine\". And while the Ukrainian forces have shown fierce resistance, that same official warned that without significant resupplies they too could \"eventually be spent in terms of ammunition and numbers\". The odds may be better than when the war first started, but they still seem stacked against Ukraine.", "Let black girls be girls. That was the message that hundreds of people wanted to express when they gathered for a rally in north London on Sunday.\n\nCrowds marched in support of Child Q - a black 15-year-old girl who was strip-searched at school after being wrongly suspected of carrying drugs.\n\nThe incident happened in 2020 and the girl's family is suing her school and the force. The family said the girl had become \"a shell of her former bubbly self\".\n\nBut it has reignited concerns over the treatment of black people by the Metropolitan Police. The Met has apologised for what happened but people at the rally say they want assurances that what happened to Child Q won't be repeated.\n\nHolding banners and chanting, people demanded justice. One placard read \"protect our black children\".\n\nBut aside from the anger and outrage, the sense of grief and trauma was palpable. Many shed tears in the midst of chanting for change.\n\nOmega Douglas said she felt sick when she heard what happened to Child Q. She came along to the rally with her mother and daughter. Like many, she believes the Met has failed black people several times.\n\n\"I'm old enough to have lived through the Brixton riots,\" she said, citing the \"multiple abuses of power by the police in this country\". She added: \"I am appalled.\"\n\nOmega came along to the rally with her mother and daughter\n\nJacqui Courtenay set up the rally after hearing about the case of Child Q a few days ago.\n\nShe said she had a strong urge to act because \"a child out there has been caused such harm, a black child, and that could have been my kids... that could be [my] nieces and nephews\".\n\nJacqui and several others say they felt particularly traumatised after hearing how the 15-year-old was strip searched by two female police officers, and made to take off her sanitary towel. The teenager was on her period at the time.\n\nThe ordeal took place at Child Q's school, with no appropriate adult present.\n\nIt's the first time that Jacqui, a city worker, has set up an event of this kind. She reached out to Patrick Vernon, a Windrush campaigner who helped organise the rally with the support of other human rights activists like Marai Larasi.\n\nJacqui said she was overwhelmed by the response of the hundreds of people who came to the rally in solidarity with Child Q.\n\n\"I feel like it's an out of body experience... It's been so long since we've seen such an outpouring of love for a black person, let alone a black girl.\"\n\nJacqui Courtenay was one of the organisers of Sunday's event\n\nMany people told the BBC of their anger at the \"adultification bias\" which the safeguarding review said was highly likely to have been a factor in the case. Adultification is a form of racial prejudice that causes adults to perceive black children as being older than they are.\n\n\"They are seen as troublemakers\" said Izzy, a youth worker at the rally. \"They're seen as aggressive or loud, a threat. I get them telling me about that quite a lot.\"\n\nSpeaking through her tears, Holly Adamoh said that the school involved should have looked after Child Q.\n\n\"You should not have to feel racially profiled within a school, and you shouldn't have to ever feel threatened,\" she said. \"You should be listened to and looked after.\" Frustrated, Holly said she believed the police showed a lack of empathy towards Child Q.\n\nHolly and Izzy were among the hundreds of people at the rally\n\nFormer Met Police superintendent Leroy Logan was also at the rally. He retired in 2013 but spent some of his career in Hackney, where the incident took place.\n\nHe told the BBC that the false accusation made about Child Q smelling of cannabis did not give the police the authority to carry out the strip search.\n\nThe Met Police has apologised, with Scotland Yard saying its officers' actions were \"regrettable\" and \"it should never have happened\". Last month, a senior Met officer told the BBC that racism remains a problem in the force - but he denied the Met was a racist organisation.\n\nLogan added that many people are disgusted by the case and \"know their child could be next\".\n\n\"This is not a time just to say we regret,\" he said. \"There has to be action.\"", "The number of patients in hospital with Covid is higher than it has ever been\n\nThe number of patients in Scottish hospitals with Covid has reached the highest level seen during the pandemic.\n\nLatest figures reveal 2,128 patients recently tested positive for the virus, higher than the previous peak in January 2021.\n\nThe number requiring ICU treatment, however, remains relatively low as fewer patients become seriously ill.\n\nThe latest Covid surge is thought to be driven by a more transmissible sub-variant of Omicron.\n\nThe latest daily figures revealed that a further 9,533 new cases were reported on Monday. No new deaths were reported but register offices are generally closed at weekends.\n\nThe number of people with Covid in hospital has risen by 78 since Friday but only 31 of the 2,128 Covid-positive patients were so ill that they required intensive care.\n\nHospital Covid numbers have risen far higher than during the most recent Omicron peak in January.\n\nOn Friday, data from the Office for National Statistics suggested that one in 14 Scots, a total of 376,300 people, had Covid in the week ending 12 March. Most cases are thought to involve the more transmissible BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.\n\nOmicron infections tend to be milder and with a large proportion of people vaccinated, the risks of becoming seriously unwell with this variant are relatively low.\n\nDespite this, Prof Linda Bauld, an expert in public health at the University of Edinburgh who also advises the government, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme the NHS was still under real pressure.\n\nProf Bauld said Covid-positive patients required more protocols which take more time, even if they were originally admitted to hospital for other ailments.\n\nWaiting lists and staff absences have also been affected by outbreaks, she added.\n\nShe advised people should take up the offer of vaccines and expect future vaccines to protect against multiple variants.\n\nMany health boards say they are seeing more Covid patients in hospital now than at any point in the pandemic.\n\nYet there is no clamour from medics and health officials for more restrictions - that's because Covid itself is less of a direct threat than it once was.\n\nThe vast majority of Covid patients do not need to be admitted to intensive care and are recovering more quickly. That's down to high vaccination rates and better treatments.\n\nInstead Covid is causing a different sort of pressure on hospitals.\n\nPatients need to be kept separate to limit infection spread, limiting bed capacity in some wards. You may need to pull nursing staff from places like outpatients or day surgery to cover gaps caused by staff absences. And shortages in social care mean it's harder to get people out of hospital.\n\nIt all leads to less capacity, people waiting too long in emergency departments and ever-growing waiting lists.\n\nThese are the sort of pressures that the NHS is going to have to deal with for a long time to come.\n\nMost of the remaining legal Covid restrictions in Scotland have now officially come to an end.\n\nBusinesses are no longer required to retain customers' contact details - although the legal requirement to wear face coverings in shops, hospitality venues and public transport remains in place.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the rule will stay for \"a further short period\" because of the surge in cases.\n\nThe measure will be reviewed again before the Scottish Parliament's Easter recess on 2 April, and is expected to become guidance shortly afterwards.\n\nVaccine boosters have already been offered to the most vulnerable people and public health experts expect them to be rolled out to people in their 50s and 60s in the autumn.\n\nAsymptomatic people will still be advised to test regularly until 18 April - with tests free of charge - and people with symptoms should continue to get a PCR test until the end of that month.\n\nHowever, the population-wide testing and contact tracing system will come to a close at the end of April - a move criticised by public health expert Prof Devi Sridhar.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland's The Nine: \"We won't be able to pick up if there's a new variant spreading, if that's causing higher hospitalisation rates. People won't know if they're infectious to others.\n\n\"I think there's a real risk that we lose sight of this virus in surveillance so I think giving up testing is a huge mistake. Giving up testing will cost us not just in terms of the infection spreading but in the people it finds and kills.\"\n\nPeople with symptoms should continue to get a PCR test until the end of April\n\nSome public health experts have questioned whether face coverings will have any effect on the jump in case numbers.\n\nChristine Tait-Burkard, from The Roslin Institute, has told BBC Scotland the impact that mask-wearing makes without many of the other restrictions in place \"is small, or is smaller than it ever was before\".\n\nBut she backed the extended retention of the legal requirement as \"last reminder\" of the need for caution.\n\nThe first minister has said a sharp rise in infections was putting \"significant pressure on hospital capacity\", but that vaccines were still giving people good protection.\n\nMs Sturgeon, giving an update on the government's strategic framework for managing the virus last week, said she needed to \"ask everyone to be patient for a little while longer on face coverings\".\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives have described the retention of the mask rules as \"a blow for households and businesses\".\n\nScottish Labour's finance spokesman Daniel Johnson said the challenges facing Scotland's economy \"didn't start with Covid and they won't end today\".\n\nHe added: \"Businesses across Scotland will breathe a sigh of relief as restrictions are lifted - but there is no room for complacency.\n\n\"The cost of living crisis will pile added pressure on to businesses, but the SNP and the Tory governments are failing to get to grips with the challenge.\"\n\nA Scottish government spokesperson said its economic plan included \"a ruthless focus on working with business and industry to deliver the changes we want to see\".", "Dmytro Kotenko died near the southern city of Kherson and was buried in Lviv, safe for now from falling bombs\n\nThere was no family around Dmytro Kotenko when they put him in the ground. His parents did not hear the gunshots that rang out over his grave. They did not hear the sound of the ribbon tied to the wooden cross above him as it fluttered in the wind. They did not see the rough earth that first landed on his coffin and they did not lay a flower over him when he was completely covered by the earth.\n\nMost likely, Kotenko's parents did not know their son was being buried that day in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. They were 600 miles away, with his two younger brothers, near the eastern city of Sumy, which was being so heavily shelled by Russian forces that it was cut off from the outside world.\n\nKotenko's parents did know that their son was dead. He died on 26 February, the third day of the Russian invasion, near to the southern city of Kherson. It was his first military operation. He was 21. Two days after his death, his parents received a call from his childhood friend Vadym Yarovenko, an artillery soldier, who broke the news.\n\nDmytro Kotenko died on the third day of the Russian invasion. He was 21.\n\nIt had taken Yarovenko all night to work up the courage to make the call — a long and restless night on his army bunk in Lviv, alone with the knowledge that Kotenko was gone. They were just boys when they met, all of 15 years old, with fresh haircuts and new uniforms for their first day at military school. When they discovered they were from adjacent villages, it was the beginning of a friendship that might have lasted for a lifetime.\n\nKotenko's father was a truck driver. His mother worked on a local farm. \"To join the army meant to come up in the world,\" Yarovenko said, \"I think this was part of the reason Dmytro signed up.\" The Kotenkos were a poor family, two parents and three sons, with a modest house in a small village on the Russian border in eastern Ukraine — the very people the Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed he was rescuing from the yoke of Ukrainian oppression.\n\nRussia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the grinding war that followed in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, was another reason the boys signed up, Yarovenko said. \"We knew that something like this could happen,\" he said, \"and we would have to go and defend our land.\" When people from the village asked them why they wanted to join the army in wartime, Kotenko would say, \"If not me, then who?\"\n\nKotenko's coffin is carried into the military church in Lviv. Three men were buried that day\n\nYarovenko's father also drove a truck, and at the military school in Sumy the boys bonded over their love of cars. Yarovenko, an only child, had found something like a brother in Kotenko. \"Neither of us liked the city-like entertainment, clubs etc,\" Yarovenko said. \"We loved spending time in nature — fishing, hunting, picnics. We loved to go to the river with friends.\"\n\nThey worked together on an old car — a Red Zhyguli — that Kotenko was fixing up on his family plot. They repaired motorbikes and drove them on the rural roads around home. They got to know each other's families.\n\n\"Dmytro's parents loved him and he loved them,\" Yarovenko said, wiping tears from his eyes. \"Dmytro would always help them with repairs, he was good at that. Even at school or at the academy he would always help. He was very good to his parents. I never heard them argue.\"\n\nYarovenko wanted to join an artillery unit but Kotenko's dream was to be a paratrooper. After two years at the academy they were separated — Yarovenko to the western city of Lviv to train for artillery and Kotenko to the southern city of Odesa to train to be a paratrooper.\n\n\"We messaged each other every day,\" Yarovenko said. \"We talked about everything. Regular things — how are you? What is happening where you are? We were close friends, we just talked.\"\n\nDmytro Kotenko's coffin at the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, Lviv. The church now holds funerals every day.\n\nFor a while last year, from July to October, the boys were reunited when Kotenko was stationed in Lviv. They went running together on the weekends and trained together. It was a happy time. On 31 December, their families got together in the village to ring in the new year, and a month or so later Kotenko came to Lviv to visit Yarovenko, before he was due to deploy south on an operation. They stayed up late talking. Along Ukraine's borders, Russia's forces were massed, waiting for orders to invade, but in Lviv life was normal and that night the war felt like a distant thing.\n\nThe next morning, Kotenko and Yarovenko said their goodbyes and Kotenko went south. They continued messaging every day. On 24 February, the long-awaited invasion came. On 26 February, Kotenko stopped responding to messages, and Yarovenko feared the worst. Eventually he reached the commander of Kotenko's unit, who told him over the phone that his friend had been killed by a mortar shell.\n\n\"I don't have all the details yet,\" Yarovenko said. \"There was shelling, there was an explosion, Dmytro died.\"\n\nKotenko was buried alongside Kyrylo Moroz, who also could not be taken home\n\nWhen Yarovenko dialled the number for Kotenko's parents, there was still a phone connection, and in a short conversation he told them that their son was gone. When he tried to call later about the funeral, the aerial bombardment of Sumy had worsened and the line would not connect. He kept trying but the line stayed dead. So Kotenko's body was brought to Lviv to be buried there without them, because the city was safe from falling shells.\n\nAt the heart of Lviv lies the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, which has a long affiliation with Ukraine's armed forces. Along the sides of the church's nave, there are boards mounted with pictures of Ukraine's war dead. The first pictures were put up by the chaplains in 2014, to honour the fallen soldiers who had been members of the church. Then, bereaved parents from around Lviv saw the pictures and wanted their sons and daughters to be there, and gradually the collection of portraits grew.\n\n\"They bring us photographs because they know we pray every day for those who died in war,\" said Father Vsevolod, one of the chaplains. \"We are part of this city's mission to bury army men and women with honours, so their acts of bravery are never forgotten.\"\n\nFather Vsevolod stands in front of the portraits of the dead. \"We will be honouring the fallen all our lives,\" he said\n\nBefore the invasion, the church held a funeral for a soldier once or twice a month, Father Vsevolod said. Now it was burying two or three men a day. None of the recent dead had yet been added to the wall of portraits. Kotenko was not there. But the pictures would be put up, Father Vsevolod said, and if a family was cut off and did not know their son was being buried in Lviv, the church would add it for them, he said.\n\nOn the day of Kotenko's funeral, Yarovenko travelled alone from his base to the church and he stood alone on one side of the nave, next to the portraits of the dead, under the vaulted ceiling painted with saints, as smoke from burning incense drifted over the priests and the mourners.\n\nThere were three coffins in the church that day. One of the men was from a village near Lviv, and the church was filled with his family and friends. After the service, they took him home. The two other coffins went quietly to the Lychakiv Cemetery, with a small group of soldiers from a local unit who help to commemorate the dead.\n\nThe gravediggers at the Lychakiv Cemetery cover Kotenko's coffin with earth\n\nKotenko was buried alongside Kyrylo Moroz, 25, a paratrooper from his unit, who could also not be taken home. They were laid to rest in a far corner of the cemetery, among the dead from the first and second world wars and the war with Russian-backed forces in Donbas.\n\nKotenko and Moroz were the fourth and fifth men killed in this invasion to be buried at the Lychakiv. Their graves were almost bare, but for a bunch of roses and a bunch of asters laid by the church and marked with the designation of their unit. The three other graves, for soldiers from Lviv, were festooned with flowers and lanterns.\n\nThe following day, the gravediggers at the Lychakiv buried two more men. The day after, three. Eventually, the wooden crosses bearing their names will be replaced by headstones that will hold their memory here for good.\n\n\"Thank God we do not have fighting yet here in Lviv,\" said the groundsman, \"so we can bury the soldiers who are defending our home.\"\n\nVadym Yarovenko travelled alone to see his friend buried. He is waiting for his turn to be called up\n\nYarovenko is still trying to reach Kotenko's parents, but the line is dead. They are likely still trapped in Sumy. The invasion has robbed them first of their son, and then of one of the few things that might have ameliorated their grief — the right to be by his side when he went into the ground.\n\nAs Kotenko's coffin was lowered, Yarovenko stood to one side, behind the honour guard that fired the guns. It was the saddest thing he had ever experienced. \"I watched my friend being buried far from his home,\" he said. Afterwards, he stood silently, looking at the grave, the sole mourner left, alone with the gravediggers as they cleared away their tools.\n\n\"We never got the chance to meet at the front,\" he said. All that was left was the hope of speaking to Kotenko's parents soon, and the memory of their son, which he will carry with him as he waits for his turn to fight and carry with him to the frontline when he goes.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nStena Line will put on two extra ferry services from Scotland to Northern Ireland from tomorrow, the UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said.\n\nHe told the Commons it would be of help to some retailers including Asda and Marks and Spencers.\n\nHe said the company had already \"stepped up\" following the suspension of P&O routes last week.\n\nUp to 50 staff from Northern Ireland will be directly impacted by P&O's move to fire 800 workers last week.\n\nMr Shapps said if it was confirmed that relative notice periods and consultations were not conducted before P&O staff were fired, then it would be a \"a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines\".\n\nThe Economy Minister Gordon Lyons has accused the firm of \"ripping up the employment rule book\".\n\nMr Lyons said he did not believe P&O had acted within either the \"spirit or letter\" of employment law, a matter devolved to Northern Ireland.\n\nOfficials are investigating potential remedies for breaches of the law.\n\nOn Thursday, the company fired about 800 of its workers, with about a quarter of the staff hearing the news via a pre-recorded video message.\n\nA private security firm was sent on board the vessel in Larne, County Antrim, which remains docked at the port, to remove staff.\n\nOn Monday, P&O said its services, including the crossing from Larne to Cairnryan in Scotland, would be \"unable to run for the next few days\".\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves,\" the firm continued.\n\nIt had been suggested at the time of the workforce announcement that it could be a week before the ferry service could resume.\n\nA protest was held against P&O's decision at the Port of Larne on Friday\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy said he raised the P&O situation during discussions with his counterparts in Scotland and Wales and the chief secretary to the treasury on Monday.\n\nHe said there should be support for the workers who needed to be treated \"fairly\".\n\n\"We can't just be subject to the whim of company who decide to cut their costs and behave in an appalling manner to do that,\" Mr Murphy added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"P&O might want to hide behind the small print of maritime law... but the court of public opinion will not be so sympathetic,\" Mr Lyons told assembly members (MLAs) on Monday.\n\n\"We must send a strong message to all companies that might think of getting involved in a practice in this way.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said P&O's move had been \"awful\" and \"wrong\" and the government would examine the legality of its actions.\n\nSome of the dismissed workers and trade unions held a protest at Larne port on Friday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nP&O has said its decision to fire workers was to secure the future viability of the business.\n\nIt explained that required \"swift and significant changes now\".\n\nThe company said it would update its Twitter account regularly to inform people of the operational situation.\n\nOn Monday, Northern Ireland's Consumer Council said that following talks with P&O, travellers affected by the disruption could re-book their crossing with Stena Line and claim expenses from P&O.\n\nThe council's head of transport, Richard Williams, said people could also claim for additional expenditure, such as some hotel or mileage costs.\n\n\"Originally that wasn't going to be the case but they've accepted that because they can't provide the re-rerouting they normally would that people really have to book with Stena,\" he said.\n\nMr Williams said it was common for mechanical issues to cause delays to ferry services but the P&O situation was one that was \"going on and on\".\n\n\"It is certainly an unusual situation which is causing real problems for passengers,\" he added.\n\nMr Williams said the biggest issue was the employee situation but he warned the company faced \"financial repercussions\" to resolve customer issues also.\n\nGeraldine Sinclair, who was due to travel with P&O on Thursday to a family event in Scotland said she would never use the company again because of how they treated customers and staff,\n\nShe told BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster she needed to re-arrange transport and was told she would receive a refund.\n\n\"I don't think much of them but to be honest, it's the staff I feel sorry for. We've all been there with redundancies but certainly not like that,\" she said.\n\nGeraldine's husband Jim said he would avoid the company unless there was \"no viable alternative\".\n\nP&O has said its decision to fire workers was to secure the future viability of the business.\n\nIt explained that required \"swift and significant changes now\".", "Russian soldiers in the Ukrainian city of Kherson dispersed a protest against their occupation by firing shots at protesters.\n\nFootage shared on social media, verified by the BBC, also showed explosions which were reported to be stun grenades.\n\nPeople are reported to have been injured in the incident.", "Coastal safety warnings have been renewed after a woman who was stranded 10ft (3m) up a cliff face in Cornwall had to be rescued.\n\nThe woman, who was on holiday at the time, was winched to safety by a coastguard helicopter at the weekend in Newquay.\n\nHigh tide was just two hours away and waves were crashing against the rocks when she called 999.", "Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nAn \"Islamist terrorist\" accused of murdering Sir David Amess MP carried out reconnaissance on other potential targets including cabinet minister Michael Gove, his trial heard.\n\nSir David, MP for Southend West, was stabbed during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali stabbed Sir David repeatedly in an \"assassination for terrorist purposes\", the jury heard.\n\nThe 26-year-old from London denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nOpening the trial at the Old Bailey in London, prosecutor Tom Little QC described the defendant as a \"radicalised Islamist terrorist\" and called it a \"murder carried out because of a warped and twisted and violent ideology\".\n\n\"This was nothing less than an assassination for terrorist purposes,\" he said.\n\n\"It is a crime to which, we say, he has no defence.\"\n\nMoments before the stabbing the defendant's phone made a sound and he said \"sorry\" before repeatedly stabbing the MP, the prosecution said.\n\nA post-mortem examination showed Sir David suffered 21 stab wounds to his face, arms, legs and torso, as well as injuries to both hands that were consistent with defending himself.\n\nAli Harbi Ali \"had for a number of years been determined to carry out an act of domestic terrorism\", the Old Bailey heard\n\nThe court heard Mr Ali had requested an appointment with Sir David under the pretence he was moving to the area and he provided a postcode to verify this.\n\nMr Little told jurors that Mr Ali appeared \"relaxed and chatty\" as he walked over to Sir David just before he \"brutally\" stabbed him in a \"vicious and frenzied attack\" shortly after midday on 15 October.\n\nTwo people arriving for the next appointment heard cries for help from the MP's aides while Mr Ali continued to wave a bloody knife shouting \"I killed him, I killed him\", the court was told.\n\nMr Little said the defendant then shouted to those in the church: \"I want him dead. I want every Parliament Minister [sic] who signed up for the bombing of Syria who agreed to the Iraqi war to die.\"\n\nAli Harbi Ali sat impassively in the dock of Court Two at the Old Bailey as the jury heard how he had given a clear account at the scene of the attack, why he had allegedly done it and how he would then wait for armed police to arrive and shoot him dead.\n\nBut this wasn't central London, but quiet suburban Leigh-on-Sea.\n\nSo instead, the first responders were two local officers - PCs Scott James and Ryan Curtis - and the jury watched transfixed by the body-worn video of what happened next.\n\nWitnesses warned the officers they would be attacked if they entered. But with a Taser team still minutes away and firearms even further behind, PCs James and Curtis decide to risk their own lives in the hope of saving Sir David's.\n\nCarrying just their batons and incapacitating spray, they enter the church, see the assailant - and then scream at him, with some choice expletives, to drop the knife.\n\nThe attacker suddenly does so and a split second later he is rushed to the ground and pinned down, cuffed and his rights are read.\n\nThere was nothing the officers could do to save Sir David.\n\nThe defendant was then heard on the phone saying: \"I've done it because of Syria. I've done it because of the innocent people. I've done it because of the bombing. He deserved to die.\"\n\nDuring a confrontation he refused to drop his knife and said he wanted to be shot and \"I want to die; I want to be a hero\".\n\nMr Little said that around the time of the attack, the defendant sent a long message to friends and family with a video relating to Raqqa in Syria.\n\nInstead of firearms officers Mr Ali was initially confronted by two plain clothes Essex Police officers, the court heard.\n\nMr Little said the pair \"bravely decided\" to enter the building armed only with a baton and incapacitant spray.\n\nHe added: \"The defendant hoped that he would be shot, killed, a martyr for the terrorist cause.\n\n\"However, this was not outside the Houses of Parliament, central London, but Leigh-on-Sea and the first police attenders were not firearms officers but PC Scott James and PC Ryan Curtis.\"\n\nIn his police interview Mr Ali allegedly told officers how he remembered stabbing Sir David \"a few times in the places where I stabbed him\" adding: \"You don't send off a bunch of messages saying that you're committing a terror attack if you don't actually commit a terrorist attack.\"\n\nSir David was pronounced dead at the scene in Leigh-on-Sea in his Southend West constituency in Essex\n\nSir David, first elected as a Conservative MP in Basildon in Essex in 1983, was pronounced dead at the scene, where Mr Ali was arrested by police.\n\nMr Little said: \"This is a case involving a cold and calculated murder, a murder carried out in a place of worship.\n\n\"It was a murder carried out by that young man [Mr Ali] who for many years had been planning just such an attack and who was, and is, a committed, fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist.\"\n\nMr Little said the attack was \"no spur-of-the-moment decision\", and said Mr Ali bought the knife used to attack Sir David five years earlier.\n\nHe said: \"He had for a number of years been determined to carry out an act of domestic terrorism.\"\n\nMr Little said the defendant had researched a list of \"523 MPs who carried out a vote to carry out airstrikes in Syria\", using the website theyworkforus.com.\n\nHe carried out reconnaissance trips including six different visits to Michael Gove's address in west London in 2021.\n\nEvidence recovered from his phone suggested he had been on the road where the secretary of state for communities and levelling up lived, the prosecution said.\n\nA note entitled \"plans\" from 2019, examined possible ways to attack Mr Gove including bumping into him while the MP for Surrey Heath was out jogging.\n\nData from the defendant's mobile phone also placed him in the proximity of the Houses of Parliament seven times between July and September 2021, the court was told.\n\nMr Little told the jury: \"Being blunt about it, he's not a tourist... looking at Big Ben and taking some photographs.\n\nTrips to a constituency surgery of the Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green in London, Mike Freer, had also been carried out by Mr Ali a month before Sir David was stabbed, the court heard.\n\nMr Ali had also researched Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and Labour leader Keir Starmer QC in September 2021, said Mr Little.\n\nThe jury heard he then researched Southend-on-Sea and Sir David Amess in September before looking for train companies for a journey from Barking to Leigh-on-Sea on 14 October, the day before Sir David was stabbed.\n\nThe preparing acts of terrorism charge relates to activity alleged to have been carried out between 1 May 2019 and 28 September 2021.\n\nMr Ali, of Kentish Town, north London, appeared in the dock wearing a black robe and black-rimmed glasses.\n\nThe jury were told by the prosecution that Mr Ali's mental health did not form any part of his defence.\n\nThe trial was adjourned until Tuesday.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she's been spending time catching up with her daughter, in her first media appearance after being held in Iran for six years.\n\nShe said it has been \"lovely\" to catch up with seven-year-old Gabriella, and added she's missed holding her, and braiding her hair.\n\nAsked about a return to Iran, she said she would be \"cautious\".", "Sabita Thanwani, 19, was studying psychology at university to \"help everyone\", her family say\n\nThe family of a 19-year-old woman found dead in student accommodation have paid tribute to their \"beautiful, irreplaceable angel\".\n\nStudent Sabita Thanwani was found with neck injuries in the halls of residence in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell.\n\nPolice and medics went to Arbour House at about 05:10 GMT on Saturday but she died at the scene.\n\nPolice have arrested Maher Maaroufe, 22, on suspicion of murdering Ms Thanwani. He remains in police custody.\n\nIn a statement, Ms Thanwani's family said: \"Sabita was our daughter. Our angel.\n\n\"Her life, that we hoped would be long, was cut tragically short. She was ripped away from those who loved her so very dearly; her mum, dad, brother, grandparents, extended family and friends.\n\n\"We can only pray that lessons will be learnt and that somehow, there will come a day when girls and women are safe.\n\n\"Sabita was the most caring and loving person we have ever known. She inspired us every day of her precious 19 years of life. Her mission was to help everyone.\n\n\"Her whole life was ahead of her, a life where her radiant smile and incredible heart could only spread warmth and kindness.\n\n\"In her short life, she helped so many. Sabita was pure and did not see bad in anyone, because there was no badness in her own awesome heart.\n\n\"We will never ever stop loving or missing our beautiful, irreplaceable Sabita. The girl that was an angel upon the earth is now an angel in heaven.\n\n\"We will never be able to thank the Metropolitan Police enough for their dedication and tireless work in finding justice for our Sabita. From our hearts, we thank everyone for their love and support.\"\n\nArbour House, near City, University of London, is owned by Unite Students and houses 188 students\n\nMs Thanwani was studying psychology at City, University of London, which is near to the student accommodation where she died.\n\nMr Maaroufe was arrested by officers in Clerkenwell area after a police appeal to trace him.\n\nHe had been in a relationship with Ms Thanwani at the time of her death, police said.\n\nA post-mortem examination has also been arranged.\n\nNote 5 April 2022: This article was amended to include more details from the family statement.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Patrick Vernon, who helped organise the rally, addressing hundreds of people outside Hackney Town Hall\n\nHundreds of protesters have marched through north London in support of a black pupil strip-searched at school after being wrongly suspected of carrying drugs.\n\nA report released this month found the search of the 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nActivists marched chanting \"power to black girl Child Q\" and carried banners saying \"protect black kids\".\n\nThe girl's family is suing her school and the force, which said its officers' actions \"should never have happened\".\n\nSpeaking via her lawyers, the girl said she wanted \"cast-iron commitments to ensure this never happens again\" and thanked supporters.\n\nProtesters marched from Stoke Newington Police Station to Hackney Town Hall with placards saying \"no to racist police\" and \"hands off our children\", while chanting \"love for Child Q\".\n\nJacqueline Courteney, who helped set up the rally, said: \"I set it up because I'm a mother and I had that gut instinct a black child out there had been caused such harm, and that could have been my kids, or nieces and nephews.\n\n\"That's just not on, and there needs to be a way that we can demand change that is clear and obvious.\"\n\nNgozi Fulani said the officers involved should be sacked\n\nNgozi Fulani, founder of charity Sistah Space which supports black heritage abuse victims, said she was \"disgusted\" by the incident.\n\n\"There's something in our system that doesn't see the humanity in black people, much less black children,\" she said.\n\n\"The police involved should be sacked.\"\n\nA two-minute silence was also held in support of the girl.\n\nA two-minute silence was held in support of the schoolgirl\n\nProtesters chanted \"love for Child Q\" through the streets of north London\n\nDuring the incident in 2020, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched while on her period by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nThe girl's mother told the safeguarding review - by City of London and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership - that after the strip-search, her daughter had been \"asked to go back into the exam\" she had been sitting, with no teacher asking about her welfare.\n\nHer family said the girl had changed from \"top of the class\" to \"a shell of her former bubbly self\", and she was now self-harming and required therapy.\n\nThe Met apologised and admitted the incident should not have happened\n\nThe Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said its investigation was complete and its report was being \"finalised\".\n\nIt added three police constables had been served with notices last year advising them they were under investigation for misconduct, \"over their roles in either carrying out the strip-search or involvement in supervising it\".\n\nScotland Yard said the officers' actions were \"truly regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, husband Richard and daughter Gabriella shared a hug after she landed at RAF Brize Norton\n\nA relative of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says news of her return to the UK is \"absolutely mind-blowing\" after six years of being detained in Iran.\n\nThe 43-year-old and another detainee, Anoosheh Ashoori, were met at RAF Brize Norton in the early hours.\n\nAlex Loftus, cousin of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, said she did not think it had \"sunk in properly yet\".\n\nMrs Loftus, from Warwickshire, added it had been \"so moving\" seeing the images of her being reunited with family.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori, 67, left Tehran on Wednesday after their release was secured following months of negotiations.\n\nAlex Loftus said she was \"absolutely over the moon\" after years of campaigning over Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release\n\nIt marked the end of an ordeal that saw the British-Iranian national detained, after being accused in 2016 of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.\n\nShe was sentenced to a further year in prison in April last year and a one-year travel ban on charges of propaganda against the government.\n\nBoth Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori have consistently and vigorously denied allegations.\n\nTheir release came after the UK settled a debt to Iran of almost £400m dating from the 1970s.\n\nMrs Loftus, who lives near Southam, said a couple of years ago Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe \"made the very brave decision of sending\" her now seven-year-old daughter, Gabriella, back home.\n\nThe girl rushed to hug her mother after she touched down at Brize Norton.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released after the UK settled a near £400m debt to Iran\n\nMrs Loftus added: \"She could then start having a normal sort of, well the British life that she was meant to have in the first place and go to school, be with her dad.\n\n\"Thankfully we now have Skype... [but] things like... giving Gabriella a kiss goodnight, walking her to school, things like that... she just missed out on.\"\n\nThe cousin said 3.7 million people had signed a Change.org petition and that there had been regular family meetings.\n\n\"We've been there so many times, that there's been hope,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't think any us were ever going to believe it until actually Naz was on that plane out of Iranian airspace.\n\n\"We'll have our time to see them, but at the moment it just needs to be the three of them.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk", "Shelling by Russian forces has prevented civilians from being able to evacuate the besieged port city\n\nThere seems to be no let-up to the horrors facing the southern city of Mariupol.\n\nUkrainian MP Dmytro Gurin has accused Russian forces of trying to starve the besieged port into submission.\n\nAround 300,000 people are believed to be trapped there with supplies running out and aid blocked from entering.\n\nResidents have endured weeks of Russian bombardment with no power or running water.\n\nBut Mr Gurin said there was no question of Mariupol surrendering, and a Monday morning deadline set by the Russians for the city to lay down its arms came and went.\n\nBBC security correspondent Frank Gardner gives four reasons why taking Mariupol is so important for Russia.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the capital Kyiv, eight people were reported dead after a shopping centre and a number of houses were shelled in the Podilskyi district.\n\nWitnesses says the blast at the shopping centre shook the whole city.\n\nFirefighters were seen trying to rescue people stranded beneath the rubble.\n\nThe Retroville mall was opened just before the Covid-19 pandemic and boasted 250 shops, a multiplex cinema and a 3,000-space car park.\n\nKyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko announced a curfew in the city from 2000 local time on Monday to 0700 local time on Wednesday.\n\nThe city of Kherson has been under Russian control since the beginning of March. It is the largest city to be occupied by the invading forces since the offensive began.\n\nBut it has seen daily anti-Russian protests by local residents, and media reports on Monday said several people had been injured after troops opened fire to disperse protesters.\n\nFootage shared on social media, verified by the BBC, also showed explosions which were reported to be stun grenades.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Russian forces open fire on protesters in the city of Kherson\n\nDmytro Kotenko died near the southern city of Kherson and was buried in Lviv, safe for now from falling bombs\n\nThe BBC's Joel Gunter uncovered the story of a young Ukrainian soldier killed in the early days of the invasion.\n\nDmytro Kotenko, 21, was buried hundreds of miles from his family, who are stuck in the northern city of Sumy, cut off from the outside world.\n\nKotenko's childhood friend Vadym Yarovenko was the one who broke the news to Kotenko's parents - it took him all night to work up the courage to make the call to tell them he had died.\n\nWhen he tried to call later about the funeral, the aerial bombardment of Sumy had worsened and the line would not connect. He kept trying but the line stayed dead.\n\nThe sole mourner at his funeral, Yarovenko said it was the saddest thing he had ever experienced.\n\n\"I watched my friend being buried far from his home,\" he said.\n\nHe hopes he can speak to Kotenko's parents again. And he says his will carry the memory of his friend as he waits for his own turn to fight on the frontline.\n\nRussia's stock market has partially resumed trading after a nearly month-long suspension because of the war.\n\nOnly bonds issued by the Russian government can be traded as part of a phased re-opening of the market.\n\nAndrei Braginsky, a spokesman for the Moscow Exchange, said he hoped that trading in stocks would be able to start again soon.\n\nThe invasion and sanctions imposed by Western governments are taking a toll on the Russian economy.\n\nSome supermarkets are rationing sales of basic goods such as salt and cooking oil.\n\nReports from across the country suggest sugar and other staples are being restricted.\n\nHowever, deputy industry and trade minister Viktor Yevtukhov insists \"there is no problem with sugar\".\n\nBoris Romantschenko survived detention in four separate concentration camps between 1942 and 1945\n\nBoris Romantschenko survived the Nazi Holocaust, spending time in Buchenwald and several other camps.\n\nBut at the age of 96 he was killed by Russian shelling of his apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday.\n\nThe Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, of which he was vice-president, announced the death on Monday, saying it was \"deeply disturbed\" by Mr Romantschenko's death.\n\nIt said he had \"worked intensely on the memory of Nazi crimes\".\n\n\"We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times,\" the foundation's statement added.\n\nRussian forces have been relentlessly shelling Kharkiv, which lies just 30 miles (50km) from the border, for over three weeks.", "The incident happened early on Sunday, as dozens of people were preparing for a traditional parade\n\nAt least six people have been killed after a car drove into a crowd of carnival-goers in southern Belgium.\n\nThe incident happened in the small town of Strépy-Bracquegnies, about 30 miles (50km) south of the capital Brussels.\n\nThe car drove at high-speed into dozens of people who were preparing to take part in a traditional parade on Sunday morning.\n\nAround 40 people were injured and several are in a serious condition, the town's mayor said.\n\n\"There were about 150-200 people who were following the parade and [the] car arrived from behind and drove into the crowd,\" Jacques Gobert said.\n\n\"It continued for another 100m (328ft),\" he added. \"It should be considered a national catastrophe.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Witnesses describe horrific scenes as the car drove into the crowd\n\nThe exact circumstances of the attack are being investigated, but police said a terror attack had been ruled out.\n\n\"It is an accident, a tragic one. The car hit the group and tried to carry on but it was quickly stopped by the police,\" police spokeswoman Cristina Ianoco told the BBC.\n\n\"The driver and the other people in the car have been detained,\" she added. They have not been identified.\n\nPolice denied earlier reports in some Belgian media that the crash, which happened at around 05:00 local time (04:00 GMT), followed a high-speed police chase.\n\n\"A community gathering to celebrate has been hit in the heart,\" Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said\n\n\"Deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured in the incident this morning,\" Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden wrote on Twitter.\n\n\"What was supposed to be a great party turned into a tragedy,\" she added.\n\nPrime Minister Alexander De Croo, who is expected to visit the scene later on Sunday, said it was \"horrible news\".\n\n\"A community gathering to celebrate has been hit in the heart,\" he said.\n\nBelgian towns and villages host traditional street carnivals around the period of Lent. The event in Strépy-Bracquegnies, like many others, features a parade with participants dressed up comical figures.", "The UN Secretary General says the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is \"madness\" and threatens global climate targets.\n\nThe invasion of Ukraine has seen rapid rises in the prices of coal, oil and gas as countries scramble to replace Russian sources.\n\nBut Antonio Guterres warns that these short-term measures might \"close the window\" on the Paris climate goals.\n\nHe also calls on countries, including China, to fully phase out coal by 2040.\n\nIn his first major speech on climate and energy since COP26, Mr Guterres makes no bones about the fact that the limited progress achieved in Glasgow is insufficient to ward off dangerous climate change.\n\nMr Guterres says that the rush to find alternatives to Russian fuels is a threat to climate goals\n\nScientists believe that keeping the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century is crucial to limiting the scale of damage from global warming.\n\nTo keep that threshold alive, carbon output needs to be cut in half by the end of this decade. Instead, as Mr Guterres points out, emissions are set to rise by 14%.\n\n\"The problem was not solved in Glasgow,\" Mr Guterres says, in a speech delivered at the Economist Sustainability Summit.\n\n\"In fact, the problem is getting worse.\"\n\nThe war in Ukraine threatens to make that situation even more problematic, he says.\n\nEurope and the UK and other countries are looking to cut their reliance on Russian oil and gas this year. Many are turning to coal or imports of liquefied natural gas as alternative sources.\n\nBut Mr Guterres warns this short-term approach heralds great danger for the climate.\n\n\"Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,\" Mr Guterres said.\n\nMining for coal may get a boost in the short term as countries seek alternative energy sources\n\n\"This is madness. Addiction to fossil fuels is mutually assured destruction.\"\n\nCountries must \"accelerate the phase out of coal and all fossil fuels,\" and implement a rapid and sustainable energy transition.\n\nIt is \"the only true pathway to energy security.\"\n\nMr Guterres says the solutions to the climate crisis mostly lie in the hands of the G20 group of richest nations, which produce around 80% of global emissions.\n\nWhile many of these countries have taken great steps to slash emissions by 2030, there are a \"handful of holdouts, such as Australia.\"\n\nCoal must be banished, Mr Guterres says, with a full phase-out for richer nations by 2030, and 2040 for all others, including China.\n\nCoal \"is a stupid investment,\" according to the Secretary General, \"leading to billions in stranded assets.\"\n\nEurope relies heavily on Russia for natural gas supplies and is seeking replacements\n\nHe says the way forward is to build coalitions to help major emerging economies to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.\n\nHe highlights the case of South Africa. During COP26 several countries including the UK, US and others agreed to an $8.5bn financing programme to end South Africa's reliance on coal.\n\nMr Guterres says the pieces are coming together for similar coalitions in Indonesia, Vietnam and elsewhere.\n\nMoney is one of the key problems in addressing the climate issue and Mr Guterres has called for a major ramping up in finance to help countries adapt to rising temperatures.\n\nHe points out that right now, one person in three globally is not covered by early warning systems for disasters - in Africa six in ten people are not protected.\n\nIn 2022, he argues, richer countries must finally make good on their well-worn promise to provide a $100bn a year to the developing world.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEngland's deputy chief medical officer has been granted the freedom of Boston.\n\nIn a ceremony held at the ground of Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam's beloved Boston United, he was made a freeman of the borough in recognition of his role during the Covid-19 pandemic response.\n\nThe 58-year-old came to public prominence during the daily government coronavirus briefings where he won fans with his frequent football analogies.\n\nHe said it was a \"tremendous honour\" and he was \"very humbled by it all\".\n\nProf Van-Tam described the honour as 'unbelievable' and spoke fondly of picking vegetables in local fields while growing up\n\nProf Van-Tam was knighted in the New Year Honours list along with England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty, who attended a Boston United fixture with him on Saturday.\n\nIn mid-January, it was announced he would be leaving his role at the end of this month and will become pro-vice chancellor at the University of Nottingham's faculty of medicine and health sciences.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC Radio Lincolnshire This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSpeaking at the ceremony organised by Boston Borough Council, which now allows him to drive sheep over the Town Bridge and into the Market Place, Prof Van-Tam said: \"What a superb accolade to be recognised by your home town and by the people you grew up with.\n\n\"I connect to my home town these days through my really happy memories, through people I still know in the town and of course through the football club.\"\n\nSpeaking about growing up, Prof Van-Tam said his childhood memories \"live with you for a lifetime\" and reminisced about growing up in the outskirts of Boston and picking vegetables.\n\nDeputy chief medical officer for England since 2017, he often appeared alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson at televised news briefings, where he caught the public's attention by the way he described coronavirus.\n\nHe said his formative years in the town had aided him in giving the briefings, saying: \"It's really helped me think about my audience. When I get deeply complex scientific questions, I think back to my audience and think: 'Well, what would they want to know?'.\"\n\nHe told BBC Radio Lincolnshire the pandemic had been \"really difficult\" for people, and in addressing his high profile during the response, he said: \"It's something you have to face if you're in a national role, but I'd rather be Mr Ordinary.\"\n\nProf Van-Tam, who previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry and for the UK Health Protection Agency, also volunteered as a vaccinator to help distribute Covid-19 jabs.\n\nOn receiving his honour, he wanted to stress the team effort of the last two years, saying: \"There are thousands upon thousands of people in this country who have done every bit as much as I have in their own roles either locally or regionally, and they all to deserve recognition and thanks.\"\n\nThe ceremonial plaque confirming Prof Van-Tam is now an honorary freeman\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.", "\"Russia does not start wars, it ends them\" reads a poster of Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, 10 March\n\nVladimir's Putin's invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. We are living in new and more dangerous times - the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\n\nIt is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.\n\nIn November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.\n\nThe peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.\n\nIn Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.\n\nHow many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.\n\nBut that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a \"paradigm shift\". The age of complacency, she said, was over.\n\nQuentin Sommerville, one of the BBC's most experienced war reporters walked through the wreckage in Kharkiv recently and said of the Russian bombardment: \"If these tactics are unfamiliar to you, then you haven't been paying attention.\"\n\nHe should know, he spent enough time under Russian rockets in Syria to be paying very close attention. But the governments of the democratic world - how much attention have they been paying to the nature of the Putin regime?\n\nThe evidence has been building for years.\n\nTwo decades have passed since he sent troops into Georgia claiming he was supporting breakaway regions.\n\nLater, he sent spies into British cities armed with nerve agents to murder exiled Russians.\n\nIn 2014, he invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.\n\nDespite all this, Germany, and much of the EU, were locking themselves into an unhealthy dependence on Russian gas. A year after the annexation of Crimea, they approved the building of a new pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to boost supplies.\n\nThe \"complacency\" Liz Truss refers to also indicts her own country. London has been a safe haven for Russian money since John Major was prime minister. Russian oligarchs have parked billions here, laundered their money, bought up the most prestigious private homes in the capital, socialised with politicians and donated to their campaign funds. Few questions were asked about where their vast wealth, acquired so suddenly, had come from.\n\nSo, no. The Western democracies have not been \"paying attention\" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.\n\nBut Putin, too, has seemed complacent.\n\nReceiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near Lubmin, Germany\n\nFirst, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.\n\nSecond, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.\n\nThird, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this \"special military operation\" to be over in a few days.\n\nRussia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.\n\nIn 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.\n\nA Bosnian special forces soldier and civilians come under fire from Serbian snipers, Sarajevo, 6 April 1992\n\nLike Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.\n\nSo instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?\n\nBut nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt \"liberated\" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.\n\nScrambling for rationed food during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992\n\nIn 1994, while the war in the Balkans was still raging, the rest of Eastern Europe was looking to the future - each nation eager to take what it saw as its natural place in a Europe of independent sovereign states at peace with each other. But it was still far from certain that any of them would be allowed to join Nato.\n\nThere was a debate, back then, about whether a third security block should be formed by the newly-liberated East European nations, to act as a buffer between Nato and Russia. Russia was weak in the 1990s, and the nations that had endured Soviet occupation for 40 years did not trust it to stay weak for long. In the end, they wanted nothing short of Nato membership.\n\nUnder President Bill Clinton, the US pressed ahead with Nato expansion. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who saw himself as a loyal ally of Clinton's, was said to be furious when he found out - at a press conference - that Nato was planning to admit new members without consulting Moscow.\n\nAnd the tearing down of the Iron Curtain had raised a new question in geopolitics - how far east does the Western world extend? I was commissioned by the BBC to take a road trip through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to address the question, \"Where is the eastern edge of the Western world now?\"\n\nI went to the hunting lodge in Belarus where, in late 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, had met his counterparts from Ukraine and Belarus. Here, they agreed to recognise each other's Soviet Republics as independent nation-states. They then rang the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him that the country of which he was head of state - the Soviet Union - no longer existed.\n\nIt was a moment fraught with both danger and opportunity. For Belarus and Ukraine, it was the chance to liberate themselves from Moscow rule - domination by Russian imperialism in both its Tsarist and Soviet forms.\n\nFor Yeltsin, it represented the chance to liberate Russia too - from its historic role as an imperial power. The UK and France had both ceased to be imperial powers after World War Two - as Austria had done after WW1. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk had built a modern European secular republic - a Turkish nation-state - after the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire had been defeated and dismembered in 1918.\n\nUS President George HW Bush with Boris Yeltsin in Maryland, 1992\n\nCould Boris Yeltsin do the same thing - build a modern Russian nation-state, at peace with its sovereign neighbours, on the ruins of the Soviet Empire? In the early 1990s, he began his Westernising experiment, to try to turn an imperial power into a democratic state.\n\nBut the rush - encouraged by the Western democracies eager for investment opportunities - to turn a sclerotic, state-owned command economy into a free-market system was disastrous. It created gangster capitalism. A tiny elite became fabulously rich by plundering the assets of the major industries - especially oil and gas.\n\nThe wheels finally came off the experiment in 1998. The economy collapsed, the rouble lost two-thirds of its value in a month and inflation hit 80%.\n\nI stood with a middle-aged couple in a queue at a Moscow bank. They wanted to take their money out in dollars or pounds - anything other than roubles. The queue was long and slow-moving and, every few minutes, a bank employee changed the displayed exchange rate, as the rouble plunged further. People could see their life savings dropping in value by the minute. The couple got close to the head of the queue when suddenly the shutters came down - there was no cash left.\n\nI went to a former coal-mining region near the Ukraine border, where the mines were barely functioning. I met a graduate mining engineer who had lost his job - a man in his 30s with a young family. He took me to his dacha outside the city, which had about an acre of land. \"About 80% of what my family eat in the year,\" he said. \"I grow on this patch of land. The rest, like coffee and sugar, I barter for. I haven't used or even seen cash in about 18 months.\" Nothing spoke more powerfully about Yeltsin's failure to transform Russia than the sight of this highly educated man digging for his own dinner.\n\n\"Stalin turned a nation of peasants into an industrial superpower in a generation. Yeltsin is doing the same thing in reverse,\" he told me.\n\nOrdinary Russians felt robbed. The great westernising experiment had been a con trick that had enriched a criminalised elite and impoverished everyone else. Many of the reports we filed from Russia at that time boiled down to a single question: \"What are the political consequences of the profound disenchantment that Russians now feel?\"\n\nThe answer was that Russia, eventually, would revert to type - a retreat from democracy and a return to authoritarian rule. A retreat from nation-statehood and return to a more assertive imperial attitude to its \"near abroad\" - the countries that had previously been part of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said that Russia could be a democracy or an empire, but it could not be both. The Russian emblem, the double-headed eagle, looks both east and west. History has pulled Russia in opposing directions - democratic nation statehood in one direction, domineering imperial power in the other.\n\nGo to St Petersburg and you will see another aspect of this dual character. It is the country's beautiful bay window on the Gulf of Finland. It is an 18th Century city, facing west. It is the European Enlightenment in architectural form. Under the Tsars it was the imperial capital.\n\nAfter the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks moved the capital back to Moscow and power retreated behind the high, crenellated walls of the Kremlin. It is the architecture of defensiveness, of suspicion, even fear. When Russian leaders look west from here, they see flat open countryside rolling away to the south and west for hundreds of miles. There are no natural frontiers.\n\nThe crenellated red walls of the Kremlin in Moscow\n\nWhen I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent in the late 1990s, there was a driver who could remember, as a boy, seeing German troops on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1940s. Every time he took us to Sheremetyevo Airport, we would pass a monument designed to look like metal anti-tank defences - so-called Czech hedgehogs - and he would say: \"This is how close they came, the Germans.\"\n\nNapoleon's army had gone further the previous century. That experience - that chronic sense of an insecure western frontier - informs the way Russian leaders have thought about their \"near abroad\".\n\nIn another conversation about the \"near abroad\", a friend recited a rhyming couplet to me. In Russian it rhymes nicely, but in English it goes: \"A chicken's not really a bird; and Poland's not really abroad.\" Russia's sense of what it is entitled to in the lands to its west penetrates popular consciousness, too.\n\nI will borrow an anecdote from another friend in Moscow at the time. The same driver picked her up from the airport and asked her where she had been. \"I've been for a weekend in Prague,\" she said. \"Oh Prague,\" came the reply. \"That's good. That's ours.\"\n\nBut it wasn't. The Berlin Wall had come down nine years earlier and the nations of Eastern Europe had ceased being \"ours\".\n\nExcept Ukraine. Putin regards it not as a neighbouring country, but as the frontier land of Russia itself - and he wants it brought back into the Russian fold.\n\nWhat would it take to do that? How can a nation that has put up so unified a resistance be subdued? Almost certainly he has overreached himself. Several factors must now be alarming him.\n\nThe first is the state of his own armed forces.\n\nThe second is the resilience of the Ukrainian defence. Did Putin really expect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine to welcome his troops as liberators? Did he really believe that the uprising of 2014 - which replaced the pro-Moscow government with one oriented to the West - was all a Western plot? If he did, then it reveals how little the Kremlin understands about its \"near abroad\".\n\nBut his biggest miscalculation has been to underestimate the resolve of the West. And this is what makes 2022 one of those pivotal years - the zeitenwende, in the words of Chancellor Scholz.\n\nAlmost overnight, Germany has transformed its attitude to its role in the world. Traditionally reluctant - for sound historical reasons - to throw its weight around, it had preferred the exercise of soft power to hard. Not now. It has announced a doubling of defence spending, and is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Gone, too, is the ostpolitik - the decades-old German policy of seeking peace through engagement, especially trade.\n\nGermany, along with the rest of the democratic world, will now move to end its dependence on Russian gas. The Nord Stream 2 project is suspended - though not yet scrapped. We are seeing a root-and-branch redrawing of the map of global energy distribution, aimed at cutting Russia out of it.\n\nRussia is highly integrated into the global economy. But now it has been expelled from the system the world uses to exchange payment for goods and services. Its industries, including oil and gas, depend on imported goods and components. Soon production will grind to a halt. Employers will have to lay off their workers. Unemployment will rise.\n\nNo-one expected the West to sanction the Russian Central Bank. Already, the rouble has collapsed and interest rates have doubled. No other major economy has ever been subjected to a package of sanctions this punitive. It amounts to the expulsion of Russia from the global economy. More workers will be laid off. Major industries will find it hard to carry on. Unemployment will rise further. Soaring inflation will erode life savings.\n\nWe will all be affected. Potentially, this is the rolling back of the globalised economy that emerged after the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe US and the EU have, in effect, divided the world up. Those states and companies that continue to trade with Russia will find themselves punished - also frozen out of trade with the rich world.\n\nIt amounts to a new economic iron curtain separating Russia from the West.\n\nMuch will depend on how China negotiates this new landscape. China and Russia are bonded by their shared antipathy to American power, and their conviction that the greatest threat is from a resurgent, more unified democratic world.\n\nChina does not want Putin weakened, or the West strengthened. Yet that is exactly what the effect the war in Ukraine has had.\n\nSome China watchers believe Beijing will try to challenge the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency by carving out a distinct yuan zone as an alternative space in the global economy that can be protected from any future attempt by the US to sanction China. Putin's war, therefore, could redraw the international financial map.\n\nBut above all, this is a war that pits the world's democracies against the world's authoritarian regimes.\n\nIt is also a war between two conflicting conceptions of the rules by which international relations should function.\n\nThe Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash says these two world views can be expressed in short form by two words - Helsinki versus Yalta.\n\nAt Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved post-war Europe into \"spheres of influence\" - most of Eastern Europe to Russia, the West to the trans-Atlantic alliance that would set about rebuilding Europe's democracies.\n\n\"Helsinki\", by contrast, describes a Europe of independent sovereign states, each of which is free to choose its own alliances. This grew out of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and gradually evolved into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.\n\nUkraine's defenders are fighting for Helsinki. Putin has sent his troops in to impose a modern version of Yalta - which would kill off Ukraine's independence and leave it under Russian domination.\n\nGarton Ash argues that the West has been too half-hearted in defending the values of Helsinki - that it has formally acknowledged Ukraine's right to join Nato at some unspecified date in the future without ever intending to make it happen.\n\nBut Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled a readiness to compromise on Helsinki principles, by agreeing to abandon Ukraine's ambition to become a Nato member. With all the risks that entails, it may yet be the price Ukraine pays for the survival of its statehood.\n\nMy generation grew up with the existential terror of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The conflict has brought that fear back to public consciousness. Putin has threatened to use Russia's nuclear arsenal.\n\nThat makes this the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to its ally Cuba. The US assembled a fleet to blockade (or \"quarantine\") Cuba and was considering an attack on the island by air and/or sea.\n\nWhat the Americans did not know is that the Soviets didn't only have long-range strategic missiles. They also had smaller, tactical nuclear missiles - so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. And that Soviet military doctrine delegated first-use decision making to commanders on the ground.\n\nHad the threatened invasion gone ahead, it would have triggered a nuclear exchange.\n\nThe then American Defence Secretary Robert McNamara only found out about this when the Soviet archives opened in 1991. Only then, did he understand how close the world had come to catastrophe.\n\nIn a remarkable film called Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, he explained how the world had avoided destroying itself. Was it skilled diplomacy? Wise leadership? No.\n\n\"Luck,\" he said. \"We lucked out.\"\n\nThat experience, now fading from memory, should focus minds.\n\nCorrection: This article previously referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski as a former US secretary of state, rather than former national security adviser", "UN scientists are likely to weigh up technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, as they gather to finalise a key report.\n\nThis idea will be one of many solutions considered over the next two weeks by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).\n\nAlso in attendance will be government officials from all over the world, who will need to approve every line in the summary report.\n\nIt is due to be published on 4 April.\n\nThis new study will be the third of three important reports from the IPCC issued over the past eight months. The previous two have looked at the causes and impacts of climate change, but this one will focus on mitigation - or what we can do to stop it.\n\nThis essentially means that researchers will look at how we can reduce the amount of warming gases that are emitted from human activities.\n\nCarbon removal technology, such as at this installation in Iceland, will be examined\n\nHowever, the IPCC co-chair says this mitigation report will look more closely at ways of removing CO2 that's already in the atmosphere.\n\n\"We have a lot more material, this time on carbon dioxide removal. That is, not putting carbon into the atmosphere, but getting it out again,\" said Prof Jim Skea, from Imperial College, London.\n\n\"The report was scoped out to cover the full spectrum of carbon dioxide removal approaches, which vary absolutely hugely, and the carbon dioxide that is removed can end up in very different stores and in very different places. So it was within the scope of the report to cover the whole lot, basically.\"\n\nThe kind of carbon removal approaches the report will consider will likely include tree planting and agriculture, as well as the more advanced technological approaches that use large machines to remove the carbon from the air.\n\nThey will also look at combined approaches, where land is used to grow crops which can be burned for energy while the carbon is captured and buried.\n\nThe use of these types of technology is controversial. Campaigners express doubts that they can be made to work economically and there are also concerns that technology could be seen as an excuse not to make the major changes in energy production that are needed.\n\nScientists though say that the situation is now so serious that carbon dioxide removal will be needed in addition to massive cuts in emissions and not as a substitute for them.\n\nWhat ultimately emerges in the short summary for policymakers that will be published in two weeks, will depend on delicate negotiations with government representatives from 195 countries.\n\nResearchers and officials will work through the summary line by line to agree the final text.\n\nProf Jim Skea is one of the co-chairs of the latest IPCC report\n\nThere are some concerns that the war in Ukraine might have an impact on the meeting, with representatives from both Russia and Ukraine due to take part.\n\n\"We have been running some informal meetings with governments to brief them ahead of the actual approval session,\" said Prof Skea.\n\n\"I would be optimistic that we would get full participation.\"\n\nThe new report, part of a regular review of the science dating back to 1990, will also have a new focus on the social aspects of cutting carbon.\n\n\"This chapter looks at the social science perspective of demand, and what motivates individual consumers, communities, businesses, to make responsible consumption, reduction, design and investment choices,\" said Dr Joyashree Roy, from Jadavpur University and the lead author of this part of the report.\n\n\"Responsible production and consumption are also within the scope of this chapter, and we have also been asked to look into what are the drivers of behaviour change.\"\n\nThere will be much focus on short term actions that governments can take in the remaining years of this decade to keep the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century.\n\nThis was assessed in 2018 as needing emissions to be cut in half by 2030 - but after the pandemic and with the likely ramping up of fossil fuel use in the wake of the conflict in Ukraine, the scale of emissions cuts may need revising upwards.\n\nDespite this, the report will likely emphasise that there is hope that the worst impacts of climate change can be avoided, if urgent action is taken.\n\nSolutions such as planting mangroves or trees to absorb carbon will be considered\n\nProf Skea says the summary will not be \"unremitting doom and gloom.\"\n\n\"What I think we have to convey in our report is that the activities of humans have caused climate change, but human beings also have the agency to do something about it.\"\n\n\"And that I think is a really big part of the messaging for the report.\"", "It remains illegal to use an e-scooter on the road, outside of government-approved trials\n\nMore than 1,000 incidents of misuse of e-scooters have been reported during a trial on the Isle of Wight, it has emerged.\n\nA council pilot hire scheme has been operating on the island for 15 months.\n\nA Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed complaints had been filed over anti-social behaviour, dangerous and underage riding, as well as riding on the pavement.\n\nOperator Beryl said misuse of its vehicles were \"highly disruptive\".\n\nThe FOI by an island resident, and released by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, showed that in the 12 months following the start of the scheme in November 2020, 1,004 misuse reports were filed with Isle of Wight Council.\n\nThey included 87 for anti-social behaviour, 178 for dangerous driving on the road and 235 for riding with a passenger.\n\nUnderaged riding prompted 141 complaints and there were 262 for riding on a pavement.\n\nLast week, Hampshire Constabulary's roads unit issued 14 warning letters during an operation targeting riders of both private and hired e-scooters in Ryde and Newport.\n\nBeryl said: \"Riders can expect a warning in the first instance, and to be blocked on a second occurrence.\n\n\"Misuse is highly disruptive and potentially dangerous to other road users.\"\n\nTrials of e-scooter hire schemes are being carried out around the country, with evidence gathered due to be evaluated by the Department for Transport as it considers whether to legalise them.\n\nCurrently, privately-owned e-scooters are banned in the UK anywhere except on private land.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said it should never have taken the government so long to secure her release from prison in Iran.\n\nShe told a news conference she had been overwhelmed with emotion to be reunited with her husband and daughter, describing the reunion as precious.\n\nBut she said \"what's happened now should have happened six years ago\".\n\nThe British-Iranian was speaking for the first time since her dramatic return to the UK last week.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested on spying charges while visiting her parents in Iran, with her then two-year-old daughter Gabriella, in April 2016. Last week, she was freed after spending six years in detention.\n\nHer release came after the UK government paid a £400m debt to Iran dating back to the 1970s, although both governments have said the two issues should not be linked.\n\nSpeaking to the media in Westminster, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe thanked all those who had worked to get her released, paying tribute to her \"amazing, wonderful\" husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who she said had campaigned tirelessly. She also thanked her daughter \"for being very, very patient with mummy\".\n\nBut she took issue with the credit her husband had granted Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for her release, saying: \"I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years. How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home?\"\n\nShe added: \"We all know… how I came home. It should have happened exactly six years ago.\"\n\nDescribing her arrival back in the UK, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe recalled the \"precious\" and \"glorious\" feeling of stepping off the plane and seeing her daughter again.\n\n\"I had been waiting for that moment for such a long time,\" she said.\n\n\"It was lovely to get to hold her, to braid her hair and to brush her hair. That was a moment that I really, really missed.\"\n\nShe said she was looking forward to getting to know Gabriella better again and doing everyday things like taking her to school.\n\nAlso speaking at the news conference, Mr Ratcliffe joked that it was \"nice to be retiring\" from his role as a campaigner, and thanked everyone for \"making us whole again\".\n\n\"I'm so pleased she's back home, that she came home to us. We're still negotiating whether daddy's allowed in the same bed as Gabriella and Nazanin. We'll get there.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe continued: \"I think we'll do this and then we will disappear off and heal a bit.\"\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe declined to speak about her ordeal, saying it would always haunt her.\n\nBut she added: \"I always felt like I was holding this black hole in my heart all these years... I am going to leave that black hole on the plane.\"\n\nWhile in Iran in September 2016, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and was given a five-year sentence.\n\nThen, in April 2021, she was sentenced for another year on charges of propaganda against the government.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always denied those allegations and said that she was only in Iran to visit her family.\n\nSpeaking on Monday, she said she had been told by Iranian authorities shortly after her arrest that they wanted \"something off the Brits\", and that they would not let her go until they had got it.\n\n\"And they did keep their promise,\" she said.\n\nEarlier during her visit to Westminster, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe met Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle in his parliamentary rooms.\n\nSir Lindsay gave Gabriella a Speaker Bear fluffy toy, which she decided to call Speechless\n\nThe Speaker told her \"the whole nation rejoiced\" when she returned to the UK.\n\nHe added: \"You have achieved something that many others before you have not - in uniting the House in their efforts and hope to get you home.\"\n\nAnother British-Iranian national, Anoosheh Ashoori, was released at the same time as Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nBut Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe also used the event to draw attention to the plight of other dual nationals still detained in Iran.\n\nMorad Tahbaz, who has British, Iranian, and American citizenship, remains in detention, and there are numerous people from other countries who are being held on various allegations of working to undermine the Iranian regime.\n\nMr Tahbaz's daughter, Roxanne, also appeared at the conference, and said her family felt her father had been \"abandoned and left behind\" in Iran.\n\nShe said they had been told by the Foreign Office that Mr Tahbaz would be included in any deal to release hostages in Iran, and called on the prime minister and the foreign secretary to continue to work for his release.\n\n\"I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete until such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families,\" Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said.\n\n\"There are so many other people - we don't know their names - who have been suffering in prison.\"\n\nTulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, has called on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to investigate why the debt the UK had with Iran took \"so long\" to be paid.\n\nMs Siddiq - who represents Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's constituency and has called herself the \"Nazanin MP\" - said she had written to the chair of the committee, Tom Tugendhat.\n\nMr Ratcliffe welcomed the investigation and said it would be \"really valuable for Parliament to take up that challenge and to talk it through\".", "Emergency services in the aftermath of a strike on a TV tower in Kyiv on Tuesday that killed five\n\nThe key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was \"near to a humanitarian catastrophe\" on Wednesday after more than 15 hours of continuous bombardment by Russian forces, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC.\n\n\"The Russian army is working through all their weapons here - artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, airplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city,\" Serhiy Orlov said.\n\nMr Orlov said Russian forces were several kilometres from the city on all sides and had launched strikes on key infrastructure, cutting water and power supplies to parts of the city. One densely populated residential district on the city's left bank had been \"nearly totally destroyed\", he said.\n\n\"We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies. My father lives there, I cannot reach him, I don't know if he is alive or dead.\"\n\nRussian forces had targeted strikes against pump stations and electrical transformers, Mr Orlov said, and there were food shortages in parts of the city - raising fears of an approaching humanitarian crisis.\n\nMariupol is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine's army has resisted Russian forces so far in key parts of the country but the increased aerial bombardment of cities has raised fears Russia is shifting tactics.\n\n\"The Ukrainian army is very brave and they will continue to defend the city but the style of the Russian army is like pirates - they do not fight with their army, they just destroy entire districts,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"We believe in our Ukrainian army, but we are in a terrible situation.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine took a heavy toll on civilians on Wednesday as residential neighbourhoods in several large cities were bombed. Ukraine's emergency services said more than 2,000 civilians had been killed so far during the Russian invasion, though the BBC was not able to independently verify the figure. The UN said on Tuesday that at least 136 civilians had been killed, but it estimated that the actual number was higher.\n\nThere were fears on Wednesday that the death toll would rise dramatically as Russian troops appeared to surround the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the port city of Kherson.\n\nUkrainian forces said Russian paratroopers had landed near Kharkiv on Wednesday, leading to street fighting on the outskirts of the city. Local officials said a cruise missile hit a city council meeting, blowing off the top of the building and wounding three. At least 18 people have been reported killed in the city in the past day.\n\nA fire at the a Kharkiv university building after it was hit by a Russian missile on Wednesday\n\nResidents in Kharkiv told the BBC they were experiencing heavy aerial bombardment. \"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" said Iryna Ruzhynska, 40, who was sheltering with her family in her second-floor apartment on Wednesday.\n\n\"We have put Scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ms Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nThe Russian defence ministry claimed its forces were in control of Kherson, a city of nearly 250,000 people just north of Crimea, but local authorities said the city was still under Ukrainian control, despite being surrounded. Video footage verified by the BBC appeared to show Russian troops in the centre of Kherson.\n\nLarysa Pavlovska, a 58-year-old paramedic in Kherson, told the BBC her part of the city was quiet on Wednesday but other parts were smouldering after intense overnight shelling, adding that some residential districts had been \"bombed out\".\n\n\"Local residents say Russian armoured vehicles can be seen moving in the city, people say about 50 units,\" she said. \"They have been spotted by the state regional administration building.\"\n\nInesa Chamlai, the deputy head of the emergency aid centre in Kherson, said Russian troops had prevented them taking a wounded 55-year-old man to hospital. The man had stepped on a mine and lost his leg, Mr Chamlai said.\n\n\"Our ambulance team was dispatched but was then prevented by Russian troops from taking the man to hospital,\" he said. \"The soldiers ordered to bring him back to his house where he will definitely die.\"\n\nThere were also growing fears in the capital, Kyiv, over a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles just 15 miles north of the city, though US officials said on Wednesday the column was barely moving.\n\nIn Irpin, close to Kyiv, residential buildings have been destroyed\n\nRussia's air force struck a television mast in the capital on Tuesday, killing five people at the site of a Nazi massacre which killed more than 33,000, mostly Jews, while a missile strike west of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, killed four people including a child, a Ukrainian official said.\n\nIn a video message on Wednesday, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, condemned the strike at the site of the massacre, accusing the Russians of trying to \"erase\" Ukrainians.\n\n\"They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,\" he said.\n\nA UK government spokesperson said Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Mr Zelensky on Wednesday \"to condemn the abhorrent attacks on Ukraine in the recent hours and days\".\n\nIn an address on Tuesday, the US president Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a \"dictator\" and promised \"robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia's economy\".\n\nNearly a week after invading, Russia is facing increasing economic turmoil at home as it is hit by increasing sanctions. The Moscow Stock Exchange remained closed for the third day in a row on Wednesday as authorities tried to limit the impact of the sanctions.\n\n\"The Russian economy has suffered a serious blow,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, insisting that it was \"still standing\".\n\nHave you been affected by any of the issues raised here? Do you have family in Ukraine? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Diane Abbott says some ministers are waiting for the Windrush generation \"to pass away\".\n\nLabour MP Diane Abbott has accused ministers of waiting for the Windrush generation to pass away, instead of improving the compensation scheme.\n\nOther MPs called for the scheme to be passed from the Home Office to an independent body.\n\nThe government rejected the calls but accepted the need for improvements.\n\nThe scheme aims to help those affected by the Windrush scandal which saw people removed from the UK despite having lived in the country for years.\n\nOthers were denied access to work, welfare services and the NHS.\n\nThe Windrush generation refers to the thousands of people who came to the UK between 1949 and 1971 from Caribbean countries.\n\nThe Home Office kept no record of those granted leave to remain and issued no paperwork - making it difficult for Windrush arrivals to later prove their legal status.\n\nA compensation scheme for those affected has been running for almost three years - but it has long been criticised for being too complicated and too slow - and at least 23 victims have died without being paid.\n\nDuring a parliamentary debate about the scheme, Ms Abbott, whose mother was part of the Windrush generation, accused ministers of ignoring proposals for ways to speed up the scheme.\n\n\"That suggests to me that they don't respect that generation, they don't understand the humiliation this generation feels and clearly it is as if they are waiting for this generation to pass away,\" said the former shadow home secretary.\n\nLabour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Committee Diana Johnson was among other opposition MPs who said the scheme should be passed from the Home Office to an independent organisation.\n\nSupporting her proposal, the SNP's Stuart McDonald said: \"Is it not blindingly obvious that people who have had their lives destroyed by a government department will be reluctant, terrified even, to have to engage with that same department again.\"\n\nIn response, the Home Office minister Kevin Foster rejected calls for the Home Office to be stripped of the scheme - and said doing so would risk significantly delaying payments to people.\n\nHe added that the programme had been overhauled in December 2020 and that £36m had been paid out.\n\nGlenda Caesar came to the UK from Dominica in 1961 before her first birthday.\n\nIn 2009 she lost her job as a GP's practitioner as she didn't have the paperwork to prove she could legally work in the UK.\n\nShe was watching the debate and told the BBC that some members of the generation didn't want to make a compensation application because of their age.\n\n\"They don't want to take on the stress and worry,\" she said.\n\n\"The Windrush community are still having to wait for payments, still having to go through a lot of paperwork and reliving the trauma they were put through in the first place.\n\n\"Some of these people are really old, some of them are not computer literate - they do need assistance but they need it from someone they trust.\n\n\"They have no trust in the Home Office because the Home Office has let them down.\"", "Her expensive treatment is running out. Her mother faces a dilemma - should the family stay in their basement for safety, or risk going outside to try and flee Kharkiv and get help for their daughter?\n\nWarning - this video contains distressing footage of an explosion in Freedom Square, Kharkiv. It has been verified by the BBC but the source is unknown.", "Mr Burgis said he was delighted the court action had failed\n\nA libel claim brought by a post-Soviet mining giant against a journalist's book about dirty money and corruption has been dismissed by a High Court.\n\nBut judge Mr Justice Nicklin stopped the case after finding the claim against the author to be wholly flawed.\n\nMr Burgis' publisher said the case had been an attempt to use legal and financial firepower to silence public interest journalism.\n\nIn the book, Mr Burgis - a Financial Times journalist - charts how he says dirty money is linked to corruption and is now \"flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators [and] poisoning democracies\".\n\nAmong its stories, the book features Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), a mining company with interests around the world.\n\nLawyers for ENRC claimed in court that Mr Burgis has defamed the corporation because the real meaning of part of his book was that the company had three men murdered to protect its business interests.\n\nAndrew Caldecott QC, for Mr Burgis and HarperCollins publishers, told the court: \"This is not a Private Eye nudge-nudge book.\n\n\"It is not a book that pulls its punches at all. The theme is about thieves and their money - masters and their secrecy - and it shows how the thieves are uniting and the terrible human cost.\"\n\nIn a ruling stopping the case, Mr Justice Nicklin said he had read the book for himself before considering the case papers, so he could form a view like any other ordinary reader.\n\nHe said that ENRC's claim was not sustainable because every reader would know that only individuals can commit murder, rather than corporations.\n\nThat early ruling meant the case could not proceed to a full libel trial - and the judge awarded £50,000 in costs against ENRC, while also refusing it permission to appeal.\n\nSpeaking outside court, Mr Burgis said: \"I wrote a book about what I believe is the greatest threat to freedom today: the rise of kleptocracy. I'm delighted that this attempt to censor Kleptopia has failed.\"\n\nHe however still faces a second libel action over an article published in the Financial Times relating to his investigation.\n\nA spokesman for HarperCollins described the case as \"lawfare\" - legal action that poses such massive financial risks to a defendant it has the effect of silencing them or making them withdraw.\n\n\"HarperCollins is committed to publishing high quality investigative non-fiction and to defending our authors in the face of legal attacks from those who would seek to use the UK courts to silence them.\n\n\"It is grossly unfair that yet again HarperCollins and our author have had to risk substantial legal costs and personal liability defending public interest journalism.\"\n\nBut a spokesman for ENRC said the case had been fairly brought and insisted there had been enormous damage to its reputation because of the book.\n\n\"The independence of the British judiciary remains the UK's greatest defence of our democracy and our shared liberal values,\" said the spokesman.\n\n\"It is regretful to have witnessed a growing attempt to mischaracterise our reasonable and proportionate steps to defend our reputation through the courts.\n\n\"We have maintained throughout that we fully support the media's right to report fairly and objectively on matters, including on our own business.\"", "Valerie Warrington and her ex-husband Clive Warrington were found dead in different locations\n\nThe children of a divorced couple who were stabbed to death and found 15 miles (24km) apart have said they were devastated.\n\nClive Warrington, 67 was found at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham at 06:25 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nShortly afterwards officers discovered the body of his ex-wife, Valerie Warrington, 73, at a property in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds.\n\nA man from Cheltenham has been arrested on suspicion of murder.\n\nMagistrates granted an additional 36 hours of detention earlier which followed a 12-hour custody extension by police on Thursday morning.\n\nSupt Roddy Gosden said people would understandably be shocked to hear of the murders\n\nThe pair's children thanked well-wishers for the outpouring of love and support they have received.\n\nIn a statement released earlier, they said: \"We are devastated by the sudden and tragic loss of our parents.\n\n\"We thank everyone for their messages of love and support, which are of great comfort to us.\n\n\"We would like to request privacy at this time so that we can come to terms with what has happened and grieve in peace with the rest of the family.\"\n\nValerie Warrington and her ex-husband Clive Warrington were both found dead in different locations\n\nSupt Roddy Godden, of Gloucestershire Police, said on Wednesday the man was known to the victims and they were not currently looking for anyone else.\n\nHe said the thoughts of the police force went out to the family \"at this devastating time\".\n\nTributes have been paid to the pair, with Ms Warrington described as a \"lovely\" and \"warm\" lady by a colleague.\n\nSurgeon Charlie Chan worked with her for 13 years at Cheltenham General Hospital, where she was his personal assistant.\n\nPolice officers will be in the local communities over the coming days to provide reassurance\n\nCharlie Chan paid tribute to Valerie Warrington, who was his PA\n\nWriting on Facebook, he said: \"I am totally heartbroken at this news.\n\n\"Val was my PA for 13 years and we shared lots of happy times.\n\n\"Clive did work on our house and I watched their kids grow up.\n\n\"What has the world come to?\"\n\nOfficers are continuing to examine the two separate scenes and cordons are expected to remain in place at both locations for a number of days.\n\nAnyone with information is urged to come forward.\n\nOfficers investigating the murder are continuing to examine evidence from two separate scenes\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: Bristolbristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUK ministers are meeting international allies to \"ratchet up the pressure\" on Vladimir Putin by taking more sporting, cultural and economic steps in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe culture secretary will try to mobilise more support to isolate Moscow at a summit of global sports ministers.\n\nNadine Dorries said culture was \"the third front in the Ukrainian war\".\n\nAnd Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the West must \"keep our foot on the gas\" with economic measures.\n\nShe was speaking while meeting her counterparts from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in Vilnius to show support on Nato's eastern flank.\n\nUnlike Ukraine, the three Baltic countries are members of the defensive military alliance and joined after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.\n\nRussian attacks on Ukrainian cities have intensified in recent days, with heavy shelling in the capital Kyiv, the second city Kharkiv and Kherson in the south.\n\nOn Wednesday, the mayor of Kherson said Russian forces had seized control of the key port - the first major city to be taken by Moscow after it invaded Ukraine a week ago.\n\nMs Dorries told the House of Commons: \"Later today I'll be hosting a summit with countries from all over the globe to discuss how we can continue to use the power of sport to isolate Putin at home and abroad.\n\n\"We have to keep ratcheting up the pressure. Putin must fail.\"\n\nShe added: \"I continue to push for organisations to exile Putin's Russia from their ranks.\"\n\nThe virtual summit will include sports ministers from 11 countries, including the US, Australia, Germany and Poland, who are expected to discuss banning teams and individuals representing Russia from international competitions and barring Russia and its ally Belarus from hosting global sporting events.\n\nAthletes from Russia and Belarus will no longer be allowed to compete at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing, the International Paralympic Committee has confirmed.\n\nThe IPC had been heavily criticised after announcing on Wednesday that the athletes could compete as neutrals, but the committee announced the change on Thursday, saying the situation in the athlete villages had become \"untenable\".\n\n\"I welcome the fact that overnight they have listened and have reversed that decision this morning,\" Ms Dorries said.\n\nFootball fans in the UK have shown their support for Ukraine\n\nOther changes to cultural and sporting events, designed to isolate Russia, include:\n\nMr Putin is now \"suffering a sporting and cultural Siberia of its own making\", the culture secretary said.\n\nShe also welcomed the removal of Russian news channel RT from TV screens in the UK and most of Europe.\n\nShe said she hoped UK media regulator Ofcom would revoke RT's licence \"so that they're never again able or have the platform to broadcast their propaganda into the UK\". She has also asked TikTok and Facebook's owner Meta to block RT's content.\n\nMs Dorries became visibly emotional during her Commons address as she offered her \"heartfelt thanks and admiration\" to journalists working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets, saying they were \"risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone\".\n\nThe UK has also worked alongside Western allies to enact sweeping economic sanctions against Russian banks, businesses and individuals.\n\nOn Wednesday night, British officials said more sanctions against wealthy Russians could be expected in the days and weeks to come but there was a \"real risk\" of people moving their assets outside the UK pre-emptively if they thought they could be targeted.\n\nThe BBC has been told a range of areas are under discussion, including possibly seizing the property of oligarchs with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Housing Secretary Michael Gove raised with cabinet ministers last week. However, no final decisions have been made.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Dick spent three years sleeping in cars and friends' sofas.\n\nA man who spent three years sleeping in cars and on settees says having his own place to live is the \"best feeling in the world\".\n\nDonald Dick was part of Northern Ireland's so-called hidden homeless - people who only have temporary accommodation.\n\nWhile there is no official data, it is believed there are thousands of people like Donald in Northern Ireland.\n\nHe moved out of his parents' house because there wasn't enough room.\n\nBut he didn't have anywhere to go.\n\nDonald said his experiences had been \"rough\".\n\n\"I was staying between my parents' home, which is overcrowded, and my mate's house,\" he said.\n\n\"I was sleeping in their car or some nights we would go and sleep in the studio, or sometimes I could go and sleep with my brother at his house.\n\n\"I slept in the car maybe once or twice a week. But sleeping in the car, there's no sleep at all, it's so rough.\"\n\nDonald first went to the Housing Executive in 2015, but said there was no available accommodation.\n\n\"The Housing Executive made me fill in an application form and put me in the waiting list to start getting points, but the first two years the points were just the same,\" he explained.\n\n\"I was still going there, I'm still homeless, I'm not getting sorted or even to be put in accommodation. I just wasn't getting anywhere.\"\n\nThree years later, in 2018, Donald moved to a hostel provided by homeless charity the Simon Community. In 2019, he got his own home.\n\nDonald said he felt he was going nowhere with housing applications\n\n\"Without it, my life would be a mess, I would still be going in circles, going to my friend's house, sleeping in the street.\n\n\"If you keep living in that environment, it will just keep on getting worse.\"\n\nThere are no official statistics on hidden homelessness in Northern Ireland.\n\nThat's partly because people living at a friend or relatives' house are not always going to reach out for help.\n\nProf Ann-Marie Gray from Ulster University has worked on a report with the Simon Community.\n\n\"The only people that are counted as homeless in Northern Ireland are the people who meet the criteria for statutory homelessness. That's quite a tight criteria,\" she explained.\n\n\"If you're seen to have made yourself intentionally homeless then you're not counted in those figures and you don't receive help.\"\n\nProf Gray said when people present as homeless, the authorities should ask much more about their circumstances.\n\nProf Ann-Marie Gray said more help was needed at point of contact\n\n\"They should be obliged to do much more in terms of providing some support to stop those people from spiralling into homelessness which can sometimes last for years,\" she added.\n\nFamily fall-outs are not the only reason for people to come under the 'hidden homeless' umbrella.\n\nThe rising cost of living, low income, an increase in fuel prices or a hike in rent for those living in the private rented sector can all contribute to people not being able to afford their own home.\n\nA long-term shortage in social housing also exacerbates the problem.\n\nProf Gray said: \"With the housing crisis in Northern Ireland, particularly around affordability, there's no reason to expect that this problem will become any less - the opposite in fact.\n\n\"We know that there isn't sufficient housing supply in Northern Ireland, particularly of public sector housing.\n\n\"So people have to go to the private rented sector, and there are no rent controls currently on the private rented sector.\n\n\"We know from research that people are paying quite often considerably higher than what they get in housing benefit towards the cost of their housing.\"\n\nThe Simon Community, the organisation which helped Donald find his home, said there needs to be a better understanding of what hidden homelessness means.\n\nKaren McAlister said there could be 100,000 'hidden homeless' people in NI\n\n\"There are estimations that up to 100,000 people are experiencing hidden homelessness,\" said Karen McAlister, head of research and development at the Simon Community.\n\n\"Northern Ireland is a very close knit society, we're always offering help and support, which actually means that people sleeping on sofas remain invisible.\"\n\nMs McAlister said it was crucial that people felt comfortable coming forward and that help was offered when they needed it most.\n\n\"I do believe we are in a housing and homelessness crisis,\" she added.\n\n\"If you look at the number of people in housing distress, in temporary accommodation and if today we're talking about up to 100,000 people in Northern Ireland experiencing hidden homelessness, yes I do call that a crisis.\"", "Drone footage shows the extent of destruction to buildings as well as Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, 60km (40 miles) north-west of Kyiv.", "Former defence secretary and education secretary Gavin Williamson is to receive a knighthood.\n\nThe Conservative MP for South Staffordshire was sacked from the cabinet in last September's reshuffle.\n\nMr Williamson faced opposition calls to quit over his handling of disruption to England's schools and exams during the pandemic.\n\nThe 45-year-old, whose first career was in manufacturing, previously served as the government's chief whip.\n\nHe was given a CBE in 2016 for political and public service, and it is understood that his knighthood is being awarded for the same reasons.\n\nMr Williamson was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and became chief whip, in charge of Conservative Party discipline, under Prime Minister Theresa May, in 2016.\n\nWhile in that role he notably kept a pet tarantula called Cronus on his desk.\n\nIn 2017, Mrs May made Mr Williamson defence secretary, a role he served in until 2019 when she sacked him, saying she had \"lost confidence in his ability to serve\".\n\nThis followed an inquiry into a leak from a National Security Council meeting on whether the Chinese firm Huawei should be involved in setting up the UK's 5G network. Mrs May said she had \"compelling evidence\" that Mr Williamson was responsible for the leak, but he denied this.\n\nHe returned to the cabinet as education secretary in summer 2019, after Boris Johnson became prime minister.\n\nBut his time in the job was marked by severe criticism from opposition parties over his handling of school closures, free school meal provision and GCSE and A-level exams during the Covid pandemic.\n\nMr Williamson was replaced as education secretary by Nadhim Zahawi in last autumn's reshuffle.\n\nReacting to the news of his knighthood, Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: \"Gavin Williamson let children to go hungry, created two years of complete chaos over exams and failed to get laptops out to kids struggling to learn during lockdowns. His record is astonishing and disgraceful.\"\n\nGeoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said head teachers and parents would be \"surprised\" to learn the news.\n\nHe said the pandemic would have been \"challenging for any education secretary\" but added that Mr Williamson's tenure had been one of \"endless muddle\" and \"inevitable U-turns\".\n\nMr Williamson has not commented so far on his honour.", "The couple have four children together\n\nKim Kardashian is a single woman once again after nearly eight years married to Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.\n\nIn a virtual court hearing on Wednesday, the reality star also officially and legally dropped \"West\" from her last name.\n\nKardashian, who filed for divorce from the rapper last year, made the request in December to become legally single.\n\nThe former couple must still resolve the division of property and custody of their four children.\n\nWednesday's ruling - granting Kardashian's request for a \"bifurcated divorce\" - means that divorce proceedings will be split into two parts - the first settling her legal name and marital status, now resolved, and the second part involving custody and financial assets.\n\nIn several sworn statements submitted since December, the 41-year-old beauty and television mogul said she \"very much\" desired the termination of her marriage.\n\n\"I believe that the court terminating our marital status will help Kanye to accept that our marital relationship is over,\" she wrote in a statement last month.\n\nYe, 44, who was not present for the hearing, had publicly fought the separation and appealed for Kardashian to return to their marriage.\n\nBut Kardashian also wrote that his recent social media activity, in which he posted private text messages and attacked her new boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson, had caused \"emotional distress\".\n\nOn Wednesday, the rapper posted a video for his new song Eazy, apparently showing an animated version of Davidson being kidnapped and buried.\n\nAt the divorce hearing, a lawyer for Ye pushed for an agreement from Kardashian to waive any marital privilege she might have with a subsequent spouse.\n\nKardashian and her lawyer called the move \"unprecedented\" and it was denied by the judge.\n\nThe former couple began dating in 2012 and married two years later.\n\nYe is one of the biggest names in rap music, known for global hits like Stronger, Jesus Walks and Gold Digger. He has also found success as a fashion designer.\n\nKardashian first found fame in 2007 as the star of reality TV show about her family, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and has since launched fashion and beauty brands.", "Videos from social media have emerged showing people in Ukraine standing up to Russian troops.\n\nPeople in different parts of the country have stopped tanks from entering towns and cities, while others have angrily confronted soldiers face to face.", "The BBC's Ros Atkins takes a closer look at Russia's attacks on Ukraine - and whether what we’re witnessing amounts to war crimes.", "Fighting continued on Monday, the fifth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.\n\nMissile strikes killed dozens of civilians in the country's second city, Kharkiv, while air raid sirens sounded again in the capital, Kyiv.\n\nThere were reports of fierce shelling in the northern city of Chernihiv.\n\nRussia is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, but its advance has been slowed by Ukrainian resistance.\n\nAll three cities remain under Ukrainian control.\n\nAway from the battlefields, economic and diplomatic moves have continued.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin has banned Russians from moving money abroad as he tries to halt a plunge in the value of the rouble following the imposition of sanctions.\n\nAnd a rare emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly has heard a demand from the secretary general for an immediate halt to hostilities.\n\nOn the northern border with Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian officials ended their first round of talks.\n\nThere was little expectation the session would bring a breakthrough, but a Ukrainian official said both sides would now return to their respective capitals for further consultations before a second round of negotiations.\n\nRussia said both sides had agreed to continue talking and would meet again \"in the next few days\".\n\nNew members have been joining the Territorial Defence Forces in Kyiv\n\nIn a late-night address, Mr Zelensky said there were eyewitness accounts of civilians being deliberately targeted during a sustained attack on Kharkiv.\n\nHe called for the West to consider a no-fly zone over Ukraine - something the US so far ruled out over fears it could draw it into a direct conflict with Russia.\n\nVideos shared on social media showed rockets landing in Kharkiv, in what some defence analysts described as typical of a cluster munition strike on a dense urban area.\n\nNew satellite images showed a Russian military convoy stretching for about 40 miles (64km) north of Kyiv.\n\nBut reports of fresh fighting on the outskirts of the capital forced residents back into their shelters on Monday evening.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv faced heavy shelling on the fifth day of Russia's invasion\n\nAnother video circulating on social media showed huge clouds of smoke at a burning shopping centre in Chernihiv, another city that has been under pressure from the Russian offensive.\n\nOne teacher in Chernihiv, Oksana Buryak, told the BBC the situation was \"like from some horror movie\".\n\n\"Our hearts are broken, we don't understand anything,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A resident in Donetsk asks \"How much longer until this is over?\" as buildings in the city are destroyed.\n\nTo the south, Russian forces are trying to take control of the key strategic port of Mariupol, near Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine denied reports that Zaporizhzhia, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, had fallen into Russia hands.\n\nUkrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyy, speaking to the BBC, said the situation across the country was \"serious, but stable\".\n\n\"Every day the enemy sends more and more forces. But our glorious armed forces are basically destroying everything that arrives to Kyiv,\" he added.\n\nThe UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said millions of civilians were being forced to huddle in makeshift bomb shelters such as underground rail stations to escape explosions.\n\nSince the invasion began on Thursday, her office has recorded 102 civilian deaths, including seven children - and more than 300 injured.\n\n\"The real figures are, I fear, considerably higher,\" she said.\n\nA cold Kyiv day, the fifth day of Russia's invasion, had dawned with a weekend curfew ending, peace talks starting, and a bright sun rising in the winter sky.\n\nBut the chilling wail of the air raid siren soon sounded. It kept piercing the quiet of a city drained of its normal rhythms. After the sun set, it almost seemed to be on a loop.\n\nAs darkness fell, an explosion rocked the centre of Kyiv, shaking buildings in the city centre for the first time. Some reports said they were targeting a military radar centre in the Brovary suburb. Residents in high-rise apartment blocks there told us it was \"very close, very frightening\".\n\nRussian forces seem to be inching closer to the city centre, the prize in this war.\n\nUkrainian forces have been stalling their advance. And tonight the night sky was lit by surface-to-air missiles targeting Russian warplanes and helicopters.\n\nTo sum up the view of a Western official who spoke to journalists today, the Russians seem to have overestimated its own military prowess, underestimated Ukrainian resolve, miscalculated the world's reaction and misunderstood the mood of our time.\n\nBut other Ukrainian cities give a glimpse of may lie in wait for Kyiv. In the north-west, Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv has been pounded by suspected cluster munitions. In the north-east, siege tactics used to devastating effect in Syria are being unleashed around the historic city of Chernihiv; shells are also slamming into its streets.\n\nA woman I met in a shelter today anxiously told me of her father's plight. He's in Chernobyl, to the north, now occupied by Russian forces, without electricity or much of a phone signal, trying to hide the light of a burning fire now cooking his potato soup.", "Living in the basement - Rustam, Liana, Vera, and Tyson the cat\n\nSeven days which sparked a burning patriotic resolve in Ukraine, which propelled people the world over, from presidents and prime ministers, bankers and business leaders, football stars to figure skaters, artists and activists, to stand up and be counted to condemn Russia's aggression.\n\nThe Russian rouble collapsed, the UN General Assembly called on Moscow to pull out; Russian leaders denounced this \"Russiaphobic frenzy\". And, on the ground, swathes of Europe's second-largest country were reduced to smoking ruins, a harrowing echo of Russia's blistering campaigns in Grozny and Aleppo.\n\nIn the days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv was a European city of golden-domed cathedrals gleaming in the night, brightly-lit restaurants serving steaming bowls of borsch, corner kiosks pouring coffee behind frosty winter windows.\n\nAnd the world was a place where many thought a blitzkrieg across a border was only history's business. At the Munich Security Conference, many a government minister quietly told me \"I just don't think it will happen\". And, of course, not against the capital.\n\nBut in her home in Kyiv, 37-year-old Liana was ready with bags packed, including some books; clothes ironed, enough money from an ATM to last a while. Her mother Vera refused to do the same. Her friends poked fun at her. But Liana's son Rustam, a bespectacled 13-year-old wired to his smartphone, was ready too.\n\nIn the dead of night on Thursday 24 February, in a city which couldn't sleep, rumours and reports electrified social media and exploded in chat groups.\n\nThis snippet \"Russian action will begin at 4am\" shot through cyberspace with the kind of chilling precision Western intelligence reports had used for weeks to warn of \"an imminent invasion\" by nearly 200,000 Russian troops and heavy weaponry now massed along the borders.\n\nLocal flights kept cancelling, parents wondered if they should take their children to school in the morning, journalists started asking each other if they were staying.\n\nBy 05:00, posts cascaded across the internet - \"hearing thuds\" in Kyiv, Kramatorsk, Melitopol, Chernobyl, Odessa. The list was long.\n\nAt 05:58, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted \"Putin has launched a full-scale invasion\". Hours earlier, President Vladimir Putin had announced the start of a \"special military operation\" in eastern Ukraine.\n\nAt 06:00 Liana called her mother. \"I told you so. Are you packed?\"\n\nBy nightfall, roads out of Kyiv were gridlocked. Homes were emptied of energy as a city went underground, to basements and bomb shelters, to subway stations with marble stairways and magnificent mosaics built deep below in the 1960s to also double as Cold War bunkers.\n\nIt was a day which ended the tidy life of Liana, who runs a small office supply company, and terrified her mammoth Maine Coon cat, who found he couldn't live up to his namesake - the US professional boxer Mike Tyson known as Iron Mike.\n\nI met them all in a cavernous basement in the city centre, two floors below ground, where our BBC team also took shelter. A tight-knit family, including mother Vera with a shock of red hair and an even warmer smile, took up residence on thin mats on the hard floor next to ours.\n\n\"It was a difficult night,\" declared champion boxer-turned-mayor Vitali Klitschko as the day dawned on Saturday with news that Russian forces were now advancing on Ukrainian cities from the north, east, and south. \"Russian troops are not in our city,\" he reassured \"Kyivians\" who woke - if they slept at all - asking that very question.\n\nHis rallying cry was amplified hours later, on that day, and every day after, by the comedian-turned-president-in-a-suit-turned-wartime-leader-in-olive-green-attire. \"We won't lay down our arms,' President Volodmyr Zelensky declared, rebuffing \"fake news\" that he'd done the opposite.\n\n\"Are you worried?\" I asked Liana. \"I can't be sad, I must be hopeful to support our president,\" she exclaimed in her own act of resistance underground. Tyson, however, was hiding upstairs, under a bed. And Liana worried about her father living north of the capital, in a village close to Chernobyl, now occupied by Russian forces. He'd crept out of his home last night, crawling through fields under cover of darkness, to see Russian troops throwing tarpaulin over heavy weaponry to hide them from view.\n\nIn Kyiv, air raid sirens were now blaring day and night, a chilling soundtrack of the city. A weekend curfew came in force. We discreetly rigged up a smartphone to broadcast from the basement where at least five dogs, including Kurt a puffy white Pomeranian named after the American singer-songwriter, and Andrew, a trembling Yorkshire terrier, never seemed to bark.\n\nOn Sunday, Liana and Vera rushed pell-mell toward me. \"What happened?\" I asked, trying to suppress a note of worry. \"Thank you, thank you!\" they shouted excitedly, words tumbling over the other. Their friends in the US, Britain, and the UAE had sent them screenshots of our BBC broadcast.\n\nThere they were, in the corner of the screen, quietly sitting along the wall. \"Now they know we're safe!\" they gushed, reflecting that surge of anxiety worldwide in the large Ukrainian diaspora as the invasion intensified.\n\nBut news from Liana's father was ominous. He could hear Russian tanks rumbling past, heading south towards Kyiv. His electricity was now cut; he cooked potato soup outside, on an open fire in sub-zero temperatures, all the while trying to hide the flame.\n\nBy Monday, when the weekend curfew lifted, satellite images shared by Maxar technology revealed a massive Russian armoured column, stretching along 40 miles (64km) of road, stopped just 20 miles from Kyiv. The plight of other cities was even more foreboding. Residential areas of Kharkiv, the second largest city to the west, were being pounded - so was Chernihiv to the north.\n\nThin mats have been replaced by mattresses in this new subterranean world - Ukraine beds down and digs in. All through the night, smartphones glow under covers. Liana, like everyone else, connects incessantly with friends and family across Ukraine and beyond.\n\nA Russian missile has slammed into her father's vegetable garden, smashing his sustenance for the long run. Rustam, intense at the best of times, is now an extension of his phone saturated by everything Ukraine. Sometimes Tyson the cat emerges from under his bed above ground for a comforting cuddle.\n\nRussia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has vowed to continue the offensive until \"its goals are achieved\".\n\nIt's been a week of war. Unparalleled sanctions imposed on Russia are being described as economic war. A war crimes investigation has already been launched, and everyone everywhere is taking a stand. Even the International Feline Federation (FIFe) has banned the import of any Russian breeds of cats.\n\nThe southern city of Kherson has fallen. Mariupol is encircled by Russian forces, without electricity, running water, or enough food. The armoured convoy north of Kyiv still hasn't made its move.\n\nAnd Liana is in a flood of tears. \"Eight Russian soldiers barged into my father's house last night looking for cigarettes, and they've taken over his house,\" she wails. She hears a story about a family who tried to flee and was shot dead on the spot. They're looking for young men able to fight. She says her elderly father sits in a chair and doesn't dare move.\n\nIn some areas, whole neighbourhoods have been obliterated by Russian firepower or seem to be under its sway.\n\nNow it's the second week. More than a million Ukrainians have fled. Many are staying to pick up guns to fight. \"We are the nation that broke the plans of the enemy in the first week,\" boasts President Zelensky in his latest video message, still dressed in olive-green.\n\nPresident Putin announces his \"special military operation is going according to plan\", vowing to \"destroy this anti-Russia created by the West\".\n\nLast night Kyiv was rocked by explosions, coming ever closer to city centre, which painted the sky orange. When the night curfew lifts, Liana and her mother Vera make a dash to the shops to check for supplies - including cat food - on fast-emptying shelves. Then she settles in to try to read the tome she packed for what could be a long and anxious haul. It's a Russian-language version of Homer's the Iliad, a rare book given two centuries ago to Russia's Catherine the Great, the empress known for bringing Russia into Europe's cultural and political life.", "Alisher Usmanov (right) with President Putin at the Kremlin in November 2018\n\nThe UK has announced sanctions on two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Usmanov's company USM previously had sponsorship ties with Arsenal and - until this week - Everton.\n\nMr Shuvalov was formerly Russian President Vladimir Putin's deputy prime minister and is currently chairman of the management board of a Russian bank.\n\nThe BBC has contacted the two men for their response.\n\nUnder the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.\n\nBritish citizens and businesses will not be allowed to deal with them.\n\nBoris Johnson said: \"For as long as Putin continues his barbaric attack on innocent Ukrainians we will continue to exert every power we have to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his war machine.\"\n\nAnd his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We won't stop here - our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin's war machine.\"\n\nThe government said the two men had \"significant interests in the UK and close links to the Kremlin\".\n\nMr Usmanov founded USM Holding company, an investment group that owns iron, steel and copper suppliers and the Megafon telecommunications company.\n\nThe company, in which Mr Usmanov holds a 49% stake, sponsored Everton's training ground and had a naming-rights option for Everton's new stadium, due to open in 2024.\n\nHowever, on Wednesday, Everton suspended the company's sponsorship arrangements, saying the club was \"shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine\".\n\nMr Usmanov's business partner Farhad Moshiri - the owner and main investor at Everton - has since stepped down from his role as chairman of USM and announced that he had severed all business links with the Russian.\n\nAs part of the deal, the Megafon branding was added to two of the towers of the stadium, one of which can be seen here\n\nThe Megafon branding was quickly removed from the stadium in the run-up to Thursday's televised FA Cup match\n\nAt the club's FA cup match against Boreham Wood on Thursday evening, Everton's players walked out draped in Ukrainian flags, behind 22-year-old Ukrainian defender Vitaliy Mykolenko who has been made captain on just his fourth appearance for his new club.\n\nMr Usmanov's previous ties with Arsenal ended in 2018 when he sold his 30% stake. At the time he was the second largest shareholder in the north London club.\n\nIn addition to connections with Premier League clubs, the government said Mr Usmanov owned Beechwood House in Highgate, worth an estimated £48m, and the 16th century Sutton Place estate in Surrey.\n\nMr Shuvalov is less well-known in the UK but the Foreign Office said he owned \"two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11m\".\n\nThe Foreign Office also said it had established an Oligarch Taskforce to co-ordinate work to sanction further oligarchs.\n\nEarlier this week, the EU froze the assets of the Mr Usmanov, saying he was \"a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin\".\n\nAt the time, Mr Usmanov issued a statement calling the EU's decision \"unfair\" and adding that he would \"use all legal means to protect my honour and reputation\".\n\nMr Shuvalov, the other man to be sanctioned, has worked in the Russian government as first deputy minister and government chief of staff, as well as acting as an aide to President Putin.\n\nIgor Shuvalov, seen here with President Putin, is one of 13 oligarchs to be sanctioned by the UK since the invasion of Ukraine\n\nSince 2018 he has been the chairman of the management board of VEB, one of the Russian banks recently sanctioned by the government.\n\nOn Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had urged the prime minister to take action against Mr Shuvalov and accused the prime minister of being slow to target other individuals connected with the Putin government.\n\nGovernment sources have told the BBC it could take weeks to put together sanctions against such people.\n\nLabour, and some senior Conservative figures have said the UK should seize oligarchs' UK assets.\n\nConservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: \"We should be looking immediately to seize those assets linked to those who are profiting from Putin's war machine, holding it in trust and returning it to the Russian people as soon as possible.\"\n\nElsewhere, the US has announced fresh sanctions on Russian oligarchs including Mr Usmanov, Mr Shuvalov and Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nAuthorities in France and Germany have seized yachts owned by Mr Usmanov.\n\nMeanwhile, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab says the government will look at ways to stop lawsuits being used by wealthy individuals to intimidate journalists and organisations covering their wealth and financial interests.\n\nThe government is expected to set out a number of options to alter the system, including procedural changes in courts and potential legislation.\n\nMr Raab told the Telegraph: \"We will not have people close to Putin coming here to try and bankrupt people who shine a light on his excesses.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nChelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he is planning to sell the club.\n\nIn a statement on the Premier League club's website, businessman Abramovich said he had made the \"incredibly difficult decision\" which \"pains\" him.\n\nThe Russian will not ask \"for any loans to be repaid\" and said proceeds of the sale would be donated to war victims.\n\nAbramovich had said on Saturday he would give \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its foundation trustees following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThat led to speculation Abramovich - who has loaned the club more than £1.5bn - would put Chelsea up for sale, and billionaire Hansjorg Wyss told Swiss newspaper Blick on Wednesday that he had been offered the chance to buy the club.\n\nWyss said Abramovich wanted \"to get rid of Chelsea quickly\" after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.\n\nAbramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nHe said \"all net proceeds from the sale\" would be donated to the \"victims of the war in Ukraine\".\n\nBBC Sport understands Abramovich has already received offers for Chelsea and that he values the club at as much as £3bn.\n\nIn his statement, Abramovich said: \"I have always taken decisions with the club's best interest at heart.\n\n\"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club's sponsors and partners.\n\n\"The sale of the club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid.\n\n\"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nBBC Sport understands the trustees of Chelsea's charitable foundation, who had not yet agreed to take control of the club, will no longer be asked to. Abramovich was criticised for not referencing Russia's invasion of Ukraine in that original statement on Saturday.\n\nChelsea's players were not told ahead of time about their owner's new statement, which was released less than a hour before the side's FA Cup fifth-round tie at Luton Town.\n\nAfter falling behind early on, the Premier League team won 3-2 to reach the quarter-finals.\n\nAbramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140m, and in his statement said it had \"never been about business nor money, but about pure passion for the game and club\".\n\nSince his purchase of the club, Chelsea have been transformed, setting the template for how much finance was needed to compete at the top end of the Premier League.\n\nIn total, Abramovich has loaned the club more than £1.5bn, which has helped to bring great success.\n\nUnder his ownership, the club have won every major trophy possible - including the Champions League twice, both the Premier League and FA Cup five times, the Europa League twice and the League Cup three times.\n\nIn August 2021, they won the Uefa Super Cup and in February won their first Club World Cup.\n\nHe has appointed 13 different managers and the club spent more than £2bn in the transfer market under his ownership.\n\nChelsea's women's team, who became affiliated to Chelsea FC in 2004, have thrived under Abramovich's ownership, winning the Women's Super League four times, the Women's FA Cup, three times and reaching the Champions League final last season.\n\nTheir high profile has seen world stars such as Australia's Sam Kerr and Danish forward Pernille Harder move to the club.\n\nWhy has Abramovich chosen to sell?\n\nOther Russian billionaires have already been the subject of European Union sanctions where their assets have been frozen.\n\nThat has included Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial links to Everton.\n\nThe United Kingdom government is yet to sanction Abramovich or Usmanov, but Labour MP Chris Bryant said in Parliament on Tuesday that Abramovich was \"terrified of being sanctioned which is why he is going to sell his home tomorrow [Wednesday], and another flat as well\".\n\nOn Wednesday, during Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Keir Starmer asked why Abramovich was not facing sanctions, with Boris Johnson replying it was \"not appropriate to comment on any individual cases at this stage\".\n\nA spokesperson denied the Labour leader's claims and said Abramovich had not done anything sanctionable.\n\nWyss also said: \"Abramovich is trying to sell all of his villas in England, he also wants to get rid of Chelsea quickly.\n\n\"I and three other people received an offer on Tuesday to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Abramovich declined to comment on those claims.\n\n'One of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in history of English football' - analysis\n\nWhile this was not an entirely unexpected development after it became apparent during the last 24 hours that Roman Abramovich was looking to sell Chelsea, this dramatic announcement still feels like a seismic moment. Not only for the west London club, but for the wider English game too.\n\nThe Russian billionaire's arrival almost two decades ago helped transform the Premier League's competitive balance, profile and spending power, reinforcing its status as a truly global competition.\n\nThe oligarch's riches turned Chelsea into a major force in the game, and his ownership seemed to pave the way for subsequent takeovers by overseas billionaires, at clubs like Manchester City for instance.\n\nBut there was significant controversy too.\n\nWith Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people - almost never commenting in public, he also came to symbolise the detachment of some super-wealthy club owners. Many also found the ruthlessness with which he treated managers questionable.\n\nThere was always intrigue surrounding the motives for his ownership, and how he made his fortune. While he has always denied direct links with Putin, the invasion of Ukraine led to calls in parliament for the government to sanction wealthy Russians.\n\nAbramovich vehemently denies that he had done anything to merit sanctions being imposed against him. But as the highest-profile oligarch in the country, and with one MP citing concerns about alleged links to corruption, his ownership was coming under mounting scrutiny.\n\nAnd with the government facing mounting pressure to seize his assets, and Abramovich criticised over his failure to explicitly condemn Russia's invasion, it is little surprise that he has swiftly announced his decision to sell.\n\nIn recent years Abramovich has been an increasingly infrequent visitor to Stamford Bridge, withdrawing his application for a visa in 2018 after relations between the UK and Russia worsened.\n\nBut while fans had got used to not seeing Abramovich, the Russian's departure could mean the club is run very differently in future - and perhaps with much more financial constraint - by whoever now buys it.\n\nThat may help explain why some at Chelsea will no doubt be sorry to see him go. Many other observers, however, will be pleased, some of whom have always viewed Abramovich's ownership as a classic example of 'sportswashing'.\n\nHaving always insisted he was passionate about the club and had its interests at heart, he leaves as one of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in the history of English football.\n\nChelsea will be a desirable football club for many given its status within the game. It's in London which makes it very attractive to ultra high net-worth individuals.\n\nYou have to caution that Chelsea has lost more money than any other club in the history of the Premier League and its stadium is a lot smaller than some of the other stadiums in London.\n\nSpeaking to some agents already today, I think the initial asking price is around £3bn. I think that is unlikely to be achieved. But if you are looking for a trophy asset - something to show off to your compatriots, to your friends, then Chelsea has an awful lot of attraction.\n\nThey are European and world champions - that does add to its allure.\n\nThere are three potential types of bidders we could see.\n\nWe could see the individual billionaire looking to add to their portfolio of well-known assets.\n\nIt could come for a private equity company based in the US who believes the riches of Premier League are undervalued in traditional markets.\n\nWe could see from a sovereign wealth fund as we've seen in relation to Manchester City, Newcastle and Paris St-Germain\n\nThis sale has come at a bad time in terms of the market. The share price of Manchester United - a good peer group company for Chelsea - is now trading significantly below its initial listing price in 2012. The market seems to have lost its love-in with football and this could impact on the ultimate price Chelsea is sold for.\n\n25 February: Labour's Chris Bryant tells MPs the UK government should remove Roman Abramovich's ownership of Chelsea and seize his assets, citing concerns about alleged links to corruption.\n\n26 February: Abramovich announces he is handing \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its charitable foundation.\n\n27 February: Foundation members express concern over whether Charity Commission rules would allow them to run the club. Chelsea beaten 11-10 on penalties by Liverpool in League Cup final at Wembley after game ended 0-0.\n\n28 February: Abramovich asked by Ukraine to help support their attempts to reach a \"peaceful resolution\" with Russia.\n\n1 March: The Charity Commission says it is \"seeking information\" from Chelsea after the club was placed under the control of its charitable foundation.\n\n2 March: Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss claims he has been offered the chance to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\n\n2 March: Abramovich announces he intends to sell the club.\n\n'It can take months or years'\n\nFormer Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer on BBC One: \"It's a huge moment for Chelsea. He has brought massive success over his 20 years but it is not simple, selling a football club. It can take months or years.\n\n\"But more importantly, there is still no condemnation from Roman or the club about what is happening in Ukraine.\"\n\nFormer Manchester City and England defender Micah Richards on BBC One: \"It is a better statement than Saturday, there is a lot more clarity and Roman Abramovich has done the right thing.\n\n\"It is so sad we have to talk about this on a football night after all the scenes we have seen. It is heartbreaking. The sooner it happens the better.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "The Scottish government has tabled legislation at Holyrood to make it easier for people to change their legally recognised gender.\n\nMinisters say the current process takes too long and is too invasive, causing distress to a vulnerable minority.\n\nHowever campaigners have raised concerns about the changes potentially having an impact on women's rights.\n\nSocial Justice Secretary Shona Robison insisted the plans would not create new rights or change those women have now.\n\nAnd with four out of the five parties at Holyrood backing reform in their election manifestos last year, the changes are likely to be approved by parliament in some form.\n\nThe Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would make changes to the process by which people can obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) - the legal recognition of a trans person's \"acquired\" gender.\n\nAt present, people apply to a UK gender recognition panel and must provide a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria - a mismatch between the biological sex they were born with and the way they see and describe their gender - as well as evidence they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years.\n\nThe Scottish government wants to change this so that applications are handled by the Registrar General for Scotland, with no need for medical reports and the waiting time reduced to a total of six months.\n\nThe age at which people can apply would be reduced from 18 to 16.\n\nHowever, applicants would still need to swear that they intend to remain in their acquired gender for life, with a false declaration to be a criminal offence.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What reforms are being proposed and why have they proved so controversial?\n\nSome groups have voiced concerns that the proposals could erode women's sex-based rights, and access to women-only spaces and services including hospital wards and refuges.\n\nAnd the Equality and Human Rights Commission has urged the government to pause the reforms for more detailed consideration, saying the current GRC system \"provides the correct balanced legal framework that protects everyone\".\n\nBut Ms Robison told MSPs that \"trans people in Scotland risk inequality, harassment and abuse simply for living their lives - they are amongst the most marginalised in our society\".\n\nShe said the existing gender recognition system was \"intrusive and invasive, overly complex and demeaning\", saying that many trans people did not even apply due to this.\n\nAnd she stressed that the new bill \"does not introduce new rights or remove rights\", or change public policy on single-sex services or access to toilets and changing rooms.\n\nShe said: \"We are not introducing new rights for trans people, and importantly we are not removing or changing any for women and girls.\"\n\nOpponents of the reforms have protested outside the Scottish parliament\n\nHaving been repeatedly delayed in previous years, the legislation now looks set to pass with the SNP-Green government holding a majority of seats at Holyrood.\n\nAnd while some SNP politicians have previously questioned the plans, Labour and the Lib Dems are also in favour of a more streamlined system.\n\nBoth parties back removing the need for medical reports from the process, and say the plans should go further by also recognising non-binary people who identify as neither men nor women.\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives are the only party which did not specifically support reform in their 2021 election manifesto, and have called for women's rights to be \"paramount\" in the debate over gender reform.\n\nMSP Meghan Gallacher said improvements to the system \"would be beneficial for trans people\", but said the proposals as drafted \"do not protect women's rights\".\n\nShe said: \"They do not offer enough protection for women's safety. The concerns of women are legitimate. They are reasonable, they are honestly and sincerely held. The cabinet secretary should listen again to the valid concerns of women who feel their rights are under threat.\"\n\nMs Robison said MSPs should look at the evidence from countries which have passed similar reforms, saying that \"all of the evidence shows that the threat to women's and girls safety comes from predatory and abusive men, not the trans community\".\n\nThe legislation will first go to Holyrood's equalities committee for consideration - a process which may take several months before any votes are held in the chamber.\n\nBoth Ms Robison and Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone urged MSPs to be respectful in the debate of the bill.\n\nThis was echoed by Labour's Pam Duncan-Glancy, who said the discussion around trans rights had become \"toxic for everyone involved\".\n\nShe said more should be done to prevent \"hateful and abusive rhetoric\" from dominating.", "Mr Watford made his fortune in oil and gas\n\nAn investigation has been launched into the death of a Ukrainian-born oligarch in Surrey earlier this week.\n\nOfficers were called to a property in Portnall Drive, Wentworth, at about midday on 28 February.\n\nMikhail Watford, aged in his 60s, was pronounced dead at the scene.\n\nAn investigation into the death is under way but Surrey Police said there were not believed to be any suspicious circumstances \"at this time\".\n\nHis next of kin have been told and are being supported by specially-trained officers.\n\nThe body was found at an address in Portnall Drive, Wentworth\n\nIt is understood that Mr Watford was born in 1955 in then-Soviet Ukraine but moved to the UK in the early 2000s.\n\nAccording to a Sunday Times profile in 2015, he made his fortune in oil and gas, and moved to Surrey from London with his Estonian wife Jane.\n\nHe described his childhood as relatively extravagant, telling the newspaper: \"We had a big four-bedroom apartment with a bath, and a car — which, in terms of luxury, was the equivalent of travelling by jet now.\"\n\nIt was also reported he had changed his name from Tolstosheya after moving to the UK.\n\nThe property where his body was found is on a private road on the exclusive Wentworth Estate in Virginia Water.\n\nIt features three 18-hole golf courses and one 9-hole course.\n\nFormer Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet was kept under house arrest on the estate before his extradition and, according to its website, it has been home to \"a host of famous athletes, musicians, actors and entertainers, financial figures and royalty\".\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The show launched the careers of pop stars Jason Donavan and Kylie Minogue\n\nLong-running Australian TV soap opera Neighbours will come to an end this summer after 37 years.\n\nThe announcement follows the news that UK broadcaster Channel 5 was dropping the show from its schedules.\n\nThat decision left producers with a funding gap, as the British network was a key broadcast partner in the series.\n\nWriting on the programme's official Twitter account, producers said they were \"so sorry\" but had \"no option but to rest the show\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Neighbours This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"We are so sorry to say that after nearly 37 years and almost 9,000 episodes broadcast we have to confirm that Neighbours will cease production in the summer,\" they said.\n\n\"Following the loss of our key broadcast partner in the UK and despite an extensive search for alternative funding, we simply have no option but to rest the show.\n\n\"To our amazing, loyal fans, we know this is a huge disappointment, as it is to all of us on the team. We thank you for all your messages and support and promise to end the show on an incredible high.\"\n\nNeighbours aired on Channel 5 for more than a decade, and was previously broadcast on the BBC.\n\nWhen it was announced earlier this year that the show's future was under threat, singer and former Neighbours star Jason Donovan said the soap had \"changed the Australian television landscape\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The soap aired a special scene in January 2020 about the bushfires that were devastating Australia at the time\n\nHis on-screen partner, Kylie Minogue, reminisced about her time on the programme in a tweet mourning the cancellation.\n\n\"I'll be forever grateful for the experience and the friends I made on Neighbours,\" she wrote.\n\n\"We had no idea how big the show would become and how passionately viewers would take it to heart. Pure love!\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Kylie Minogue This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nViewers were quick to voice their disappointment about the show's cancellation on Twitter.\n\n\"Noooo, Neighbours has been a constant in my life since from the beginning when I was five years old,\" wrote one. \"Can't believe it's the end! It's an escapism from all the [bad] stuff that goes on in the world and unlike every other soap it's not all doom and gloom.\"\n\nAnother said the show was her \"30-minute decompression at the end of the workday for over 30 years… often ridiculous but always watchable\".\n\nBut one fan noted: \"I don't think the recent storylines have helped. The new breed of script writer lost their way in my opinion, and forgot what the essence was that made Neighbours great.\"\n\nAlan Fletcher and Jackie Woodburne as Carl and Susan Kennedy, two of the soap's longest-serving characters\n\nSet and filmed in Melbourne, Neighbours was first broadcast in Australia in 1985 and launched on BBC One a year later.\n\nIt became a huge hit in the UK and in Australia, and helped launch the career of numerous stars, including Donovan, Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce and later Margot Robbie.\n\nChannel 5 previously said it knew its decision to axe the show - which attracts more than one million viewers per day in the UK - would disappoint many.\n\nBut it added its \"current focus is on increasing our investment in original UK drama, which has strong appeal for our UK viewers\".\n\nAt the time, Donovan, who played Scott Robinson from 1986 to 1989, wrote on Twitter: \"It launched many careers over decades including mine.\n\n\"Engaged and entertained audiences for generations. Hoping that it will find a new home with another UK broadcaster and continue to provide opportunity and entertainment.\"\n\nSinger Kylie Minogue was one of the first stars to come out of the programme in the 1980s\n\nThe soap has featured many notable Australian actors, actresses and performers over the years, many of whom have gone on to have glittering careers.\n\nPerhaps the most high profile of these stars to make her name on Neighbours is singer Kylie Minogue, who acted in the early years of the soap, playing Charlene between 1986 and 1988.\n\nRussell Crowe briefly featured in the soap opera in 1987\n\nOscar winner and Gladiator star Russell Crowe also had a brief spell on the Ramsay Street set, while more recently the show featured Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie from 2008 to 2011 and Liam Hemsworth between 2007 and 2008.\n\nMargot Robbie starred in the show before launching her Hollywood career\n\nOther people to have made their names on the show over the years include the singers Natalie Imbruglia, Holly Vallance and Delta Goodrem.", "Netflix has halted all projects and acquisitions in Russia\n\nStreaming giant Netflix has announced it has paused all future projects and acquisitions from Russia.\n\nThe company said it was assessing the impact of the current invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFilming for the production of Russian language series Zato will be halted.\n\nElsewhere in tech, cloud computing company Oracle also said it has suspended operations in Russia.\n\nThe two companies are the latest US technology firms to take action against Russia as attacks on Ukraine's cities have escalated.\n\nOn Tuesday, Apple also announced that it was halting sales in Russia.\n\nOracle's announcement on Twitter came three hours after Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation tweeted the company, calling for support.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDeputy Minister Alexander Bornyakov told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine has sought help from 50 different companies - in a bid to apply pressure to Russia.\n\n\"More sanctions imposed, faster peace restored,\" Borynakov said on social media.\n\nIn a tweet Oracle said: \"On behalf of Oracle's 150,000 employees around the world and in support of both the elected government of Ukraine and for the people of Ukraine\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Oracle This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn recent days, global brands including Shell, Nike, H&M and Boeing have cut ties or temporarily suspended sales in Russia.\n\nMoscow has responded to foreign companies distancing themselves from Russia by temporarily restricting Russian asset sales by foreigners.\n\nOn Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin met with the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs to discuss how it would attempt to minimise the impact of sanctions announced so far.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by President of Russia This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 3 by President of Russia\n\nNetflix would not comment on how many people use its streaming service in Russia.\n\nEarlier this week, however, it confirmed in a report by Hollywood Reporter that it would not carry Russian state channels.\n\n\"Given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service,\" a Netflix spokesperson told the magazine in a statement.\n\nUnder a law that only came into effect on 1 March, \"audiovisual services\" in the country with more than 100,000 users will be required to carry 20 major state television channels.", "Alexandra Markevitch rests in a makeshift refugee shelter in Lviv, Ukraine. \"I have never felt so much love for my homeland,\" she said.\n\nAlexandra Markevitch fled Kharkiv on Sunday, as Russian shells rained down on her neighbourhood and gunfire rattled her city.\n\nShe ran with her son Pasha to the station, with only a few documents, family photographs, and warm clothes in hand, and they made it on to a train headed west. When a pressure wave from a rocket strike hit the train, Markevitch feared it would be derailed, she said. When the train made it past the outskirts of the city and the sounds of the blasts, she tried to comfort her son. It was his 11th birthday.\n\nRussia has bombarded Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, since it invaded the country on Thursday, shelling residential areas and later the cultural heart of the city. On Tuesday, Kharkiv's opera house, concert hall and government offices were hit in a series of strikes, killing at least 10 people and injuring many more.\n\nThe city's mayor said a separate rocket strike on a residential neighbourhood had destroyed a hospital, killing several and injuring many. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strikes on Kharkiv a \"terror attack against Ukraine\".\n\nMany thousands are now fleeing the city, leaving behind homes, families and jobs. Many have made it by train as far as the city of Lviv in the west of Ukraine, some to a makeshift refugee shelter in an old theatre on a cobbled street, where people can stay for a few days before they have to move on. Markevitch, 29, sat alone there on Tuesday, on a mattress on the stage. She was a stylist in Kharkiv, she said, until she sold her business last year to help fund her grandmother's Covid care. As her son Pasha played, she turned over a necklace pendant her grandmother left her when she died.\n\nMarkevitch's family and friends are still in Kharkiv. Many residents there cannot flee. Just days ago she was with them, hiding in a shelter under a neighbouring apartment building, where it was cold and damp, with no electricity, no heat and no real food and she was sick with worry for Pasha. Above ground they could hear \"every sound of the war\", she said. \"Shelling, bombing, grad rockets, fighter jets. Nobody sleeps because there is bombing all day and all night.\"\n\nThree days and nights after the invasion began, and \"full of fear I would lose my son,\" Markevitch made her choice. \"Either you face death there or you face death on the road,\" she said. \"At least on the road you have a chance of getting somewhere safe.\"\n\nShe is in contact with her family and they are still OK. \"Physically, they are alive,\" she said. \"Spiritually, life has become very hard in Kharkiv\".\n\nMen sheltering in an underground station in Kharkiv. Thousands have hidden undergound as Russian forces shell the city.\n\nJust 30 miles from the border and largely Russian speaking, Kharkiv has long been considered an obvious target for this invasion. Russian troops have engaged in street combat there with Ukrainian soldiers defending the city, and the city has been heavily bombarded from the air, killing scores of civilians at least.\n\nResidents who spoke to the BBC on Tuesday described spending long nights in cramped bomb shelters or, for those with no access underground, in the hallways of their apartments, away from windows.\n\nIryna Ruzhynska, 40, was sheltering on Tuesday in the hallway of her second-floor apartment in a 16-floor building, with her two sons, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Ruzhynska's mother, who is 75, was trapped in her own 11th-floor apartment because the building's lift was out of order.\n\n\"We have put scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nA street nearby Ruzhynska's apartment was shelled on Monday, she said - a thumping blast that left body parts strewn around the street. When she opens her window she can hear gunfire and bombing.\n\n\"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" she said. \"And I am angry, because this is a big, beautiful city, my city, and they want to wipe it from the face of the Earth.\"\n\nLate last night, while the rest of the family was asleep in the hallway, Ruzhynska put in her earphones and danced alone in the dark, \"to try and release my emotions\", she said. \"Then I cried silently for a long time.\" It was a Russian singer she was listening to, she said. \"Because we are people of peace. It does not matter to us.\"\n\nYehor Konovalov, 23, fled Kharkiv after the bombardment began with his parents and two siblings, and headed to a family business property in a village close to Donetsk. On Tuesday the family of five was sheltering in a cold 2m by 2m cellar while explosions could be heard in the distance.\n\n\"When the shelling started my eight-year-old sister woke me up at 4am and said, 'Yehor they are firing, they are firing bombs at Kharkiv'.\n\n\"I couldn't believe it. Then we heard the bombings and saw the ash cloud rising above the horizon.\"\n\nKonovalov said the family was now cut off from buying food and other provisions because the Ukrainian army had blown the bridge near the village. The family had only three bottles of water and a few days' worth of food left for five people.\n\n\"We need to get to Western Ukraine, to get my mother and sisters safe and me and my father can join territorial defence troops,\" he said. \"We are not afraid to die to kill those who invaded our soil.\"\n\nAndrey Akonenko, a 22-year-old web designer who fled Kharkiv on Tuesday with his girlfriend and spoke to the BBC from Poltava, 150km away, also said he would sign up to defend Ukraine.\n\n\"They are shelling our residential areas, our apartment buildings - there are no military sites there where they are bombing,\" he said. \"They are trying to destroy Ukrainian people.\"\n\nAkonenko was hoping to reach Lviv, he said, where Markevitch was waiting on Tuesday to move on from the refugee shelter with her son Pasha, ideally to Poland.\n\n\"The main goal is simply to leave Ukraine for somewhere we won't be in a war anymore,\" she said.\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has tried to claim he is liberating eastern cities and districts like Kharkiv from an oppressive Ukrainian government, but over eight years of war he appears now to have only reinforced in many a deep patriotism for Ukraine and a turning from Russia.\n\n\"I have never felt so much love for my homeland and for my city,\" Markevitch said. \"I hope the war will end and I can bring my son back home to Kharkiv as soon as possible.\"\n\nBefore then, she said, she was only focused on making it to Poland, and finding Pasha a birthday cake.\n\nValeriia Ratynskianska and Daria Sipigina contributed to this report.", "H&M has announced it is temporarily suspending all sales in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe world's second-biggest retailer said it was concerned about the developments in Ukraine on Wednesday.\n\nIn an official statement, the Swedish retailer said it stands \"with all the people who are suffering\".\n\nH&M is the latest firm to halt sales in a widening corporate backlash against what the UK prime minister described as \"barbaric\" attacks by Russia.\n\nOn Wednesday evening, H&M's Russian English-language website was unavailable for customers to place orders.\n\nH&M's website was unavailable in Russia on Wednesday evening\n\nAccording to recent figures, Russia is H&M's sixth-biggest market, accounting for about 4% of group sales in the fourth quarter of 2021.\n\nThe fashion giant has recently been expanding its presence in Russia, including opening shops under other brand names in its portfolio, Weekday and & Other Stories. Russian shoppers can usually also order clothes from the brands Monki and Cos online.\n\nThe retailer currently has more than 150 stores in Russia, according to its 2020 annual report, which will all now be shuttered due to the conflict.\n\nThe firm said on Wednesday that shops in Ukraine had already been closed temporarily \"due to the safety of customers and colleagues\".\n\nIt joins a host of other major firms who have spoken out about the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nFast fashion retailers Asos announced on Wednesday that they would no longer serve customers in Russia.\n\n\"Against the backdrop of the continuing war, Asos has decided that it is neither practical nor right to continue to trade in Russia,\" an Asos spokesperson said on Wednesday.\n\nBoohoo and footwear brand Nike have not commented on the conflict specifically, but customers in Russia are no longer able to order its products online.\n\nApple has also has paused all product sales in Russia, saying it was \"deeply concerned\" and stands with those \"suffering as a result of the violence\".", "Aliny Godinho was murdered by her ex-husband in front of their young daughter in 2019\n\nA police force has apologised over failings which a coroner says contributed to the murder of a mother.\n\nAliny Godinho, 39, was stabbed to death by her ex-husband Ricardo Godinho while on the school run in Stoneleigh, near Epsom in Surrey in February 2019.\n\nA coroner concluded her death was \"more than minimally contributed to\" by Surrey Police.\n\nEarlier the force agreed there were failings, adding it was \"deeply regretful\" and was \"truly sorry\".\n\nDuring the inquest, Surrey Coroner's Court heard the attack happened in just 17 seconds as Mrs Godinho held their young daughter's hand.\n\nIn July 2019, Godinho was found guilty of murder and possessing an offensive weapon and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years.\n\nAliny Godinho's last movements were captured on CCTV as she walked with her daughter to collect her son from school on the day she was killed\n\nSurrey Coroner Richard Travers said: \"I found a number of very significant failings on the part of Surrey Police in their response to Aliny's complaint and the unfolding events thereafter.\"\n\nMr Travers listed multiple failings including failing to respond to reports of escalating conduct from Mrs Godinho's ex-husband in the days before her death, failing to recognise she should have remained high risk and not following domestic abuse procedures.\n\nParticular criticism was levelled at one officer, PC Diane Walker, whom the coroner said had \"formed a view at a very early stage that Ricardo Godinho was unlikely to harm Aliny\" and noted a \"very significant failure to keep an open mind\".\n\nRicardo Godinho was jailed for a minimum of 27 years for his wife's murder in July 2019\n\nIn a statement released earlier, Det Supt Juliet Parker said: \"We agree there were failings on the part of Surrey Police in how her case was handled. Opportunities to safeguard Aliny were missed and for that we are deeply regretful.\n\n\"We welcome today's conclusion and accept the findings that there are areas of improvement for us as an organisation.\"\n\nThe coroner imposed a regulation 28 report on Surrey Police to prevent future avoidable deaths and has made recommendations, the force has 56 days in which to show changes have been made.\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk", "UK experts say they have found another life-saving drug that can help people ill with Covid.\n\nThe anti-inflammatory baricitinib is normally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.\n\nTrials suggest it can cut death risk by about a fifth in patients needing hospital care for severe Covid.\n\nIt could be used with other Covid treatments, such as the cheap steroid dexamethasone, to save even more lives, researchers say.\n\nThe NHS may soon recommend baricitinib based on these new results. A 10-day course of the pills costs around £250, although the NHS may be able to negotiate a discount.\n\nHealth and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: \"A big thank you to all of the researchers, doctors and volunteers involved in this work.\n\n\"Our medical and scientific experts will now consider the results before any decisions are made on next steps.\"\n\nAlthough vaccines have been doing a great job at cutting infections and protecting lives, some people will still catch and become very sick with Covid.\n\nAnd the Recovery trial has been testing existing medications on Covid patients to see if they help.\n\nIt has already identified dexamethasone, tocilizumab and a treatment called Ronapreve - discoveries that have changed clinical practice worldwide and been credited with saving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives, experts say.\n\nAnd now it appears some very ill Covid patients, including those on ventilators, fare much better if they receive baricitinib.\n\nThe benefit was on top of other proven life-saving Covid drugs.\n\nOne of the patients enrolled on the trial, Mark Rivvers, 51, from Cambridge, said: \"I was in hospital for almost a month, mostly in an intensive-care unit.\n\n\"Everything in my body seemed to be fighting against everything else.\n\n\"I was on almost constant respiratory support, I developed sepsis, and I had pneumonia all across my lungs.\n\n\"But I saw it as my duty to take part in the Recovery trial because I knew that no matter what happened to me, I was doing something positive to help others.\n\n\"I'm really pleased about the result with baricitinib and hope that it can now be used to benefit many others.\"\n\nThere are now many drugs that can help fight Covid:\n\nRecovery trial joint chief investigator Sir Martin Landray, professor of medicine and epidemiology, at Oxford Population Health, said: \"It is now well established that in people admitted to hospital because of severe Covid, an overactive immune response is a key driver of lung damage.\n\n\"Today's results not only show that treatment with baricitinib improves the chances of survival for patients with severe Covid-19 but that this benefit is additional to that from other treatments that dampen down the overactive immune response, such as dexamethasone and tocilizumab.\n\n\"This opens up the possibility of using combinations of anti-inflammatory drugs to further drive down the risk of death for some of the sickest patients.\"\n\nThe Recovery Trial has been a pandemic success story.\n\nWith more than 47,000 participants across the UK, it is the biggest study of Covid treatments in the world.\n\nThe treatments it has discovered have saved countless lives.\n\nBut its latest drug, baricitinib, was uncovered with the help of some DNA detective work.\n\nIt has been looking for answers in people's genes, comparing intensive-care patients' genomes with healthy people's DNA.\n\nAnd it has pinpointed some key genetic differences - including one in the TYK2 gene.\n\nIf this gene is faulty, the immune response can go into overdrive.\n\nAnd this genetic discovery led to baricitinib being added to the Recovery trial's list of treatments.\n\nGenetics is crucial for understanding how Covid-19 affects the body - and combining this DNA knowhow with a major clinical trial has provided another weapon in the fight against coronavirus.", "A total of 12 candidates are standing in the by-election\n\nVoters in Birmingham's Erdington constituency in England have been casting their ballots for a new MP in a parliamentary by-election.\n\nThe vote follows the death of Labour's Jack Dromey in January, aged 73.\n\nHe had held the seat since 2010 and entered politics through the union movement, as a leading figure in the Transport and General Workers' Union.\n\nA total of 12 candidates are standing. The result is due to be announced on Friday.\n\nPolling stations were open on Thursday from 07:00 to 22:00.\n\nListed alphabetically, the following 12 candidates are standing for election:", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nMarsh was taken ill last Thursday while travelling to a charity cricket match in Queensland.\n\nHe effected 355 dismissals - a world record at the time of his retirement - in 96 Test appearances for Australia from 1970 to 1984.\n\nHe also played 92 one-day internationals and served as Australia men's chairman of selectors until 2016.\n\nMarsh is third on Australia's all-time dismissals list behind Adam Gilchrist with 416 and Ian Healy's 395.\n\nAustralia Test great Mark Waugh described Marsh as \"an absolute icon\" of the sport.\n\nWaugh continued: \"I had the pleasure of working with Rod for a number of years as a selector and you wouldn't meet a more honest, down to earth, kind-hearted person.\"\n\nFormer Australia one-day international David Hussey paid tribute on Twitter, writing: \"Rod will be missed.\n\n\"His saying, 'cricket is a simple game made complicated' still resonates with me.\"\n\nMarsh would go on to form a formidable partnership with fast bowler Dennis Lillee, with the pair combining for a record 95 Test dismissals.\n\nHowever, he had a difficult start to his Test career and was nicknamed 'Iron Gloves' during his first series against England in 1970-71 after dropping numerous catches.\n\nHe came close to a maiden century during that Ashes series, making an unbeaten 92 in Melbourne before captain Bill Lawry declared with Australia nine down.\n\nMarsh did not feel as though he had missed out on a century, saying that he thought Lawry should have declared much earlier.\n\nHe later became the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a Test century when he reached triple figures against England in the 1977 Centenary Test.\n\nOn the 1981 tour of England, Marsh became the first keeper to claim 100 dismissals in Ashes Tests.\n\nAfter retiring Marsh commentated on Australian television before taking on a coaching role at the Australian National Academy.\n\nHe later took on a similar role with the England and Wales Cricket Board and was a selector for the men's team from 2001 to 2005.\n\nMarsh served as the Australian chairman of selectors from 2014 to 2016, stepping down after Australia were hammered at home by South Africa.\n\n'I thought he was invincible' - cricket pays tribute to Marsh\n\nAustralia Test captain Pat Cummins said Marsh's death had left a \"massive void\" in Australian cricket.\n\n\"I, along with countless other people in Australia, grew up hearing the stories of him as a fearless and tough cricketer,\" Cummins said.\n\n\"His swashbuckling batting and his brilliance behind the stumps over more than a decade made him one of the all-time greats of our sport, not just in Australia, but globally.\"\n\nFormer Australia captain Greg Chappell, who played alongside Marsh, described him as \"the spiritual leader of the group\", while Ian Chappell said \"anybody that met him enjoyed his company\".\n\nFormer Australia keeper Gilchrist said he was \"stunned,\" adding: \"I thought he was invincible. He was my absolute idol and hero and inspiration as to why I pursued what I did. The impact he had on my life is profound.\"\n\nEx-Australia all-rounder Shane Watson also paid tribute, stating he \"wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for Rod and his amazing skill to know how to get the best out of every young cricketer\".\n\nEx-England bowler Chris Tremlett described Marsh as \"a great man who helped guide me and many others on the right path in my younger years and taught me what it takes to play international cricket\".\n\nAustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is a keen cricket fan, wrote on Twitter that Marsh would be remembered as \"one of Australia's greatest ever Test cricket players\".\n\n\"As a kid he was my favourite player. He was a fierce competitor and a fine sportsman who valued what the game stood for,\" Morrison added.\n\n\"Rod Marsh was a proud Western Australian and an absolute Aussie legend.\"", "The BBC's Fergal Keane is at Lviv train station, where refugees are waiting for a train to take them out of Ukraine into Poland.\n\nIn the background, a pushchair can be seen being passed over the heads of people queuing to get onto the station platform.", "The UK has targeted Belarusian army chiefs as part of its first wave of sanctions against Belarus for its role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFour defence officials and two military enterprises are included in the package.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko had aided and abetted Russia's invasion.\n\nMr Lukashenko has hosted Russian forces and allowed them to use Belarus as a staging ground.\n\nA close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Lukashenko's administration has become increasingly reliant on Russia for economic, political and military support in recent years.\n\nMr Putin backed Mr Lukashenko after he claimed a disputed election victory in 2020, sparking mass protests that almost ousted him from power.\n\nIn January this year, Belarus hosted large joint military drills with Russia as western leaders issued increasingly grave warnings of a possible attack on Ukraine.\n\nThe exercises were extended and then Belarus announced that the Russian troops would remain in the country, citing \"the aggravation of the situation\" in eastern Ukraine.\n\nBut on Monday, Mr Lukashenko said Belarus had no plans to join Russia's military operation in Ukraine, according to state news agency Belta.\n\nMr Lukashenko denied Ukraine's allegations that Russian troops were attacking from Belarus's territory, Belta's report said.\n\nAnnouncing sanctions on Tuesday, the UK government accused Belarus of \"facilitating the invasion from within its borders\".\n\nMs Truss said Belarus \"will be made to feel the economic consequences for its support for Putin\".\n\n\"We are inflicting economic pain on Putin and those closest to him. We will not rest until Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is restored.\"\n\nThe UK says it has already imposed sanctions on more than 100 people and organisations in response to the \"fraudulent elections\" and \"human rights violations\" in Belarus.\n\nSuggesting further sanctions could be imposed on Belarus over the Ukraine invasion, the foreign secretary said \"nothing - and no one - is off the table\".\n\nBelarusian and Russian forces took part in joint military exercises in Belarus ahead of the invasion of Ukraine\n\nTuesday's Belarus sanctions came as MPs approved new measures against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe package includes a full asset freeze for all Russian banks, as well as new powers to limit them from clearing payments in sterling.\n\nA ban has also been enacted on a range of exports critical to Russia's military and strategic interests.\n\nThe sanctions are in alignment with the US, European Union and others to collectively cut off much of Russia's high-tech imports, the government said.\n\nThe measures were announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who told the House of Commons last week they were \"the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen\".\n\nLabour and Conservative MPs have called on the government to strengthen the sanctions regime in order to put further pressure on Russia.\n\nLabour shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty urged ministers to \"go even faster and further\", warning in some cases the sanctions had been \"off the pace\" compared with the UK's allies.\n\nConservative former cabinet minister David Davis said action was needed against the \"140 or so oligarchs\" identified as having \"direct links\" with President Putin.", "Watch the moment when an explosion lit up Kyiv's night sky behind CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata, just as he finished a live report on Wednesday night.", "The UK culture secretary has given her \"heartfelt thanks and admiration\" to all journalists risking their lives to bring \"unbiased and accurate news\" from Ukraine.\n\nNadine Dorries appeared emotional as she spoke about their work.\n\nShe also pledged to use her powers to make sure President Putin would be \"fully ostracised\" from the international community.", "UK energy bills could reach as high as £3,000 a year as oil and gas prices surge amid the Ukraine conflict, the energy industry has said.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has made the trading, banking and shipping sectors reluctant to buy Russian commodities, pushing up prices.\n\nThe price of Brent crude oil rose above $119 a barrel to the highest since May 2012, while gas prices rose as well.\n\nAverage UK petrol prices have also hit a new record.\n\nThe RAC said petrol reached £1.52 a litre for the first time, while diesel rose to a high of 155.79p.\n\nRussian oil and gas exports are exempted from Western sanctions for now, but the prospect of further action by the US and the EU is stifling Russian trade.\n\nEmma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of the energy industry body Energy UK, said: \"It's a really worrying time for both customers and industry.\n\n\"We've been saying since the autumn that we'd expect bills to go up again in October. With what we're seeing in Ukraine and in the oil and gas markets, we're now expecting those to go up further.\"\n\nShe said that if oil prices remain at elevated levels \"you can expect bills to be anywhere between £2,500 and £3,000 in October depending on the tariffs people have and what happens in the market\".\n\nThe prices that people pay for energy and fuel depend on wholesale markets, which can go down as well as up.\n\nBut average UK household energy bills are already set to rise to around £2,000 in April when the price cap is increased.\n\nGas prices had hit record highs last year due to colder winters which put pressure on supplies and reduced the amount of reserves countries had stored up.\n\nMs Pinchbeck said: \"We have been saying for a long time this is an enduring crisis on the gas price and now that's being exacerbated by what's happening in Ukraine.\"\n\nThe RAC also warned that high fuel prices could be here to stay.\n\nRAC spokesman Simon Williams, said: \"What drivers pay at the pumps in the UK is determined by the cost of oil and the exchange rate as fuel, like oil, is traded in dollars.\"\n\nHe said with oil prices rising and the value of the pound at $1.33 \"further price rises are inevitable in the coming days and weeks\".\n\nBrent crude rose as a high as $119.84 a barrel at one point on Thursday, before sliding back to about $112.\n\nMeanwhile, European stock markets slipped as the Russian invasion continued.\n\nThe UK's FTSE 100 share index closed down 2.5%, while the main markets in France and Germany ended down 1.8% and 2.1% respectively.\n\nEnergy companies are sending emails to customers right now warning of price rises to hit in April - but these are a frozen picture.\n\nBills are massively increasing as the price cap is going up by more than 50% and it is starting to feel real now, as people are now being told how much their individual direct debits will increase by.\n\nBut those increases don't take account of what is currently taking place in Ukraine.\n\nThe price cap is been raised every six month which means there is a half-year lag in protecting customers from immediate fluctuations on the global gas and oil markets.\n\nThere was such huge pressure on the government to step in and act ahead of April's increase that they announced a package of extra help for households this time.\n\nIt's not until the next price cap rise in October that we will feel the impact of the gas and oil spikes going on right now.\n\nThe government will be under more pressure to help customers, and while for many households another energy price rise is unthinkable, there also seems to be a growing acceptance among consumers that the 'Putin Penalty' is one we will all have to shoulder to some extent.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"It is hard to predict what longer term impacts the current situation in Ukraine will have on energy costs.\n\n\"However, the energy price cap will continue to insulate millions of customers from volatile global gas prices.\"\n\nNeil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said oil traders were acting as though Russian energy exports had already been sanctioned, and were looking for other sources of oil.\n\n\"Self-sanctions are already playing a big role,\" he said. \"Shell, BP, Chevron are all exiting but traders and customers are swerving Russian oil without any sanctions needed.\"\n\n\"European gas prices hit a record this morning. Coal prices are through the roof too,\" he said, adding there was \"nowhere to hide for European consumers about to get hit by a mega electricity bill and soaring inflation.\"\n\nEnergy prices are pushing up the cost of living in the UK.\n\nThe UK rate of inflation - which shows the cost of living - rose at a 30-year high of 5.5% in January and is expected to rise above 7% once the new energy price cap is introduced in the spring.\n\nRussia is the second biggest exporter of crude oil, and is also the world's largest natural gas exporter.\n\nOil cartel Opec decided not to increase production further than already planned at a meeting on Wednesday, despite US calls to pump more oil.\n\nUkraine and Russia are also two of the world's largest wheat producers, and account for nearly a third of global exports.\n\nExports from the Black Sea have nearly halted amid the invasion of Ukraine and sanctions.\n\nWheat prices jumped earlier in the week, but fell back on Thursday.", "Watch the moment that MPs stood and applauded in the House of Commons for the Ukrainian ambassador, who was watching Prime Minister's Questions from the gallery.\n\nSpeakers of the Commons have usually frowned on MPs who clap in the chamber, but Lindsay Hoyle smiled at the tribute to Vadym Prystaiko.\n\nSeveral MPs wore yellow and blue ribbons, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.\n\nClick here for the latest updates on Ukraine.", "Martin O'Hagan was killed as he walked home from a pub with his wife\n\nPolice were given names of people said to have been involved in the killing of journalist Martin O'Hagan within 48 hours of his murder, but did not act on the information, security sources have told a BBC investigation.\n\nMr O'Hagan was shot dead in Lurgan in September 2001, by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).\n\nAn insider, known as Witness A, met two detectives soon after, BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme has learned.\n\nIt is understood he said he had been contacted and asked to go to a yard in Lurgan to help, as the murder gang got rid of the getaway car and other items.\n\nAnd he named individuals he claimed were involved.\n\nBut no one was arrested and the yard was not searched.\n\nThis new information has emerged amid fresh claims by the O'Hagan family that state informers had a role in the murder and have been protected from prosecution.\n\nThe O'Hagan's lawyer, Niall Murphy, said it was inconceivable that police in 2001 were given names, addresses and roles played, \"and nothing was done\".\n\nSecurity sources have also said this was \"inexplicable\".\n\nThe murder was deemed an attack on the freedom of the press and the authorities vowed no stone would be left unturned to bring the killers to justice.\n\nIt is understood the detective leading the initial murder investigation has said he was not told about Witness A in 2001.\n\nThe O'Hagan family is now asking why, it appears, someone in the police did not pass Witness A's information on to the murder inquiry.\n\nWitness A came forward, again, to a new team of detectives in 2007. It is believed this is when it was discovered that he had provided his information to police six years earlier.\n\nOn the basis of his claims, five men were arrested and charged in connection with the murder in 2008.\n\nThe Public Prosecution Service (PPS) later had issues with Witness A's reliability because he had past convictions, including for deception.\n\nBut police investigators were confident in Witness A's information.\n\nOne of the men he named, Neil Hyde, from Lurgan, confessed to possession of the murder weapon, on the night of the killing.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said it would be inappropriate to comment on Witness A or other issues raised in Tuesday's Spotlight programme because the Police Ombudsman is investigating the case, and there are ongoing legal proceedings.", "Ros Atkins looks at Russian gas and oil; how it connects to the war in Ukraine, and the EU's efforts to cut economic ties with Russia.", "Almost half of the temporary Nightingale Courts set up at the start of the pandemic are to close, the Ministry of Justice has announced.\n\nTemporary courts were opened in hotels and conference suites to help manage the massive backlog in cases, which has worsened since Covid hit.\n\nEleven of the centres will close within weeks, but another 12 in England and Wales will stay open for one more year.\n\nThese will mainly focus on reducing waiting times for criminal trials.\n\nThere are around 59,000 criminal trials waiting to go before a judge - and recent figures show the average time between reporting an offence and a verdict being given is now longer than ever.\n\nNightingale Courts opened in 2020 because many centres were too small to ensure safe social distancing between lawyers, witnesses, defendants and staff.\n\nMinisters hope the 12 courts being kept open until March next year will help cut backlogs, mainly in south-east England, London and the Midlands.\n\nJustice minister James Cartlidge said Nightingale Courts were still \"a valuable weapon in the fight against the pandemic's unprecedented impact on our courts, providing temporary extra capacity\".\n\nHe said other measures, such as remote hearings and increased magistrate sentencing powers, meant \"we are beginning to see the backlog drop so victims can get the speedier justice they deserve\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The emotional impact of waiting for court cases to be heard can be devastating: Watch Gemma's story\n\nThe 11 Nightingale Courts due to be shut at the end of the month are in Middlesbrough, Peterborough, Nottingham, Warwick, Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Chester and Winchester.\n\nOthers in Maidstone, Chichester, Telford, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Leeds, Swansea, Cirencester and Fleetwood will all stay open until March 2023.\n\nIn London, courts set up in Prospero House, Barbican and Croydon will also stay open, while those in Petty France and Monument will close in the coming weeks.\n\nMeanwhile, criminal barristers are balloting over a form of industrial action as part of a continuing row with the government over funding.\n\nThey warn that so many lawyers are quitting criminal justice, there will not be enough left to help further reduce the backlogs.", "Svetlana said she was overwhelmed to have her mum with her in Northern Ireland\n\nA Ukrainian woman has been reunited with her daughter in Northern Ireland after making an emotional journey from the war-torn country.\n\nSvetlana Murphy, who is originally from Ukraine, has lived in Northern Ireland for years.\n\nShe was reunited with her mother Galina Korol at Dublin Airport before travelling to NI on Thursday.\n\n\"I just can't believe it, it is just overwhelming and I am so happy she is here now,\" Svetlana said.\n\n\"I have got her, so I'm not going to let her go.\"\n\nGalina arrived from Lublin in Poland, which she had made her way to from Dnipro in Ukraine after four days of travelling.\n\nThe journey was facilitated by a chance conversation between her future son-in-law Mel Campbell and Aneta Gil, a Polish waitress at Gowdy's pub near Lisburn.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Svetlana Murphy and her mother Galina Korol were reunited at Dublin Airport.\n\nAneta was able to help by getting friends to drive three-and-a-half hours each way to collect Galina from a refugee camp on the Poland-Ukraine border and drive her into Poland.\n\n\"Svetlana was sending me the locations of her mum, so I was passing this to my friend, it was all about communication,\" Aneta said.\n\nAneta told BBC News NI it was an emotional moment when Svetlana and Galina came into Gowdy's after being reunited.\n\n\"When I saw, of course, it made me cry,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm so happy I could help, that I had a chance to help, I'm so happy.\n\nAneta helped to plan Galina's journey from the Polish border\n\nMel said they had booked a flight for last Saturday night, hotels for three nights and a flight for Wednesday night for Galina, knowing that the circumstances could change quickly.\n\n\"We just booked flights and hotels, that if she got there, she'd have somewhere to go,\" he said.\n\n\"We pre-empted the plan of action and hoped that it would fall into place and with the amazing help of Aneta and her family friends, everything fell into place.\n\n\"It was amazing and testament to the Polish people and Aneta's family especially, and the effort that Galina put in.\n\n\"She's in her early 60s, you know, that takes a lot of guts to get up and leave your home, to travel with pretty much no possessions and being driven by strangers, crossing your fingers and hoping that things fall into place, that the gods are looking down on you.\"\n\nMel Campbell said Galina had shown courage to make the journey\n\nSvetlana revealed that her mother would be there for her wedding to Mel.\n\n\"I'm just so happy, I'll have my mum close to me on a special day for us and it's just the best present ever,\" she said.\n\nShe was also asked what her mother wanted to say and translated for her as Galina does not speak fluent English.\n\n\"She said: 'I want to say thank you to everyone who helped and my kids, what they did for me - I can see my kids, my grandchildren growing up, I can live, I can breathe',\" Svetlana said.\n\nGalina will be able to attend her daughter's wedding\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine eight days ago and the city of Mariupol is now under siege.\n\nEarlier, the port of Kherson became the first major city to be taken by Russian forces.\n\n\"She [Galina] knows it's a war and I am not afraid to use that word because loads of people are dying,\" Svetlana said earlier on Thursday.\n\n\"The explosions are really frightening and I just begged her to get away from it, because she has family here and we need her.\"\n\nOn Thursday, the Irish Department of Justice confirmed 450 Ukrainian nationals had arrived into Dublin Airport between 25 February, when visa requirements were removed, and 2 March.\n\nA spokesperson said a temporary protection directive to allow officials to \"quickly and humanely respond to the mass displacement of Ukrainian people by Russian aggression\" was agreed on Thursday and is expected to be adopted on Friday.\n\n\"It will provide an immediate right of access to the labour market, housing, social welfare, healthcare, education, training and other supports,\" the department said.\n\nAll over Northern Ireland, friends and family members of people stuck in Ukraine, are waiting for news from their loved ones.\n\nIn Newry, County Down, members of the Ukrainian community are gathering aid to send back to their homeland.\n\nElena Bushtruk's daughter Anna fled Kyiv and has made it to the Romanian border, but she hopes her daughter will soon join her in Northern Ireland.\n\nSpeaking through a translator, Elena said: \"Of course I am worried.\n\nElena Bushtruk says it has been \"very hard\" waiting on news of her daughter\n\n\"I hope that she gets here, and I hope that it's soon.\"\n\nMariya Krupska's home has become a hub for the local Ukrainian community.\n\nHer house is fit to burst with donations from people in Newry.\n\nThis weekend, she plans to fill a truck with them and drive them to the Polish border with Ukraine.\n\n\"I'm not scared because it's a little thing that I can do,\" she said.\n\nMariya Krupska is driving aid donations to the Poland-Ukraine border\n\n\"People don't have a roof, people don't have food, people have their houses ruined.\n\n\"My heart is in pieces - I didn't sleep for maybe four nights at all.\n\n\"My family is in the west and they are safe for now but something will happen if this is not stopped.\n\n\"I have a lot of friends in Kyiv, in Odesa, in Kharkiv, in Sumy. They are all in big massive danger.\"\n\nEvery morning, Natasha Stokes waits for updates from her friends and family members in Kyiv.\n\nNatasha Stokes has asked people to pray for those in Ukraine\n\n\"The messages don't always get through,\" she said.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"I feel empty. I'm a very private and reserved person in my ordinary life, but I am a religious person.\n\n\"I'm so overwhelmed with grief and worry. I just want to ask people in Northern Ireland, it doesn't matter what beliefs they have, what religion they have.\n\n\"Every night when you go to bed, please say a word of prayer for people in Kyiv, for people in Ukraine.\n\n\"Please pray they will be alive in the morning.\"\n\nRussia has for the first time admitted suffering heavy military casualties during its attack on Ukraine, with 498 troops killed and a further 1,597 injured.\n\nHowever Ukraine says Russian losses run into the thousands.\n\nUkraine reports that more than 2,000 civilians have died since the invasion began last Thursday.\n\nThe conflict has also caused more than a million people to flee Ukraine, according to the UN.", "This video has no sound.\n\nWatch the moment a crowd of people in the city of Kupiansk surround what's believed to be a Russian vehicle.\n\nKupiansk is in north-eastern Ukraine near the Russian border.\n\nVideo shows locals running towards the car and trying to stop it from leaving, with one person climbing on to the bonnet.", "Donations for Ukraine are being collected at a pop-up community centre in west London\n\nSince Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on foreign fighters to travel to Ukraine and join in the defence of the country, hundreds of Britons have come forward saying they want to volunteer.\n\n\"I've been losing sleep over it,\" says 32-year-old Joseph, who we are only identifying with his first name at his request, adding that he plans to make the journey to help in any way he can. \"I feel like we're not doing enough.\"\n\nAlthough he says he has recently applied to join the British army, he does not have any military experience, and has no links to Ukraine other than a friend he attended college with.\n\nAfter hearing Mr Zelensky's appeal, he has come to a pop-up Ukrainian community centre in Holland Park, west London, set up to receive donations. But his search is for Ukrainians who might give him information on how to enlist for the war effort.\n\n\"I understand how tense the situation is and I understand what we're trying to avoid, [but] I think we need to stop [Putin] in his tracks. If we won't properly assist Ukraine then people are just going to have to volunteer and hope that we can have some kind of impact even if it's small.\"\n\nAlthough Foreign Secretary Liz Truss did say in a BBC interview on Sunday she would support those in the UK who wanted to take up arms in Ukraine, the government has since made it clear that that is not the official policy.\n\nThe most recent statement issued on the subject reminds people that the Foreign Office currently advises \"against all travel to Ukraine\" and that \"the best way we can help Ukraine right now is by ensuring Putin fails\".\n\nMP Tobias Ellwood, who has served in the Army and is chairman of the Commons defence select committee, was unequivocal on Twitter, writing: \"Please do NOT go if you have no combat experience. You may get yourself, and others who have to look after you, killed.\"\n\nBut Joseph says he is not deterred: \"I've got friends who have been in the service, so I've got an idea of what to expect. I've had my warnings.\"\n\nHe said the reaction from his family has been mixed, but that they can understand his reasons for wanting to volunteer.\n\nUkraine has urged volunteers to come forward and bolster its defence forces\n\n\"The stance is, if you believe in something, if you genuinely believe in something - like freedom, a democratic system - unfortunately you've got to be willing to die for it,\" he says.\n\nThe Ukrainian embassy told the BBC it appreciated the support of \"all people who want to support our country and fight Russian aggression\", but it stressed it was playing no role in helping people enlist.\n\nInstead, informal networks have emerged to help put Britons in touch with people who can meet them in third-party countries between here and Ukraine and assist them in getting to the front line.\n\nLuke, 22, a Londoner who also has no military training, admits he is scared by the prospect of going to Ukraine, but still plans to make the journey.\n\n\"I feel like just watching the news every day and seeing what's happening, I feel like I want to help in some way,\" he says.\n\n\"So if I can then I will. Even moving things around, driving, anything. I want to help in any way I can.\n\n\"If a 22-year-old fit and healthy person isn't going to go, who is going to go and defend them?\"\n\nHe says he is hopeful that foreign fighters can help make a difference in the conflict.\n\n\"I think it's amazing what the Ukrainians have done so far without… [Nato] troops on the ground,\" he says.\n\n\"So I do think eventually, if enough people go to help, and we do keep supplying aid to them, lethal and non-lethal, then we can push them back.\"\n\nHe also says he hasn't told his family about his plans to travel to Ukraine and doesn't intend to before he leaves. \"I don't want anyone to talk me out of this. I've made my decision,\" he says\n\nOf course many of those who are planning to travel from the UK are Ukrainians who are not affected by the Foreign Office advice and can freely choose to return home. Among them is Mykhalo, a 43-year-old from the city of Lviv who was on a visit to the UK when the invasion started.\n\nFlowers and balloons left outside the Ukrainian embassy in London\n\nHe normally works in building management and has no military experience, but wants to get back as soon as possible to join the fighting.\n\n\"It might be tonight, who knows. I just must help my country. I have no choice,\" he says.\n\n\"We are not the richest country. But we never affected any other country. People have normal life. Working, working, cooking, laughing, travelling. And now, some monster… I don't know what he's thinking about.\"\n\nAsked what he thinks about the British nationals volunteering to help defend Ukraine, he says: \"My brothers! I love them.\"\n\nThe community centre has been receiving a steady stream of donations of military equipment as well as food and clothing for people displaced by the conflict.\n\nEwan Vidion has just delivered a carful of items donated by reservists and others from around Portsmouth and South Hampshire.\n\n\"What I've brought is what they're urgently in need of,\" he says. \"It's the medical supplies, the field dressings and also military gear, military clothing, bergens [military backpacks], mats for them to sleep on, some helmets.\"\n\nThe plan is for the donations to be packed into a convoy and transported overnight to arrive in Kyiv on Thursday.\n\nEwan says: \"People feel like our hands are tied, so it's a case of saying 'What can we do as ordinary people?'\"\n\nFlowers left at a statue to Ukraine's St Volodymyr in London", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAn investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine has been launched, after Russia was accused of bombing civilians.\n\nThe International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor said evidence was being collected on alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.\n\nIt came after 39 nations called for an inquiry to be opened.\n\nCities including the capital Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson have come under heavy shelling in recent days.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already accused Moscow of war crimes, after it launched air strikes on the country's second city of Kharkiv, killing civilians.\n\nOn Wednesday, the mayor of Kherson said Russian forces had seized control of the key port - the first major city to be taken by Moscow since it invaded a week ago.\n\nEarlier this week, the ICC's chief prosecutor Karim Khan said he planned to open an investigation into events in Ukraine \"as rapidly as possible\" but the referral from 39 nations - including the UK, France and Germany - allowed it to be launched without the need for judicial approval.\n\nHe will look at past and present allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and will go as far back as 2013, before Russia's annexation of Crimea the following year.\n\nThe ICC prosecutes individuals accused of the most serious crimes concerning the international community, where states cannot or are unwilling to do so.\n\nThe court does not have its own police force and relies on state co-operation to arrest suspects. Penalties imposed by the ICC can include prison sentences and fines.\n\nUkraine's state emergency service has said more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since the Russian invasion began last Thursday, although the figure has not been independently verified.\n\nThe United Nations' high commissioner for refugees said some one million people had already fled the country.\n\nOn Wednesday, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate end to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nJust four countries - Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria - joined Russia in opposing a motion calling for the withdrawal of all occupying forces, while 35 nations abstained.\n\nGeneral Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but the move further isolates Russia diplomatically.\n\nRussia's tactics have drawn international condemnation, including from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who said President Vladimir Putin's bombing of innocent civilians \"already fully qualifies as a war crime\".\n\nOn Wednesday, the mayor of Kharkiv told the BBC shelling and cruise missile strikes were hitting residential areas and inflicting heavy civilian casualties.\n\nAnd in the southern port of Mariupol, hundreds are feared dead following hours of sustained shelling.\n\nHowever, Russian efforts to encircle Kyiv have slowed, with one US official saying a huge Russian convoy to the north of the capital had barely moved all day, despite continued aerial bombardment of the city.\n\nOn Tuesday, a TV tower in Kyiv was hit, knocking media off air and killing five people.\n\nMeanwhile, in Kharkiv, at least 10 people were killed when an opera house, concert hall and government offices were struck in the city's Freedom Square.", "A woman in St Petersburg watching footage of President Putin on TV last week\n\nNever was there a better illustration of the alternative reality presented by Russian state media than at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday. As BBC World TV opened its bulletin with reports of a Russian attack on a TV tower in the capital Kyiv, Russian TV was announcing that Ukraine was responsible for strikes on its own cities.\n\nSo what are Russian TV viewers seeing of the war? What messages are they hearing over the airwaves? Below is a snapshot of what ordinary Russians would have picked up, on Tuesday 1 March, while channel-hopping across the country's key TV stations, which are controlled by the Kremlin and its corporate allies.\n\nGood Morning, on state-controlled Channel One, one of Russia's most popular channels, is to the casual observer not unlike the breakfast broadcasting found in many other countries with its mix of news, culture and light entertainment.\n\nOn Tuesday the normal running order is interrupted at 05:30 Moscow time [02:30 GMT]. The presenters announce that TV schedules have been changed \"due to well known events\", and there will be more news and current affairs. The news bulletin suggests that reports about Ukrainian forces destroying Russian military hardware are false, designed to \"mislead inexperienced viewers\".\n\n\"Footage continues to be circulated on the internet which cannot be described as anything but fake,\" the presenter explains as the viewer is shown photographs of what is described as \"unsophisticated virtual manipulations\".\n\nRussia's Channel One presenter showed two photos of the same military vehicle - the top photo is captioned \"Donbas 2014\" and the bottom one \"Ukrainian montage\". He claims the top photo is of a Ukrainian vehicle destroyed in the conflict zone in 2014 and that the bottom photo is of the same image, manipulated to make it look like newly destroyed Russian hardware. He says a \"Z\" has been added - a common marking for Russian military equipment.\n\nLater in the morning, at 08:00 Moscow time, we tune in for the morning bulletin from television channel NTV, which is owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom, a Kremlin-controlled firm. It concentrates almost exclusively on events in Donbas, the region in the east of Ukraine where on 24 February, Russia stated it was beginning its \"special military operation\" to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine.\n\nThere is no mention of reports of the ominous miles-long military convoy snaking its way from Belarus in the north to Ukraine's capital Kyiv, which, in the UK, leads the BBC Radio 4 news bulletin half-an-hour later.\n\n\"We start with the latest news from Donbas. LNR [Luhansk People's Republic] fighters continue their offensive, having travelled 3km, while DNR [Donetsk People's Republic] units have travelled 16km,\" the NTV presenter says.\n\nThe presenter is referring to the Moscow-backed rebels who have been in control of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics since Russia's intervention in east Ukraine eight years ago.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn Rossiya 1 and Channel One - Russia's two most popular channels, both state-controlled - Ukrainian forces are accused of war crimes in the Donbas region. The threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from \"Ukrainian nationalists\", says the Rossiya 1 presenter.\n\n\"They use civilians as a human shield, deliberately positioning strike systems in residential areas and stepping up the shelling of cities in Donbas.\"\n\nChannel One's presenter announces that Ukrainian troops \"are preparing to shell residential houses\" and bomb warehouses with ammonia, in \"acts of provocation against civilians and Russian forces\".\n\nEvents in Ukraine are not referred to as war. Instead, the offensive is described as a demilitarisation operation targeting military infrastructure or a \"special [military] operation to defend the people's republics\".\n\nAcross state-controlled TV, presenters and correspondents use emotive language and images to draw \"historical parallels\" between Russia's \"special military operation\" in Ukraine and the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany.\n\n\"The tactics of nationalists who use children to shield themselves have not changed since the Second World War,\" says the presenter of a morning show on Rossiya 1's sister channel, Rossiya 24.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"They behave like fascists, in the very sense of this word: neo-Nazis put their hardware not just next to residential houses but where children take shelter in basements,\" adds the correspondent in a video report captioned \"Ukrainian fascism\".\n\nThe passage echoes the unproven claims made by Vladimir Putin last week that Ukraine was using women, children and the elderly as human shields.\n\nWhile media in the West has been asking whether Putin's assault has struggled to make quick progress, Russian TV portrays the Russian operations as very successful. Regular updates give numbers of destroyed Ukrainian hardware and weaponry. More than 1,100 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities have been disabled and hundreds of pieces of hardware have been destroyed, morning news reports say. There is no mention of any Russian casualties.\n\nRussian morning news bulletins barely acknowledge its army's offensives in other parts of Ukraine. State TV correspondents are not reporting on the ground from places like Kyiv and Kharkiv, the two major cities that have seen shelling of people's homes. Instead, they are embedded with troops in Donbas.\n\nBut by the afternoon edition of the news, NTV finally mentions the news event that has dominated hours of coverage on the BBC by this stage - the shelling of the city of Kharkiv.\n\nHowever, it debunks any reports that Russian forces are responsible, calling them \"fake\".\n\n\"Judging by the trajectory of the missile, the strike was delivered from the north-west where there are no Russian forces,\" the presenter says during the 16:00 Moscow time edition of the news. Four hours later, a bulletin by Rossiya 1 goes further, blaming Ukraine itself for the bombing.\n\n\"To strike Kharkiv and say that it was Russia. Ukraine is hitting its own and is lying to the West. But is it possible to deceive the people?\" it asks.\n\nDuring a 17:00 bulletin, the Rossiya 1 presenter outlines what she says is Russia's \"main objective\" in Ukraine: \"The defence of Russia against the threat from the West, which is using the Ukrainian people in its stand-off with Moscow.\"\n\nTo counter what is described as \"fake news and rumours\" about Ukraine which are circulating online\", she announces that the Russian government is launching a new website where \"only true information will be published\".\n\nTV stations are required by the media watchdog Roskomnadzor to follow the official narrative.\n\nBut that is not to say that there was no variety in the tone of Tuesday's reporting. While the news bulletins talked of Ukrainian war crimes, Vyacheslav Nikonov, pro-Kremlin host of Channel One TV's current affairs talk show The Great Game, spoke about his love of Ukraine as he signed off.\n\n\"I very much love Ukraine, I love Ukrainians. I have travelled across the country on multiple occasions. It indeed is a brilliant, wonderful country. And I think Russia is, of course, interested in it being a prosperous, friendly country… Our cause is just. We shall be victorious.\"\n\nIncreasing numbers of younger Russians tend to get their news from independent websites or social media, and the longer the war goes on, the more images and videos of dead soldiers and prisoners of war are surfacing. But the authorities are responding to this and turning the screws on independent reporting.\n\nRoskomnadzor has ordered TikTok to remove military and political content in its suggestions to minors, complaining, \"in most cases, these materials have a pronounced anti-Russian character\". It also demanded that Google remove what it describes as false information about the Russian army's reported losses, and Reuters reports it has re-imposed a slowdown on Twitter's loading speeds over \"fake reports\" of Moscow's \"special military operation\", and restricted access to Facebook.\n\nIt has instructed media outlets to use information only from official Russian sources when reporting the invasion, demanding that they take down any reports referring to \"a declaration of war\" or \"an invasion\". It has threatened them with fines and blocking if they do not take action. The websites of the independent TV channel Dozhd and popular liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy have been blocked for alleged calls for extremism and violence, and \"systematic spread of false information about the activities of the Russian military\".\n• None Twitter confirms it is being restricted in Russia", "French authorities have seized a super yacht owned by an oligarch as part of the sanctions against Russia.\n\nA yacht owned by Igor Sechin, boss of Russian state energy company Rosneft, was grabbed by French customs officers near Marseille.\n\nHowever, German authorities denied a report that they had seized a $600m vessel owned by Russian metal tycoon Alisher Usmanov in Hamburg.\n\nOn Thursday, Mr Usmanov was one of two more Russians sanctioned by the UK.\n\nThe BBC understands that some oligarchs sanctioned by the European Union are \"shocked\" to find their debit cards no longer function, and they are now relying on using cash from safes.\n\nThe French acted quickly on Wednesday when customs officers noticed that Mr Sechin's 88-metre \"Amore Vero\" - which translates as \"true love\" - was \"taking steps to sail off urgently\".\n\nIt arrived in in the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat in January and had been due to stay there while being repaired until 1 April.\n\nIt has also been reported that yachts belonging to five other Russian billionaires were heading to the Maldives, regarded as a safe home because it does not have an extradition treaty with the US.\n\nThe move by France came as the Prime Minister's official spokesman rejected claims that the UK has been slower at introducing sanctions than the EU or that legal hold-ups are preventing sanctions on Russian oligarchs.\n\nHe reiterated the UK's position that it was better to prioritise the measures that had the biggest economic impact, rather than targeting individuals just because they were well known.\n\nSome oligarchs have been sanctioned by the government, which means their UK bank accounts are frozen and access to funds denied.\n\nBut others are taking advantage of any delay in adding them to its list.\n\nA lawyer told the BBC that wealthy Russians were looking to move their money out of the UK before being hit by sanctions.\n\n\"The government has softened the blow by giving [wealthy Russians] time to move their money out,\" lawyer Nigel Kushner of W Legal told the BBC.\n\nSpeaking to the Today programme, he said: \"Clients have been asking: 'Can I move my money out before I'm on the list?' I will say yes, that's perfectly legitimate.\"\n\nThe government's list of Russians sanctioned includes 195 individuals, but most predate the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nSince the start of the war just 15 Russians have been added to the sanctions list, including President Vladimir Putin.\n\nSecurity Minister Damian Hinds told the BBC that the wealth of Russian oligarchs with British investments would not prevent the UK Government from \"going after\" them.\n\n\"There will be more individuals (who) can be sanctioned,\" he told BBC Breakfast. \"We will be going after people as needed.\"\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said legal threats would not prevent the UK government sanctioning Russian oligarchs.\n\nIn an interview in Lithuania, she said: \"We have to make sure we have the right evidence to put in place those sanctions.\n\n\"We will continue to work through our list, we will continue to sanction oligarchs and there is nowhere for any of Putin's cronies to hide.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has suspended the shares of 28 Russian-linked companies because of sanctions introduced following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThey include green energy and metals company En+ Group run by US-sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska, which is chaired by Conservative peer and former energy minister Greg Barker.\n\nThe decision to suspend the listings \"has been based on sanctions and the ability to run an orderly market,\" said LSE chief executive David Schwimmer.\n\n\"If we see any other securities affected by sanctions then similar actions will take place.\"\n\nLast week, a subsidiary of Russia's second largest bank, VTB, was suspended on the LSE as a result of sanctions.\n\nHowever, a number of Russian companies, including Roman Abramovich-backed Evraz, continue to trade on the stock market despite criticism from politicians.\n\nNew economic sanctions have also been announced to stop Russian aviation and space companies getting access to the UK insurance market.\n\nThe move will limit the benefits Russian businesses can receive from their access to the global insurance and reinsurance market through Lloyd's, the world's biggest insurance market.", "Sisters Chi Chi and Chioma are at King's Cross waiting for an Uber to Covent Garden where they were hoping to take the Tube three stops to return some clothes.\n\nChi Chioma says: \"The woman at the station said [the strikes] are because of poor working conditions and pay and stuff so I guess it’s fair enough but it’s a bit inconvenient as well.\"\n\nChi Chi says: \"We had to walk from the station, we were waiting for the bus, but it was so full, off the get go, loads of people just flocking to buses and I didn’t really think it was Covid safe, so we just booked an Uber instead. But the traffic is quite bad so it’s been stuck on the same time for the last 10 or 15 minutes maybe. It was pricey, about £20.\"\n\nDo the sisters have any sympathy for those on the picket line?\n\n\"I kind of get it, like it’s inconvenient for us,\" Chi Chi adds \"but it’s inconvenience for them as well because they’re trying to work a job to get paid but they’re still not being met with fair treatment so it’s understandable to be honest.\"", "A computer glitch has resulted in the wrong risk level being attributed to hundreds of Scottish offenders, the country's justice secretary has said.\n\nThe risk scores are used in sentencing and prison release decisions.\n\nBut an IT error meant that the score did not change when new information was entered into the system.\n\nThe Conservatives said the \"horrendous blunder\" could have put the public at risk by allowing prisoners to be released when it was not safe to do so.\n\nJustice Secretary Keith Brown said feedback from 150 users of the system had not identified any public protection issues so far.\n\nMore than 1,000 cases are being reviewed, and the computer system has been shut down in favour of a paper-based alternative in the meantime.\n\nMr Brown told MSPs a problem had been flagged up with the level of service and case management system (LS/CMI) used by the criminal justice system, which helps set risk levels for use in sentencing and prison release decisions.\n\nOffenders are given a numerical risk score in the system, but Mr Brown said cases had been discovered where the score was incorrect as it had not changed when new information was entered.\n\nThe justice secretary said 1,317 assessments had been made where scores in the system \"did not match\" the final risk level calculated - 1,032 of them \"closed\" or completed cases, dating back to 2012.\n\nIn 537 of these cases, social work teams applied an over-ride, based on professional judgement - leaving 495 which \"appear to contain a risk level affected by the system error\".\n\nHowever the cases where an over-ride was applied will all need to be reviewed to determine if this superseded any error.\n\nAnd the 285 open cases where errors have been found are also under review, with priority given to those where prisoners are being considered for imminent release.\n\nKeith Brown said the extent of the problem was not yet known\n\nMr Brown also said a second problem had been discovered while officials were investigating the errors, relating to another risk scoring system relating to alcohol and drug use.\n\nHe said the extent of this issue was not known, but that it could also affect risk scores.\n\nThe justice secretary stressed that in the cases reviewed so far, no concerns had been expressed by social workers in the community or in prisons.\n\nAnd he said professionals involved in the justice system were experienced in managing risk, and \"never just follow what is displayed on the screen\".\n\nBut opposition parties said hundreds of criminals could potentially have been wrongly released from prison.\n\nScottish Conservative justice spokesman Jamie Greene said: \"This is a grave error on the justice secretary's watch no matter how he spins it.\n\n\"He claimed that the public have not been put at risk but the reality is he doesn't know yet. He has absolutely no idea if this mistake has resulted in harm to the public. That is shocking and unforgivable.\"\n\nAnd Scottish Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur said the situation was \"profoundly concerning\", adding: \"Over 1,000 people could have either suffered longer sentences, or been released much sooner than they should have. There are no winners in this situation.\"", "Jess found it hard to talk about her eating disorder to her GP\n\nTwo leading medical organisations have told the BBC that GPs are not getting the right support to treat eating disorders.\n\nThe Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the British Medical Association (BMA) say doctors need more time with patients and more specialist units.\n\nIt comes after a survey was conducted on GP experiences by the charity Beat.\n\nOver 92% asked thought their GP needed more training with eating disorders.\n\nBeat Eating Disorders asked nearly 1,700 people about their experience of trying to get a diagnosis from their GP.\n\nOut of those questioned, 69% also said they felt their GP didn't know how to help them.\n\nThe survey has been released to coincide with Eating Disorder Awareness Week.\n\nJess Griffiths had an eating disorder between the ages of 11 and 21 and, now in full recovery, she works as a consultant to NHS England and with her local eating disorder service in Dorset.\n\nShe tells the BBC that when she first went to her GP to try to get help, she wasn't entirely transparent about what she was struggling with.\n\n\"I was presenting at a low weight and not having periods, so the GP put me on the pill, but I went there hoping he would ask me the questions [about a potential eating disorder]\" she says.\n\n\"But it's really hard for people with eating disorders to - in a really pressurised situation with a doctor - say how they really feel.\"\n\nAs part of a three-year training plan to become a GP, doctors have to complete training in mental health, which includes eating disorders.\n\nGPs need more time with patients and more specialist units to refer them to, say the BMA and RCGP\n\nThis is on top of what's taught at medical school and the two years of post-graduate foundation training.\n\nDr Richard Van Mellaerts is part of the BMA's GP committee and has told the BBC the results of the survey are \"deeply saddening\".\n\n\"People with eating disorders should never feel that GPs are a barrier to accessing care, so it is vital that medical education and training supports doctors to identify eating disorders and support their treatment,\" he says.\n\nBut he adds that there is \"poor provision of specialist care\", which has left GPs \"frustrated up and down the country\".\n\nThe Royal College of GPs' vice-chairman Dr Gary Howsam says that what doctors need is longer appointments in order to provide the best possible care.\n\n\"Eating disorders, indeed all mental health conditions, are complex - they may also not be the primary reason a patient has made an appointment to see their GP,\" he says.\n\n\"The standard 10-minute appointment is inadequate for GPs to have the necessary conversations with patients, but offering longer appointments means offering fewer, and patients already report having to wait too long to access GP care.\"\n\nJess Griffiths agrees: \"I think GPs do an incredibly difficult job - they have to know a lot about illnesses, mental health conditions, and they are strapped for time.\n\n\"The workforce issue means we do struggle to provide that level of care needed in specialist services currently - so I can totally empathise,\" she says.\n\nJess provides support to the charity Beat. Using her personal and professional experience, she has helped develop a training programme, which she thinks could be helpful for GPs who need more eating disorder support.\n\n\"We're providing resources to ensure that with the limited time GPs have, they can make an effective assessment and gain all the information they need to then know how to support a person.\"\n\nShe says it should be made easier for GPs to book eating disorder patients in for double or triple appointments, so they can get enough time together.\n\n\"The difficulty with eating disorder patients is they don't often present in a crisis, and they are generally not underweight, so it's not often visible what is going on. You need to get to the thought processes behind the mental illness and that definitely takes longer than 10 minutes,\" she says.\n\nIn response to these comments, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \"Eating disorders can be devastating for people living with them, and we want to ensure that everyone has access to the right support.\n\n\"We are working with partners - including Health Education England - to improve training for GPs, and with the General Medical Council to ensure newly qualified clinicians understand and know how to respond to eating disorders.\n\n\"We have invested £58 million this financial year to expand adult community mental health services, including those for eating disorders. This is on top of the additional £1 billion we are investing in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness as part of the NHS Long Term Plan.\"\n\nInformation and support for those affected by eating disorders or mental health issues is available via the BBC's Action Line.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nAthletes from Russia and Belarus will not be allowed to compete at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing after the International Paralympic Committee reversed its original decision.\n\nThe IPC was heavily criticised when, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it initially said it would allow the athletes to compete as neutrals.\n\nA statement said the \"situation in the athlete villages\" was \"untenable\".\n\nIPC president Andrew Parsons said an \"overwhelming number of members\" had told his organisation they would not compete should athletes from Russia and Belarus be allowed to take part.\n\nParsons described the Russian and Belarusian athletes affected as \"victims of your governments' actions\".\n\n\"We are very firm believers that sport and politics should not mix,\" Parsons added.\n\n\"However, by no fault of its own the war has now come to these Games and behind the scenes many governments are having an influence on our cherished event.\n\n\"Ensuring the safety and security of athletes is of paramount importance to us and the situation in the athlete villages is escalating and has now become untenable.\"\n\nValeriy Sushkevych, the Ukrainian Paralympic chief, said his team's presence at the Games is a \"symbol that Ukraine is alive\".\n\nRussia has said it will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal against the decision, with Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin telling Russian news agency Tass describing the decision was \"a blatant violation of athletes' rights\".\n\nThe Russian Paralympic Committee later issued a statement saying it considered the IPC's decision to be illegal.\n\n\"It clearly contradicts one of the basic principles of the Paralympic family - the apolitical nature of sport for the disabled,\" a statement read.\n\n\"The RPC reserves the right to defend the rights and interests of Russian Para-athletes in sports and other judicial instances.\"\n• None The Sports Desk podcast: Exit Abramovich as sport turns its back on Russia\n• None Which sports have taken action in regard to Ukraine crisis?\n\nThere were set to be 71 competitors from Russia and 12 from Belarus - plus guides for both nations - competing in Beijing.\n\nParsons said the decision to prevent the athletes competing would \"preserve the integrity\" of the Games and \"the safety of all participants\".\n\nOn Wednesday, a number of governing bodies and political figures criticised the IPC for not immediately banning Russian and Belarusian athletes.\n\nA joint statement from the athletes of Ukraine and the Global Athlete group, an international athlete-led body that aims to inspire change in world sport, said the IPC had issued \"another blow\" to every Ukrainian athlete and citizen with its decision.\n\nUkrainian Olympic skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, speaking before the IPC reversed its decision, described the situation as \"disgusting\".\n\n\"They put Russia above the interest of other countries,\" said Heraskevych, who displayed an anti-war sign during the Beijing Games in February.\n\n\"Anything less than a full ban is unacceptable. It's sad and heartbreaking.\"\n\nNadine Dorries, UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said she was \"very pleased\" the IPC had changed its ruling after calling for it to \"urgently reconsider\".\n\nDorries added: \"The welfare of all the other competing athletes is of upmost importance and we're pleased the IPC also recognise that.\"\n\nProfessor Nick Webborn, chair of British Paralympic Association, said the IPC's decision on Thursday was the right one.\n\nAsked if the ParalympicsGB team would have boycotted the Games, Webborn told Radio 4: \"That was one potential scenario but something that we would not wish to exercise because our athletes deserve the right to be here.\n\n\"We would not want to remove that opportunity for them if we could possibly help it.\"\n\nBaroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who won 11 Paralympic gold medals for Great Britain in the summer Games, said she felt sympathy for the athletes on an individual level.\n\n\"Life in Russia for a disabled person is incredibly hard and most of the athletes are only funded on the medals that they win,\" she told BBC Breakfast.\n\n\"If they are not able to get any funding, it affects not only their ability to do sport, but also their lives. It is hard, but we cannot keep pretending sport and politics aren't linked.\"\n\nParsons said it was unlikely a viable Games could take place should Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to compete.\n\n\"To the Para-athletes from the impacted countries, we are very sorry that you are affected by the decisions your governments took last week in breaching the Olympic Truce,\" he added.\n\n\"I hope and pray that we can get back to a situation when the talk and focus is fully on the power of sport to transform the lives of persons with disabilities, and the best of humanity.\"\n\nA number of governing bodies from across sport have introduced measures to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes, including banning the use of their flags and cancelling events.\n\n'Our presence here is not merely a presence'\n\nUkraine has reported more than 2,000 civilians have died since Russia began its invasion on 24 February.\n\nTheir Paralympic team, consisting of 20 athletes and nine guides, are in Beijing and able to compete.\n\nSushkevych said it was a \"miracle\" the team had made it to the Games amid the turmoil caused by the Russian invasion.\n\n\"We came here from Ukraine and we travelled through Ukraine. It took us many days, we had to overcome a lot of barriers that had to do with the war,\" Sushkevych said.\n\n\"Many members of our team barely managed to escape from the bombardments and shells exploding but still we made it here.\n\n\"I can say that this is a miracle.\"\n\nSushkevych thanked reporters who attended a news conference on Thursday, saying their attention was important \"for Ukraine and all countries and people in the world\".\n\nHe said that while staying in Ukraine would have been the easiest thing, their absence from the Games would have signified that \"this country would cease to exist\".\n\n\"To be more specific, a superpower wants to destroy our country. Our presence here is not merely a presence,\" Sushkevych added.\n\n\"This is a sign that Ukraine was, is and will remain a country. For us, it is a matter of principle to be here with the Paralympic family - to be here as a symbol of Ukraine that is alive.\"\n• None What is the greatest escape ever, according to Morgan Freeman?", "Kinga Orkisz is part of a group of Polish people in Northern Ireland collecting supplies for refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nA lorry will takes these supplies to the Ukrainian border later this week.\n\nCollections like this are being replicated across Northern Ireland.\n\nThe UN says more than half a million people have fled their homes as heavy fighting continues across the country.\n\nMany Ukrainians have fled to neighbouring countries, including Poland.", "Thirty years ago when communism collapsed in the Soviet Union, Western firms stepped up their presence in Russia.\n\nThe arrival of big Western companies symbolised the start of a new era with Russians becoming eager consumers of brands ranging from fast-food chain McDonalds to Levi jeans and luxury goods.\n\nNow, in the wake of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine, a growing number of firms have suspended activities in Russia.\n\nSo which firms, in which sectors, are exiting and why have others held back?\n\nMcDonald's, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Heineken are the latest companies to announce they are halting business in Russia after mounting pressure to act.\n\nMcDonald's said it was temporarily closing its roughly 850 restaurants in Russia, while Starbucks also said its 100 coffee shops would shut.\n\nThe firms were initially remained tight lipped over the conflict, but took action because shareholders \"wouldn't stand\" for the continued generation of profits from Russia, says Anna MacDonald, a fund manager at Amati Global Investors.\n\n\"It was affecting their share prices and the feeling was that it was just utterly inappropriate to continue to do so,\" she told the BBC.\n\nPepsi, which has a much larger presence in Russia than rival Coca-Cola, said it was halting the production and sale of Pepsi and other global brands in Russia, but the company, which employs 20,000 people there, said it would continue to offer other products.\n\nFood companies Nestle, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have halted investment in Russia, but said they would continue providing essentials.\n\nBritish American Tobacco has announced it plans to sell its business in Russia due to it being \"no longer sustainable in the current environment\".\n\nThe world's biggest cosmetics firm L'Oreal and rival Estee Lauder are both closing shops and ceasing online sales. Estee Lauder, whose brands include Michael Kors, DKNY, Clinique and Bobbi Brown, has had a presence in the country for about 30 years and Russia was where it had some of its strongest sales.\n\nIn fact, Russia was the fifth largest European retail market globally last year, valued at £337.2bn. So some brands may not want to burn their bridges, if there's a chance of returning at a later date.\n\nThat is why many firms, including other luxury retailers like Burberry and Chanel, simply say they are \"suspending\" sales and temporarily shutting stores rather than withdrawing altogether, says Chris Weafer, chief executive of consulting firm Macro-advisory Limited.\n\nWith sanctions limiting forms of payment and huge uncertainty over future prices and consumer appetite, the business climate is \"extremely challenging\" he adds, making the decision to hit pause easier.\n\nThe world's biggest fashion retailers H&M and Zara-owner Inditex, which has 502 stores in the country, for example have already suspended sales in Russia, citing \"tragic developments\" in Ukraine. Other brands like Nike have simply said they can't currently guarantee delivery of goods to customers in Russia.\n\nMore brands are likely to follow suit, according to Maureen Hinton of retail consultancy GlobalData. Boohoo, Swedish furniture giant Ikea and Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo which initially kept its 49 Russian stores open, saying clothes were a \"necessity of life\", are some of the other names to have now cut ties.\n\nEven Levi's, the jeans brand that became a symbol of post-Soviet business in Russia, has closed its shops. The all-American jeans firm said about 4% of its total net sales came from Eastern Europe and Russia last year, but \"any business considerations are clearly secondary to the human suffering experienced by so many\".\n\nSamsung, the leading supplier of smartphones in Russia, has said it will suspend shipments to the country but has not said whether its shops will close.\n\nJapan's Sony and Nintendo suspended deliveries of gaming consoles, and Sony suspended the launch of racing game \"Gran Turismo 7\".\n\nApple has also halted all of its product sales in Russia, and limited other services such as Apple Pay and Apple Maps. Its shops have closed too.\n\nAll shops under the Re:store in Moscow have been shut as Apple halts all product sales in Russia\n\nFor a firm like Apple selling imported items, that's a relatively straightforward decision to take, suggests Macro-advisory's Chris Weafer.\n\n\"Companies do not want to be associated with the Russian regime and what's happening in Ukraine,\" he says. Their Russian business may be profitable, but \"the rest of the world is more important\" when it comes to reputational risk.\n\nSome tech companies, flooded by misinformation, are also restricting Kremlin-linked media outlets posting on their platforms. Facebook was blocked in Russia after it said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nMeanwhile, TikTok has blocked all non-Russian content in Russia and suspended live streaming, although it is allowing historical content uploaded by domestic accounts to stay online, including videos by state-backed media services.\n\nLarge consultancy and law firms were some of the first to set up a presence in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union but they mostly operate out of the spotlight.\n\nAll of the Big Four accounting groups - Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - have said they will no longer have a member firm in Russia because of the invasion. Top-tier law firm Freshfields says it will no longer work with any clients linked to the Russian state either.\n\nOthers say they are reviewing their client base and Russian links.\n\nA senior executive for consultancy firm McKinsey, for example, wrote online that the company would \"no longer serve\" any government or state-owned entities in Russia. According to McKinsey's website, it serves 21 of the 30 biggest Russian companies.\n\nWhen the conflict in Ukraine broke out, energy firms came under immediate pressure. And that is set to intensify now the UK, US and UK have announced bans or curbs on Russian oil and gas.\n\nBP owns a large stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft, but within days of the war starting it had announced the operation would be hived off.\n\nThat was closely followed by pledges from Shell, ExxonMobil and Equinor to cut their Russian investments following pressure from shareholders, as well as from governments and the public.\n\nA Rosneft oil rig drilling the first exploration well in the Khatanga Bay, Russia\n\nFirms want to be seen to be doing the \"right thing\", says Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.\n\nMeanwhile, Total Energies, another big player in Russia, has said it won't fund new projects in the country, but unlike its peers does not plan to sell existing investments.\n\nIt is still far from clear what will happen to those investments - whether they can eventually be sold, recouping some of their value, or if they will simply be written off at great cost.\n\nFilm fans in Russia wanting to go and see Warner Bros' new blockbuster The Batman won't be able to after the company suspended new film releases in the country.\n\nThe US movie-maker was joined by Disney and Sony, with premieres of animation Turning Red and Marvel adaptation Morbius also being withdrawn. Disney has also paused its TV channels.\n\nNetflix, a fairly new entrant in Russia, has suspended its service in the country and put all \"future projects\" on pause.\n\nPixar's new animated film Turning Red won't be released in Russia\n\nAll companies said their decisions were based on the \"humanitarian crisis\" in Ukraine, rather than as a result of sanctions that have been imposed.\n\nAll three of the world's major record labels - Sony, Warner and Universal - have closed their offices in Russia, and Spotify has announced it is cancelling its subscription service, although the free, ad-funded version will still work.\n\nPayment giants Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal are pulling out of the Russian market in protest.\n\nRussian banks have, however, already downplayed the impact of the announcements on their clients.\n\nSberbank, for example, said that Visa and Mastercard-branded cards would continue to work on Russian territory because all payments in Russia are made through a national system.\n\nHowever, domestically issued cards won't work abroad, and foreign-issued ones won't work inside the country.\n\nUS investment bank Goldman Sachs was the first Wall Street bank to say it was winding down its Russian business. The bank, soon followed by JPMorgan, said it was doing so in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements.\n\nGerman lender Deutsche Bank, which had faced criticism for defending plans not to withdraw, has also said it was taking steps to exit, pledging \"there won't be any new business in Russia\".\n\nJaguar Land Rover, General Motors, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce are among the car-makers that have halted deliveries of vehicles to Russia due to the conflict, while construction equipment manufacturer JCB has paused all operations.\n\nJaguar Land Rover said sales were paused due to \"trading challenges\"\n\nCars are the biggest UK export to Russia, but still only 1% of UK cars went to Russia last year.\n\nSo any decision to stop exporting won't be particularly costly, and will have been made easier by nagging concerns over whether or not payments will arrive, says investment analyst Russ Mould.\n\nTransporting cars to Russia could prove difficult anyway, with the world's two largest cargo shipping companies, MSC and Maersk, suspending routes to and from Russia, except for food, medical and humanitarian supply deliveries.\n\nWhile the flood of announcements from companies stepping back goes on, there are calls for more to join them.\n\nAttention has turned to big food firms like Burger King who have condemned Russia's actions and have pledged support for Ukraine, but are yet to pull out.\n\nSome firms will also find it much harder to extricate themselves, even if pressure mounts in the coming days and weeks.\n\nIn retaliation against sanctions introduced by Western countries, Moscow has banned the sale of Russian assets. So firms that, in recent years, have been encouraged to establish a presence in Russia are \"locked in\" with local businesses, staff and supply chains.\n\nMarks & Spencer, for example, has 48 shops in Russia but they are operated by a Turkish franchise company called FiBA. M&S has said it is suspending shipments of its goods to FiBA's Russian business, but the shops in the country remain open.\n\nRestaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, told the BBC its Russian outlets were operated by franchisees with which it had \"long-standing legal agreements\" that were not easy to change.\n\nYum Brands, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, said it was suspending operations in the Russian KFC restaurants it owns, and finalising an agreement with its main franchisee to temporarily halt Pizza Hut operations.\n\nMr Weafer predicts it is likely that some large consumer brands may express concerns over the military conflict, but try to \"ride it out\".", "Jim Crossley died after being stabbed earlier this week\n\nA 31-year-old woman has admitted killing her boyfriend in west Belfast earlier this week.\n\nJulie-Ann McIlwaine, of Filbert Drive in Dunmurry, stabbed Jim Crossley, 38, at her Dunmurry home on Tuesday.\n\nHe died less than an hour later at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast.\n\nLisburn Magistrates' Court also heard that Ms McIlwaine had been a victim of domestic violence and had been in a two-year relationship with Mr Crossley.\n\nA detective inspector told the court that Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received a call at 23:47 GMT from the accused who told them that she had stabbed her boyfriend six times in the chest.\n\nWhen the ambulance crews arrived they were directed upstairs by a neighbour.\n\nHe was taken to hospital and suffered a cardiac arrest enroute. He died at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital at 00:40 on Wednesday.\n\nThe police officer said that Ms McIlwaine gave an open and honest account of what happened to the police.\n\nMr Crossley died of five stab wounds to the chest and one large stab wound to the inner thigh.\n\nAfter being arrested she told police that after Mr Crossley had taken his medication, he had gone to bed, and she then stabbed him.\n\nThe court heard that Ms Mcllwaine had been a victim of domestic violence during her relationship with Mr Crossley.\n\nHe had told her she had to decide between him or her family, Ms McIlwaine said.\n\nShe had three other children from a previous relationship. Their father had full custody of the children.\n\nMs McIlwaine had a 10 month old baby with Mr Crossley.\n\nHe said it was a very unique case that there had been no objection to bail from the police in such a serious crime.\n\nThe police had concerns about the women's safety in relation to herself - the court heard that Ms Mcillwaine had tried to take her own life previously.\n\nShe was released on bail to stay with her sister.\n\nThe prosecution is appealing the bail.", "People stand in line to use an ATM money machine in St Petersburg on Sunday\n\nRussia has more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in a bid to halt a slump in the value of its currency.\n\nThe Bank of Russia raised the rate from 9.5% after the rouble sank 30% after new Western sanctions. The currency then eased back to about 20% down.\n\nThe collapse in value erodes the currency's buying power and could wipe out the savings of ordinary Russians.\n\nAmid pictures at the weekend of queues at cash machines, Russia said it had the resources to ride out sanctions.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin on Monday responded to the sanctions with an order barring citizens from transferring money outside of Russia, including for debt payments. Moscow's stock market, which saw heavy losses last week as investors sold, is to be closed for a second day on Tuesday.\n\nAhead of an emergency meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his economic advisers on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: \"These are heavy sanctions, they're problematic, but Russia has the necessary potential to compensate the damage from these sanctions.\"\n\nThe UK, along with the US and EU, cut off major Russian banks from financial markets in the West, prohibiting dealings with the central bank, state-owned investment funds and the finance ministry. The moves sent the rouble tumbling.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak said the measures demonstrated the UK's \"determination to apply severe economic sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine\".\n\nRussia has about $630bn (£470bn) in reserves - a stockpile of savings - built up from soaring oil and gas prices.\n\nBut because a lot of this money is stored in foreign currencies like the dollar, the euro and sterling as well as gold, the Western ban on dealing with Russia's central bank restricts Moscow from accessing the cash.\n\nLast week, Russia's central bank was forced to increase the amount of money it supplies to ATMs after demand for cash reached the highest level since March 2020.\n\nVideos on social media on Sunday appeared to show long queues forming at cash machines and money exchanges in Moscow, with people worried that their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw.\n\nChris Weafer, chief executive at consultancy firm Micro-Advisory and based in Moscow, said on Monday he was seeing some queues in food stores.\n\n\"You are beginning to see a little bit of queuing in some grocery stores, particularly people buying some goods that they think might come into short supply due to trade restrictions or maybe will be subject to big price increases because of the rouble devaluation.\n\n\"This set of sanctions is hitting ordinary Russians to an extent that previous sanctions have not and people are now becoming aware of that.\n\n\"People are a lot more fearful. There is already talk about some companies having to either go on reduced working hours, or even suspend production because they're not able to access maybe key parts from the West due to sanctions or due to trade limitations, so there's a great deal of concern on the street.\"\n\nMoscow resident Anastasia told Reuters that she expected her economic situation to get worse. \"It's inevitable in these circumstances,\" she added. Whilst another Moscow resident Sergey said he was already seeing an impact. \"Prices are rising, of course, savings are shrinking and stocks are falling.\"\n\nOn Monday, the central bank said it had ordered brokers to suspend the execution of all orders by foreign legal entities and individuals to sell Russian investments.\n\nThe sanctions that have been imposed by the EU, the US, the UK and others are unprecedented. It's one thing to block the foreign reserves of a country like Iran or Venezuela, quite another to act against Russia - a country with a major role in global trade and a very significant supplier of oil and gas.\n\nThe reaction on the currency markets has been dramatic - with the rouble plummeting, despite the central bank's efforts to prop it up using interest rates. There may already have been a rush to the foreign currency ATMs in Russian cities, but citizens there have yet to feel the full impact.\n\nAt the very least prices will rise dramatically; banking collapses, hyperinflation and a deep recession are all potential consequences.\n\nBut sanctions are a two-way street. Cutting the central bank off from its reserves and limiting Russian institutions' access to the Swift network will not only hurt Russia - western institutions also face losses from debts that cannot or will not be repaid, for example. And then there is the risk of countermeasures from Russia - potentially hitting energy exports.\n\nSuch sweeping sanctions being imposed in such a unified way is remarkable. It's also a very big gamble.\n\nAttempts to put a stranglehold around Russia's finances reverberated across the financial and corporate world:\n\nWill Walker-Arnott, senior investment manager at Charles Stanley, told the BBC's Today programme that \"it looks like Russia is increasingly becoming an economic pariah, increasingly isolated from the global financial system\".\n\nCutting some Russian banks from international payments system Swift is among the harshest measure so far imposed to date on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.\n\nThe assets of Russia's central bank will also be frozen, limiting the country's ability to access its overseas reserves.\n\nRussia is heavily reliant on the Swift system for its key oil and gas exports. It was not clear whether those deals would be exempt from the bans.\n\nThe intention is to \"further isolate Russia from the international financial system\", a joint statement said.\n\nOn Monday, the European Central Bank (ECB) said several European subsidiaries of Sberbank Russia, which is Russia's largest bank and majority owned by the Russian government, were failing or likely to fail due to reputational cost of the war in Ukraine.\n\nSberbank Europe AG, which had total assets of €13.64bn (£11.4bn) at the end of last year, along with its Croatian and Slovenian units, suffered a rapid deposit outflow in recent days and is likely to fail to pay its debts or other liabilities, said the ECB, which is the lenders' supervisor.\n\nWhat questions do you have about the Russian invasion of Ukraine?\n\nIn some cases your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "RT has been removed from the airwaves in the UK and across the EU\n\nRussian-backed news channel RT has disappeared from all broadcast platforms in the UK.\n\nUK access to the TV network, formerly called Russia Today, has been affected by a ban imposed by the European Union.\n\nAlthough the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc applied sanctions to satellite companies in Luxembourg and France, which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview.\n\nRT said \"the facade of free press in Europe has finally crumbled\".\n\nUK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who has described the channel as \"Putin's polluting propaganda machine\", said she hoped it would not return to UK screens.\n\n\"As part of a concerted effort and discussions, Russia Today is no longer streamed into British homes, either by TV, Sky, Freesat or Freeview,\" she told the House of Commons on Thursday.\n\n\"And we have contacted both [Facebook owner] Meta and TikTok to implore them to stop streaming Russia Today via their own online platforms.\n\n\"It is my absolute position that we will not stop until we have persuaded every organisation, based in the UK or not, that is the wrong thing to do to stream Russian propaganda into British homes.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUK media regulator Ofcom is currently investigating RT for 27 potential breaches of its broadcasting code. The watchdog has the power to revoke a broadcast licence, but any action is likely to take weeks.\n\nMs Dorries added: \"I am hoping that they expedite those investigations and that those investigations result in the removal of Russia Today's licence so that they're never again able or have the platform to broadcast their propaganda into the UK.\"\n\nShe also said: \"Of course, politicians have absolutely no influence over the free press and nor should they. That is the responsibility of the regulator Ofcom. And the very first thing I did was wrote to Ofcom to urge them to review the output of Russia Today.\"\n\nThe culture secretary became emotional as she offered her \"heartfelt thanks and admiration\" to journalists working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets \"who are risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone\".\n\nYouTube, which is owned by Google, has ramped up its sanctions on RT content\n\nThe EU said it was preventing RT and Sputnik, both state-owned broadcasters, from being received across Europe until the aggression towards Ukraine ends.\n\nIn a statement, the EU said RT and Sputnik promoted \"systematic information manipulation and disinformation by the Kremlin\".\n\nIn response to the channel's removal, RT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina said: \"Media regulation should be divorced from geopolitics, led by independent bodies and expert regulators, ensuring diversity in news and information sources is protected.\n\n\"Today, politicians in the EU have demonstrated their willingness to delegitimise independent regulators.\"\n\nRT says it is an \"autonomous\" operation financed by the Russian Federation.\n\nThe removal of RT from the airwaves comes after YouTube blocked channels linked to RT and Sputnik across Europe.\n\n\"Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we're blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately,\" a statement from Google Europe said earlier this week.\n\nFacebook has also blocked access to RT and Sputnik in Europe.\n\nSir Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, is now vice president of global affairs at Facebook's parent company, Meta. He tweeted on Monday: \"We have received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state-controlled media.\n\n\"Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time.\"\n\nThe BBC has set up shortwave radio frequencies to provide news to Ukraine's citizens\n\nMeanwhile, the BBC has halted all content licensing with its Russian customers. The corporation's commercial arm BBC Studios said: \"In common with other media organisations, we have been monitoring events closely.\n\n\"The BBC's executive team were meeting [on Wednesday] and they have decided to stop all content licensing to Russian customers.\"\n\nThat means Russian viewers will be prevented from watching shows including Dancing With The Stars and The Green Planet.\n\nThe BBC has also confirmed it has launched two new shortwave radio frequencies to make sure its news was available in parts of Ukraine and Russia after a TV tower in Kyiv was bombed and internet services restricted.\n\nThe shortwave services are broadcasting four hours of World Service English news per day.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Russia's plan not going as they wanted - Ben Wallace\n\nIt is not too late for Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.\n\nSpeaking at a news conference, Mr Wallace said Mr Putin was risking his nation being isolated for decades to come if he did not withdraw troops.\n\nHe also said thermobaric weapons had been deployed, and he worried how far Russia would go in the future.\n\nBut he went on to predict continuing stiff resistance from Ukraine, in an interview with the BBC.\n\n\"They won't break now and they won't break in 10 years' time,\" he said.\n\nHe described the Russian president as a man \"wrapped in sanctions of his own making, a man who's broken every international law and and a man more and more isolated\".\n\nMeanwhile, the foreign secretary said Russia's economy must be \"crippled\" to stop it from funding Mr Putin's war.\n\nSpeaking in Lithuania, Liz Truss said all Russian banks should be banned from using Swift, an international payment system, and Europe should reduce its dependency on oil and gas from the country.\n\nShe added: \"We need to make sure that the Russian economy is crippled so it is unable to continue to fund Putin and the war machine. And I suspect that the Russian people will draw their own conclusions from that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nLater, in an interview, Ms Truss, who is seeking to sanction more Russian oligarchs, said there was \"nowhere for any of Putin's cronies to hide\".\n\nShe said the right evidence was needed - but insisted legal threats would not impact the government's ability to sanction oligarchs.\n\nSome oligarchs have already been sanctioned, meaning their UK bank accounts are frozen and access to funds denied.\n\nBut the UK has been accused of being slower than its European neighbours and facing legal hold-ups preventing sanctions on Russian oligarchs - claims rejected by Downing Street.\n\nThe southern port of Kherson has become the first major city to fall and loud explosions were heard in the capital, Kyiv, overnight.\n\nThe mayor of Mariupol, a strategic port near the Russian border, says Russian forces are attempting to blockade the city, with residents trapped by intense shelling.\n\nAn investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine has been launched by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.\n\nMr Wallace welcomed the move, saying the use of Russian artillery on cities was leading to \"significant civilian deaths and significant damage to civilian areas\".\n\nUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Russian leader of war crimes, with the country reporting more than 2,000 civilian deaths since the invasion began last Thursday. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also accused Mr Putin of war crimes.\n\nAt a news conference in the Estonia capital, Tallinn, following a meeting with Nato allies, Mr Wallace said: \"The consequences of what we are seeing in Ukraine will ripple through Europe and Nato for not just weeks, but months and years to come.\"\n\nHe said it was unknown what kind of weapons Mr Putin was willing to use, but added that \"massive amounts\" of artillery had been deployed to Ukraine, as well as controversial thermobaric weapons.\n\nThese weapons - also known as \"vacuum bombs\" - are much more devastating than conventional explosives of a similar size - they create a massive blast wave and a vacuum that sucks up all surrounding oxygen, killing or injuring people in its path.\n\nMr Wallace said there was concern about how far the Russian military would go with weapons in the future - and it would be difficult for the international community to engage with Mr Putin in the long-term after his attack on a sovereign country \"at huge scale, inflicting huge damage and violence\".\n\nThe idea of a \"normal relationship\" with the Russian government would be almost impossible \"unless President Putin chooses to cease what he is doing now\", he added.\n\nLithuania, Latvia and Estonia are members of Nato - unlike Ukraine - having joined after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.\n\nThe defence secretary says Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a united response in Europe that President Putin failed to predict.\n\nYou can certainly see and feel it in the capital of Estonia. Public buildings and squares in Tallinn have been lit up with the colours of the Ukrainian flag.\n\nOfficials wear blue and gold ribbons in a show of solidarity. But it's much more than that.\n\nEstonia and Denmark, the two countries Mr Wallace is visiting, are both supplying weapons to Ukraine.\n\nThe UK has done the same and says it is helping to \"facilitate\" those deliveries - though British officials are not giving any details of how.\n\nDenmark, like the UK, also contributes to the Nato military force that has been established in Estonia.\n\nThat specific force was first set up to act as a deterrent following Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and to reassure an ally.\n\nBritain has now doubled the number of its troops in Estonia in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine.\n\nPresident Putin was warned that this was likely to be one of the consequences of invading Ukraine - more Nato, not less on Russia's border.\n\nOther British ministers have also been meeting international allies to discuss what further economic and cultural sanctions could be taken against Moscow.\n\nAt a summit of global sports ministers, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is due to try to mobilise more support to isolate Moscow.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid has confirmed the UK has this week sent three planes with 320,000 medical items to help people in Ukraine.\n\nHe said Britain would do whatever was needed for as long as was necessary to help Ukrainians at home, in neighbouring countries or in the UK, and that the government's overall aid package would rise to at least £220m.", "The move follows bans from footballing governing bodies\n\nGames publisher Electronic Arts will remove the Russian national team and all other Russian teams from Fifa 22 and associated games, it has announced.\n\nIt was doing so to \"stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people\", the company tweeted.\n\nIt comes as football's governing bodies Fifa and Uefa said Russia's national side and clubs would be banned from all competitions.\n\nUkraine has asked the video games industry to do more.\n\nThe country's Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called on all game-development companies and esport platforms to block Russian and Belarusian accounts, cancel tournaments and ban players\n\nElectronic Arts tweeted: \"EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and like so many voices across the world of football, calls for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\n\"In line with our partners at Fifa [the International Federation of Association Football] and Uefa [the Union of European Football Associations], EA Sports has initiated processes to remove the Russian national team and all Russian clubs from EA Sports Fifa products including Fifa 22, Fifa Mobile and Fifa online.\n\n\"We're also actively evaluating related changes to other areas of our games.\"\n\nIt has also removed Russian and Belarusian teams from NHL 22 games.\n\nThere has not been any response yet from Microsoft and Sony, which own Xbox and Playstation respectively, to Mr Fedorov's tweet asking them to leave the Russian market.\n\nMusic streaming app Spotify has announced it has closed its Russian office indefinitely\n\nEarlier this week it removed all content from state media RT and Sputnik on its platform in the European Union, the US and other markets except Russia, following similar steps from Meta and Twitter.\n\nWho you play as is an essential element of Fifa, as people live out their sporting dreams from home.\n\nBeing suddenly unable to choose to play as your country or your favourite club will fundamentally alter the experience that many Russian gamers can have with a game they love. A game they've already paid for.\n\nElectronic Arts has also made a similar move with its NHL ice hockey franchise.\n\nGiven that gigs, movie releases and sporting events have already been cancelled in Russia, it was only a matter of time before the gaming industry got involved.\n\nWe've already seen games companies fundraising, esports events banning Russian teams and messages of solidarity with the people of Ukraine on social media - but this is the first step that will impact millions of gamers in one go.\n\nWhether it goes far enough for Ukraine's deputy prime minister, who called on the gaming industry to take action on Wednesday, we wait and see - but expect this to be the first move from gaming's major players, with more measures likely in the days to come.", "Jim Crossley died after being stabbed in west Belfast\n\nA woman has been charged with murder after a man died after being stabbed in west Belfast.\n\nHe has been named as 38-year-old Jim Crossley.\n\nPolice said they received a report of a stabbing at a property in Filbert Drive, off the Stewartstown Road, at about 23:50 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nOfficers went to the scene, along with the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, but Mr Crossley was pronounced dead a short time later.\n\nThe 31-year-old woman who has been charged with his murder is due to appear at Lisburn Magistrates' Court via video link on Thursday.", "Rodney Jackson has been homeless for 18 months\n\nA father who became homeless 18 months ago has said he could be on a waiting list for a social home near his children on the north coast for years.\n\nRodney Jackson has been staying with friends and relatives since his relationship ended.\n\nHe said he had been told there was \"no point in applying for a house in Portstewart or Portrush because there's so few of them around\".\n\nThe Housing Executive (NIHE) said lists had increased across Northern Ireland.\n\n\"My children live on the north coast as well and obviously I wouldn't want to move away,\" Mr Jackson told BBC News NI.\n\n\"There are so many people on the waiting list in that area.\"\n\nOfficial figures showed the number of people on a waiting list for social housing in the Causeway Coast and Glens council area rose by 69% in four and a half years.\n\nNIHE had 2,068 applicants on waiting lists in the area in March 2017.\n\nThat rose to 3,496 in September 2021.\n\nThe Housing Executive said there had been a 20% increase in applicants for social housing overall\n\nThe figures showed the number of people deemed homeless in the district rose by more than a third and there are now 42% more people in housing stress since 2017.\n\nHousing stress is a situation where the cost of housing is high relative to household income.\n\n\"I don't meet the priority so basically I was told I would go on the waiting list, but with very few points and with very little hope of finding a house,\" Mr Jackson said:\n\n\"That leaves you in a situation looking for private housing and it's so expensive… even at that, there's not a lot of that around.\n\n\"There are so many people trying to bid for one house.\"\n\nNIHE said it had contacted Mr Jackson for his annual review in February and that he may be entitled to additional points when reassessed.\n\n\"The applicant is on the waiting list for single-bed accommodation in two areas of housing in Coleraine, however, as part of the annual assessment we will discuss wider areas of housing choice at that stage,\" the organisation outlined,\" a spokesperson said.\n\n\"He has been offered temporary accommodation, but he has chosen to make his own arrangements.\"\n\nNIHE said there had been a 20% increase in applicants for Northern Ireland social housing as a whole between March 2017 and September 2021.\n\nThere had also been a 32% increase in housing stress applicants and a 43% increase in full-duty applicants or those deemed homeless.\n\nChief executive of the charity Homeless Connect, Nicola McCrudden, said the \"homelessness and housing crisis\" was \"directly related to the shortage of affordable, social housing\".\n\n\"In some cases people are waiting several years to actually get a home, the pandemic has made the situation much worse,\" she explained.\n\n\"We're seeing increasing numbers in people needing temporary accommodation.\n\n\"We're very concerned about the future because we think there's increasing risk in people presenting as homeless because of the rising cost of living and the difficulties in people heating their homes and feeding themselves.\"\n\nThe Department for Communities said its minister, Deirdre Hargey, was \"acutely aware of the demands on our housing system\".\n\nDeirdre Hargey has previously announced plans to build 100,000 new homes over a 15-year period\n\n\"She is progressing the biggest reform of social housing in more than 50 years,\" a spokesperson said.\n\n\"This includes building more homes where they are needed. Having delivered the highest annual figure of new social home starts for over a decade, the minister has also increased funding for the new build programme.\"\n\nIn December, Ms Hargey announced plans for more than 100,000 homes over a 15-year period as she launched her draft Housing Supply Strategy for consultation.\n\n\"The minister wants at least a third of these homes to be social homes, of high quality and to meet a wide range of needs,\" the department added.\n\nNIHE said 155 social housing units were under construction in the Causeway Coast and Glens area and that 363 units were planned in the next three years.", "Denise Coates was appointed CBE for services to the community and business in 2012\n\nBet365 boss Denise Coates took home about £300m during its last financial year - £170m down on the previous year - as growth stalled.\n\nThe billionaire founder of the online gambling firm received £250m in salary and a share of the company's pay-out of £97.5m in dividends.\n\nMs Coates, one of Britain's wealthiest women and a major philanthropist, has received a total of about £1.3bn from the business in the past five years.\n\nMs Coates and her brother John took over a betting shop business run by their father, spotting that online gambling could revolutionise the industry. She now owns about half of the company.\n\nBet365's latest accounts filed at Companies House show revenues were broadly flat at £2.82bn in the first year of the pandemic, compared with £2.81bn in the previous year.\n\nAlthough not named in the accounts, Ms Coates has always been regarded as the person referred to as \"highest paid director\". She is thought to be Britain's biggest individual tax payer.\n\nIt's unclear why the pay fell so much, although Bet365's earnings from sports betting was hit as the pandemic caused chaos to sporting schedules. A rise in betting via online slot machines and casinos helped offset the loss.\n\nBet365 said: \"At the start of the period we experienced the almost complete cessation of sporting events. However by the end of the first half of the year, we saw the resumption of sports with the vast majority of European football leagues managing to conclude their domestic seasons.\"\n\nMeanwhile, operating profit increased by 47% year-on-year to £285.5m, a gain the firm said was driven in large part by reduced pay packets for directors.\n\nBet365 made charitable donations, mostly to the Denise Coates Foundation, of £103m, up from almost £90m the year before.\n\nMs Coates achieved a first-class degree in econometrics and later trained as an accountant within the family firm.\n\nThe company owns Stoke City football club, and is based in Stoke-on-Trent.", "A building that was set to be an on-site museum was pictured on fire\n\nJewish groups have condemned a missile attack near a Holocaust memorial park in Kyiv, which commemorates the murder of Jews by the Nazis in World War Two.\n\nBabyn Yar was the site of one of the largest mass killings, where Jewish people were lined up and shot.\n\nThe various memorials that sit there now are very special to Ukraine and significant landmarks in its capital.\n\nIn a country with a large Jewish population and a Jewish president, the Russian attack is significant.\n\nTuesday afternoon's missile attack, which was targeting a nearby TV tower, killed five civilians.\n\nStaff were initially unable to access the Babyn Yar site to assess the damage. However, it is now known that the most iconic memorials in the park are unscathed. These include a large menorah, newly built synagogue and a monument honouring the Soviet citizens and prisoners of war who died, which is located closest to the TV tower.\n\nA museum building which was not yet in use caught fire, and there is damage across the 140-acre site, such as burnt and uprooted trees, the BBC has been told.\n\nSpeaking directly after the missile attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was \"beyond humanity\" and accused the West of not doing enough to prevent the attacks on his country.\n\n\"What is the point of saying 'never again' for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating...\" he tweeted.\n\nThe menorah monument, one of Babyn Yar's most iconic memorials, is reportedly unscathed\n\nBabyn Yar - also known as Babi Yar - is one of the largest World War Two mass graves in Europe. The massacre at the ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv took place over two days in September 1941.\n\nAs Ukraine's Jewish population fled the Nazi advance, a large population still lived in the city. Tens of thousands were told to assemble with spare clothes, on the assumption they would be sent to a labour camp, but they were then forced to undress and walk into the ravine, where they were shot by special killing squads.\n\nAccording to the Nazis' own records, 33,771 Jews were killed over two days.\n\nAs the Holocaust continued, German forces continued to perpetrate horrendous crimes at Babyn Yar, using it as a mass grave to dispose of up to 100,000 bodies, until the Soviets took control of Kyiv again in 1943. As well as Jews, Roma, Ukrainian civilians and Soviet prisoners of war were also murdered there.\n\nLater in the war, the retreating Germans bulldozed the ravine and burned the bodies in huge pyres to try to cover up their crimes.\n\nBabyn Yar is now a place of quiet contemplation, where thousands of people travel to every year to remember those who died. That it could be damaged or destroyed by an aggressive military attack goes against everything it stands for.\n\nBut the significance of an attack so close to Babyn Yar goes deeper.\n\n\"It is symbolic that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest Nazi massacre,\" said the chair of Babyn Yar's advisory board, Natan Sharansky.\n\nLast week, Mr Putin called Ukraine's leaders \"neo-Nazis\" and said his goal was the \"denazification\" of the country.\n\nMr Sharansky said the Russian leader had sought \"to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country\" in the \"utterly abhorrent\" move.\n\nYad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel, echoed this and called for an end to \"abusing and distorting the memory of the Holocaust\".\n\nUkraine's president is himself Jewish and his family suffered greatly under the Nazi regime.\n\nVolodymyr Zelensky has often told his \"story of four brothers\" - his grandfather and three great-uncles - all of whom fought in the Soviet Army against Nazi Germany. Only his grandfather survived. The president was also closely involved in the creation of the memorial at Babyn Yar, Mr Sharansky said.\n\n\"Such a missile strike shows that for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is completely foreign. They know nothing about our capital. About our history,\" Mr Zelensky said after the attack.\n\n\"But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.\"\n\nWhile official figures put Ukraine's Jewish population at 43,000, the European Jewish Congress believes it numbers at least 360,000.\n\nThe Soviets had tried to wipe out Babyn Yar's brutal history time and again, in an effort to suppress any mention of the atrocities committed against Jews, Mr Sharansky told the BBC.\n\n\"They physically tried to destroy these graves and delete the history, it's unbelievable how important it was for Soviets to change the nature of the place,\" he said.\n\nA few years after the Nazis attempted to cover their own tracks, the Soviets tried to flood the ravine with mud. Then in the 1960s, there was anger at plans to build a sports stadium there. Mr Sharansky said the construction of the TV tower directly adjacent to the memorial in the 1970s was another attempt to \"destroy the memory of the Holocaust\".\n\n\"There were so many attempts to erase Babyn Yar and change its nature, finally we turned it into a big memorial, and that is once again overshadowed by Russian aggression,\" he said.\n\nFor decades under Soviet rule, there was little to mark the massacre site, except a simple obelisk that referred to \"Soviet\" victims, without mentioning the Jews, who were the main victims.\n\nFinally, in the 1990s, a large Menorah monument was erected, when independent Ukraine decided to commemorate the Jewish victims. And last year a synagogue was opened.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nJewish groups and institutions were quick to condemn the missile strike.\n\n\"Rather than being subjected to blatant violence, sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected,\" Yad Vashem said in a statement.\n\nIsrael's Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, said on Twitter that his country would help to repair the damage to the site. And the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in the UK said it was \"shocked\" and \"horrified\" to hear of the attack.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by US Holocaust Museum This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by US Holocaust Museum", "A raft of actions by the West is aimed at choking Russia's economy and banking system, and punishing Vladimir Putin's inner circle. What more sanctions could they impose?\n\nIn response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US, UK, EU and more than two dozen other nations retaliated with economic measures that have sent the Russian rouble tumbling, cut major Russian banks from the global financial system and hurt state-owned firms and oligarchs, including Mr Putin himself.\n\nThe US says its actions hit 80% of banking assets in Russia; and the EU 70%. The allies have also taken steps to limit Russia's access to key technology, such as microchips and lasers; and moved against cryptocurrencies.\n\nTogether, they represent the toughest sanctions Mr Putin's Russia has ever faced.\n\nAnd analysts expect policymakers to continue tightening - for example, by adding more kinds of technology and new companies to blacklists. The most recent action by the US, on Wednesday, targeted oil refining equipment, among other steps.\n\n\"We are at a seven or eight out of 10 on the escalation ladder right now,\" said Emily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Washington think tank, the Center for New American Security. \"There is definitely still room to go with tightening.\"\n\nMany Western companies, including BP, Apple and others have responded to the situation by taking steps to halt services or exit the country.\n\nBut for now, trade can still flow - not least key exports like oil and gas, for which Russia is a major global supplier.\n\nWestern policymakers have been reluctant to hit energy, in part for fear of causing a spike in energy prices that would cause economic damage at home as well - especially in Europe, which relies on Russia for roughly 40% of its gas imports and roughly 30% of its oil imports.\n\nBut as the violence in Ukraine has escalated, there is growing pressure on the US and Europe to act.\n\nWill the West target Russian oil and gas exports for sanctions?\n\n\"My sense is that it's going to become politically untenable to say we'll keep paying Russia for oil, gas and coal,\" says Christopher Miller, professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School and an expert on the Russian economy.\n\n\"That's already been politically tough for Western leaders to stand by and I think it's going to become even tougher as the Russian military escalates its use of force.\"\n\nWhile oil and gas transactions are key to preventing the Russian economy from going \"off a cliff\", cutting off that lifeline risks provoking more extreme reaction by Russia, says Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.\n\n\"The level of economic pressure now is severe. If you go for the economic jugular, Putin may respond with cyber and military action that will only make the suffering worse,\" he says.\n\nWhat's more the commitment, announced by Western allies this week, to release a 60m barrels of oil from strategic national reserves - half of which will come from the US - will only act to soften a temporary spike in prices.\n\nRussia may be able to withstand the loss of Western buyers, if it can sell less on the global markets at a higher price, says Ms Kilcrease.\n\n\"People I think want to see something there... but you have to think about the effect of what cutting off those sales would actually be. Will it hurt Russia? It's not actually clear,\" she says.\n\nThe sanctions have already caused economic havoc in Russia.\n\nBefore closing this week, the two major Moscow stock indexes plunged more than 20%. The rouble has dropped to record lows against the dollar, hurting the purchasing power of Russian families at a time when rising prices and deteriorating standard of living were already concerns.\n\nThe war has sparked protests in Russia, which has also seen the standard of living slide in recent years\n\nThe consultancy Capital Economics recently estimated that the sanctions could shrink Russia's economy by 15% this year.\n\nNor has the pain been limited to Russia.\n\nGlobal oil prices have already risen more than 10% since the start of February amid the tensions - and analysts expect they will remain elevated due to uncertainty from the conflict. Ukraine and Russia also supply nearly 30% of the world's wheat, 19% of its corn and 80% of its sunflower oil.\n\nCurrencies in countries with close ties to Russia, like Kazakhstan, have also been hit.\n\n\"That's the problem with sanctions - they never just end up targeting only one place,\" says Kristy Ironside, professor of Russian and Soviet history at McGill University. \"They tend to have other knock-on effects so anything [policymakers] do next, they have to consider very carefully in light of that.\"\n\nNor is it clear how economic destabilisation will affect Mr Putin's standing at home - or if they will make him willing to negotiate a political end to the violence in Ukraine.\n\nAfter all, Russians have endured economic isolation before and the ability to afford international travel and imported cheese may not matter much to his base.\n\n\"As long as pensions keep getting paid and people can enjoy a relatively reasonable standard of living... I think there's some leeway,\" Prof Ironside says. \"If this is sustained... I don't know.\"\n\nProf Miller says he is not optimistic that the sanctions will force Mr Putin to negotiate over Ukraine. But if sustained, he says, they may curb his power.\n\n\"Anything that touches the financial system is going to get more complicated and expensive as a result of this,\" Prof Miller says. \"That will have a ripple effect throughout the Russian economy.\"\n\n\"It will make Russia's economic outlook over the next couple of years substantially dimmer and therefore make it harder for the Russian government to keep its domestic political situation under control while simultaneously waging a set of wars abroad.\"\n\n\"This is the goal,\" he adds. \"To create this medium to longer term degradation of Russia's abilities.\"", "The ship was said to be without cargo when it sank\n\nAn Estonian cargo ship has sunk off the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa after an explosion, the ship's owners say.\n\nAll six crew members of the Helt were able to abandon ship and Ukrainian officials said they were later rescued.\n\nThe vessel had been anchored off the coast after leaving port several days ago.\n\nUkrainian media say the Russian navy had been using the Helt as a shield to hide from Ukrainian weaponry as Russian forces advance towards Odesa.\n\nThe Panama-flagged ship is owned by Estonia-based company Vista Shipping Agency. Baltic state Estonia is a member of Nato and has a border with Russia.\n\nUkraine's military says that Russia is sending amphibious landing vessels to capture Odesa, a city of a million people and a major seaport, as it continues its advance across southern Ukraine.\n\nRussia describes the invasion as a \"special military operation\" to demilitarise the country.\n\nA Ukrainian official told Lloyd's List the ship was evacuated after sustaining damage below the waterline and listing by 70 degrees.\n\nCaptain Igor Ilves, managing director of Vista Shipping Agency, told the BBC there was an explosion on or near the ship but that it was not thought to be a mine.\n\nCapt Ilves, who was not on the ship at the time, said it was not carrying any cargo.\n\nHe expressed concern for the fate of the crew, some of whom were initially reported missing.\n\nThey comprised four Ukrainians, one Russian and one Belarusian, Capt Ilves added.\n\nUkraine's infrastructure ministry later reported on its Telegram channel that they had been rescued.\n\nViktor Vyshniov, deputy head of Ukraine's Maritime Administration, told Reuters they were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Chornomorsk.\n\nHours earlier, a Bangladeshi-owned ship was hit by an explosion in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Olvia, killing one crew member.\n\nEfforts were being made to rescue the remaining 28 crew of the Banglar Samriddhi, the ship's owner told Reuters.\n\nThe Nato Shipping Centre has warned commercial vessels in the northern part of the Black Sea to \"exercise caution and stay away from areas where military operations are taking place\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Do Russia's attacks on Ukraine amount to war crimes? Ros Atkins investigates\n\nBoris Johnson has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, he said bombing innocent civilians \"already fully qualifies as a war crime\".\n\nHe was responding to the Scottish National Party's Ian Blackford, who called for Mr Putin to be prosecuted.\n\nOn Wednesday, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said he was now investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.\n\nThe investigation was launched after 38 nations grouped together to refer the situation to the prosecutor's office, which said \"collection of evidence\" had started.\n\nThe UK government described the referral as the largest in the history of the court, which relies on co-operation with countries worldwide for support, particularly for making arrests.\n\nFollowing the announcement, Mr Johnson said in a tweet: \"We are crystal clear that Putin cannot commit these horrific acts with impunity.\"\n\nUkraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has already accused Russia of war crimes after air strikes on the country's second city, Kharkiv.\n\nA week in to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, attacks on key cities have intensified, with fighting raging in the north, east and south.\n\nOn Tuesday, Mr Johnson described the tactics used by the Russian military under orders from Mr Putin as \"barbaric and indiscriminate\".\n\n\"With every passing hour, the world is witnessing the horrors of Putin's war in Ukraine,\" said the SNP's Westminster leader Mr Blackford. He called for Mr Putin to be prosecuted for the \"full range\" of war crime charges available.\n\nMr Johnson replied: \"What we have seen already from Vladimir Putin's regime in the use of the munitions that they have already been dropping on innocent civilians, in my view, already fully qualifies as a war crime.\"\n\nJustice Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK was \"willing to provide the necessary technical assistance to support successful convictions\" and stressed the importance of preserving \"all evidence of war crimes\".\n\nAsked about Mr Johnson's remarks after PMQs, Downing Street said possible war crimes were occurring daily in Ukraine.\n\nMr Johnson's official spokesman agreed the Russian attack on the Babyn Yar holocaust memorial in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the targeting of apartment blocks constituted war crimes.\n\nThe spokesman said: \"Obviously, formally it will be for a criminal court to make that ruling but I think no one can be in any doubt that what we're seeing daily, almost hourly now, are horrific acts that would certainly appear to be war crimes.\"\n\nEarlier, in a phone call, Mr Johnson and Mr Zelensky agreed sanctions must go further to exert maximum pressure on Russia.\n\nThe UK has partnered with Western allies to enact sweeping sanctions on Russia, including against Russian banks, businesses and individuals.\n\nMeanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate end to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nJust four countries - Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria - joined Russia in opposing a motion calling for the withdrawal of all occupying forces, while 35 nations abstained.\n\nGeneral Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but the move further isolates Russia diplomatically.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch MPs in UK Parliament stand and clap for the Ukrainian ambassador, who was attending Prime Minister's Questions\n\nAt the start of PMQs, MPs, many wearing the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, gave a standing ovation in support of the Ukrainian ambassador, who was watching from the public gallery.\n\nThe applause, not usually permitted in Parliament, lasted for almost a minute.\n\nMr Johnson had opened the session by condemning Mr Putin's \"abhorrent assault on a sovereign nation\", adding the Russian leader had \"gravely miscalculated\" the Ukrainian people's resolve to fight and the willingness of the \"free world in standing up to his barbarism\".", "A humanitarian crisis is growing, with many cities under intense bombardment\n\nRussian and Ukrainian negotiators have made limited progress at ceasefire talks, agreeing on the need for humanitarian corridors for civilians.\n\nA senior Ukrainian official said that despite this outcome, the talks had not led to the results Kyiv was hoping for.\n\nThey came as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the invasion of Ukraine, saying it was \"going to plan\".\n\nBut a humanitarian crisis has been growing in Ukrainian cities under intense Russian bombardment.\n\nMr Putin also spoke by phone for 90 minutes to French President Emmanuel Macron.\n\nAn aide to Mr Macron told reporters the French president expected that the worst was still to come, after Mr Putin told him Russia would continue its campaign in Ukraine until it had fulfilled its goals.\n\nMr Macron told his Russian counterpart the invasion was a serious mistake, and that his views did not correspond with reality.\n\nAt talks from an undisclosed location, the second this week, Russian and Ukrainian delegates agreed to possible temporary ceasefires.\n\nBut the truces would only be in places where humanitarian corridors were being set up and for the duration of civilian evacuations, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said.\n\n\"To our great regret, we did not get the results we were counting on,\" he added.\n\nSeveral Ukrainian cities are currently surrounded or almost surrounded by Russian forces.\n\nThe situation is particularly intense in the southern port city of Mariupol, which has been under relentless bombardment with almost no respite for several days.\n\nHundreds of people are feared dead in the city.\n\nUkraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, has also been under a fierce aerial assault. Its mayor told the BBC shelling and cruise missile strikes were hitting residential areas and inflicting heavy civilian casualties.\n\nOn Wednesday Russian tanks entered the port town of Kherson, a provincial capital home to about 250,000 people. It is the first major Ukrainian city to fall in more than a week of fighting. The US said the situation on the ground was changing rapidly, with fighting ongoing.\n\nUkraine reports that more than 2,000 civilians have died since the invasion began last Thursday. The conflict has also caused more than a million people to flee Ukraine, according to the UN.\n\nAfter his phone call with the French president, Mr Putin addressed members of his Security Council.\n\nIn televised remarks, he defended the attack on Ukraine, saying the campaign was on schedule.\n\nHe said he would never give up his conviction that Russians and Ukrainians were one people, claiming that some Ukrainians had been intimidated or \"duped by Nazi propaganda\".\n\nMr Putin alleged that Ukrainian forces were using civilians as human shields and holding foreigners hostage. He provided no evidence for this.\n\nIn a defiant video message on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded that Russia compensate Ukraine for the trauma of the invasion.\n\n\"You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full,\" he said.\n\nHe called on the West to send more military aid, including aircraft, and warned that if Ukraine lost the war, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would be Mr Putin's next targets.", "Volunteers in Northampton sort donations before loading them into a lorry destined for Ukraine.\n\nAcross the UK, people have been donating clothes, bedding and toiletries to around one million Ukrainians who have fled the country since Russia invaded, as well as those in need in the country. Collection points have been set up everywhere from beauty salons to supermarket car parks.\n\nThe generosity has been so great that some organisers have had to limit what they are willing to take in, or refuse them altogether. Some charities are asking for cash donations instead, as it bypasses the need to transport donations hundreds of miles, and cash can reach people quickly to buy what is needed.\n\nIn Barton in North Yorkshire, Marta Libera is particularly worried about the women and children who have lost their homes. She told the BBC she has been collecting nappies, wipes and baby formula to send to Poland, her home country.\n\nShe's not alone. In Hartlepool, volunteers have been collecting donations from members of the community who want to help.\n\nIn a community hub, they are sorted through and categorised by a team of volunteers.\n\nCollection points like these have sprung up everywhere. In Halifax, the furniture in a residential home lounge is barely visible under bags stuffed with warm clothing.\n\nDonations have been collected in car parks like this one outside a supermarket in Northampton.\n\nThese hubs look very different across the country. Donations have been collected in car parks like this one. Outside a supermarket in Northampton, volunteers have been loading essential goods and clothing into a van that will be driven to Ukraine.\n\nAt Sweetcheeks Beauty Salon in Dawley, Telford, manager Rachel Evans has traded in her day job to help a Ukrainian colleague who wants to get supplies to those who need them.\n\nOne lot of donations has already been sent, she told BBC Radio Shropshire - including period products, nappies, clothing and bedding. One man even brought in a tent and gazebo. \"It's been phenomenal really, the response we've had,\" she added.\n\nThe quantity has been so great that one location near Leeds visited by the BBC on Thursday had asked people to stop donating altogether.\n\nAt the White Eagle club in London, over 100 volunteers have been sorting through masses of bags.\n\nMagda Harvey, one of the organisers, told the BBC people queued for an hour and a half to give donations. \"We've got so many offers of free transport, whole trucks. We are loading truck after truck,\" she said.\n\nThe club is working with international charities to keep an updated list of what is needed to avoid unwanted donations. \"Ukrainians that have fled the country, they lost everything,\" Ms Harvey adds. \"They left everything behind. I don't want them to lose their dignity by offering them something that they don't want.\"", "The judge told Arib he was trying to gain the girls' trust to pursue some sort of sexual relationship\n\nA Met officer who used his position to try to start a sexual relationship with \"vulnerable\" teenagers has been jailed for two years.\n\nPC Adnan Arib, 45, contacted two girls, aged 15 and 16, after meeting them while on duty.\n\nHe met the 15-year-old in a park and sent the older girl dozens of text messages saying she was \"very pretty\".\n\nThe married officer had previously been found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office.\n\nJurors at Southwark Crown Court heard he continued contact with the 15-year-old after first being called to the girl's flat by her mother, who had accused her of stealing £10, in July 2019.\n\nDuring a conversation in the teenager's bedroom, Arib asked the girl to write her phone number, name and other details on a piece of paper, the court was told.\n\nHe then met the girl alone in a park and asked her if she had a boyfriend. He suggested taking her out for a drink, which made the 15-year-old feel \"uncomfortable\", the jury heard.\n\nIn a victim statement, the girl's mother said Arib's actions meant \"we don't feel secure in our own home\".\n\nArib was based at Bethnal Green police station at the time of the offences\n\nHe also asked the 16-year-old girl for her phone number and if she was in a relationship, prosecutors said.\n\nThe girl first came into contact with Arib after being reported as a missing person, the court was told.\n\nArib invited her out after she had been brought into Bethnal Green police station in east London.\n\nOfficers later found 47 text messages had been sent between them on a phone he initially tried to deny was his.\n\nHe told jurors he had been \"naive and foolish\" but said he believed offering careers guidance to the two girls was part of his wider policing duties.\n\nJudge Deborah Taylor said: \"What is clear from the evidence in this case is that there was a sexual undertone to your behaviour.\n\n\"Once the jury had rejected your explanation, the only inference is you were trying to gain their trust to pursue some sort of sexual relationship.\n\n\"They were both vulnerable, and in your treatment of them you abused the public's trust in you as a police officer.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ros Atkins looks at the history of nuclear tensions and deals between the US and Russia.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMasked men armed with axes have ram-raided a jewellery shop and threatened onlookers as they made their escape.\n\nThe robbery happened in Ladypool Road, Birmingham, and West Midlands Police said three vehicles had since been recovered.\n\nJawad Rana, who owns a travel agents next to the jewellers, said everyone had backed off when one of the men had started swearing and threatening to attack people with his axe.\n\nNobody was hurt in the raid.\n\nJawad Rana said he had felt the building shake when the pick-up was reversed into the neighbouring jewellery store\n\nMr Rana said he had felt the building shake when the men reversed their vehicle in to the jewellery shop.\n\n\"You do sort of panic, you know, what can you do? I was frozen and I just picked up this bag and sort of threw the bag at the vehicle,\" he added.\n\n\"This guy with an axe suddenly comes running past and sort of started swearing and said 'nobody get involved or try to help or I'm coming at you with this axe'.\"\n\nMr Rana added it was \"very shocking and it's not something you'd expect in broad daylight\".\n\nWest Midlands Police has asked for people with CCTV, dashcam, or mobile footage of the raid to get in touch.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning.\n\nSome of the temporary courts set up to help clear the backlog of cases made worse by the pandemic are to close. Eleven Nightingale Courts, which opened in hotels and conference suites where social distancing was possible, will shut down within weeks but 12 will stay open for another year in England and Wales. They will focus on reducing waiting times for criminal trials.\n\nWestern Australia has reopened its borders to international visitors - and other Australians - for the first time in nearly two years. Dubbed a \"hermit kingdom\" for its hard line policy to stop the spread of coronavirus, the state is the last to lift the travel ban. More than 8,000 people are expected to arrive in Western Australia today.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMemory loss, fatigue and trouble concentrating can be symptoms of having had coronavirus. But scientists think people who haven't had Covid are also suffering increased tiredness, impaired decision-making and a lack of focus - a phenomenon referred to by scientists as \"pandemic brain\". \"Uncertainty influences the biology of our brains - and generally we can cope with a certain amount - but the longer we have it, generally the worse it is for our brain,\" says behavioural neuroscientist Dr Emma Yhnell. Read more here.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This is a phenomenon now known as pandemic brain\n\nWhat will be the impact of ending lateral flow tests? Why are some people being offered another booster? And how does the UK's Covid landscape compare to last year? Dr Chris Smith has answered your questions. Watch to find out more.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nInstead of mopping the floor clean, cleaners at Lancaster University covered their mops in paint and gave a large canvas a good scrub. It was the idea of artist José Garcia Oliva who wanted to celebrate the work of cleaners. He says they were an inspiration to him during the pandemic. Once finished, and dried, the artwork will go on permanent display in the university's library.\n\nAre you eligible for another Covid jab in the spring? Find out here, if you're unsure about the answer.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Valerie Warrington and her ex-husband Clive Warrington were both found dead in different locations\n\nA divorced couple have been found stabbed to death at two locations 15 miles (24km) apart\n\nThe body of Clive Warrington, 67 was found at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham by police at 06:25 GMT.\n\nOfficers then discovered the body of his ex-wife, Valerie Warrington, 73, at a property in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds shortly afterwards.\n\nA man from Cheltenham has been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with both deaths.\n\nSupt Roddy Gosden, of Gloucestershire Police, said the man was known to the victims and they were not currently looking for anyone else.\n\nHe appealed for anyone with information to come forward.\n\nOfficers are asking for anyone who may have dashcam or CCTV footage that could be relevant to get in touch\n\nIt's no more than 200 yards (182m) from John Lewis in the centre of Cheltenham to the victim's home on Sherborne Place where the man's body was found early this morning.\n\nSo, shoppers coming and going in cars had to be patient as they weaved their way round police cordons, watching a dozen or so officers in red jackets searching for clues and knocking on doors.\n\nSome knew of Clive Warrington but no one saw or heard anything early in the morning when the paramedics arrived and declared him dead from stab wounds.\n\nLater, Supt Gosden read a prepared statement, explaining they had found another body with stab wounds 15 miles away in Bourton-on-the-Water, that of 73 year old Valerie Warrington, who had been married and divorced from Clive.\n\n\"A devastating time,\" said the officer in charge.\n\nThe body of Valerie Warrington was found in Whiteshoots Hill in Bourton-on-the-Water\n\nHe said: \"Family members have been informed and our thoughts go out to them at this devastating time.\n\n\"This has been a challenging situation and we will be providing support to officers and all those who have been impacted by these incidents.\n\n\"Understandably people will be shocked to hear that two lives have been lost in such a tragic way.\"\n\nCordons will remain in place at the scene for a number of days and officers will be in the local communities to provide reassurance, Supt Gosden added.\n\nThe village of Bourton-on-the-water is about 15 miles from Cheltenham\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The capital Taipei is among the areas affected by the blackout\n\nMajor cities across Taiwan including the capital Taipei have seen widespread power failures after a reported accident at a power plant.\n\nThe nation's economic affairs minister, Wang Meihua, said an accident had occurred at a power plant in southern Taiwan, according to a report by state-linked Central News Agency.\n\nThe ministry would deal with the matter \"urgently\", she added.\n\nThe outage affected some five million households in Taiwan, she said.\n\nState-run power operator Taipower said there had been an incident with a transformer at the Xingda power plant in the southern city of Kaohsiung, and that they were activating backup sources of power.\n\nThe power plant reportedly provides around a seventh of Taiwan's power.\n\nTaiwan-based TSMC, the world's largest contract chip maker, said a number of its plants had experienced short \"power dips\". It added that it was checking if there was any \"actual impact\", said a Reuters report.\n\nAt a press conference on Thursday, Ms Wang apologised for the outage, adding that the northern parts of the island would have their power back by noon and that power would start being restored in the southern parts from midday.\n\nTaiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen was set to meet the US ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. She said in a Facebook post that a scheduled livestream of her chat with Mr Pompeo had to be temporarily cancelled as a result.\n\nLocal media outlet Taiwan News had earlier on Thursday reported chaotic scenes at road junctions as traffic lights failed to function.\n\nTraffic police had been dispatched to direct vehicles and fire trucks deployed across cities to deal with emergencies such as rescuing people trapped in lifts, the news outlet reported.\n\nThe island does occasionally experience large power outages. In 2017, a massive blackout hit half of Taiwan, affecting 6.68 million households.\n• None Drought hits Taiwan chip supply as US wants more", "UK sanctions against some individuals linked to Vladimir Putin could take weeks to put together, government sources have told the BBC.\n\nSeveral Russian oligarchs have had their UK assets frozen and there is pressure on ministers to extend this punishment to more people.\n\nBut a government source said sanctions would be a rolling package that would \"gradually tighten the ratchet\".\n\nMeanwhile, Labour is calling for oligarchs' UK assets to be seized.\n\nIt argues that confiscating possessions like jewellery, designer clothes, cars and property will boost the current sanctions regime.\n\nAnd Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said: \"We should be looking immediately to seize those assets linked to those who are profiting from Putin's war machine, holding it in trust and returning it to the Russian people as soon as possible.\"\n\nSince Russia invaded Ukraine last week, ministers have frozen the UK bank accounts and other assets of some wealthy Russians - including Mr Putin and some of those linked to him - plus those of some large firms.\n\nGovernment insiders believe targeting banks or financial institutions will have a bigger impact than penalising individual high-profile oligarchs.\n\nMeanwhile, the authorities in France and Germany have seized super yachts owned by Russian tycoons Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov.\n\nFor Labour, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the UK's sanctions regime against individuals must \"catch up with [those of] our allies and partners\", adding: \"The government must get a grip on this by cutting Putin and those linked to his rogue regime out of our economic system as fast as possible.\"\n\nDavid Lammy says the UK government has failed to keep pace with its international allies over sanctions\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said billionaire Roman Abramovich, who owns Chelsea Football Club, should face sanctions and accused Mr Johnson of being slow to target individuals who \"prop up\" Mr Putin's regime.\n\nBut a spokesman for Mr Abramovich, who has previously denied having close financial ties with the Russian president or the Kremlin, and who is now selling the football club, said he had done nothing sanctionable.\n\nOn Wednesday, Boris Johnson promised to publish a list of oligarchs with \"ill-gotten Russian loot\", but did not specify when this would happen.\n\nThe government's Economic Crime Bill will be debated in detail by MPs next week, with Labour saying it will help fast track the legislation.\n\nAmong other measures, it will force anonymous foreign owners of UK property to reveal their identities to prevent criminals hiding behind secretive shell companies.\n\nBut the measure will not come into effect for existing property owners for 18 months after it becomes law, which Labour says will give those targeted plenty of time to hide their assets.\n\nThe government has said it will shorten this \"grace period\" but not by how much, when MPs debate it on Monday.\n\nBut Labour says this \"vague\" promise is not enough, and it should be shortened to 28 days.\n\n\"We cannot give oligarchs a head start. Dirty Russian money must be taken out of the UK in days, not months,\" said shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds.", "Haulier Christopher Kennedy captured by CCTV in the cab of his lorry\n\nA lorry driver who was part of a people smuggling ring has been ordered to pay £6,000 to the families of 39 Vietnamese people who died in a failed smuggling operation.\n\nThe victims, aged between 15 and 44, were found dead in a trailer in Essex in October 2019.\n\nThey had suffocated on their way to Purfleet from Belgium on a ferry.\n\nChristopher Kennedy picked up containers with people inside, but not the one in which 39 Vietnamese died.\n\nThe 25-year-old from Keady in County Armagh, is serving seven years for his part in the wider operation.\n\nOn Wednesday, the Old Bailey heard he had made £67,050.65 from people smuggling but had just £6,094.18 in his Bank of Ireland account.\n\nJudge Mark Lucraft QC ordered that the available money should be confiscated and used as compensation to the families of the victims.\n\nKennedy, who was sat in the dock, made no reaction during the hearing.\n\nHis trial in December 2020 heard he picked up containers in Essex which arrived from Belgium.\n\nHis job was to deliver them to a remote location at Orsett, a 20 minute drive from the port.\n\nTwice he did this in the two weeks before the smuggling operation which went wrong on October 23, which is why he was tried with the other drivers involved.\n\nKennedy was not charged with manslaughter but was instead charged with conspiracy to assist in unlawful immigration.\n\nHe denied the charge and claimed he thought he was transporting cigarettes, but a jury found him guilty.", "The OneWeb satellites were due to be launched from the Baikonur spaceport\n\nOneWeb, the satellite company part-owned by the UK government, says it is suspending all launches from the Russian-operated Baikonur spaceport.\n\nThe firm had hoped to send up 36 spacecraft on a Soyuz rocket from the Kazakhstan cosmodrome, but the mission has become embroiled in the fall-out over the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nRussia put down demands ahead of the flight that OneWeb could not meet.\n\nThese included a guarantee that armed forces wouldn't use the satellites.\n\nRussia also wanted the UK government to divest itself of OneWeb shares, an ultimatum that was firmly rejected by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by OneWeb This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe board of OneWeb, which is headquartered in west London, voted on Thursday morning to suspend all future launches from Baikonur. It had been planning a series of flights from the cosmodrome this year to complete its broadband internet constellation in the sky.\n\nThe firm will now be working with its French partner Arianespace, which organises Soyuz launches around the world, to find alternative rocket rides.\n\nThis will be difficult, however. There is a dearth of available vehicles in the class needed by OneWeb.\n\nThe company currently has 428 spacecraft in orbit. This is sufficient to provide space-borne internet connections above 50 degrees North (which includes the UK), but close to 650 satellites are required to run a truly global service.\n\nAfter OneWeb's announcement, Mr Kwarteng, whose department has a seat on the board, followed up with his own comments, tweeting: \"In light of Russia's illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, we are reviewing our participation in all further projects involving Russian collaboration.\"\n\nThis would appear to bring an end to the \"will it, won't\" confusion over whether the Soyuz rocket standing on the pad at Baikonur would actually launch on Friday.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by РОГОЗИН This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Rogozin posted a video of pad workers on Wednesday covering up UK, US and Japanese flags\n\nWhen the vehicle, with 36 OneWeb satellites nestled under its nosecone, was rolled out by cosmodrome workers on Wednesday, it seemed that the flight was \"go!\".\n\nBut then the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dimitry Rogozin, started to make demands before he would give the flight approval. These demands, he said, were a response to western sanctions imposed on Russia because of the war in Ukraine.\n\nFirst, he wanted assurances that OneWeb's system wouldn't be used for military purposes - an impossible ask given that UK and US forces are very keen to use the internet system. Then he wanted the \"hostile\" UK government to sell its shares in the company - instantly rebuffed by the business secretary.\n\nMr Rogozin ended by posting a video of pad workers covering up UK, US and Japanese flags on the rocket's nosecone.\n\nAssuming Friday's planned launch is indeed cancelled, there arises the question of what happens to the 36 satellites.\n\nThese remain the property of OneWeb, but it's unclear how they could be returned. There are currently no OneWeb staff in Baikonur to organise a shipment, even if Russia agreed to release the spacecraft.\n\nThe company's manufacturing facility is in Florida where the production line can turn out two satellites a day, so they could quickly be replaced if alternative rockets are sourced.\n\nMr Rogozin has already stated that money received in exchange for Soyuz rockets will not be given back.\n\n\"Due to force majeure circumstances that have arisen as a result of the aggressive policy of the West and the sanctions that are applied against Russia, this money will remain in Russia,\" he said.", "A temporary camp has been set up in Przemysl, Poland, for some of the hundreds of thousands fleeing Ukraine\n\nMore than half a million people have fled their homes to escape the war in Ukraine, the UN says, as heavy fighting continues across the country.\n\nMajor cities - including Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv - remain under attack from Russian forces.\n\nA government official said dozens of civilians were killed in Kharkiv as shelling continued into the morning.\n\nOn the northern border with Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian officials are meeting for talks for the first time.\n\nHopes for a breakthrough are slim - but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there was a \"small chance to end the war\".\n\nThe United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said millions of civilians were being forced to huddle in makeshift bomb shelters such as underground rail stations to escape explosions.\n\nSince the invasion began on Thursday, her office has recorded 102 civilian deaths, including seven children - and more than 300 injured.\n\n\"The real figures are, I fear, considerably higher,\" she said.\n\nIn the capital, Kyiv, the bulk of Russian forces are about 30km (19 miles) outside the north of the city, slowed by fierce Ukrainian resistance, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.\n\nBut street-level fighting continues in several parts of the city. Despite the danger, a two-day curfew has been lifted, with residents emerging from underground shelters to buy food and gather supplies.\n\nKasenya, who spent more than 36 hours underground, told the BBC she had managed to get home. \"I can't describe how I am feeling, I'm happy to stay alive and safe and just have the possibility to see my splendid and beautiful Kyiv,\" she said.\n\n\"Even underground, everyone is trying to help one another and help our army to be stronger and to spread the world about our situation here.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Liza Grach emotionally describes fleeing Ukraine with her 10-month-old baby, but leaving her husband behind\n\nTo the north and north-east, Kharkiv and Chernihiv were also shelled by Russian forces overnight but remain in Ukraine's control. Shells landed near a shopping centre in Kharkiv during the day, while fighting continued in the streets.\n\nAnton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, posted to Facebook: \"\"Kharkiv has just come under massive shelling from Grads [multiple rocket launchers]. Dozens have been killed and hundreds wounded!\"\n\nTo the south, Russian forces are trying to take control of the key strategic port of Mariupol, near Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine denied reports that Zaporizhzhia, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, had fallen into Russia hands.\n\nAs the curfew lifted at 08:00 on day five of the Russian invasion, small numbers of people began to emerge on to the sunlit streets in Kyiv.\n\nSince the curfew was imposed on Saturday night, there has been a change in the city - more checkpoints, more sandbags and more tension.\n\nWe drove past a blue Lada car, stopped in the middle of the road. There were bullet holes along one side, and the driver was slumped - dead - over the wheel. He had been shot in the head.\n\nSuddenly Ukrainian troops - in a concealed position - started shouting at us to go. We don't know the circumstances but it's possible the driver was suspected of being a Russian saboteur. The security forces are hunting for them inside the city.\n\nFor some, today was a chance to try to flee. Mid-morning, as an air raid siren wailed, we met a group of about 30 students from India, rushing to the railway station, dragging their cases behind them.\n\nThey said they had heard reports that foreign students were being prevented from getting on trains. One medical student told me that in this time of war, they hoped all people would be treated the same. In any case they weren't planning to rely on the train. They had booked their own bus.\n\nAs the Ukrainian delegation arrived for talks near the Belarusian border, President Zelensky gave a speech to the nation, saying that 16 children had been killed in the four days since the invasion began.\n\nHe implored Russian troops to lay down their weapons and leave the country. And he called on the European Union to make Ukraine a member immediately.\n\n\"We are grateful to the partners that they stand with us,\" he said. \"But our goal is to be with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be equal. I'm sure that's fair. I am sure we deserved it.\"\n\nThere is speculation that troops from Belarus could join the fight on the side of Russia, to which it is closely aligned.\n\nReports in US media, and Ukrainian news outlet the Kyiv Independent, suggest that a troop deployment is possible as soon as Monday.\n\nBelarus has acted as a springboard for Russian troops since the invasion began. Its government voted on Sunday to renounce its non-nuclear status - paving the way for Russia to potentially stage nuclear weapons there.\n\nThat coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin putting its deterrence forces, which include nuclear weapons, on \"special alert\". The announcement does not mean Russia intends to use the weapons, but was widely perceived as a threat.\n\nUK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told media the move was to \"remind the world that he has a deterrent\" and distract people from \"what's going wrong in Ukraine\".\n\n\"We're all talking about it. He is clearly wanting to get peoples' attention distracted from what is going on on the ground.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The families fleeing a war, but having to leave loved ones behind\n\nWestern nations have continued to levy sanctions and co-ordinate non-military action against Russia.\n\nRussia's currency, the rouble, slumped by 30% against the US dollar in early trading on Monday - a record low prompted by Western financial sanctions. Russia's central bank more than doubled its interest rate - bringing it to 20% - in response.\n\nHuman rights group Amnesty International also accused Russia of indiscriminate use of weaponry on populated areas, something it said could constitute a war crime.\n\nOn Monday, Lithuania's government said it would ask prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to investigate \"war crimes and crimes against humanity\" in Ukraine.", "The United Nations says more than a million people have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.\n\nMost of the tens of thousands crossing into Poland stay with relatives or move on to other countries, but others have nowhere to go.\n\nSome people living near the border are opening their homes to those who need shelter. The BBC's Mark Lowen met Joanna, a mother of three, as she welcomed Anna and her five-year-old daughter, Milena, after they had fled from Kyiv.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nFormula 1 has terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix.\n\nThe sport's commercial arm, which controls the calendar, has decided racing in the country is impossible following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe race in Sochi scheduled for September this year has already been cancelled. There will now no longer be a race in St Petersburg, where it was due to move in 2023.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin was key in establishing the event in 2014.\n\nPutin, who remains closely associated with the race, has a palace in Sochi, and St Petersburg is his home town.\n\nThe decision means F1 will not race in Russia for the foreseeable future - effectively, at least for as long as Putin remains in power.\n\n\"Formula 1 can confirm it has terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix promoter meaning Russia will not have a race in the future,\" it said in a statement.\n\nF1 has discussed what action to take next over the days since it decided to cancel this year's race last week, a day after the invasion. It was concluded that holding a race in Russia was not tenable after what has happened.\n\nThe race is one of the most lucrative on the calendar and had a long-term contract.\n\nThe action by F1's commercial arm stands in stark contrast to the decision by governing body the FIA this week to allow Russian competitors to take part in global motorsport events.\n\nIt is a rare public split between F1 and the FIA, and an indication of F1's dismay at the FIA's stance on Russia.\n\nThe FIA has already faced a backlash from the decision by its world motorsport council on Tuesday. The following day UK motorsport's governing body banned all Russian licence holders from competing in the UK.\n\nThe FIA justified its decision by saying it was in line with the policy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).\n\nBut the IOC, to which the FIA is affiliated, recommended on Tuesday that \"event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions… in order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all participants\".\n\nIt added a second clause allowing athletes and officials to participate on neutral terms \"wherever this is not possible on short notice for organisational or legal reasons\".\n\nThe FIA has not answered questions as to the grounds on which it decided this was the case for motorsport, in which most championships have not yet started in 2022.\n\nOn Thursday the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) reversed a previous decision and banned athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus from the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing, saying the \"situation in the athlete villages\" had become \"untenable\".", "Amid the fog of war, it can be hard to see the way forward. The news from the battlefield, the diplomatic noises off, the emotion of the grieving and displaced; all of this can be overwhelming. So let us step back for a moment and consider how the conflict in Ukraine might play out. What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining? Few can predict the future with confidence, but here are some potential outcomes. Most are bleak.\n\nUnder this scenario, Russia escalates its military operations. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. Energy supplies and communications networks are cut off. Thousands of civilians die. Despite brave resistance, Kyiv falls within days. The government is replaced with a pro-Moscow puppet regime. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control. Thousands of refugees continue to flee west. Ukraine joins Belarus as a client state of Moscow.\n\nThis outcome is by no means impossible but would depend on several factors changing: Russian forces performing better, more of those forces being deployed, and Ukraine's extraordinary fighting spirit fading. Mr Putin might achieve regime change in Kyiv and the end of Ukraine's western integration. But any pro-Russian government would be illegitimate and vulnerable to insurgency. Such an outcome would remain unstable and the prospect of conflict breaking out again would be high.\n\nPerhaps more likely is that this develops into a protracted war. Maybe Russian forces get bogged down, hampered by low morale, poor logistics and inept leadership. Maybe it takes longer for Russian forces to secure cities like Kyiv whose defenders fight from street to street. A long siege ensues. The fighting has echoes of Russia's long and brutal struggle in the 1990s to seize and largely destroy Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.\n\nChechens during the Russian occupation of Grozny\n\nAnd even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control. Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. The West continues to provide weapons and ammunition. And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents.\n\nMight it be possible this war could spill outside Ukraine's borders? President Putin could seek to regain more parts of Russia's former empire by sending troops into ex-Soviet republics like Moldova and Georgia, that are not part of Nato. Or there could just be miscalculation and escalation. Mr Putin could declare Western arms supplies to Ukrainian forces are an act of aggression that warrant retaliation. He could threaten to send troops into the Baltic states - which are members of Nato - such as Lithuania, to establish a land corridor with the Russian coastal exclave of Kaliningrad.\n\nThe square outside Kharkiv's city hall has been destroyed by Russian troop shelling\n\nThis would be hugely dangerous and risk war with Nato. Under Article 5 of the military alliance's charter, an attack on one member is an attack on all. But Mr Putin might take the risk if he felt it was the only way of saving his leadership. If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further. We now know the Russian leader is willing to break long-standing international norms. This same logic can be applied to the use of nuclear weapons. This week, Mr Putin put his nuclear forces on a higher level of alert. Most analysts doubt this means their use is likely or imminent. But it was a reminder that Russian doctrine allows for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.\n\nMight there, despite everything, still be a possible diplomatic solution?\n\n\"The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open,\" said UN Secretary General António Guterres. Certainly dialogue continues. President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone. Diplomats say feelers are being stretched out to Moscow. And, surprisingly, Russian and Ukrainian officials have met for talks on the border with Belarus. They might not have made much progress. But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire.\n\nThe key question is whether the West can offer what diplomats refer to as an \"off ramp\", an American term for an exit off a major highway. Diplomats say it is important the Russian leader knows what it would take for Western sanctions to lift so a face-saving deal is at least possible.\n\nConsider this scenario. The war goes badly for Russia. Sanctions begin to unsettle Moscow. Opposition grows as body bags return home. Mr Putin wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew. He judges that continuing the war may be a greater threat to his leadership than the humiliation of ending it. China intervenes, putting pressure on Moscow to compromise, warning that it will not buy Russian oil and gas unless it de-escalates. So Mr Putin starts to look for a way out. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities see the continuing destruction of their country and conclude that political compromise might be better than such devastating loss of life. So diplomats engage and a deal is done. Ukraine, say, accepts Russian sovereignty over Crimea and parts of the Donbas. In turn, Putin accepts Ukrainian independence and its right to deepen ties with Europe. This may not seem likely. But it is not beyond the realms of plausibility that such a scenario could emerge from the wreckage of a bloody conflict.\n\nAnd what of Vladimir Putin himself? When he launched his invasion, he declared: \"We are ready for any outcome.\"\n\nBut what if that outcome was him losing power? It might seem unthinkable. Yet the world has changed in recent days and such things are now thought about. Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at Kings College, London, wrote this week: \"It is now as likely that there will be regime change in Moscow as in Kyiv.\"\n\nA man is detained by police officers during a protest in Moscow against Russia's invasion of Ukraine\n\nWhy might he say this? Well, perhaps Mr Putin pursues a disastrous war. Thousands of Russian soldiers die. The economic sanctions bite. Mr Putin loses popular support. Perhaps there is the threat of popular revolution. He uses Russia's internal security forces to suppress that opposition. But this turns sour and enough members of Russia's military, political and economic elite turn against him. The West makes clear that if Putin goes and is replaced by a more moderate leader, then Russia will see the lifting of some sanctions and a restoration of normal diplomatic relations. There is a bloody palace coup and Putin is out. Again, this may not seem likely right now. But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests.\n\nThese scenarios are not mutually exclusive - some of each could combine to produce different outcomes. But however this conflict plays out, the world has changed. It will not return to the status quo ante. Russia's relationship with the outside world will be different. European attitudes to security will be transformed. And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place.", "Patrick Jephson was Princess Diana's private secretary for eight years\n\nThe BBC has paid damages to the former private secretary of Diana, Princess of Wales, for the \"harm caused to him\" over Martin Bashir's Panorama interview.\n\nThe corporation said it had apologised unreservedly to Patrick Jephson and had paid his legal costs.\n\nThe 1995 interview was subject to an investigation that found Mr Bashir used fake documents to gain access to Diana.\n\nMr Jephson intends to donate the money to UK charities, the BBC said.\n\nLord Dyson, a former master of the rolls and head of civil justice, was appointed to look into the circumstances surrounding the Panorama programme, which featured Diana saying: \"Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.\"\n\nThe investigation was launched after Earl Spencer, Diana's brother, alleged that Bashir showed him fake financial documents relating to Diana's former private secretary and another former royal household member, and told outlandish and untrue stories about the Royal Family to gain access to the princess.\n\nMr Jephson was Diana's private secretary for eight years.\n\nIn a statement, the BBC said: \"The BBC accepts and acknowledges that serious harm was caused to Commander Jephson as a result of the circumstances in which the 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, was obtained, which have become apparent as a result of the Dyson Report.\n\n\"The BBC apologises unreservedly to Commander Jephson for the harm caused to him and has paid his legal costs.\n\n\"The BBC has also paid Commander Jephson a substantial sum in damages, which he intends to donate in full to British charities nominated by him.\"\n\nThe Dyson Inquiry found that the BBC covered up \"deceitful behaviour\" used by Mr Bashir to secure his headline-making world exclusive interview with Diana, and \"fell short of high standards of integrity and transparency\".\n\nThe journalist, who went on to become the BBC's religion editor before leaving the corporation last year, was in \"serious breach\" of the BBC's producer guidelines when he faked bank statements and showed them to Earl Spencer to gain access to the princess in 1995, Lord Dyson's report said.\n\nIt comes after a designer who said he was \"made a scapegoat\" after Mr Bashir asked him to forge documents reached a settlement with the BBC.\n\nMr Bashir has previously said mocking up the documents \"was a stupid thing to do\" and he regretted it, but said they had had no bearing on Diana's decision to be interviewed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Richard Ratcliffe speaks to press after his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's return to the UK was announced\n\nThe husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says he is looking forward to the \"beginning of a new life\" with her as she returns to the UK.\n\nThe British-Iranian woman had been held in Iran since 2016 accused of plotting to overthrow Iran's government - which she denied.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe said he was \"deeply grateful\" she had been released.\n\nHe said he and their seven-year-old daughter Gabriella were looking forward to being a \"normal family\" again.\n\n\"We can't take back the time that's gone,\" he said. \"But we live in the future not the past. We'll take it one day at a time.\"\n\nHe said Gabriella had picked out which toys to take to show her mother when her plane lands - and he had promised one of the first things he would do was make her a cup of tea.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been under house arrest since March 2020, when she was released from prison, and she was given her British passport back this week.\n\nMr Ratcliffe had campaigned tirelessly for his wife's release including staging a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office.\n\nTheir enforced separation had been a \"cruel experience\" in many ways, he said, but had also been \"an exposure to such a level of kindness and care\" from people across the country.\n\nHe said his wife had remained \"pretty agitated\" in the run-up to her release and that things had been \"bumpy\" in her final days before she was freed.\n\nA picture has been released of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane leaving Iran\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, is on her way back to the UK along with fellow British-Iranian national Anoosheh Ashoori.\n\nMr Ashoori was arrested in 2017 and accused of spying, a claim he denied.\n\nMorad Tahbaz, who has Iranian, UK and US nationality, has been released from prison but is not yet allowed to leave Iran.\n\nThe British government said it had settled a £400m debt owed to Iran from the 1970s which had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country.\n\nBut Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said it was wrong to link the payment of the debt to the releases, adding: \"These two persons were released on humanitarian grounds.\"\n\nGabriella was 22 months old when her mother was detained while they were visiting relatives in Iran\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he had been \"kept out of the loop\" on discussions about the debt and the situation had been \"kept behind close doors\".\n\nSpeaking to reporters in London about his plans, he said: \"There will probably be a couple of days peace and quiet somewhere else, and then back here.\n\n\"The first thing she wanted was for me to make her a cup of tea, so we will do.\n\n\"I think actually we were looking at the house and it needs a bit of tidying, so there might be a bit of tidying, perhaps directed by mummy when she comes back.\"\n\nA photograph has now been released by MP Tulip Siddiq of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane back to the UK, having flown via Oman. She is due to land on Wednesday evening.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Tulip Siddiq This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLooking to the future, Mr Ratcliffe said it would be \"the beginning of a new life, a normal life\".\n\n\"Homecoming is a journey, not an arrival,\" Mr Ratcliffe said.\n\n\"I don't think it will just be today, there will be a whole process, and hopefully we'll look back in years to come and just be a normal family and this will be a chapter in our lives, but there are many more chapters to come.\"\n\nHe asked his daughter \"do we still quite believe it?\" about her return - adding it was going to be \"lovely\" to finally see her again.\n\nMr Ratcliffe noted his wife had a \"big grin\" in a picture released of her leaving Iran.\n\nHe said when she is back \"we can stop being a moment in history and start being a normal family again\".\n• None Nazanin on her way home to 'new life' in UK", "UK PM pledges to do more to help Ukraine in call with Zelensky\n\nBoris Johnson pledged to do more to help Ukraine, in a telephone call with President Zelensky on Friday morning. The prime minister vowed to stand with Ukraine at a time when its people were \"facing such horror with such courage\". Mr Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky: \"We know that we must do more to help. I pledge to you that we will.\" Speaking at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, he said he told the president that he knew Ukraine was fighting \"not just for your lives and your homes, but for the cause of democracy and freedom itself\". He said the UK had \"led the way\" in providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. But he added: \"I think that we all feel that we can, and we will, do more.\"", "Bowles starred in To The Manor Born, which ran from 1979 to 1981\n\nActor Peter Bowles, famous for starring opposite Penelope Keith in BBC comedy series To the Manor Born, has died at the age of 85, his agent has confirmed.\n\nHe also appeared in films such as The Bank Job, Eyewitness and the Steal as well as TV shows including Victoria, Magnolia Street and Only When I Laugh.\n\nThe actor's agent said Bowles had \"sadly passed away from cancer\".\n\n\"He leaves his wife of over 60 years, Sue, and their three children Guy, Adam and Sasha.\"\n\nThe statement continued: \"Starting his career at the Old Vic Theatre in 1956, he starred in 45 theatrical productions ending at the age of 81 in The Exorcist at the Phoenix Theatre.\n\nBowles starred opposite actress Penelope Keith in To The Manor Born\n\n\"He worked consistently on stage and screen, becoming a household name on TV as the archetypal English gent in To The Manor Born, Only When I Laugh, The Bounder and Lytton's Diary, which he devised himself.\"\n\nColumnist and presenter Piers Morgan said Bowles was a \"wonderful actor who exuded roguish British charm.... sad news\".\n\nBowles was best known for his role as Richard DeVere in To The Manor Born which aired from 1979 to 1981, starring as the self-made businessman alongside Dame Penelope Keith, with the pair reprising their roles in a 2007 special.\n\nThe show regularly attracted TV audiences of 20 million and became what Bowles was best known for.\n\nHe told the Daily Mail in 2018 he became something of an overnight success in his 40s after starring in the comedy, having not even been invited to the show's press launch.\n\nThe paper said that the day after it screened he was \"tooted at in the street by fans driving past and, later, given a standing ovation when he walked on stage in the West End\".\n\n\"It did not go down well with the rest of the cast!\" he added.\n\nHe told the Mail he was \"trained to be a leading Shakespearean actor. The voice! The presence! The size! But I never had a lead.\" In about 2013 he was offered King Lear, but he explained it came too late: \"I turned it down - I was too old!'\n\nBorn in London in 1936, he grew up in Nottingham and won a scholarship to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada).\n\nHe cut his teeth on stage with the Old Vic Company before embarking on a successful TV career.\n\nSpeaking about his success in sitcoms, he told the PA news agency in 2010: \"If you have a great popular TV success, particularly in comedy, people don't think you can act on stage.\n\n\"People thought I was just a sitcom actor and the BBC told me I'd never work in drama again. I didn't realise there were two worlds. It was new to me. I found it very odd and frustrating.\"\n\nBowles starred in a Christmas special of To The Manor born in 2007 to celebrate the show's 25th anniversary\n\nDuring the Second World War his father worked as an engineer at Rolls-Royce and when Bowles was six the family moved to one of the poorest working-class districts of Nottingham. Their house had an outside toilet and no bath.\n\n\"We were in a Coronation Street environment but everyone was extremely friendly and there were lots of kids. It was terrific,\" he said previously.\n\nAfter appearing in amateur plays in Nottingham, when he won his Rada scholarship, he lost his Midlands accent.\n\nHe was reunited with Dame Penelope in a regional tour of Sheridan's The Rivals, directed by Sir Peter Hall, in 2010.\n\nIn 2016, he starred in BBC Two series Murder, which delved into the psyches of everyone involved in a murder case through testimony delivered straight to camera by each character.\n\nHe recently played the role of the Duke of Wellington alongside Jenna Coleman in the popular ITV series Victoria.", "A Russian court has extended the detention of US basketball star Brittney Griner for another two months, reports state news agency Tass.\n\nThe 31-year-old has been held in Moscow since February when customs officials allegedly found cannabis oil in her luggage.\n\nHillary Clinton had called for her release, after re-tweeting a BBC article about the player's predicament.\n\nBut the Moscow court announced on Thursday it was keeping her in custody.\n\n\"The court granted the request of the investigation and extended the period of detention of the US citizen Griner until May 19,\" the court said, according to Tass.\n\nArguably the greatest female basketball player of all time, the double Olympic gold medallist has been called the \"Tom Brady of her sport\".\n\nMs Griner went to Russia to play during the US league's off-season.\n\nIn one of the last public sightings of her, captured on CCTV, the player is seen walking through security at a Moscow airport trailing a small, black suitcase.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Hillary Clinton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA star centre for the Phoenix Mercury team, she had landed at the Sheremetyevo airport, there to play another season with a Russian league.\n\nBut a month after her detention, little has been known about her circumstances.\n\nEkaterina Kalugina, a member of Public Monitoring Commission, a semi-official body with access to Russian prisons, told Russian news agency TASS Ms Griner was sharing a cell with two other women with no previous convictions.\n\nShe said Ms Griner's \"only issue\" was that the prison beds were too short for her tall frame.\n\nFans have criticised the muted response to the player's arrest, but the US State Department says it is doing everything it can to help her.\n\nA spokesperson for the State Department told the BBC on Thursday that US diplomats are \"closely engaged on this case and in frequent contact with Brittney Griner's legal team\".\n\n\"We insist the Russian government provide consular access to all US citizen detainees in Russia, including those in pre-trial detention, as Brittney Griner is.\"\n\nThe official added that Russia has \"consistently\" denied access to Americans held in Russian jails.\n\n\"Russia must abide by its legal obligations and allow us to provide consular services for US citizens detained in Russia,\" they continued.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Putin \"did not understand what he would encounter\" in Ukraine, says Boris Johnson\n\nUkraine is \"paying the price\" for the West's failure to understand the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, the PM says.\n\nBoris Johnson told the BBC the Russian president's invasion had \"already failed\" because he underestimated the \"strength of resistance\" in Ukraine.\n\nBut he blamed European countries who \"went back to treating [Putin] as part of the community\" after his annexing of Crimea in 2014.\n\nHe said the West needed to ensure it was \"never again vulnerable to Putin's blackmail\" - especially when it came to relying on Russian oil and gas.\n\nBut Labour criticised Mr Johnson for the visit, saying he was going \"cap in hand from one dictator to another\".\n\nDuring his trip, Mr Johnson met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for an hour and 45 minutes for talks about ending reliance on Russian oil and gas.\n\nAfterwards, Downing Street said the UK and Saudi Arabia had \"agreed to collaborate to maintain stability in the energy market\" and boost renewable energy sources.\n\nA spokesman added the two countries had also agreed to boost co-operation in defence, security, trade and culture.\n\nHowever, a number of MPs had called on the PM to cancel the visit over the Saudi government's human rights record. Last week 81 men were executed in one day.\n\nThe prime minister insisted that he did not \"turn a blind eye\" to the incidents and raised them with the country's officials.\n\nBut he said he had to be \"realistic\" and \"look at the global picture\" when it came to energy security.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea - a territory of Ukraine - in 2014. He subsequently backed an eastern rebellion by pro-Russian separatists, who have fought Ukrainian forces in an eight-year war that has claimed 14,000 lives.\n\nDespite years of western sanctions, Russia remains firmly in control of Crimea, which it absorbed following a referendum vote discredited by much of the international community.\n\nSpeaking to BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, the PM said: \"If you look back at 2014 and what happened when Putin took part of Crimea... what we totally failed to understand [was] the threat that he posed and we renormalized.\n\n\"European countries went back to treating him as though he was part of the community.\n\n\"Ukraine is paying the price for that now.\"\n\nHe also pointed to the strength of the resistance in Ukraine, adding that Mr Putin was committing war crimes in the country.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"He won't be able to crush and conquer Ukraine, because they've shown fundamentally that they have an indomitable spirit.\n\n\"He's got to withdraw. He's got to close this thing down. He's got to take back his his tanks and his armour. And there's got to be as a solution that respects the will of the of Ukrainian people.\"\n\nAfter Russia began its invasion in Ukraine last month, numerous governments introduced sanctions to hit the country's economy.\n\nAnd many countries - including the UK - pledged to phase out their use of the country's oil and gas to hit it even harder.\n\nMr Johnson said he planned to look to at solar, wind and to \"make some big bets\" on nuclear power going forward, but short-term solutions were also necessary.\n\n\"The UK has a historic and a long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia, which goes back many, many decades,\" said the PM.\n\n\"That should not in any way stop us from raising issues of human rights.\"\n\nHe added: \"I want to be clear, we don't we don't just turn a blind eye, we don't wink at them, we don't ignore it, we raise it and we make the argument.\n\n\"But what we also try to do is look at the global picture and look at the the impact on the world economy, and particularly the impact on the UK [as a] consumer of hydrocarbons.\n\n\"We're in a transitional phase now and we've got to be realistic about the continuing transitional importance of hydrocarbons in our in our economies.\"", "President Zelensky has accused Russia of intentionally bombing a theatre sheltering civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol.\n\nMoscow denies claims it bombed a theatre where people were hiding, with the Russian word for \"children\" written on the ground outside the building.", "The Ukrainian leader expressed outrage that some German companies were still operating in Russia\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told German MPs that a new type of Berlin Wall is being built, dividing Europe between freedom and oppression.\n\nHe thanked Germany for its support during Russia's invasion.\n\nBut it was uncomfortable listening for many MPs as he criticised German energy policy and business interests for contributing to that wall of division.\n\nOver the past week, Mr Zelensky has given a master class in how to pitch his message to allies.\n\nOn Wednesday, he addressed US Congress, referring to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terror attacks. On Tuesday he asked Canada's parliament to envisage bombs and missiles falling on Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton.\n\nLast week, his address to the House of Commons in London was partly a homage to Winston Churchill's wartime speeches.\n\nHis emotive speech to the German parliament, the Bundestag, was equally tailored to appeal to his audience with well-chosen historical parallels. Some of his audience grew up in communist East Germany behind the Berlin Wall.\n\nDuring the Cold War, Germany's dogged negotiation and engagement with Moscow contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.\n\nSince then Germany has tried to use trade, business and energy links to integrate a peaceful Russia into the West.\n\nBut Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago has destroyed many of those aspirations. The general political consensus in Germany now is that this may have been the wrong approach with Mr Putin's increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic government.\n\nPresident Zelensky expressed outrage that some German businesses were still operating in Russia. The controversial, now cancelled, Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 was \"cement for that new wall\" dividing Europe, he said. Germany's continued reluctance to allow Ukraine into the European Union was \"another brick\" in that new wall.\n\n\"Dear Mr Scholz, tear down this wall,\" he demanded of the German chancellor, repeating US President Ronald Reagan's historic demand to the Soviets in 1987 as he stood beside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.\n\nMany German ministers listening will agree with him. The Green Party, which in the new governing coalition is now responsible for energy policy within the powerful Economy Ministry, has for years been campaigning against Nord Stream 2.\n\nEven those who once supported the pipeline have changed their minds. Until recently Mr Scholz still referred to it as an non-political business matter.\n\nBut as Russian troops gathered on Ukraine's borders, shortly before the invasion, he unexpectedly announced the newly finished pipeline would not be opening after all.\n\nUsing another German Cold War analogy, in his speech President Zelensky said that Ukraine needed an airlift, and a no-fly zone to protect it, just as Cold War West Berlin had been saved by the Allied airlift in 1948-49.\n\nHe also reminded Germany of its responsibility to make up for Nazi crimes in Ukraine, saying Ukrainian towns and cities were being destroyed for the second time in 80 years.\n\nThis was a well-judged comment - Germany does guilt well. But for now there is no time for national bouts of repentance and soul searching.\n\nPresident Zelensky's speech was greeted by long applause and standing ovations.\n\nThe main opposition party, the conservative CDU, expressed outrage that after the address the chamber went on to discuss normal parliamentary business, instead of debating the war in Ukraine. The transition certainly jarred as the parliamentary president announced, amid booing from opposition MPs, a scheduled birthday congratulation message.\n\nPressure is growing from Ukraine, and from German voters, to end German reliance on Russian energy imports.\n\nThe German government is planning to stop imports of Russian oil and coal this year, with an end to Russian gas as soon as other sources are found. Berlin argues that a sudden ban would harm Germany more than Russia, sparking mass unemployment here.\n\nGerman Economy Minister Robert Habeck is now on a whirlwind global tour to drum up energy from elsewhere. After a visit to Norway yesterday, he announced a deal to boost imports of Norwegian gas and this week he'll fly to Qatar.\n\nThis may not satisfy German voters. In polls a majority say they want an instant embargo on Russian energy. But then it may be impossible to fulfil the electorate's demands - in other surveys an overwhelming majority of German voters also say that energy costs are already too high.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Surrogate babies waiting for parents in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nCivilians are said to be emerging alive from the ruins of a theatre that, according to Ukrainian authorities, was bombed by Russia in the city of Mariupol. Despite pictures of devastation at the scene, many who were sheltering there are thought to have survived in a basement that withstood Wednesday's attack.\n\nFor 10 days, that basement was a refuge for Kate, a 38-year-old Mariupol native, and her son, who is 17. Their own home, like many others in the besieged city, had been destroyed by Russian attacks, and they thought the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama was a place where they would be relatively safe.\n\nMother and son squeezed in the building's dark rooms, corridors and halls with dozens of other families. Some women, Kate said, carried babies that were just four or five months old.\n\n\"In the beginning, it was really tough, because we didn't have a well-organised food supply. So on the first two days, adults didn't have any food,\" Kate, who used to work at the city's zoo shop and did not want to give her full name, said. \"We gave food only to the children.\"\n\nThey slept on improvised beds made with soft parts of auditorium seats which had been put together on the floor. The seats made of wood, she said, were cut in parts and used as firewood for them to cook. \"Around the theatre there wasn't enough trees we could use, and it was too dangerous to go outside\".\n\nFor almost three weeks, Mariupol has been under constant shelling by Russian forces, which have completely surrounded the city. About 300,000 people are trapped, with no electricity, gas or running water. Food and medicine are running low, as Russia has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nFour days after she arrived, Kate said, Ukrainian forces managed to send some food supplies and a field kitchen to the theatre, and \"we [started] cooking something\". They would have soup, and sometimes oatmeal, for lunch, and tea with biscuits for dinner.\n\nThe imposing Soviet-era building in Mariupol's city centre, next to the Sea of Azov waterfront, had been designated as a shelter for civilians. Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, said up to 1,200 people had been there. Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with evacuees, put that number at between 500 and 800.\n\nAs Russia's relentless assault continued, Kate said the buildings around the theatre had been either damaged or destroyed. \"We knew we had to run away because something terrible would happen soon,\" she said.\n\nA day before the attack, Kate and her son left the site. \"We jumped in a car while the theatre and the area were being shelled,\" she said. They shared the vehicle with a family of four, who had brought four dogs and a cat.\n\n\"We asked to go with them, because we didn't have our own [car],\" she said. They were part of convoy of about 2,000 cars that escaped Mariupol on Tuesday.\n\nMariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack \"deliberate and cynical\". Russia denied it had targeted the site but, in Mariupol alone, its attacks had already hit several civilian buildings including a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks.\n\nSatellite images released by the US company Maxar taken on Monday showed that the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters in two locations outside the building, to warn Russian jets away.\n\nA convoy of cars carrying evacuees from Mariupol arrives in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nVideo of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the building's collapsed façade. But with communications with the city almost completely cut off, the numbers of survivors or possible casualties were still not clear, almost 20 hours later.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and originally from Mariupol, said the shelter in the basement of the building withstood the attack, and that teams were trying to clear the rubble which covered the entrance to the site. \"It looks like most of them have survived and are OK,\" he said.\n\nBut the rescue efforts were tricky, he said, as Russia had continued to attack the area. \"Shelling never stops and artillery never stops and airplanes are dropping bombs,\" he said, \"so it's really difficult\".\n\nThe city council estimates about 80% to 90% of the city's buildings have either been damaged or destroyed by Russia, which has attacked the city almost non-stop since it invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned into wasteland.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAfter leaving Mariupol, Kate was headed to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, a region that has been largely spared of attacks. \"The first day after we managed to get out, I couldn't talk. We all just cried\", she said. \"But now it feels like there are no tears left. I don't think this pain will ever disappear.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Ryan Herbert admitted both murder and assault causing grievous bodily harm with intent in 2008\n\nA murderer who kicked a 20-year-old woman to death because she was dressed as a Goth is to be freed from prison.\n\nRyan Herbert was aged 16 when he was jailed for life in 2008 for murdering Sophie Lancaster in a park in Bacup, Lancashire.\n\nThe Parole Board has decided Herbert can now be released on licence.\n\nReacting to the decision, Sophie's mother, Sylvia Lancaster, said: \"Once again we have a justice system that fails to deliver justice.\"\n\nShe said the original sentence reflected the \"level of violence\" her daughter was subjected to during a \"feral\" attack.\n\nHerbert, whose minimum term was cut in 2020, and a friend battered Sophie as she cradled her boyfriend's head, who they had also attacked.\n\nShe died 13 days after being beaten by Herbert and Brendan Harris as she tried to protect Robert Maltby from attack in Stubbylee Park.\n\nHerbert, of Bacup, admitted both murder and assault causing grievous bodily harm with intent and was given a minimum term of 16 years and three months, which was later reduced to 15 and a half years.\n\nHe had his minimum tariff reduced to 14 and a half years in February 2020, making him now eligible for parole consideration two years later.\n\nHigh Court judge Mr Justice William Davis concluded the tariff could be reduced as he had made \"exceptional progress\" in prison.\n\nSophie Lancaster died in hospital 13 days after she was attacked in a park in Bacup\n\nMs Lancaster said she could not understand the decision being made \"because they have done well in prison\" when the Parole Board knew \"the reality of the level of violence\" Sophie had been subjected to.\n\n\"However much progress people make in prison, they have been given their sentence in recognition of the extent of their crime,\" she said.\n\nMs Lancaster said her daughter's injuries were \"so severe\" paramedics could not \"facially distinguish if she were male or female\".\n\nThe judge described the attack as \"feral\" and her attackers as \"savage and merciless\", she added.\n\nThe Parole Board's ruling found Herbert had made \"significant changes to his life which reflected his remorse, his insight and increased maturity\".\n\n\"After considering the circumstances of his offending and examining the evidence for the progress made while in custody, the panel was satisfied that Mr Herbert was suitable for release,\" a document setting out the decision said.\n\nThe document said Herbert's behaviour had \"initially been poor\" but this changed once he moved into an adult prison and he had taken part in rehabilitation programmes.\n\nAfter being moved into an open prison in November 2020, he \"improved his education with studies to degree level\" and had \"fully engaged with resettlement activities\" including spending time on temporary release from jail, it added.\n\n\"No concerns about compliance had been identified and Mr Herbert had good working relationships with professional staff,\" it said.\n\nWitnesses, including his probation officer, recommended he be released on licence.\n\nHerbert will be subject to restrictions on his movements, where he lives and who he contacts.\n\nHarris, who was found guilty of Sophie's murder in 2008 and admitted the attack on Mr Maltby, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Most of the dual nationals imprisoned by Iran have been held at Tehran's notorious Evin prison\n\nThe plight of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arbitrarily detained for almost six years in Iran on spying charges that she strongly denied, focused attention on Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency being held in the Islamic Republic's prisons.\n\nIran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the number of such detainees given the sensitive nature of the information. Some of the most prominent are:\n\nAhmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in October 2017\n\nThe 51-year-old specialist in emergency medicine was arrested in April 2016 while on a business trip from Sweden.\n\nAmnesty International said Djalali was held at Evin prison by intelligence ministry officials for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was given access to a lawyer.\n\nHe alleged that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during that period, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden, and his mother, who lives in Iran.\n\nIn October 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Djalali of \"spreading corruption on Earth\" and sentenced him to death. His lawyers said the court relied primarily on evidence obtained under duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely because of his refusal to use his academic ties in European institutions to spy for Iran.\n\nTwo months later, Iranian state television also aired what it said was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran's nuclear programme for Israel. It suggested he was responsible for identifying two Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in bomb attacks in 2010.\n\nIn February 2018, Sweden confirmed that it had given Djalali citizenship and demanded that his death sentence not be carried out. He had previously been a permanent resident.\n\nIn November 2021, Djalali's wife, Vida Mehran-Nia, said he had been informed by prison authorities that he faced imminent execution. He spent five months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, until April 2021, when he reportedly was moved to a multi-occupancy cell.\n\nJust over a year later, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Djalali's death sentence was \"final\" and was \"on the agenda\" of authorities.\n\nHe also insisted that the case was not linked to the war crimes trial in Sweden of former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who was sentenced to life in prison over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.\n\nDjalali's wife and human rights groups have said Djalali is a \"hostage\" who Iran is threatening to execute in an attempt to negotiate a swap for Mr Nouri.\n\nNahid Taghavi was an advocate for women's rights in Iran\n\nThe 69-year-old retired architect, who is a German-Iranian dual national, was arrested at her apartment in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of \"endangering security\".\n\nShe was placed in solitary confinement at Evin prison and not given access to lawyers, German diplomats or members of her family, according to her daughter Mariam Claren.\n\nTaghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning without the presence of lawyers, according to Amnesty International. Interrogators reportedly asked her about meeting people to discuss women's and labour rights, and possessing literature about those issues.\n\nIn August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran of \"forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security\" and \"spreading propaganda against the system\". She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.\n\nTaghavi had denied the charges, the first of which was apparently related to a social media account about women's rights, and Amnesty said the trial was \"grossly unfair\".\n\nMs Claren wrote on Twitter that her mother \"did not commit any crime. Unless freedom of speech, freedom of thought are illegal\".\n\nShe has said her mother has been denied adequate healthcare by prison and prosecution authorities, despite doctors saying in September 2021 that she needed surgery on her spinal column.\n\nIn July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. She was sent back to Evin four months later.\n\nA fellow inmate in the prison warned in June 2023 that Taghavi's life was \"in danger\" following a further 220 days in solitary confinement.\n\n\"The pain is so severe that it can be clearly seen on her face. She can barely get out of her bed,\" a message posted on human rights activist Narges Mohammadi's Instagram account said.\n\nThe 64-year-old researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a number of books.\n\nAt the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was examining the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had spent time in the holy city of Qom.\n\nAdelkhah was accused of espionage and other security-related offences.\n\nShe protested her innocence and after going on hunger strike, she was admitted to hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage.\n\nProsecutors dropped the espionage charge before her trial began at the Revolutionary Court in April 2020. The following month, the court sentenced Adelkhah to five years in prison for conspiring against national security and an additional year for propaganda against the establishment.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her release.\n\nIn October 2020, due to what Sciences-Po called her \"health circumstances\", Adelkhah was released on bail and allowed to return to her home in Tehran.\n\nHowever, Iran's judiciary announced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to prison, accusing her of \"knowingly violating the limits of house arrest dozens of times\". French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision \"entirely arbitrary\".\n\nIn February 2023, Adelkhah Adelkhah was released from Evin prison after three and a half years in detention.\n\nHowever, Iranian authorities refused to return her identity papers, making it impossible for her to leave the country or resume her work as a researcher.\n\nJamshid Sharmahd with his wife (L) and daughter, Gazelle\n\nSharmahd, 68, a German citizen who lived in the US, arrived in the United Arab Emirates in July 2020 and was awaiting a connecting flight to India when he disappeared. It is believed that he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.\n\nThe following month, Iran's intelligence ministry announced that it had arrested Sharmahd following a \"complex operation\", without providing any details. It also published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.\n\nIn February 2023, Iran's judiciary said Sharmahd had been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran after being found guilty of \"spreading corruption on Earth through planning and leading terror operations\".\n\nIt alleged that he was the leader of a terrorist group known as Tondar and that he had \"planned 23 terror attacks\", of which \"five were successful\", including the 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in that killed 14 people.\n\nTondar - which means \"thunder\" in Persian - is another name of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (KAI), a little-known US-based opposition group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the KAI, including claims of explosions inside Iran. He also read out statements in radio and video broadcasts.\n\nHowever, he denied his involvement in the attacks, saying he was only a spokesman, and rejected all accusations during his trial.\n\nAmnesty said Sharmahd told his family that he had been tortured and subjected to other ill-treatment in detention, including by being held in prolonged solitary confinement.\n\nHe also told them that he had been denied adequate healthcare, with access to medications required for his Parkinson's disease delayed routinely.\n\nIn July, Sharmahd's daughter Gazelle told the BBC that he could be executed at any time.\n\n\"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell. But even if he survives that, they're killing him by hanging him from a crane in public.\"\n\nThe 61-year-old retired Iranian merchant navy captain is a US permanent resident.\n\nHe has been detained in Iran since April 2016, when he visited Tehran to attend his father's funeral. He was later convicted of \"collaborating with a hostile state\" and sentenced to 10 years in prison.\n\nHis wife - who is a US citizen - broke her silence in March 2022, saying in a video statement that he had been imprisoned unjustly for six years and appealing to President Joe Biden to \"bring Shahab home\".\n\nIn August 2023, his son, Darian, complained that he was not part of a prisoner exchange deal between the US and Iran, which saw five US-Iranian dual nationals released the following month.\n\n\"He feels betrayed. He is demoralized. He believes that the US would bring back anyone that they want to bring back,\" Darian told Reuters news agency.\n\nA US state department spokesman declined to tell reporters why Dalili was not included, but did reveal he had not yet been declared \"wrongfully detained\" - a designation that would mean the department dedicated more resources to their case and assigned it to a presidential envoy.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. People were still waiting outside the airport to get through security on Thursday morning\n\nManchester Airport has apologised after huge security queues caused passengers to miss flights.\n\nHundreds of travellers were left waiting for hours earlier, with many venting their frustrations online.\n\nThe airport said unexpectedly high passenger numbers put \"considerable strain\" on staff while 60% of bags had been rejected at security.\n\nPassenger Paul Keegan said everyone was \"tired and upset\" after he waited five hours to board a flight.\n\nMr Keegan, who was flying to Dublin with his son, described the airport as \"one of the most chaotic in the world\".\n\nHe told BBC North West Tonight people were \"screaming, annoyed and frustrated\", with problems first beginning on Wednesday night.\n\n\"I felt quite sorry for the staff because people were being abusive and loud. This place is never enjoyable,\" he added.\n\nMr Keegan said he managed to finally board a flight after the captain waited for passengers and told them she was not prepared to leave anyone behind.\n\nHundreds of passengers were forced to queue in the car park outside the airport on Thursday morning.\n\nHundreds of people waited for hours in security queues\n\nThere were hundreds of people in the car park of Terminal 1 earlier.\n\nFrustrated passengers had already checked their bags in but were then forced to go back outside the airport to join the queue for security.\n\nIt was difficult to see where the back of the line was as it snaked around the car park three times.\n\nPeople had been out there for more than an hour before even joining the queue inside.\n\nMike Wood was delayed for two hours trying to make his connection through Heathrow Airport to Chicago.\n\nHe said he was \"absolutely frustrated\" and the experience had \"put him off travelling completely\".\n\n\"Our flight has been held because of the numbers of passengers stuck before security,\" he added.\n\n\"The airport must have known months ahead how volumes of people were increasing after lockdown.\"\n\nMike Wood said he was worried he would not make his connection\n\nA spokesman for the airport said the \"rapid recovery of international travel\" meant it had been \"more difficult to predict passenger volumes\".\n\n\"We would like to apologise to those impacted by the challenges and assure them we are doing all we can to rectify the situation,\" he added.\n\nThe airport urged those travelling to arrive at the earliest recommended time by their airline.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUkraine has accused Russian forces of bombing a theatre where civilians were sheltering in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.\n\nDeputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that between 1,000 and 1,200 people had sought refuge in the building.\n\nWhile the number of casualties is unclear, a local MP said the basement where people were gathered had withstood the bombing.\n\n\"It looks like most of them have survived,\" Dmytro Gurin told the BBC.\n\nBut Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's mayor, earlier said emergency workers were struggling to reach the building due to constant shelling.\n\nImages of the theatre, verified by the BBC, showed extensive damage and smoke rising from the site.\n\nRussia's air strikes and shells have previously hit a maternity hospital, a church and apartment buildings.\n\nMariupol's city council said in a statement that Russian forces \"deliberately and cynically destroyed\" the theatre, saying a \"plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding\".\n\nBoth Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, and the city council accused Russia of a \"war crime\" in the wake of the attack.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the bombing and said Russia had deliberately targeted the theatre.\n\n\"Our hearts are broken by what Russia is doing to our people. To our Mariupol,\" he said in a video address late on Wednesday evening.\n\nSatellite pictures taken on 14 March - released by the US company Maxar - showed the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters to warn Russian jets away from the building.\n\nThe BBC was earlier told that many children and elderly people were sheltering inside, and that conditions were quickly deteriorating.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol since the start of the war, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAn estimated 300,000 residents are trapped inside the city, where running water, electricity and gas have been cut off. Food and water supplies are running low, as Russian troops have not allowed the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nHours after news of the destruction emerged, the Russian defence ministry denied it had carried out an air strike against the theatre, the RIA news agency reported.\n\nAbout 1,500 cars had managed to flee Mariupol on Wednesday, according to Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor. But, he said, an attack by Russia on the convoy left at least five wounded, including a child.\n\nPeter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, called for better access to civilians caught up in the war, which he said was causing \"enormous suffering\". Mr Maurer, who arrived in Ukraine for a five-day visit, described the situation in Mariupol as a \"waking nightmare\".\n\nElsewhere, at least 10 people waiting in a queue for bread in the northern city of Chernihiv were killed by Russian shelling on Wednesday, the country's prosecutor general said. Unverified footage released by a local outlet showed bodies on a street.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Chris Parker hopes UK holidaymakers will opt for ferry travel as the pandemic eases\n\nAn increase in travel to Europe could cause long queues at Dover if coronavirus border checks are not eased by Easter, a ferry boss has warned.\n\nChris Parker, director of capacity and passenger performance at ferry operator DFDS said he hoped 2022 would see a resurgence in demand.\n\nBut if that happens, he said existing Covid checks \"simply won't work'.\n\n\"The impact would be queues on Kent's motorways, stretching back 10, 20 miles,\" he said.\n\nMr Parker hailed the \"very good news\" last week that pre-departure travel tests to the UK were to be scrapped for fully vaccinated travellers and under-18s.\n\nThe government said the changes were possible because the Omicron variant was \"widespread and worldwide\".\n\n\"[We are] hearing we may hear something quite soon from the French government to say that they're doing the same,\" Mr Parker said.\n\nIn December, the French Government tightened restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the variant.\n\nCurrently, most travellers from the UK who are not French residents or citizens must give a \"compelling reason\" to enter.\n\nMr Parker said restrictions had been changing with \"dizzying frequency\" and this had led to \"quite a lot of abuse\" for DFDS staff at the border.\n\nChecks on passenger locator forms and vaccination passports have meant delays for travellers, he said, and a significant increase in numbers would \"escalate\" the problem.\n\n\"It's really, really important that we don't find ourselves around Easter, for example, doing these sort of checks because it simply won't work,\" he said.\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Pride of York is being offered for sale alongside its sister ship the Pride of Bruges\n\nTwo North Sea ferries have been put up for sale just weeks after the route they sailed on was closed.\n\nThe Pride of Bruges and the Pride of York sailed nightly between Hull and Zeebrugge in Belgium until P&O Ferries ended the service in January due to a drop in demand.\n\nThe ships, which can carry more than 1,000 passengers and 850 cars, are listed on a German shipbrokers website.\n\nHull Labour MP Karl Turner said it was \"an incredibly sad day for this city\".\n\n\"It is not just a part of our past potentially being flogged for scrap, but a part of our future too,\" said Mr Turner.\n\n\"I am extremely disappointed that P&O Ferries have shown their lack of commitment to Hull by choosing not to retain these huge assets, but the Government must bear some responsibility too - there has been a complete lack of action, allowing P&O to take millions of taxpayer's money whilst removing a critical piece of our national and local infrastructure.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Pride of York made its last sailing from Hull in December\n\nThe Department for Transport said that the operation of ferry routes is a commercial matter for the relevant companies concerned, and that throughout the pandemic the government had invested millions to protect critical passenger and cargo ferry routes.\n\nNo price is listed on the Global Ferry and Cruise Shipbrokers. The pair of ships were built in 1987 and at 588ft (179m) long were amongst the biggest ferries used in UK waters.\n\nThe route between Hull and Belgium had been running since the 1960s, but was described as loss-making by P&O and saw its last crossing on 1 January.\n\nThe BBC has contacted P&O Ferries for a response.\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "An explosion at an apartment building on Friday\n\nHundreds of people are crammed into the basement of a large public building in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, but are running out of food, with many also in need of urgent medical help.\n\n\"Some have developed sepsis from shrapnel in the body,\" said Anastasiya Ponomareva, a 39-year-old teacher who fled the city at the start of the war but was still in contact with friends there. \"Things are very serious.\"\n\nThe city is encircled by Russian troops and remains under constant bombardment with almost 400,000 people still trapped without running water, and food and medical supplies quickly running out. The local authorities say the war there has left at least 2,400 civilians dead, but even they acknowledge that this is an underestimate.\n\nMs Ponomareva's friends are with other families in the basement of the building. They have all left homes that are no longer safe or no longer standing.\n\n\"People who managed to hide in underground shelters basically live there permanently,\" Ms Ponomareva said from the western city of Drohobych, where she was living. \"They practically cannot leave at all.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMost of their day is spent hiding in the basement. From time to time they go upstairs for some sunlight, but rarely outside. Conditions, she was told, were quickly deteriorating, as some people had a fever and nothing could be done to treat them. \"There is no medical help, no antibiotics.\"\n\nSome streets are so dangerous that few go out to pick up the dead. Many are being buried in mass graves. The almost non-stop Russian attacks have turned their old neighbourhoods into wasteland. New drone footage (pictured above) showed the vast extent of the damage, with fire and smoke billowing out of apartment blocks and blackened streets in ruins.\n\n\"On the left bank, there's no residential building intact, it's all burned to the ground,\" Ms Ponomareva said. \"The city centre is unrecognisable.\"\n\nSheltering in the same building, a family of four has been in touch with Serhii Kozyrkov, a 40-year-old pastor who left Mariupol two weeks ago. \"It's very crowded and there isn't enough food,\" Mr Kozyrkov, who is now in Lviv, said. \"People get ill because it's very cold and everyone is lying next to each other.\"\n\nThe family are desperate to flee. On Tuesday, about 2,000 cars managed to exit Mariupol, the city council said, and 2,000 more were ready to go. It was the second day that residents were allowed to leave. Previous evacuation attempts had failed, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russia of attacking the city and even routes to be used by civilians, despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n\nBut, again, no humanitarian aid was allowed into the city. Sergei Orlov, the deputy mayor of Mariupol, said things were \"getting more difficult by the hour\".\n\n\"The situation is horrible,\" he said. \"There isn't enough food, water, medicine, insulin, baby food. Everyone has specific needs.\" According to Mr Orlov, cars with supplies have been waiting for four days but the Russians have not let it in. \"We get a lot of calls. For example, a mother who says 'I have a child in my hands [who] is dying from hunger.' Or we get a call 'Here's our address. We're blocked in the basement. What should we do?',\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"Unfortunately,\" he said, \"we can't do anything.\"\n\nBack in the basement, the family told Mr Kozyrkov they could hear the sound of explosions nearby but that their building remained intact. There is one generator which they use to recharge their phones and, from time to time, they venture outside to make some calls.\n\n\"The shelling doesn't stop,\" he said. \"They're very frightened.\"\n\nMs Ponomareva said the situation was \"very difficult, to put it mildly.\" People need a humanitarian corridor, she said. \"Otherwise, it's a slow death from hunger and thirst.\"\n\nAre you in Mariupol, or do you have concerns for relatives or friends living in the area? If it is safe for you to do so, please email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Ashton-under-Lyne MP Angela Rayner said the abuse had changed her as a person\n\nTwo men have pleaded guilty to sending abusive messages to Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner.\n\nStuart Kelly, 53, of Halifax, admitted leaving three voicemails for Ms Rayner, including one saying \"I hope you get shot\", on 15 October last year.\n\nAt the same hearing Michael McGrath, 70, of Sheffield, admitted sending an offensive email to the Ashton-under-Lyne MP's office the following day.\n\nMs Rayner said the threats had left her \"constantly watching my back\".\n\nKelly has been released on bail and will be sentenced on 14 April, while McGrath received a six-week jail sentence, suspended for 18 months.\n\nMcGrath, who has bowel cancer and later sent an apology email to Ms Rayner, was also ordered to pay a total of £413 in costs and compensation, including £200 to the MP.\n\nChief magistrate Paul Goldspring told him: \"There is no doubt in my mind, whether you are in public service as an MP or perhaps as a judge or a member of the royal family, it does not make you any less susceptible to attack or any less susceptible to feelings about that.\"\n\nMr Goldspring also warned Kelly, who has been to court 27 times for 50 offences, he faced time in jail.\n\nBoth men pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates' Court to sending offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing messages to Ms Rayner.\n\nThe court heard both men linked her comments at the Labour Party conference, when she called Conservatives \"scum\", in September last year to the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess.\n\nSir David, 69, was stabbed to death at a surgery in his Leigh-on-Sea constituency in Essex in October.\n\nOn the day of his death, Kelly left three voicemail messages for Ms Rayner, 41, at her constituency office during a 30-minute period.\n\nOne said: \"I hope you get shot. You contributed to his death, you dirty scum.\"\n\nFormer barber McGrath sent an email to Ms Rayner's office in the early hours of the following morning in which he said: \"Hope it never happens to you. I bet you will be celebrating.\"\n\nIn a victim impact statement read to court, Ms Rayner described how the threats had left her frightened, not only for herself but her family, children and staff.\n\nShe said the murders of MP Jo Cox and Sir David had made her worried the same thing could happen to her.\n\n\"The fact these people are trying to link the death of an MP to me is absolutely devastating,\" she added.\n\n\"For people to say I'm responsible for the death of David Amess has caused me genuine distress.\"\n\nMs Rayner said she was \"no stranger\" to criticism, which she usually sees as \"people exercising their right to free speech\".\n\n\"When I saw the contents of the email together with the voicemails I burst into tears,\" she said.\n\n\"It made me feel extremely upset. I believe I have quite a thick skin when it comes to name-calling and nasty comments, but this was in a completely different category.\n\n\"I am scared out of my wits, not only for my own safety but also the safety of my family, children and staff.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Limiting the amount of time MPs spend on second jobs would be \"impractical\", the government has said.\n\nBoris Johnson called for a review of MPs' outside work last year after a number of high-profile controversies.\n\nAt the time, the prime minister backed proposals to place \"reasonable limits\" on hours spent on other jobs.\n\nBut Cabinet Office Minister Steve Barclay has now said the measure would not work and also cast doubt on a proposed cap on outside earnings.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the prime minister of \"breaking his promise\" to tackle \"a scandal of his own making\" over second jobs.\n\nThe issue of MPs' second jobs came to the fore in 2021 when the then-Conservative MP Owen Paterson was found to have broken lobbying rules.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson is \"saying one thing and doing another\" over MPs taking second jobs says Sir Keir Starmer.\n\nIt caused chaos in government and accusations of sleaze after No 10 attempted an overhaul of the standards system, which would have stopped Mr Paterson from being suspended from the Commons. He later resigned as an MP.\n\nThe furore led to increased scrutiny of the work MPs do outside of Parliament, with a lot of focus on former Attorney General Sir Geoffrey Cox, who earned around £900,000 in 2020 through his work as a lawyer.\n\nMPs later backed government plans to prevent them taking on certain jobs, with No 10 saying any outside role, paid or unpaid, should be \"within reasonable limits\" and not stop MPs fully serving their constituents.\n\nA definition of what that meant was not given, but International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan suggested 15 hours a week as a reasonable limit.\n\nHowever, in the letter from Mr Barclay, the government now appears to have moved away from that pledge.\n\nThe minister reiterated the government's desire for a ban on MPs providing paid parliamentary advice, consultancy, or strategy services.\n\nBut while he acknowledged a time limit was considered \"necessary\" by some, he said it would be \"impractical\".\n\nIn a submission to the Commons standards committee, first reported by the Guardian, Mr Barclay wrote: \"It is the government's initial view that the imposition of fixed constraints such as time limits on the amount of time that members can spend on outside work would be impractical.\n\n\"The imposition of time limits would not necessarily serve to address recent concerns over paid advocacy and the primary duty of MPs to serve their constituents.\"\n\nWhen it came to a cap on earnings, Mr Barclay also had his doubts, writing that such a rule \"could serve to prohibit activities which do not bring undue influence to bear on the political system\", such as writing books.\n\nHe said a long-serving MP \"could inadvertently reach the 'ceiling' through earnings accrued over time\", and he questioned \"whether it would be fair to subject that member to a standards investigation\".\n\nHe added: \"To avoid this issue would require a substantive earning threshold to be set such that it would not serve to prevent MPs from taking on outside work for which they were properly remunerated in line with salaries in that sector.\n\n\"The introduction of such an arbitrary cap therefore may not have the intended effect of ensuring that members prioritise their parliamentary duties and the needs of their constituents.\"\n\nFormer Attorney General Sir Geoffrey Cox came under the spotlight last year, after it was revealed he earned £900,000 for his legal work\n\nBut Labour's Sir Keir hit out at the PM for failing to deliver on his promise to tackle the issue.\n\n\"[Mr Johnson] said he was going to deal with second jobs and there was going to be this cap,\" he told reporters.\n\n\"That was his proposal at the height of this scandal of his own making.\n\n\"Now, as soon as he gets the opportunity, he is breaking his promise yet again.\"\n\nHe added: \"It goes to the heart of the problem with this prime minister, which is this problem of trust and moral authority.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLiverpool moved to within one point of Premier League leaders Manchester City as they emerged impressive winners after a tough examination at Arsenal.\n\nThe Gunners, well in the fight to finish in the top four, pushed Liverpool hard until Jurgen Klopp's quadruple-chasing side ruthlessly took control after the break.\n\nLiverpool keeper Alisson saved crucially from Martin Odegaard after Thiago's misplaced backpass before Diogo Jota put Liverpool ahead, beating Aaron Ramsdale at his near post in the 54th minute.\n\nJota and Luis Diaz were immediately replaced by Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, the latter doubling Liverpool's advantage just after the hour mark with a perfect flick from Andrew Robertson's cross.\n\nLiverpool have now reeled off nine Premier League wins in succession while Arsenal remain in fourth, a point ahead of Manchester United but with two games in hand.\n• None Go straight to all the best Arsenal content\n\nOnce Jota made the breakthrough for the visitors there was no way back for the Gunners, but before then the Reds were indebted to Alisson's significant contribution when he made that block from Odegaard.\n\nTo that point Arsenal were in confident mood, playing fearlessly, but they were again undone by Jota - the scourge of Mikel Arteta's team in the Carabao Cup semi-final in January - although the Portuguese was helped by Ramsdale's weak effort to save his near-post shot.\n\nKlopp's Midas touch worked again when he removed Jota and substitute Firmino showed his silky touch to slide a near-post flick past Ramsdale.\n\nArsenal were deflated and Liverpool moved even closer to Manchester City, who were held to a draw here in the capital by Crystal Palace on Monday.\n\nThe advantage still lies with Pep Guardiola's reigning champions - but the margin is slender and this was another potentially difficult hurdle overcome by Liverpool.\n\nArsenal's players were applauded off by the home fans at the final whistle in recognition of their efforts, especially the outstanding Gabriel Martinelli, who gave Trent Alexander-Arnold a torrid time.\n\nAnd they remain in prime position to achieve their remaining goal this season, a place in the top four, but they are still finding it tough to overcome the sides they will eventually want to rival.\n\nLiverpool have now completed the league double over Arsenal, as have Manchester City, while they have also lost at home to Chelsea and away to Manchester United.\n\nThe Gunners were in contention for a long time, led by the verve of Martinelli, but ultimately it was Liverpool who had the cutting edge and greater quality.\n\nThere is no doubt Arteta's Arsenal are on an upward curve and this was a far more convincing performance than that League Cup loss, but they still have a long road to travel before the old glories can be contemplated once more.\n\n'We lost the game in the boxes'\n\nArsenal manager Mikel Arteta to BBC MOTD: \"From box to box, we did everything that we'd planned. What happened in the boxes was a different story, that's where we lost the game.\n\n\"I think the whole team played fantastically well. I don't think the result reflects the performance, but in the box they had the decisive moments. They put the ball in the net twice.\"\n\nLiverpool manager Jurgen Klopp to BBC MOTD: \"Coming here and winning against Arsenal is already special, but winning the game like it was - more special. We started really well then it became an open game. We wanted to improve in the second half.\n\n\"I'm very excited about the team and the situation we are in but that does not change everything. We just need to keep going. We really want to enjoy the situation we are in by winning football matches.\"\n• None Attempt missed. Gabriel Martinelli (Arsenal) right footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Granit Xhaka.\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Thiago.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Kieran Tierney tries a through ball, but Gabriel Martinelli is caught offside.\n• None Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Cédric Soares tries a through ball, but Nicolas Pépé is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "Diesel prices in the UK rose by an average of more than 2p in a day as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to affect global oil costs.\n\nThe fuel jumped to a record £1.76 per litre on Tuesday, up from almost £1.74 on Monday.\n\nPetrol prices, which have also increased to record highs, rose to almost £1.65p a litre from about £1.64.\n\nThe continuing price rises come amid warnings of potential global oil supply problems.\n\nRecent rises in the global price of oil has pushed up prices at the pumps in the UK, but there are hopes recent falls will transfer to cheaper fuel.\n\nSimon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC, said drivers could save almost 4p a litre by buying their fuel at one of the big four supermarkets, where the average for petrol is 161p and 171p for diesel.\n\n\"We continue to remain hopeful that retailers will soon start to pass on recent reductions in the price of wholesale fuel to drivers when they next buy supply. That ought to lead to petrol stabilising at around 160p while diesel ought to stay where it is based on current wholesale prices,\" he said.\n\nThe British Retail Consortium (BRC), whose members include major supermarkets which sell fuel, has said retailers understand the cost pressures facing motorists.\n\nAndrew Opie, of the BRC, said they would do everything they could to offer the best value-for-money across petrol forecourts.\n\nThe International Energy Agency (IEA) said high commodity prices and sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine were \"threatening to create a global oil supply shock\".\n\nIt estimated three million barrels per day of Russian oil could be taken out of the global market as a result of international sanctions.\n\nThe agency warned only Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have enough spare production capacity to offset the shortfall in Russian output, which it said was the largest oil exporter in the world.\n\nRussia continues to export oil for the time being due to deals and trades made before Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine, the IEA said. New business has all but dried up, however, because many Western countries are seeking alternative fuel supplies.\n\nSome countries, such as the US and Canada, have banned Russian oil imports, but by contrast, the EU, which is much more reliant on Russian energy, has stopped short of a ban.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK has said it will phase out imports of Russian oil in response to Russia's actions by the end of the year.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has travelled to discuss energy security and other issues in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.\n\nA Rosneft oil rig drilling the first exploration well in the Khatanga Bay, Russia\n\nThe IEA said the world was \"faced with what could turn into the biggest supply crisis in decades\", with global energy markets \"at a crossroads\".\n\nIt added the \"implications of a potential loss of Russian oil exports to global markets\" could not be understated.\n\n\"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought energy security back to the forefront of political agendas as commodity prices surge to new heights. While it is still too early to know how events will unfold, the crisis may result in lasting changes to energy markets,\" it said.\n\nThe price of Brent crude oil - the global benchmark for prices - hovered around $100 per barrel on Wednesday, having previously reached record highs of more than $130 a barrel in the immediate aftermath of Western countries hitting Russia with sanctions.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, but is affected by the global shifts in price which are driven by supply and demand forces.\n\nRAC fuel spokesman Mr Williams said UK fuel prices had increased at the fastest rate on record, with petrol rising 13p since the start of the month and diesel increasing by nearly 21p.\n\nHe said a full tank of unleaded for a family car was now almost £91 on average.\n\nUK motoring groups have said fuel prices are likely to fall as global oil prices stabilise.\n\nYet, there is a concern some retailers might be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out if wholesale costs jump back up again.\n\n\"The big question is how keen will retailers be to pass on those savings at the pumps as they will no doubt be extremely conscious of protecting themselves from any more rises that could suddenly materialise,\" said Mr Williams.\n\n\"Drivers badly need a break from these relentless daily rises.\"\n\nThe RAC has called on the chancellor to cut fuel duty or VAT in his upcoming Spring Statement.", "A man who caused the death of an 86-year-old Army veteran with a single punch has been detained.\n\nFrank Fishwick was attacked after he confronted a group of youths who had congregated outside his flat in Fulwood, Preston, on 10 September.\n\nHe initially refused an ambulance but died in hospital the next day as a result of internal bleeding.\n\nMohammed Al Aaraj, 19, was sentenced at Preston Crown Court to four years in a young offenders institution.\n\nMr Fishwick, a former Royal Engineer, was at home in The Paddock when he was disturbed by a group of young people at about 15:00 BST.\n\nFrancis McEntee, prosecuting, said Mr Fishwick, who he called a \"feisty older man\", confronted the group, first through his window and then by going out to them.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the veteran became frustrated with the situation and directed racially offensive language at one of the teenagers.\n\nFormer Royal Engineer Frank Fishwick was an \"adored\" grandfather and father, his family says\n\nSyrian refugee Al Aaraj, of Sheffield Drive in Preston, then punched Mr Fishwick in the face and fractured his nose.\n\nIn police body-worn camera footage shown to the court, Mr Fishwick was seen in his flat, holding his bloody nose and telling an officer he asked the group to move but they had refused.\n\nMr Fishwick told police officers he did not want medical attention but his nose continued to bleed and he was admitted to hospital later that day.\n\nA post-mortem examination found the cause of his death was internal bleeding.\n\nSentencing Al Aaraj, Judge Robert Altham said: \"The comments made by Mr Fishwick do form part of the background in this case, however even the making of those comments cannot begin to excuse the defendant, a young man, punching an 86-year-old man in the face.\"\n\nAl Aaraj was charged with manslaughter, which he initially denied.\n\nThe CPS said he changed his plea to guilty after officers produced CCTV evidence and Mr Fishwick's account from a police officer.\n\nSenior Crown Prosecutor Paul Robinson described it as an \"extremely tragic case\".\n\n\"Frank was frustrated and used inappropriate language that cannot be condoned, but Al Aaraj and his friends could have simply walked away, and they chose not to,\" he said.\n\nMr Robinson said his death had been \"devastating\" for his daughter, who had not seen her father for a long time due to the pandemic.\n\nIn a statement, Mr Fishwick's daughter, Judith Taylor Fishwick, who lives in America, said her relatives' lives were \"turned upside down\" by the attack.\n\nHer father was taken from his loved ones by a \"cruel act of violence\", she added.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nUkraine's second city Kharkiv has been the constant target of Russian attacks for three weeks. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway report from the front line where Ukrainian troops continue to repel the enemy advance.\n\nWe enter the house where the back door used to be. Now there is just a blanket flapping in the freezing wind. The owners, long gone, would have had a view across the rich farmland north of Kharkiv, but much of that is unrecognisable, too.\n\nIn the garage, beside an abandoned skateboard, are a dozen or so empty packing cases for some of the world's best anti-tank weapons. A dead Russian soldier lies face down in the front garden.\n\nThe house has become a frontline base, and the spent cases are an indication that the soldiers here have had the fight of their lives - a fight for Ukraine's independence.\n\nWe have gained rare access to the Ukrainian army, who after three weeks of hard fighting, are still holding firm on the outskirts of Kharkiv, preventing Russian forces from capturing Ukraine's second-largest city.\n\n\"Do you want to go further ahead?\" asks Yuri, a commander with the Ukrainian army's 22 Motorized Infantry Battalion, pointing at the ruins of two Russian armoured personnel carriers, and the shattered pieces of two of their tanks. The battalion was reconstituted in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea and backed Donbas separatists.\n\n\"They've used drones, aircraft, attack helicopters, everything,\" says Yuri, as Russian shells thunder overhead, striking nearby roads and apartment blocks.\n\nMoments after Russian Grad rockets - multiple rockets launched in quick succession - fell on a residential neighbourhood\n\nThe Russians have continued to attack again and been repelled many times. In their frustration at being denied entry, they bomb the city, which was once home to 1.4 million people, day and night.\n\nThe ground is churned up and thick mud sucks on your boots. A backward glance shows the ruined shells of the line of houses we just passed through. Suburban gardens have become battlefields from Europe's past.\n\n\"The first three days were the worst. It was raining, we were covered in mud, we looked like pigs,\" says Olexander, 44, who is standing nearby.\n\nBy one of the destroyed armoured personnel carriers, its Z marking already faded, is a large crater, 20ft (6m) across. On the first day of the invasion, 24 February, a Russian strike killed six Ukrainian soldiers at this exact place. Many more died here since, but official figures aren't being released.\n\nA green army boot is perched on the crater's edge, a Russian corpse beyond that. A large black crow sits nearby, untroubled by the roar of shelling and Grad rockets from Russian positions.\n\nThe men here can tell you the precise date and time they came to the front - the implication being that if you weren't here the first three days, you don't know real fighting. \"Jump in the crater if there is more shelling,\" says Uri.\n\nConstantine, 58, was a pilot in the Ukrainian air force until he retired and became a journalist. Now he's back at the front, walking with a limp and using a broken broom handle for support. Russian shrapnel wounded his leg, but he refuses to leave the front.\n\n\"This is the last line of defence for the city, if they get through here, they will enter Kharkiv. This road takes you from Russia to the very heart of the city,\" he says.\n\nOlexander, 44, who fought in Donbas - \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on\"\n\nThere is a boom and whoosh, and a wire-guided missile flies just over our heads. We scramble into the crater. It strikes along the roadside, a gas pipeline bursts into flames.\n\nWhile we shelter, a tall reconnaissance soldier with blue tape across his helmet tells us to stay down. Roman is 34 years old, though he jokes that he was 24 when the war started three weeks ago.\n\nHe says the Russians won't show themselves now. \"They are chickens. We will respond good and proper.\" He stops and asks for a selfie. Later we learn that he transported the dead bodies of his fallen comrades in his own vehicle - which was just a month old - from the front to the city morgue.\n\nAs we leave, Constantine catches something in the air - thin copper wire, which stretches for miles. It was used to guide the Russian missile which just flew over our heads.\n\nWaiting for us is Olexander, 44, from nearby Poltava region. He's been with the unit since its founding and has fought in Donbas. \"This is much worse,\" he says, adding: \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on. We were lost and we couldn't believe it was happening. But after that we got better and we are standing our ground and will hold our positions.\"\n\nI ask him why he is fighting. He gives a laugh and responds, \"For a free Ukraine, for my family, and for you guys as well. For our independence and for peace.\"\n\nYuri, the commander, drives us back to the collection of Soviet-era apartment blocks, still inhabited. Russia says it came to Ukraine to demilitarise the country, but here we see what that means for civilians. A 20-storey block is still smoking from a Russian strike - it was two days ago, according to Yuri.\n\nThe official number of civilian deaths in Kharkiv stood at 234, including 14 children, on 16 March. The past few days have been punishing - as we were reminded in an instant.\n\nA volley of Russian Grad rockets rained down on the neighbourhood, striking just metres away. The soldiers around us had taken cover and were unharmed.\n\nSvitlana. 72, and her husband sleep two hours a night in their bomb-damaged flat\n\nIn the same housing complex lives husband and wife Svitlana and Sasha. Svitlana is 72, and welcomes us into her home, saying they haven't spoken to anyone in weeks. \"We're glad you came,\" she says.\n\nTheir building has already been hit, the back windows are gone, and they sleep in a central room on sofas. They manage two hours of sleep a night, the shelling is relentless. \"When it stops, it is like a thaw in spring,\" she says.\n\nI ask if she has a message for Vladimir Putin. \"No,\" she replies, firmly. \"No, it seems to me that this man has already lost his sanity and he does not think clearly. Because a sane human can not do something like this - bomb old people, kids, kindergartens, schools, hospitals. He wouldn't understand what I say.\"\n\nBut then, when I ask about the men not far from her home who are defending the city, she cries. She says, \"Yes, I'm very grateful to them for protecting their homeland. Hold on guys. We will always support you. They are so brave, both boys and girls.\"\n\nThere are still hundreds of thousands of people living in Kharkiv, despite the shelling. If Russia and Ukraine are brothers, as the Kremlin professes, then this is fratricide.\n\nAs we leave the neighbourhood, much of it is alight. Russia's fury with this city is both seen and heard. By evening, all of Kharkiv is covered in a cloud of smoke, the relentless pounding of guns continues, but the defenders of Kharkiv still keep the enemy from the city gates.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sala's brother Dario says his brother was the best and he still cannot believe he is dead.\n\nFootballer Emiliano Sala died instantly from \"head and trunk injuries\" when the plane he was in crashed after breaking up mid-air, a jury has found.\n\nThey also concluded he was likely to have been \"deeply unconscious\" from carbon monoxide poisoning on the unlicensed flight.\n\nSala and pilot David Ibbotson died when the plane they were flying in crashed in the English Channel in January 2019.\n\nThe 28-year-old had been flying to Wales from France to join Cardiff City.\n\nDavid Henderson, who arranged the flight, was given an 18-month prison sentence for aviation offences relating to arranging the flight.\n\nThe jury concluded Sala died in the crash having been overcome by toxic levels of carbon monoxide from the aircraft's faulty exhaust system.\n\nThe body of Mr Ibbotson, from Crowle, Lincolnshire, has never been found.\n\nThe plane disappeared from radar near Guernsey on its way to Cardiff from Nantes\n\nSpeaking exclusively to the BBC, Sala's younger brother Dario described the impact his death had on the family.\n\n\"We just couldn't believe it, we couldn't accept it. It was so shocking for us as a family. Even now we can't believe it and we'll never really believe it,\" he said.\n\n\"For me, my brother was always the best, the greatest, even before he became a professional footballer and came over here - he was my brother.\"\n\nDuring the inquest, Dorset Coroner's Court was told Henderson had been investigated for illegal public transport flights before, but he was was not monitored following the initial investigation.\n\nEmiliano Sala had just signed with Cardiff City before the crash\n\nHe arranged for Mr Ibbotson to take the footballer from Cardiff to Nantes and back again, when the plane crashed en-route to Cardiff.\n\nArgentine striker Sala (second left) had just signed for Cardiff City when he died\n\nExplaining how carbon monoxide could have entered the Piper Malibu's cabin, Brian McDermid, who works for the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, said it most likely came from exhaust gases seeping into the cabin through a heating system.\n\nBut, he added, during its last maintenance check \"there was no evidence to suggest that the aircraft was not serviceable or fit to do that flight\".\n\nThe wreckage of the plane was found a month after the crash\n\nIn a statement, Sala's family said the inquest had \"shone a bright light on many of the missed opportunities in the worlds of football and aviation to prevent his tragic death\".\n\n\"The family particularly note the jury's findings that it is likely that both the pilot and Emiliano suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning and that Emiliano was deeply unconscious at the time of the accident, and that the poisoning was caused by a failure in the aircraft exhaust system,\" they added.\n\n\"The family also welcome the coroner's decision to communicate to the relevant authorities her concerns about the safety issues arising from this inquest in order to prevent similar future deaths. No family should have to go through grief from a similar avoidable accident.\"\n\nCoroner for Dorset Rachel Griffin is recommending that the UK Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps consider giving the Civil Aviation Authority more powers to tackle the \"illegality of these flights and the risks associated with them\".\n\nShe is also sending her prevention of future deaths report to the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Nadine Dorries, interested parties and a host of other sporting organisations in order to discourage the use of illegal flights.\n\nDavid Henderson is serving an 18-month prison sentence for his role in arranging the flight\n\nFrench club Nantes and Cardiff have been in dispute over the agreed £15m fee for Sala.\n\nCardiff claimed they were not liable for any of the fee because Sala was not officially their player when he died and refused to make interim payments as they claimed the deal was not legally binding.\n\nThe case is being heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.\n\nCardiff City said it respected the verdict and hoped Sala's family would have \"a sense of peace and closure\".\n\n\"We are pleased that the truth has been firmly established in a court of law, particularly the facts surrounding the organisation of the illegal flight,\" a spokesman added.", "The family of a British-Iranian man who is returning to the UK after being freed from Iran have said they are \"delighted\" by his release.\n\nAnoosheh Ashoori, 67, a retired civil engineer, had been detained in Evin prison for almost five years.\n\nHe and fellow British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were released earlier on Wednesday.\n\nMr Ashoori's family said his freedom had been \"a long time coming\" and thanked all who helped bring him home.\n\nIn a video message posted on Twitter, his daughter, Elika Ashoori said: \"1,672 days ago our family's foundations were rocked when our father and husband was unjustly detained and taken away from us.\n\n\"Now, we can look forward to rebuilding those same foundations with our cornerstone back in place.\"\n\nShe said this week had been an \"emotional rollercoaster\" and that it was not until her family was told his plane had left Iran that \"we allowed ourselves to feel joy for the very first time\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. We are waiting to welcome him with cake and beer, says Anoosheh's daughter Elika\n\nElika spoke to her father when he was in Muscat and said he was \"excited\" - but noted it was \"very surreal\" to see him again, and that he had lost a lot of weight and that his hair had gone white while he was imprisoned.\n\nHe was looking forward to being able to \"finally sleep in a comfortable bed\" and \"to turn the lights off\" - as fluorescent lights are on all day and night at the prison.\n\n\"All we're thinking about is him coming back tonight to his home and being with his family and surrounded by people who love him,\" she said.\n\nMr Ashoori was arrested in August 2017 while visiting his elderly mother in Tehran, and was detained in Evin prison.\n\nDespite living in the UK for 20 years, he was later convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and sentenced to prison for 10 years.\n\nHis and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release followed months of intensive diplomatic negotiations between London and Tehran and the repaying of a debt owed by the UK to Iran.\n\nA third dual national, Morad Tahbaz, has been released from prison in Iran but will not be returning to the UK. The government has pledged to keep working to secure his return.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We have the deepest admiration for the resolve, courage and determination Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad, and their families, have shown.\n\n\"They have faced hardship that no family should ever experience and this is a moment of great relief.\"\n\nMr Ashoori's MP, Labour's Janet Daby, said it was a \"day of celebration\" for his family.\n\nThe MP for Lewisham East told the Commons: \"As Anoosheh's member of Parliament I am, of course, thrilled beyond belief for his release and for Nazanin. I'm incredibly happy for Anoosheh's wife Sherry, for his children, as well as for their families and friends.\"\n\nMs Truss confirmed the UK government had settled the debt it owed to Iran from the 1970s \"in parallel\" with the release of the detainees.\n\nThe UK paid £393.8m owed to Iran after it cancelled an order for British-made Chieftain tanks following the overthrow of the Shah in the revolution of 1979.\n\nMs Truss said the debt had been paid \"in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations\".\n\n\"These funds will be ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods,\" she added.\n\nMrs Zhagari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Racliffe, had long claimed that his wife was being used as a pawn in a dispute between the UK and Iran over the unpaid debt.\n\nSanctions on the government in Tehran had been one of the key sticking points in being able to settle the debt.\n\nBut Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said it was wrong to link the payment of the debt to the releases, adding: \"These two persons were released on humanitarian grounds.\"\n\nMs Daby thanked Ms Truss for helping secure her constituent's release but said his detention could have been avoided.\n\nAsked why it had taken so long to secure the detainees' release, Ms Truss added: \"What I will say about the process of securing the release of our detainees is the foreign secretaries, the prime minister, Foreign Office officials, have worked tirelessly on this.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Badr Albusaidi - بدر البوسعيدي This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOman's foreign minister Badr Albusaidi tweeted a picture of Mr Ashoori and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe arriving in the Gulf state, which has been closely involved in negotiations to secure their release.\n\nHe said: \"Soon they will be with their loved ones at home. We hope this result will bring further progress in the dialogue between the parties [the UK and Iran].\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson, who is visiting Gulf states, welcomed news of their release.\n\n\"The UK has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones,\" he tweeted.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International UK, Mr Ashoori was \"subjected to torture, repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer present and forced to sign 'confessions' while sleep deprived\".\n\nIn January 2020, Mr Ashoori's wife Sherry Izadi, who lives in London, said she feared he had no \"hope in hell\" of being released.\n• None Nazanin on her way home to 'new life' in UK", "Operations manager Glen Pearce said you could get \"lost in a landscape\" on-site\n\nA \"rare chance\" to become the sole ferry operator for a former nuclear weapons testing island has become available.\n\nOrford Ness, a spit located just off the Suffolk coast, was used as a secret military test site during the Cold War.\n\nIt is now a National Trust coastal nature reserve with testing site buildings people can visit.\n\nThe ferry operator role would involve operating the ferry, a powerboat and a rowing boat across the River Ore.\n\nThe National Trust said this \"rare chance\" was for an \"experienced\" sailor.\n\nThere is something \"special\" about welcoming people to the reserve, Orford Ness boat supervisor Guy Brown said\n\nThe National Trust said it was one of the few sites in the UK where facilities were built for the purpose of testing nuclear weapons' components.\n\nHowever, the work that was carried out on the island by the military remains secret, it said.\n\nOrford Ness was used by the military from 1918 to the 1980s, said Glen Pearce, property operations manager for the site.\n\nThe Atomic Weapons Research Establishment on the island used to test bomb casing for nuclear bombs, he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The trust says the successful ferry operator needs a \"sense of humour\" to deal with the weather\n\nIt is \"quite a dangerous site\", Guy Brown, Orford Ness boat supervisor, said.\n\nHe said Orford Ness was used for \"environmental testing for the triggers for nuclear weapons, so making sure they didn't go off when they weren't supposed to\".\n\n\"There's still a huge amount that we don't know about the site,\" Mr Brown said, and \"we'll probably never know\" the work that the buildings and infrastructure on the island were involved in.\n\nThe ferry operator would be expected to help maintain the listed buildings and scheduled monuments on the site during the winter.\n\n\"You've got to have a sense of humour to deal with the weather, keep morale up when waves are breaking into your face, but if you treat it like a rollercoaster then it's really not that bad,\" said Mr Brown.\n\nThe National Trust ferry takes visitors onto the Ness throughout much of the year\n\nThe site required the new ferry operator to be an \"all-rounder\", Mr Pearce said.\n\n\"One day you could be operating the boat, the next day you could be chasing our rare breed sheep, you could be helping repairing some of the buildings.\n\n\"You have to be prepared to work here when the wind is blowing, it's -4C, and horizontal hail in your face.\n\n\"It's a privilege to work here,\" he added.\n\nApplications for the role close on 27 March and the successful applicant will start work in April when Orford Ness reopens to visitors for the season.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA powerful earthquake that hit north-east Japan left at least two people dead and 160 injured, officials said, but caused relatively minor damage.\n\nTwo million homes initially lost power and a bullet train was derailed, but none of its passengers were hurt.\n\nThe magnitude 7.4 quake was in the same area as the one which caused the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster but it was not damaged this time, officials said.\n\nIn some areas the earthquake was too forceful for people to stand, and buildings rattled in the capital Tokyo.\n\nIn many places, such as here in Soma in Fukushima Prefecture, cracks appeared in roads\n\nThe quake took place at 23:36 on Wednesday (14:36 GMT), at a depth of 57 kilometres (35.4 miles), Japanese authorities said.\n\nThey warned of possible aftershocks in Fukushima, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures.\n\nImmediately after the event, Japan's meteorological agency issued an advisory for tsunami waves of one metre (3.3ft) for parts of the north-east coast, but it was withdrawn on Thursday morning after waves one-third of that height reached shore.\n\nResidents sheltered at an evacuation centre in Soma, Fukushima prefecture on Thursday\n\nA number of people across north-eastern Japan were hurt by falling objects or in falls, and in the city of Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, local media reported that one man in his sixties had died. A second death was reported in Miyagi Prefecture.\n\nSome media reports said four people died in the quake, but government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said the number of fatalities directly caused by it was still being confirmed.\n\nElectricity to more than 2.2 million homes was temporarily cut in 14 prefectures, including the Tokyo region, but by mid-morning power had been restored to most places, the local electricity provider said.\n\nThere was a lucky escape for those on board a bullet train that was derailed by the quake north of Fukushima city - fortunately it was not going fast and no-one was hurt.\n\nPassengers and staff were trapped for four hours on board before being able to escape.\n\nThe Tohoku shinkansen bullet train derailed but no-one was injured\n\nJapan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters earlier the government was still trying to assess the extent of any damage, and authorities said emergency services had been inundated with calls.\n\nBuildings in Tokyo shook for more than two minutes. Further north in Fukushima the shaking was much more powerful.\n\nIn Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, a city official told AFP news agency he had been woken up by \"extremely violent shaking\".\n\n\"I heard the ground rumbling. Rather than feeling scared, I immediately remembered the Great East Japan earthquake,\" he said, referring to the 2011 disaster.\n\nAbout 700,000 of those left for hours without power were in Tokyo, according to the capital's electricity supplier\n\nThursday's earthquake happened almost 60km off the coast of Fukushima, not far from the epicentre of the most powerful earthquake in Japan's history, which killed 18,000 people when it struck 11 years ago.\n\nThe 2011 earthquake triggered a tsunami and destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant, sparking a major disaster after radiation leaked from the plant.\n\nNuclear authorities said that no abnormalities had been detected after Wednesday night's earthquake at the damaged Fukushima site.\n\nHave you been affected by the earthquake? If it is safe to do so, you can get in touch by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n• None First pictures of earthquake hitting Japan. Video, 00:00:31First pictures of earthquake hitting Japan", "Micheál Martin and Joe Biden met virtually after Mr Martin tested positive for Covid\n\nUS President Joe Biden has warned that too much \"blood, sweat and tears\" have been shed on the Good Friday Agreement to change it now.\n\nHe also praised the Irish government's response to the Ukrainian conflict in bringing in 7,000 refugees.\n\nThe president was speaking during a virtual meeting with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin to celebrate St Patrick's Day.\n\nThe talks were held remotely after Mr Martin tested positive for Covid.\n\nPresident Biden said he was disappointed the two leaders could not meet in person.\n\nIn reply the taoiseach said they met virtually last year across the Atlantic because of the pandemic and now they year were meeting virtually across the road.\n\nPresident Biden then reaffirmed his government support for the Good Friday Agreement, the deal which ended the worst of almost 30 years of violence known as the Troubles.\n\n\"I want to emphasise this administration's unequivocal support for the Good Friday accord,\" he said\n\n\"I think too much blood, sweat and tears have been shed to get that done. And this is no time to change it.\"\n\nBoth leaders also talked about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the taoiseach praised the president's \"firm and measured\" response to the war\n\nPresident Biden said he was impressed with the Republic of Ireland's response in brining in more than 7,000 Ukrainian refugees.\n\nMr Martin had to isolate after he was informed of a positive Covid test while attending the Ireland Fund dinner in Washington on Wednesday night.\n\nAt the time he was sitting alongside House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other guests.\n\nThe taoiseach had been due to receive an international leadership award at the event.\n\nHowever, when the moment arrived Ireland's Ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall, took to the stage and confirmed the positive test.\n\nHe said Mr Martin had tested negative but then was re-tested after a member of his delegation received a positive result.\n\nHe said the taoiseach had re-tested out of an \"abundance of caution\" and added that he was in \"good form\" but very disappointed.\n\n\"It is a sad thing which I have to do which is to deliver the taoiseach's speech on his behalf,\" he said.\n\nSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood, who was at the dinner, said it was a big blow for the taoiseach.\n\n\"It is very sad. This is a major event for any taoiseach, going into the White House on St Patrick's Day, and that now won't happen. I feel very sorry for him,\" he said\n\nHe said the news had left everyone \"deflated\" at the dinner and with the taoiseach's office due to be rotated later this year, he said Mr Martin would not get another chance to celebrate St Patrick's Day in the White House.\n\nThe water in the White House north lawn fountain was turned green to mark St Patrick's Day in 2021\n\nDuring the gala dinner on Wednesday, President Biden and Mrs Pelosi addressed the gathering.\n\nMrs Pelosi issued a warning to the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\nShe said that if the \"border is hardened there will be no UK-US trade deal\".\n\nShe also warned against any move which \"imperils\" the Good Friday Agreement.\n• None What is the Good Friday Agreement?", "Police stop and search powers would be overhauled\n\nThe government has set out its long-term vision to address racial disparities in the UK with changes to policing, health and education.\n\nMore than 70 measures are part of the new \"Inclusive Britain\" action plan.\n\nIt includes greater scrutiny over the way police use stop and search powers and improvements to how ethnicity data is collected.\n\nInclusive Britain has been developed in response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.\n\nThat led to the establishment of a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which made a series of recommendations for reform, grouped under three key themes: building trust, promoting fairness, and creating agency.\n\nEqualities Minister Kemi Badenoch MP said: \"This is at the heart of our levelling up agenda. It's broader and more wide-ranging than any other review we've had into race and ethnicity in this country.\n\n\"The causes behind racial disparities are complex and often misunderstood.\n\n\"Our new strategy is about action, not rhetoric and will help create a country where a person's race, social or ethnic background is no barrier to achieving their ambitions.\"\n\nHowever, Taiwo Owatemi MP, Labour's Shadow Equalities Minister, said the report failed to deliver meaningful action, and let down ethnic minority communities.\n\n\"The next Labour government will introduce a landmark Race Equality Act to tackle racial inequality at its source and deliver security, prosperity and respect to everyone regardless of their background.\"\n\nThe announcement builds on the Levelling Up White Paper published last month which aims to spread opportunity more equally across the country.\n\nSomia Bibi said too many people from ethnic minorities were in prison\n\nInclusive Britain was officially presented to business leaders, charities and public figures in Birmingham.\n\nSomia Bibi from Himaya Haven, a support group in Birmingham which helps families of loved ones in custody and prison, said racism is still a problem in some parts of the UK.\n\n\"Institutional racism comes in many forms, especially in the criminal justice system,\" she said.\n\n\"We find our family members are disproportionately from south Asian and black communities and if you look at the make-up of the prison system race is a factor.\"\n\nBut Naseam Kaid, a Streetwatch co-ordinator in Birmingham, believes good progress is being made.\n\n\"You see a lot of Asian and black officers around now, especially in my neighbourhood,\" he said.\n\n\"There's more diversity and better training in police work now.\"\n\nNaseam Kaid said progress was being made\n\nLast year's independent commission was heavily criticised for playing down the impact of racism and systematic barriers facing ethnic minority communities.\n\nAnd Halima Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, says the proposed changes don't go far enough.\n\n\"We welcome any measures which will begin to address racial and socio-economic disparities,\" she said.\n\n\"But we must not forget how much black and ethnic minority communities have suffered in the last two years as a result of Covid-19.\n\n\"We don't want to see the government giving with one hand to ethnic minority communities and taking away with the other, but instead action from the whole of government is needed to address racial disparities in our society.\"\n\nTru Powell, Director of the Aston Performing Arts Academy, says he's lost confidence in the government after a lifetime of personal and professional experiences of racism in the UK.\n\nTru Powell says things are getting worse\n\n\"I experienced racism in school and have been stopped and searched multiple times by police.\n\n\"These new measures seem like more empty promises. I feel like things are getting worse and we are regressing.\"\n\n\"I would like to think we're seeing change but I don't think it will happen in my lifetime.\"\n\nHis company recently decided to no longer perform at corporate events unless black people were in the audience to increase representation and inclusion in the arts.\n\n\"We've been performing for over 15 years across the Midlands but we've found that the diversity of those coming to see us is lacking.\n\nThe events we do celebrate the great and good in Birmingham but when there's a lack of representation in your room, it suggests black people aren't contributing to the city and we have a problem with that.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets on the island of Ireland as St Patrick's Day events returned for the first time in three years.\n\nParades and other festivities were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nEvents returned across the globe and about 400,000 people attended the parade in Dublin.\n\nMajor events also took place in cities such as New York and Washington.\n\nCrowds gathered to watch the parade in Belfast city centre\n\nIn Northern Ireland, there were St Patrick's Day parades in Downpatrick, County Down, and Armagh, each with special connections to Ireland's patron saint.\n\nThe city's council has been hosting a series of events this year from 10-20 March, including the Beat Carnival Parade which passed through the city centre on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Belfast is set to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade since the coronavirus pandemic\n\nAfter promising the city would \"come alive with colour and performances\", Belfast Lord Mayor Kate Nicholl said \"it means so much to have St Patrick's Day back\".\n\nDuring the event on Thursday, she told BBC News NI people had deserved \"a bit of a party\" after the challenges posed by the pandemic.\n\nHowever, despite encouraging people to enjoy the day, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said \"unruly behaviour caused by people who celebrate to excess will not be tolerated\".\n\nCh Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick urged young people to \"stay away from the Holyland\" area of south Belfast, explaining it was a residential area and \"not a party or nightlife destination\".\n\nIn previous years, there have been clashes with police and antisocial behaviour in the area, which is home to many students, around St Patrick's Day.\n\nCh Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick said the Holyland area was not a party destination\n\n\"We are keen to ensure that all young people are aware of the risks associated with criminal and anti-social behaviour, for their safety and future educational and career prospects,\" Ch Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick said.\n\nHe added the warning was also \"to protect local residents who are feeling particularly vulnerable\" because of the day's events.\n\nAs legend has it, St Patrick worked on Slemish in County Antrim when he was first brought to Ireland.\n\nAnd following his footsteps on Thursday, big crowds climbed to the top to mark his feast day.\n\nCrowds gathered at Slemish on Thursday, where legend has it St Patrick worked when first brought to Ireland\n\nMid and East Antrim Borough Council expected 1,500 trekkers throughout the day.\n\nBus loads took crowds from the nearby village of Broughshane where a festival took place with traditional music and dance, street theatre and an artisan market.\n\nIn Londonderry, the city's spring carnival festival took place, with the council estimating a crowd of about 35,000 spectators.\n\nThousands watched the St Patrick's Day parade in Belfast for the first time in three years\n\nThe theme was based around rebirth and renewal.\n\nEarlier, members of the Apprentice Boys, one of the Protestant Loyal Orders, paraded for St Patrick's Day in the city.\n\nThe march is held separately from the main St Patrick's Day parade in Derry.\n\n\"For too many years people thought it wasn't something people from the Apprentice Boys or from the Protestant tradition should be engaged in, but it is a day for everyone,\" Stephen Porter from the Apprentice Boys told BBC Radio Foyle.\n\n\"It has been a great success,\" he said.\n\nDownpatrick's parade is popular because of the town's many links with St Patrick\n\nIn Downpatrick, where Ireland's saint is believed to have been buried beside the town's cathedral, there was a concert in the town.\n\nArmagh City, where historians believe St Patrick established a church in 445 AD, held a community parade, with another large parade in Newry on Thursday afternoon.\n\nLarge crowds gathered to watch the St Patrick's Day parade in Derry\n\nThe St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin also made a comeback on Thursday after a break because of the pandemic.\n\nIts parade left Parnell Road at midday and crossed O'Connell Bridge on its way to a finish in Kevin Street.\n\nMany turned out to watch the parade through Dublin\n\nA special St Patrick's Day video greeting from Ireland to the world, with Paul Brady's iconic The Island song, was published to mark Ireland's solidarity and support with the people of Ukraine.\n\nTaoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheál Martin, is currently in Washington, but on Wednesday night tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nOn Thursday, he held a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden.\n\nNorthern Ireland ministers Conor Murphy and Gordon Lyons are also in Washington, as is former deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nAndriy Yarmolenko scored an emotional extra-time winner as West Ham overturned a first-leg deficit against Sevilla to reach their first European quarter-final since 1981.\n\nYarmolenko has been on compassionate leave as he tried to deal with the trauma of having friends and relatives back home in war-torn Ukraine.\n\nBut after making a goalscoring return to the pitch against Aston Villa on Sunday, Yarmolenko swept the Hammers past Sevilla as he converted a rebound after Pablo Fornals' low shot had been parried into his path by visiting keeper Bono.\n\nThe 32-year-old forward, on as a substitute for Said Benrahma, looked to the skies as he marked his special moment and the London Stadium erupted in jubilation.\n\nAt the final whistle, he looked almost bewildered in the moment before spotting a fan with a Ukraine flag and handing him his shirt.\n• None 'We can write history' - West Ham into first Euro quarter-final since 1981\n\nTrailing by a single goal from last week's opener in Spain, Tomas Soucek had pulled West Ham level in the first-half when he guided Michail Antonio's cross into the far corner with a precise header.\n\nA Sevilla side that has won this tournament four times out of the last eight seasons were a major disappointment - and came no closer than Youssef En-Nesyri's early effort which was brilliantly saved by Alphonse Areola.\n• None Thursday's European action as it happened, plus reaction and analysis\n\nWest Ham manager David Moyes had billed this as the tie of the round. The Scot must now be immensely proud at the way his side have navigated their way into a draw that contains, among others, Barcelona and Rangers.\n\nThe last time Moyes managed a team in the last 16 of a European competition, he secured probably his best night as Manchester United manager, when his side came back from a 2-0 first leg deficit to knock Olympiakos out of the Champions League.\n\nAs on that night, Moyes' side had levelled the tie by the interval.\n\nWest Ham controlled the tempo of the game despite having a minority of possession.\n\nFornals and Declan Rice were outstanding in midfield, young defender Ben Johnson superb in a determined defensive display and Antonio - a doubt before the game - ran so hard up front that Sevilla could never rest.\n\nIn contrast, Anthony Martial was a disappointment on his return to England and, by the end, Sevilla Julen Lopetegui seemed to have run out of ideas as his side tried to claw their way to penalties.\n\nSevilla had not lost a European tie after taking a first-leg lead since 1981. Yarmolenko changed that history in a moment for Ukraine to be proud of, in a dark time at home.\n\nWest Ham have not had a seamless move from their beloved Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium.\n\nHowever, this game exploded the myth that there is a lack of atmosphere at the stadium solely because of the running track which, in any case, is reduced in its impact since the stands behind each goal were squared off at the start of the season.\n\nThere was no lack of atmosphere on this occasion, a game, West Ham said, was played in front of the highest number of club supporters ever to see a match.\n\nThe build-up was heightened by a pre-match light show. The bubbles floated into the night sky and when Soucek's header found the far corner in the 39th minute, the place erupted.\n\nCelebration was replaced by tension the longer the game went on.\n\nBut when Yarmolenko struck the decisive final blow in the 112th minute, the home fans turned up the volume once more.\n\nLondon Stadium has waited six years for a statement night to go alongside the memories that were left behind in the three-and-a-half mile move.\n\nNow they have one. And on this evidence, the journey might not be over yet.\n• None Gonzalo Montiel (Sevilla) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Offside, West Ham United. Mark Noble tries a through ball, but Pablo Fornals is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Gonzalo Montiel (Sevilla) right footed shot from the right side of the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Rafa Mir.\n• None Goal! West Ham United 2, Sevilla 0. Andriy Yarmolenko (West Ham United) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Pablo Fornals (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Manuel Lanzini.\n• None Substitution, Sevilla. José Ángel Carmona replaces Nemanja Gudelj because of an injury.\n• None Attempt missed. Óliver Torres (Sevilla) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Ludwig Augustinsson. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None The tale of a trillion-dollar conman who sold a dream to the oldest club in the Football League\n• None Cillian Murphy shares tracks that have been integral to the feel of the programme", "A 13-year-old was behind the wheel of a pickup truck that slammed head on into a van carrying university athletes in a collision that killed nine on Tuesday.\n\nIn a Thursday news conference, federal investigators said the truck's left tyre - which was a spare - blew out before swerving into the oncoming van.\n\nSix university golfers, including one from Portugal and one from Mexico, and their coach died in the crash.\n\nBoth the young pickup driver and his passenger were also killed.\n\nTwo students, both from Canada, survived the collision and are in a stable condition but still in hospital.\n\nTexas Department of Public Safety Sgt Victor Taylor told the Associated Press news agency that it would be illegal for a 13-year-old to be driving in the state. Children are allowed to begin classroom driving lessons at the age of 14 in Texas, and must be 15 before they can start driving with an instructor or licensed adult in the car.\n\nOfficials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in Thursday's news conference that it's still unclear how fast the vehicles were moving when they collided head-on on a two-lane highway near the New Mexico border, causing both vehicles to burst into flames.\n\nSeveral of the victims in the van were not wearing seatbelts, the NTSB said, adding that one passenger was ejected from the vehicle. The information is preliminary, officials added, and the investigation into the \"mass casualty event\" is expected to last several more months.\n\nThe victims from the University of the Southwest - a private university in New Mexico - include golf coach Tyler James, 26; Jackson Zinn, 22; Karisa Raines, 21; Travis Garcia; 19; Laci Stone, 18, as well as Portuguese national Tiago Sousa, 18; and Mexican citizen Mauricio Sanchez, 19.\n\nHenrich Siemens, 38. was named as the pickup truck passenger. The name of the boy driving the vehicle is not being released due to his age.\n\nThe accident occurred in Andrews County in west Texas on Tuesday night, just after 20:00 local time (01:00 GMT).\n\nA Ford Transit passenger van was carrying members of the both men's and women's golf teams from a golf tournament, authorities said. The other vehicle involved was a Dodge 2500 pickup truck.\n\nThe Ford had been travelling northbound on the FM1788 roadway in Texas, while the Dodge pickup was travelling southbound.\n\nThe two surviving golfers are undergoing medical treatment in Lubbock, Texas.\n\nTheir families have arrived from Canada to be with them, a university official said on Thursday, adding that one is doing well enough to be able to sit up and eat soup.", "The war in Ukraine could cut global economic growth by more than one percentage point in the first year after the invasion, a report suggests.\n\nThe Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) said the impact could also cause a \"deep recession\" in Russia if it is sustained.\n\nIt also warned that the conflict could push up prices globally by about 2.5%.\n\nThe organisation called for targeted financial support for those on the lowest incomes in response.\n\nCosts were already going up due to increased demand as Covid restrictions ease.\n\nBut if the moves in commodity prices and financial markets are sustained, consumers could see the rate of inflation, which tracks how the cost of living changes over time, increase even further, the OECD said.\n\nPrices of oil, gas, metals and chemicals essential to fertiliser production, for example, have jumped as concerns over supplies from the region increase.\n\nAlthough Russia and Ukraine only make up a small percentage of the global economy, they are huge producers of raw materials.\n\nThe OECD assumes in its new research that oil prices will remain elevated by one-third, gas by 85% and wheat by 90%.\n\nOutside Russia and Ukraine, the organisation suggested that most pain would be felt in Europe, with up to 1.4% knocked off the economy.\n\nEurope is more dependent on Russia and Ukraine for supplies of energy as well as food. The countries have, in the past, been described as the \"breadbasket\" of Europe.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ros Atkins on why the war in Ukraine is pushing up food prices - and the likely impact on poorer countries\n\nThose countries \"that have a common border with either Russia or Ukraine\" would feel the impact most, while bearing the brunt of refugee flows from Ukraine, the OECD said. The price shock, however, might be felt more keenly by those in developing countries.\n\nIt added that governments could soften the latest blow for household budgets with a \"targeted fiscal response\".\n\n\"Well-designed and carefully targeted fiscal support could reduce the negative impact on growth with only a minor extra impetus to inflation.\"\n\nIt suggested that in some countries this could be funded by a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas companies to help households cope with higher bills.\n\nSpain has already announced something similar, although the UK has so far largely resisted. The government argues that a windfall tax would stop companies investing in the UK.\n\nThe group of developed economies also said that central banks should mostly stick to the interest rate plans set out before the conflict broke out.\n\n\"Monetary policy should remain focused on ensuring well-anchored inflation expectations,\" it said.\n\n\"Most central banks should continue their pre-war plans, with the exception of the most affected economies, where a pause may be needed to fully assess the consequences of the crisis.\"\n\nThe war has dominated headlines in every corner of the globe - but between them, Ukraine and Russia account for a relatively tiny part of the world's economy, just £1 in every £50.\n\nHowever, it's what they produce - one-third of the world's wheat exports, one-fifth of its gas and a tenth of its oil, not to mention vital manufacturing ingredients such as nickel and palladium - that means the conflict universally hits prosperity.\n\nIf those commodity prices remain at recent elevated levels (and that's not certain), the OECD reckons it will dampen - but not eradicate - what it previously expected to be a \"brisk pace\" of global growth of 4.5%, delaying a return to the norms of the pre-pandemic era.\n\nIt's the pockets of households and businesses, however, that'll suffer most, from a painful and prolonged bout of accelerating price rises of staple goods.\n\nThe OECD is urging governments to ease the burden, perhaps using windfall taxes to redistribute funds from energy producers to consumers. Spain is doing just that, but other governments are fully aware that they're more reliant than ever on energy giants to step up and help keep supply plentiful and affordable.\n\nBut there's a limited amount even the most eager and well-funded government can do. And it's those in places where the state is least likely, or able, to help which may feel the burden most. They are the very places that were already struggling to cast off the economic shadow of the pandemic.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Thursday morning.\n\nThe Scottish government provided £4.4bn in grants and business rates relief between the start of the pandemic and October last year. A further £375m was announced following the emergence of Omicron last winter. But the spending watchdog Audit Scotland says it's unable to determine where all of the nearly £5bn of Covid business funding went, and so can't provide a detailed analysis. The speed and scale of the rollout helped to safeguard thousands of jobs and businesses, the government says.\n\nMost people would still be willing to go on holiday abroad this year, despite the possibility of higher ticket prices, according to one travel firm. The industry has confidence it will bounce back after coronavirus restrictions. The past two years have been particularly difficult for independent firms but they believe the sector is going to recover strongly. Read more here.\n\nSome US students are divided over wearing face coverings in school. There have been protests to keep them in place over health concerns - while others welcome not wearing them. We've spoken to students on both sides of the debate to find out how it affects them. Watch more here.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Why US students walk out of classrooms over masks\n\nThe latest Covid surge in Scotland may peak within the next fortnight, then decline as the virus runs out of people to infect. That's what public heath expert Christine Tait-Burkard thinks, and says the resurgence has been driven by a new more transmissible sub-variant of Omicron. There were more patients with Covid on Wednesday than in January. Read more here.\n\nA wheelchair youth rugby club is down to just one player with a disability since resuming training after a two-year hiatus due to Covid. Tal, 14, who has cerebral palsy, said: \"I think that a lot of people were scared about coming back because of Covid.\" Here's the full story.\n\nHere's everything you need to know about the difference between a cold and Covid.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Last updated on .From the section Man Utd\n\nManchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says his home was burgled during his side's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.\n\nThe France player came on after 67 minutes as the Spanish side won 1-0.\n\nPogba said \"our family's worst nightmare was realised when our home was broken into ... while our babies were sleeping in their bedroom\".\n\nThe family's nanny was at home at the time and Pogba has offered a reward to \"anyone who has a clue to help us\".\n\nPogba's two children are aged three and one.\n\nThe 29-year-old has been at United since re-joining the Old Trafford club in a then-world record £89m transfer from Juventus in 2016.\n\nHis contract with the club runs out in the summer.\n\n\"My wife and I rushed home not knowing if our children were safe and unharmed,\" added Pogba.\n\n\"As a father there is no feeling worse in this world than not being able to protect your children and I sincerely hope that no-one ever has to feel what I felt last night.\"\n\nGreater Manchester Police (GMP) said officers were called to a report of a burglary at a property in the Rossmill Lane area of Hale Barns at 22:54 GMT on Wednesday.\n\n\"Initial enquiries have established that the unknown offender entered the property before stealing a safe,\" added a GMP statement.\n\n\"Enquiries are ongoing. No arrests have been made. No-one was injured in the incident.\"\n\nManchester City defender Joao Cancelo was injured when he tried to fight off a gang of intruders during a break-in over the Christmas period.\n\nAnd, in January, the wife of Manchester United defender Victor Lindelof said her family were the subject of a break-in while the centre-back played against Brentford.\n\nManchester United are working with all their players to review and strengthen security at home.\n• None Our coverage of Manchester United is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything United - go straight to all the best content", "Belfast is to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade in two years after a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nOne group is working to increase diversity in the parade.\n\nBeat Carnival's theme for this year's pageant parade is “we are all Patrick”.", "The fine of £1,050,000 is the largest ever imposed by the Lloyd's Enforcement Board.\n\nLloyd's of London has fined a member firm £1m due to some male managers' heavy drinking, initiation games and sexual remarks about female staff.\n\nAtrium Underwriters admitted charges relating to bullying and misconduct during annual 'boys' nights out'.\n\nSome of the inappropriate behaviour was led, participated in and condoned by two senior leaders, Lloyd's found.\n\nAtrium said it accepted the ruling, was sorry for the hurt caused and would ensure it never happened again.\n\nThe fine of £1,050,000 is the largest ever imposed by Lloyd's independent disciplinary committee and its first for non-financial misconduct.\n\nAtrium must also pay Lloyd's costs of £562,713, the committee's report said. The findings followed an investigation by Lloyd's enforcement team.\n\nIn a notice of censure, Lloyd's said Atrium had sanctioned and tolerated an annual boys' night out over a number of years up until 2018.\n\nOn these nights out some male members of staff, including two senior executives in leadership roles, engaged in unprofessional and inappropriate conduct, Lloyds found.\n\nThis included initiation games, heavy drinking and making inappropriate and sexualised comments about female colleagues.\n\nThese comments were found to be discriminatory and harassing to female members of staff.\n\nBehaviour by one male staff member - called Employee A in the document - \"included a systematic campaign of bullying against a junior employee over a number of years\", Lloyd's found.\n\nOnce Atrium became aware of the bullying it failed to investigate, take disciplinary action or adequately protect the junior employee, it said.\n\n\"Instead, Atrium negotiated a settlement package with Employee A, and allowed him to resign from Atrium rather than face disciplinary sanction,\" it said.\n\nThe document noted that Atrium had a previously good disciplinary record and had co-operated at all times with Lloyd's inquiry and enforcement proceedings.\n\nIt added Atrium had now implemented changes including \"updating its policies and procedures relating to disciplinary issues, whistleblowing and diversity and inclusion, as well as its guidance and training for senior managers\".\n\nLloyd's chief executive, John Neal, said: \"We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour highlighted by this case, and I want to be clear that discrimination, harassment and bullying have no place at Lloyd's.\"\n\nChristopher Stooke, independent non-executive chairman at Atrium, said the firm had failed to live up to its values and had made serious errors in handling what happened.\n\n\"The behaviour outlined in the notice of censure has no place in our business or our industry, and we recognise that we must go further to ensure that this situation is never allowed to happen again,\" he said.\n\nIn 2019, Lloyd's vowed to tackle its male dominated culture after almost one in ten workers said they had witnessed sexual harassment.", "Meta said Kanye West violated its policies on hate speech, bullying and harassment\n\nKanye West has been suspended from Instagram for 24 hours after using a racial slur in reference to comedian Trevor Noah.\n\nThe rapper posted about him after he said Kanye's actions towards his ex-wife Kim Kardashian were \"terrifying\".\n\nKanye's been criticised for repeatedly posting remarks about Kim, their children and her partner Pete Davidson.\n\nMeta, which owns Instagram, said the rapper violated the platform's policies on hate speech and bullying.\n\nThe company also said its policies on harassment had been violated.\n\nAlthough his account remains visible, Kanye is unable to do things like post, comment or send direct messages.\n\nOther recent posts from Kanye have accused Kim of stopping him from seeing their children - something she's denied.\n\nTrevor Noah said Kanye's treatment of Kim Kardashian shines a spotlight on 'what so many women go through'\n\nIn a statement, Meta said it would take \"additional steps\" if it saw further violations of its policies.\n\n\"We often take additional steps against accounts that repeatedly break our rules by placing restrictions on their account,\" said the statement.\n\nMeta added that it had also \"deleted content\" from Kanye's account.\n\nThe comments from Trevor Noah were made during an episode of the satirical news show which he hosts, The Daily Show.\n\n\"You may not feel sorry for Kim because she's rich and famous,\" he said.\n\n\"But what she's going through is terrifying to watch and shines a spotlight on what so many women go through when they choose to leave.\"\n\nKanye - who has legally changed his name to Ye - has been locked in a public feud with both Kim and Pete Davidson, regularly posting screenshots of private conversations between the three.\n\nIn response to Trevor Noah's comments, Kanye posted a screenshot of a Google search for the comedian on his Instagram account, accompanied by the lyrics to 'Kumbaya, My Lord', which he changed to include a racial slur.\n\nThe post has since been removed.\n\nFollowers of Kanye's account are still able to like and comment on posts while he is suspended.\n\nNewsbeat has contacted representatives of Kanye West for a response.\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "Kyiv has been hit by more Russian strikes, with a number of tower blocks damaged and set ablaze.\n\nTwo people have been killed in an airstrike that hit one residential building, according to Ukraine's state emergency service.", "Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, right, is a former KGB agent and has close ties to the Russian president\n\nA super yacht owned by a Russian oligarch is stuck in a Norwegian port because no-one will sell it fuel.\n\nThe Ragnar is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent who has been linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is not on the EU sanctions list.\n\nThe yacht has been stranded at the port of Narvik since 15 February.\n\n\"We find the discrimination against us, extremely unjust,\" the yacht's captain, Robert Lankester, wrote in a message.\n\nThe British captain pointed out that none of the crew is Russian.\n\n\"We are a Western crew of 16,\" he told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. \"We have nothing to do with the owner.\"\n\nBut local fuel suppliers say they do not want to help entities associated with Russia.\n\n\"Why should we help them?\" Holmlund Oil Service's general manager, Sven Holmlund, told NRK.\n\n\"They can row home. Or use a sail.\"\n\nMr Strzhalkovsky is the former head of mining giant Norilsk Nickel.\n\nThe 68-metre yacht includes a room designed to resemble a British pub, while also boasting heli-skiing equipment, four ski scooters and a giant slide, according to Boat International.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by ragnaryacht This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEarlier this month French authorities seized a super yacht owned by Igor Sechin, boss of Russian state energy company Rosneft.\n• None Who are the mega-rich Russians facing sanctions?", "Secondary breast cancer indicates the cancer has spread from the primary source to other parts of the body\n\nWomen with secondary breast cancer in Northern Ireland have called for access to the same treatment and drugs available in other parts of the UK.\n\nThat is one of the goals included in a manifesto from a group of 16 women calling for improved services.\n\nThe women are all living with incurable secondary breast cancer (SBC), also known as metastatic breast cancer.\n\nPatients with SBC in England and Wales are going to be counted in a special audit funded by the NHS.\n\nThe women said an audit in Northern Ireland was essential to bring about change and improve services.\n\nSecondary breast cancer is when the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body.\n\nA number of pictures from the exhibition Seen to be Heard are being used at Stormont's long gallery where the women presented their manifesto to MLAs.\n\nThe portraits see \"beyond the pain\" of women living with secondary breast cancer\n\nAs well as having access to drugs and treatment, the manifesto also advocates that women:\n\nWhile each woman's cancer story is different, a common thread is a hope that they can improve services for those who come behind them.\n\nThe group said a special audit of how many people here are living with the disease would provide official statistics required to shape services.\n\nCampaigner Julie Ann Lillis said more information could change women's prognosis from a \"death sentence\" to a \"chronic disease\".\n\nAnother campaigner, Cheryl Graham, said women with SBC often felt \"they aren't important anymore\".\n\nDiagnosed 12 years ago with breast cancer, it has now spread to Cheryl's lymph glands, lungs and spine.\n\nHer second diagnosis came on 18 November 2020 - the day her son turned 18.\n\n\"I left feeling numb, almost as though I wasn't important anymore,\" she said.\n\n\"But taking part in the photographic exhibition shows I am still here, I am entitled to a life, and I want people to sit up and take notice.\"\n\nNoelle McAlinden has been cancer-free for five years, but has said she was not naïve. She has described the system as \"broken\".\n\n\"Ladies are united with passion and purpose in affecting change in cancer services provision and enquiry for those living with SBC,\" Noelle said.\n\nThe Department of Health has said data collection was a central focus of its 10-year cancer strategy.\n\nHowever, the women told BBC News NI that they were disappointed their voices were not present in the strategy.\n\nThe women have presented their case to members of Stormont's health committee.\n\nCommittee chairman Colm Gildernew said the women's campaign \"deserves huge credit and support\".\n\n\"I met with the women and they are truly inspirational,\" he said.\n\nHe said the workforce crisis in health and social care, including the need to recruit specialist nurses, needed urgently addressed.\n\nCommittee deputy chairwoman Pam Cameron described the exhibition as \"powerful\".\n\n\"Through each of the portraits shines the inner strength and human dignity of these woman in the face of heart-breaking personal circumstances,\" she said.\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said the health minister is deeply sympathetic and supportive of all those experiencing a cancer diagnosis.\n\nThe Health Minister, Robin Swann, has asked officials for an update on the latest position regarding availability of the drug Trodelvy, the statement said.", "Measures to criminalise cyber-flashing and give a right to appeal against the removal of social media posts are among changes the government has proposed to its Online Harms Bill.\n\nThe bill, which also seeks to tackle access to harmful material online, has been introduced to parliament.\n\nIt would give regulator Ofcom the power to fine firms or block access to sites that fail to comply with the new rules.\n\nBut Labour says delays to the bill mean disinformation in the UK has increased.\n\nThe bill - originally announced in 2019 - covers a wide array of topics relating to harmful material online.\n\nBig social media companies will be required to assess risks of the types of legal harms against adults which could arise on their services, and will have to set out how they will deal with them - and enforce these terms consistently.\n\nDefinitions of these legal harms will be set out in additional legislation, but potential examples could include material promoting self-harm, eating disorders or harassment.\n\nSome of the additional aspects of the bill announced as it was introduced to Parliament include:\n\nCulture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the bill meant technology companies would not be left to \"check their own homework\".\n\n\"Tech firms haven't been held to account when harm, abuse and criminal behaviour have run riot on their platform,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Fitness influencer Elle Edwards speaks about dealing with explicit messages and cyber-flashing\n\nThe bill will give new powers to Ofcom, which will be able to request information from companies, and executives who do not comply could face up to two years in prison within two months of the bill becoming law.\n\nSenior managers would also be criminally liable if they destroyed evidence, did not attend an Ofcom interview, provided false information, or otherwise obstructed the regulator from entering offices.\n\nAny firm breaching the rules would face a fine of up to 10% of its turnover, while non-compliant websites could be blocked entirely.\n\nChildren's charity Barnardo's welcomed the announcement sites showing pornographic material would have to check the ages of users.\n\n\"We know from our work with children and young people across the UK that exposure to pornography can have a harmful impact on their mental health and understanding of what makes a healthy relationship,\" chief executive Lynn Perry said.\n\nAnd a City of London Police Authority Board spokesperson said included paid-for advertising in the legislation was \"a major step forward in the fight to reduce online crime, and helps cement the benefits of including fraud as a priority harm\".\n\nBut shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell likened said the bill's delays had \"allowed the Russian regime's disinformation to spread like wildfire online\".\n\nShe added: \"Other groups have watched and learned their tactics, with Covid conspiracy theories undermining public health and climate deniers putting our future at risk.\"\n\nThe legislation has taken some time to reach the stage where a bill is now to be laid before Parliament.\n\nAn Online Harms White Paper was first introduced in April 2019 by the Conservative government - then led by Theresa May.\n\nAt the time, privacy organisations such as the Open Rights Group warned that the bill could threaten freedom of expression.\n\nCommenting on the length of the delay, Jim Killock, Open Rights Group executive director said: \"The fact that the bill keeps changing its content after four years of debate should tell everyone that it is a mess, and likely to be a bitter disappointment in practice.\"", "Ocado has reported a fall in sales as customers return to pre-pandemic shopping habits and costs increase.\n\nIn the three months to the end of February, retail sales for the online grocer fell 5.7% to £574.7m.\n\nIt said the return to the office by workers and the \"euphoria\" of going back out to restaurants after restrictions eased had reduced demand.\n\nRising costs and changing shopping habits saw the group cut its sales forecast for the year.\n\nIt now expects annual retail revenue growth \"closer to 10%\", rather than in the mid-teens, as it said last month.\n\nBut the results for its latest quarter also reflected a tough comparison from a year before, when the UK was in lockdown, Ocado added.\n\n\"The main thing that we're seeing [now] is people's willingness to behave more like they did pre-Covid,\" Ocado said.\n\n\"We've got two off-setting things at the moment though, where some people are still working from home several days a week- and that is a 'basket booster'.\n\n\"But that is getting offset by a bit of euphoria about that fact we can go back out to a restaurant, having been cooped up for two years [during Covid-related restrictions].\"\n\nCompared with pre-pandemic levels, Ocado's retail sales in the quarter were up 31.7%.\n\n\"The last quarter has been encouraging for Ocado Retail despite the clearly evident challenges the industry and consumers are facing,\" said Melanie Smith, Ocado Retail's boss.\n\n\"As we have seen since the end of Covid restrictions, the value of the average basket and shape of the week continue to normalise as we return towards the rhythm of our pre-Covid lives.\"\n\nAlthough it saw a 15% drop in the average customer's basket size, Ocado said it was encouraged by an increase in the number of new shoppers on the platform.\n\nBut the retailer acknowledged that war in Ukraine and uncertainty over how demand will change during the cost of living crisis meant it was difficult to predict sales.\n\nIt said it had increased the prices of some products already \"where costs could not be mitigated\".\n\nHowever, it is not yet seeing price rises as high as the current rate of inflation, which stands at 5.5% - the highest level seen in 30 years.\n\nThe group also insisted that it was a \"price follower\", which tries to match the prices of its big competitors.\n\nTesco's chairman warned recently that \"the worst is yet to come\" on rising food prices.\n\nJohn Allan told the BBC he was aware people were on very tight budgets and having to choose between food and heating \"troubles us\", but added that grocers and suppliers were not immune from rising energy costs.\n\nOcado noted that it might be affected by rising energy costs in particular, due to the amount required to power the refrigerators in its distribution hubs and fuel required for its drivers.\n\nSeparately, online delivery giant Deliveroo reported that its losses have deepened as the costs of its rapid expansion stack up.\n\nThe company posted a £298m pre-tax loss for the year, compared with a £213m loss in 2020, but stressed that it had a long-term plan for profitability.\n\nIt said its heavy losses for the past year were driven by big investments in marketing and technology improvements as it sought to keep up the momentum of orders being boosted during lockdowns, similar to Ocado.\n\nIn its UK business, order numbers increased by 72%. But it also predicted a slowdown in growth over the coming year.\n\nSusannah Streeter, senior markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: \"For now it does appear that some pandemic habits are sticking around, with restaurant deliveries staying popular, on-call groceries increasingly in demand and a growing source of revenue for Deliveroo.\n\n\"But the cost-of-living squeeze is intensifying and as savings are eaten away, there may be less appetite to pay for an easier life.\"", "Black holes form when massive stars run out of fuel and implode\n\nScientists say they have solved one of the biggest paradoxes in science first identified by Prof Stephen Hawking.\n\nHe highlighted that black holes behave in a way that puts two fundamental theories at odds with each other.\n\nBlack holes are dead stars that have collapsed and have such strong gravity that not even light can escape.\n\nNew research claims to have resolved the paradox by showing that black holes have a property which they call \"quantum hair\".\n\n\"The problem has been cracked!\" Prof Xavier Calmet of the University of Sussex, told BBC News exclusively, with much satisfaction. He was among those who developed the mathematical techniques they say has solved the paradox.\n\nAt the heart of the paradox is a problem which has threatened to undermine two of physics most important theories. Einstein's general theory of relativity says information about what goes into a black hole cannot come out, but quantum mechanics says that is impossible.\n\nProf Calmet and his colleagues say they have shown that the constituents of the star leave an imprint in the black hole's gravitational field.\n\nThe scientists named the imprint \"quantum hair\" because their theory supersedes an earlier idea called the \"no hair theorem\" developed by Prof John Archibald Wheeler of Princeton University in New Jersey in the 1960s.\n\nProf Stephen Hawking came up with a paradox in the 1970s that suggested either the theory of general relativity or quantum mechanics isn't quite right.\n\nProf Wheeler came up with the name because it conveys the mathematical description of a black hole: an entity which has mass, spin and charge but is otherwise has no other physical features, bald if you like.\n\nProf Calmet's \"yes hair theorem\", published in the journal Physical Review Letters is revolutionary. It claims to resolve the Hawking paradox which has deeply troubled physicists ever since Prof Hawking came up with it in the 1970s.\n\nThe paradox raised the possibility that either quantum mechanics or general relativity might be flawed, which is a terrifying prospect for theoretical physicists because they are the twin pillars on which most most of our understanding of the Universe rests.\n\nThis false colour image suggests that galaxies have a black hole at their centre. But what happens to the material that is sucked into them?\n\nThe \"yes hair theorem\" claims to resolve the paradox by bridging the gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics. The notion of quantum hair allows information about what goes into a black hole to come out again without violating any of the important principles of either theory. It is a simple and elegant solution.\n\n\"But it is going to take some time for people to accept it,\" says Prof Calmet.\n\nThat is because it is such a big deal in the world of theoretical physics.\n\n\"Hawking came up with the paradox in the year that I was born,\" says Prof Calmet.\n\nEver since then, many famous physicists around the world have been working on it, proposing very dramatic things to explain it, including some who had suggested that some aspects of quantum mechanics is wrong.\n\n\"So it is going to take a while for people to accept that you don't need a radical solution to crack the issue,\" Prof Calmet said.\n\nIf the \"yes hair theorem\" stands up to scrutiny, he said it could be the first step in connecting the theories of relativity - which concern gravity and quantum mechanics which largely focus on the three other forces of nature, which are electromagnetism and two nuclear forces.\n\n\"One of the consequences of the Hawking paradox was that general relativity and quantum mechanics was incompatible. What we are finding is that they are very much compatible.\"\n\nThe research team, which also includes Prof Roberto Casadio of the University of Bologna and Prof Stephen Hsu from Michigan State University, built on the work of Prof Suvrat Raju of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, in Bengaluru in India.\n\nProf Raju, with several collaborators, has previously shown that all the information inside a black hole can be recovered from outside as a consequence of the effects of quantum gravity.\n\n\"In the past few years, it has been recognized that the no hair theorem fails due to quantum effects and this resolves Hawking's paradox,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I can communicate with someone just like me.\"\n\nThe mother of a boy born without hearing in one ear has criticised delays to Northern Ireland's sign language bill.\n\nThe parties agreed two years ago to legally recognise British and Irish sign language through new legislation.\n\nBut the bill will not be able to be passed at Stormont without a functioning executive.\n\nGillian Douglas-Rea said politicians were \"doing a disservice to the whole deaf community\".\n\n\"This is about recognising their culture and identity,\" she said.\n\nMs Douglas-Rea's son, Jensen, was also born non-verbal, so she decided to take up sign language but initially found it difficult to access support and ended up paying to take classes online.\n\nGillian Douglas-Rea had to find resources herself in case her son Jensen's hearing deteriorated in the future\n\n\"We had to seek out charities and places and at the beginning of our journey, we didn't know what to do,\" she said.\n\nShe said she was glad she had persevered as it had given her son the \"tools\" he needed in case Jensen's hearing deteriorated in the future.\n\nBut she would like to see a sign language act in place as soon as possible.\n\n\"Our politicians need to get moving,\" she added.\n\nPlans to introduce a sign language bill for Northern Ireland are facing a delay without a functioning Stormont executive, according to Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey.\n\nThe Sinn Féin minister said her officials had been developing the bill for some time, but executive approval would be needed.\n\nWithout it, Northern Ireland could become the only part of the UK without such laws.\n\nDeirdre Hargey says plans to introduce a sign language bill are facing a delay without a functioning executive\n\nA sign language act would require the government to ensure the use of British and Irish sign language across public services.\n\nIt would also ensure a duty to promote sign language in educational settings and allow more people to learn it for free.\n\nScotland has had laws in place since 2015 recognising sign language, and the Republic of Ireland followed suit in 2017.\n\nLater this week, Westminster will debate plans to change the laws in England and Wales, but it will not apply in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe New Decade New Approach deal said the parties were committed to bringing forward a bill for British and Irish sign language \"at an early stage\".\n\nAsked why Ms Hargey had not already introduced the legislation, as it falls within her remit, she said she wanted to ensure it was as \"comprehensive\" as it could be.\n\n\"We're working with the deaf community to ensure it meets all their needs,\" she told BBC News NI.\n\n\"I could have rushed this through but, coming from those conversations, we needed to take the additional time.\n\n\"All new legislation needs to go through the executive, the policy work is continuing to be done.\n\n\"Let's hope after the election, we get the executive up and running again so that the legislation can come through.\"\n\nThe British Deaf Association estimates that about 18,000 people in Northern Ireland use British or Irish sign language.\n\nThe Department for Communities said it had committed £1.2m to the British or Irish sign language community since the onset of the pandemic until the end of this financial year.\n\nIt is also working with members of the British Deaf Association to co-design proposals and develop the sign language bill.", "It is almost six years since Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first detained by the Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nSince then there were repeated attempts to secure her release - all failed. So why has she now come home?\n\nThe basic answer is London-Tehran relations are better than they have been.\n\nThe International Revolutionary Guard and Iran's judiciary no longer feel they need Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe for leverage in relations with the UK.\n\nShe was a diplomatic pawn held hostage by the Iranian authorities to put pressure on London.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to make nice, they would treat her well, give her access to medical help, perhaps increase the frequency of visits, possibly even allow her a temporary furlough from jail.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to exert pressure on London, then her conditions might worsen and privileges might be withdrawn.\n\nThe UK paying the historic £400m debt for tanks sold but not delivered will have made a huge difference.\n\nFor years, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) claimed the two issues were not connected. But in practice, the Iranians made them one and the same issue.\n\nSome in the FCDO had wanted to pay the debt but were prevented initially by reluctance within the Treasury and the United States, fearing it would reward hostage-taking and even fund terrorism.\n\nThere were also fears the US would penalise any British financial institution that paid the money to the Iranian defence ministry in breach of international sanctions.\n\nThere is also the sheer relentlessness of the families' campaigning and the UK's diplomacy.\n\nAt first there were mistakes, such as Boris Johnson's false claim that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, a claim that prompted Iran to level fresh charges.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (right), pictured with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella, who is now seven, was first detained by Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nBut the tireless campaigning by Nazanin's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and others kept up the pressure on the UK government.\n\nAnd that was reflected by the work of British diplomats behind the scenes, refusing to let Iran forget about the case.\n\nThere was almost a deal to release the detainees last year. It fell through. But since then British diplomats have visited Iran several times to try to reach a fresh agreement.\n\nIranian officials at their Ministry of Foreign Affairs were frequently frustrated that this dispute got in the way of the rest of the UK-Iran relationship.\n\nMr Ratcliffe campaigned for his wife's release, including by going on hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office last October.\n\nBut the Iranian diplomats were not in charge - the IRGC and the judges were.\n\nEventually, enough people with the Iranian government seemed to have realised that a permanently hostile relationship with the UK was not in Tehran's best interests.\n\nThat might apply directly to the talks taking place in Vienna, designed to revive the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear activities in return for seeing economic sanctions lifted.\n\nIran's economy has been suffering, Iran clearly wants to agree a new deal, better relations with the UK might make that happen.\n\nThe deal has still not been agreed but diplomats say agreement is getting close.\n\nAnd in recent weeks, during the Ukraine conflict, Britain and Iran's interests have also come closer together.\n\nIf sanctions can be lifted and Iran can start selling its oil again, that could help reduce global energy prices.\n\nThat is in the interests of both the UK and Iran. In that context, both sides might want to clear the diplomatic decks and make a deal more likely.", "One of the burglaries is said to have happened at Claridge's in Mayfair\n\nA 12-year-old boy has denied carrying out a 10-month burglary spree at some of London's top hotels.\n\nThe boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is charged with 14 counts of burglary, including at Claridge's in Mayfair, the Four Seasons in Park Lane and the Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall.\n\nHis 13-year-old brother, who also cannot be named, is accused of being involved in three of the burglaries.\n\nThe pair pleaded not guilty to all charges before Westminster magistrates.\n\nDue to their age, the siblings, from west London, were joined in the dock by their mother.\n\nThe 12-year-old is also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit burglary during the alleged spree, between April 2021 and February this year.\n\nHis brother is charged with three counts of burglary between September 2021 and February 2022 and one count of conspiring to commit burglary between April 2021 and February this year.\n\nAn adult co-defendant, Shane McCarthy, 19, faces 11 charges, nine counts of burglary, one of theft and one of conspiracy to commit burglary between April 2021 and February this year. He also denies all charges.\n\nHis case was sent to Isleworth Crown Court where he is due to appear on 14 April.\n\nMagistrate Alan Elias released him on unconditional bail until then.\n\nThe boys were released on bail until 28 March when they will appear at Highbury Corner Youth Court.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Lack of trust between both sides is 'biggest problem in rescuing civilians'\n\n\"The best way to stop the threat of another Mariupol is more far-reaching political conversations on peace and ceasefire negotiations,\" the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer told the BBC on a visit to Kyiv. Asked about the ICRC’s description of conditions in the besieged southern port city as \"apocalyptic\", Maurer said it was \"important to recognise this wasn't only the ICRC's voice, but the voice of so many civilians trapped in the city\". He said the lack of trust between the warring sides was \"the biggest problem\" in rescuing civilians stuck between front lines. Maurer, who has been in close contact with senior Ukrainian and Russian officials, said more people were now escaping through agreed humanitarian corridors. But he said Mariupol, a key target for Russian forces advancing on Ukraine’s southern coast, was more difficult \"in military strategy and political significance\". However, even there, he said some civilians were now managing to get out. Maurer also pointed to another major worry which has brought the head of the ICRC, the guardian of the rules governing war, to Ukraine: \"Respect for international humanitarian law and the obligations under the Geneva Conventions with regards to prisoners of war, dead soldiers, missing and detained civilians.\" The ICRC’s special role is founded on confidential dialogue with warring sides. Asked about accusations that Russia was targeting civilian infrastructure, Maurer replied that \"basic principles of proportionality and precaution which inform the conduct of hostilities, and the Geneva Conventions, are interpreted in very different ways which is why we try to establish minimal agreement on what we mean by these words\".", "The Pride of York was originally built in 1986 and was refurbished and refitted in 2017\n\nFerry operator P&O Ferries is to scrap its route between Hull and Belgium due to a sharp drop in demand because of coronavirus.\n\nIt is understood the number of services between Dover and Calais will also be reduced and 140 jobs are at risk across the company.\n\nThe RMT union said it was working with the ferry operator to protect jobs.\n\nP&O said due to the \"extended impact of Covid-19\" it was taking \"difficult action\" in making redundancies.\n\nThe route connecting Hull with Zeebrugge in Belgium has been described as loss-making and is expected to close in the next few months\n\nThe scrapping of the route means the Pride of York and the Pride of Bruges vessels will be taken out of service.\n\nThe Dover to Calais crossing will continue to operate, but will be reduced from six ferries to four, with the freight ferry European Seaway and the Pride of Burgundy being stopped.\n\nThe Pride of Burgundy is one of four ferries on the Dover to Calais route\n\nIn a leaked consultation document sent to staff earlier this week, the company said a fall in tourist demand due to the pandemic and ongoing Brexit uncertainty were to blame.\n\nDarren Procter, national secretary for the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, said the Hull to Zeebrugge crossing had been a \"challenging route for a number of years\" and the pandemic had compounded the problem.\n\nHe added: \"The Pride of York is an ageing vessel and because of the future financial costs P&O made the decision to cut their losses.\"\n\nMr Proctor said scrapping the route would have a wider economic impact on Hull.\n\n\"The individuals travelling on these vessels will use local amenities, they might have a pub meal or stay in a hotel so it's going to have a knock on effect.\n\n\"Obviously Hull has a rich maritime heritage and a lot of industry connected to the sea so it's a shame it's going.\"\n\nThe Pride of York has not been running since the pandemic while the Pride of Bruges had returned to operation for a short period of time.\n\nMr Proctor said the two affected ferries on the Dover to Calais route had not been in operation for some time and were both laid up in the Port of Leith in Edinburgh.\n\nA spokesperson for P&O said: \"Due to the extended impact of Covid-19, we are having to take further difficult action in which some jobs will be made redundant - but as a result thousands more jobs will be saved.\n\n\"These necessary steps will ensure we are a slimmer and more agile business that is better able to give customers the service they want and the value they demand.\"\n\nEarlier this year the ferry operator was criticised for announcing 1,100 job cuts after taking advantage of the government's furlough scheme.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Turkey has positioned itself with great care to be the go-between with Russia and Ukraine - and this seems to be paying off.\n\nOn Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.\n\nWithin half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan's leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.\n\nThe Russian demands fall into two categories.\n\nThe first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.\n\nChief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.\n\nThere are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.\n\nUkraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.\n\nThis is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nThe second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr Zelensky has already said he's prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.\n\nMr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.\n\nAlthough Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.\n\nThe other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.\n\nNevertheless, it is a fait accompli, even though Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.\n\nIbrahim Kalin was one of the few people to listen in on the phone call between Russia and Turkey's leaders\n\nStill, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction which Russia has visited on Ukraine.\n\nGiven his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory.\n\nFor Ukraine, though, there are going to be serious anxieties.\n\nIf the fine details of any agreement aren't sorted out with immense care, President Putin or his successors could always use them as an excuse to invade Ukraine again.\n\nA peace deal could take a long time to sort out, even if a ceasefire stops the bloodshed in the meantime.\n\nUkraine has suffered appallingly over the past few weeks, and rebuilding the towns and cities which Russia has damaged and destroyed will take a long time. So will rehousing the millions of refugees who have fled their homes.\n\nWhat about Vladimir Putin himself? There have been suggestions that he is ill, or possibly even mentally unbalanced. Did Mr Kalin detect anything strange about him in the phone call? Not at all, he said. Mr Putin had apparently been clear and concise in everything he said.\n\nYet even if he does manage to present an agreement with Ukraine as a glorious victory over neo-Nazism, his position at home must be weakened.\n\nMore and more people will realise that he overreached himself badly, and stories of the soldiers who have been killed or captured are already spreading fast.", "Jussie Smollett said nothing as he left Cook County jail in Chicago\n\nUS actor Jussie Smollett has been released on bond from jail in Chicago pending an appeal against his conviction for falsely claiming he was the victim of a hate crime.\n\nLast week the former Empire star, 39, was found guilty of lying to police and sentenced to 150 days in prison.\n\nFollowing his sentencing, his lawyers launched an appeal.\n\nSmollett has always maintained the hoax incident, which took place in Chicago in 2019, was real.\n\nHe had to sign a $150,000 (£114,000) recognizance bond prior to his release and made no comment as he left Cook County jail surrounded by security.\n\nBut his defence team said they were \"very, very happy\" with the appeal justices' ruling and said Smollett was the target of a racist justice system, CBS News reports.\n\nHis team argued his imprisonment - for what was described as a low-level, non-violent crime - was excessive and that his health and safety were in danger while he remained in prison. They also questioned why he had been imprisoned after a previous prosecutor dropped the charges against him in 2019.\n\n\"Regardless of what you think about this case... the real question is, should black men be walked into jail for a Class 4 felony? Shame on you if you think they should, that's a disgrace,\" his defence attorney Nenye Uche is quoted as saying in The Chicago Tribune.\n\nThe prosecuting office said the claim that his health and safety were at risk was incorrect as he had been in protective custody while in prison.\n\nThe ruling stemmed from an incident three years ago when Smollett said he was attacked by two assailants.\n\nThe actor, who is black and gay, said the attackers had shouted slurs and a Trump slogan, dumped a \"chemical substance\" on him and tied a noose around his neck while he was walking late at night in January 2019.\n\nPolice opened an investigation into the incident but later charged Smollett with filing a false police report, saying he had staged the assault.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "In Kostroma, friends, family, and an armed guard of honour gathered for the funeral of Mikhail Orchikov\n\nIn the Church of Alexandra and Antonina lies a coffin. It is draped with a Russian tricolour. Resting on the casket: a service cap and a photograph.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was deputy commander of a motor-rifle brigade. He was killed in action in Ukraine. Armed Russian soldiers form a guard of honour.\n\nAn Orthodox priest walks around the casket reciting prayers and swinging an ornate metal vessel emitting burning incense. The pungent scent fills the chapel, mixing with the sweet cadences of the church choir. The dead soldier's widow, head covered in a black scarf, is being comforted by relatives.\n\nHow many Russian servicemen have been killed in Ukraine? It is a criminal offence in Russia to report anything other than the official figures.\n\nAccording to information released by Russia's Defence Ministry, 498 soldiers have lost their lives in what the Kremlin calls its \"special military operation\". Those are the latest figures, from 2 March. There has been no update for two weeks.\n\n\"The situation in our country isn't simple,\" the priest tells the congregation. \"Everyone understands that.\"\n\nThe Kremlin wants the public to believe that the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are heroes and that Russia's offensive there is an act of self-defence.\n\nIn a recent edition of state TV's flagship weekly news show, the anchor claimed that if Russia \"hadn't intervened now, in three years' time Ukraine would have been in Nato… with a nuclear bomb. [Ukraine] would definitely advance on Crimea, then on southern Russia.\" An alternative reality, in which Ukraine is the aggressor.\n\nOn the streets of Kostroma, many appear to believe the official Kremlin line.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was laid to rest as \"a defender of the Fatherland\"\n\nThat's partly due to the power of television in shaping public opinion. But also, at moments of crisis, many Russians instinctively rally around its leader - as if they don't want to believe that their president may have made the wrong decision.\n\n\"Nato wants to set up shop right next to us [in Ukraine] and they've got nuclear weapons,\" Nikolai tells me. \"Well done Putin. He didn't let them.\"\n\n\"Russia needs to push on till the end,\" declares pensioner Nina Ivanovna.\n\n\"How much do you trust the information you're getting on Russian TV about this?\" I ask her. \"I trust it. Why shouldn't I? It's the internet I don't trust.\"\n\nNot everyone supports Russia's offensive in Ukraine. In the village of Nikolskoye, I visit the home of Orthodox priest, Father Ioann Burdin. He recently delivered an anti-war sermon and voiced his criticism on the church website.\n\nHe was later detained and fined under a new law for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.\n\nFather Ioann Burdin says he believes bloodshed of any kind \"is still a sin\"\n\n\"I believe that any bloodshed, whatever the cause and however you try to justify it, is still a sin,\" Father Ioann tells me. \"Blood is on the hands of the person who spilled it. If an order was given, it's on the hands of whoever gave the order, supported it or stayed silent.\"\n\n\"The worst thing of all is that hatred has appeared. It will grow deeper and deeper, because we can see that the situation [with Ukraine] isn't ending. There is no political will to stop this. Hatred on both sides will strengthen and become a wall between our peoples for decades to come.\"\n\nAt a cemetery in Kostroma, eight soldiers bear Mikhail's coffin to the grave. A military band plays solemn music. Then a gun salute and, to the Russian national anthem, the casket is lowered into the ground.\n\nThere is a brief speech: \"The loss of a son, brother, father is always a tragedy, but we are proud that he died defending our people, our children, our country.\"\n\nIn Kostroma, they call Mikhail \"a defender of the Fatherland\".\n\nMikhail's coffin was wrapped in the national flag before burial\n\nAnd yet it was Russia's army that crossed the border into a sovereign nation and attacked Ukraine on the orders of President Putin. The Kremlin leader claims that the aim of his \"special military operation\" is to \"demilitarise and de-Nazify\" Ukraine, as if the Ukrainian government is overrun with fascists - which is simply not true.\n\nIn recent days Russian officials have barely concealed their wider objectives. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that what's happening in Ukraine \"…is a life-and-death battle for Russia's right to be on the political map of the world with full respect for their legitimate interests\".\n\nIn other words, this is about geopolitics, and Moscow's determination to force Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence.\n\nThat's something the government in Ukraine is determined to prevent.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Marina Ovsyannikova speaks to reporters about the reasons for her live TV protest\n\nWhen Marina Ovsyannikova burst into Russian living rooms on Monday's nightly news, denouncing the war in Ukraine and propaganda around it, her protest highlighted a quiet but steady stream of resignations from Russia's tightly controlled state-run TV.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked her, appealing to anyone working for what he calls Russia's propaganda system to resign. Any journalist working in what he calls the fourth branch of power risks sanctions and an international tribunal for \"justifying war crimes\", he warns.\n\nSome of Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest cheerleaders on state-run TV have already faced sanctions, including Vladimir Solovyov who presents a talk show on Russia's biggest channel Rossiya-1, and Margarita Simonyan who has accused anyone ashamed of being Russian at this point of not really being Russian.\n\nRussia's state-run channels are required to toe the Kremlin line, so who has quit in response to the war?\n\nHours after Marina Ovsyannikova's on-screen protest, three resignations came to light.\n\nChannel One colleague Zhanna Agalakova quit her job as Europe correspondent while two journalists have left rival NTV. Lilia Gildeyeva had worked for the channel as a presenter since 2006 and Vadim Glusker had been at NTV for almost 30 years.\n\nLilia Gildeyeva revealed on Tuesday she had left Russia and resigned\n\nRumours abound that journalists have also headed for the door at All-Russia state TV group VGTRK.\n\nJournalist Roman Super said people were quitting its Vesti news stable en masse, although that has not been confirmed. However, renowned TV host Sergey Brilev quashed reports that he had resigned, pointing out he has been on a business trip for more than a week.\n\nMaria Baronova is the highest-profile resignation at RT, formerly known as Russia Today. Former chief editor at RT, she told the BBC's Steve Rosenberg this month Mr Putin had already destroyed Russia's reputation and that the economy was dead too.\n\nThere was a big love of my life, Russia, and now it's dead as well\n\nA number of other RT journalists have also resigned, including non-Russian journalists working for its language services.\n\nFormer London correspondent Shadia Edwards-Dashti announced her resignation on the day Russia invaded Ukraine without giving a reason. Moscow-based journalist Jonny Tickle quit on the same day \"in light of recent events\".\n\nFrench RT presenter Frédéric Taddeï said he was leaving his show because France was \"in open conflict\" with Russia and he could not continue to host his programme Forbidden to Forbid \"out of loyalty to my country\".\n\nDays later, the EU said it was banning all of RT's various outlets as well as those of fellow Kremlin outlet Sputnik for their \"campaign of disinformation, information manipulation and distortion of facts\". Russia's German-based state news agency Ruptly has also endured a spate of resignations, according to Reuters news agency.\n\nRussia's non-Kremlin media have come under repeated attack for years, so many journalists who have worked under constant threat of losing their livelihoods at independent outlets will be unimpressed by the current crop of resignations. Some have been hit with the Soviet-era label of foreign agent.\n\nDozhd (TV Rain), which was forced off mainstream TV in 2014, has had to halt its online broadcasts because of the Ukraine invasion and a number of its journalists have fled Russia for their safety.\n\nRadio Ekho Moskvy has also been taken off the air amid Russia's new legislation on so-called false information. BBC Russian is among a number of Western outlets that have been banned, while journalists working for Latvia-based Meduza were forced out of Russia.\n\nIt is not just journalists who have disappeared from state TV.\n\nOne of Russia's biggest talk show hosts, Ivan Urgant, has taken a break from his prime-time Evening Urgant show on Russia's second biggest channel, Channel One, the same station as Marina Ovsyannikova.\n\nHe reacted to the war by posting a black square on his Instagram account with the simple message: \"Fear and pain. No War.\" He has since told his followers not to panic, and that he's taken a holiday and will be back soon.\n\nRussia's number one celebrity couple Alla Pugacheva and Maxim Galkin are among a number of other showbiz figures who have also gone on holiday. Galkin said on Instagram: \"There can be no justification for war! No War!\"", "Ukrainian sources say the fourth Russian general to die in Ukraine is Oleg Mityaev\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says another Russian general has been killed during fighting.\n\nHe didn't name the officer, but an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev had been killed by the far-right Azov regiment.\n\nGen Mityaev was killed near Mariupol, Ukrainian media said.\n\nHe is the fourth general reportedly killed, leading some to ask why such senior members of the Russian military are so close to the front line.\n\nAnalysts believe that around 20 generals are leading Russian operations in Ukraine, meaning that if all the reported deaths are confirmed, one fifth of Russia's generals have been killed in action.\n\nWith such high losses, some experts believe that the generals have not simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that Ukraine is likely to be targeting top-level Russian officers.\n\n\"I don't think this is an accident. One is an accident, but this many is targeted\", Rita Konaev of Georgetown University told the BBC.\n\nSpeaking to the Wall Street Journal, a person within President Zelensky's inner circle said Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia's officer class.\n\n\"They look for high profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders,\" the person told the newspaper.\n\nWith Ukraine's military outnumbered, its targeting of high-level individuals could be an important part of the information war, according to Ms Konaev.\n\n\"Assuming there is an element of targeting, this feeds Ukraine's own morale. There is the element of being victorious. It is inspiring.\"\n\nFor Ukraine to target specific Russian officers, it needs to know where they are. Analysts say that Russia has been using open channels of communications which could give clues about where certain targets are located.\n\n\"If the Russians are using mobile phones or analogue radios to communicate with senior officers, the Ukrainians have everything on their plate,\" defence analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting told the BBC.\n\nAfter the death of another senior officer - Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov - Ukraine released a recording purporting to be two Russian security officers discussing the general's death, and complaining that their secure communications network was not working.\n\nIt is unusual for such high-ranking officers to put themselves in danger by getting so close to the battlefield, and western sources believe that they have done so in order to get some control over operations which have, in some areas, badly stalled.\n\nRussia's military is also traditionally top-heavy, with officers often conducting day-to-day activities, says Mr Muzyka. Although this is starting to change, it could explain why generals felt the need to direct operations from the front.\n\n\"In recent years there's been a big shift to force battalion commanders to think independently in a way that would give them freedom to make decisions\", Mr Muzyka said. \"But this was introduced only three years ago, so maybe it didn't properly have an effect yet on their performance\".\n\nThe details of the generals' deaths are unclear, and getting solid facts from the ground is difficult. There has been an assumption that they were all caught up in fighting on the front line, but that is not necessarily the case, says Ms Konaev.\n\n\"It doesn't necessarily mean the generals were at the front line. They could have been in transit or inspecting resupply lines for example,\" she told the BBC.\n\nMaj Gen Oleg Mityaev reportedly died somewhere near the city of Mariupol, a city in south-east Ukraine which has seen some of the heaviest fighting so far.\n\nThe far-right Azov regiment claims to have killed him.\n\nHe was a commander of the Russian army's 150th motorised rifle division, a relatively new unit formed in 2016, and based in the Rostov region close to the Ukrainian border.\n\nUkraine claims that the unit was created in order to take part in the conflict in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies that its military was involved in fighting there.\n\nMaj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, of the 29th combined army, was killed in fighting on March 11, according to official Ukrainian sources.\n\nThe circumstances of his death were not given.\n\nAfter Kolesnikov became the third Russian general reportedly killed in Ukraine, one western official told the Press Association that the Russian army may be suffering from low morale, which is why high-ranking military officers are moving closer to the front line.\n\nMaj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.\n\nKharkiv, close to the Russian border, has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.\n\nUkraine's military released a recording of what it said was two Russian security service officials discussing Gerasimov's death, and complaining that their secure communication networks no longer worked in Ukraine.\n\nGerasimov was involved in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.\n\nMaj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander at the same unit as Gerasimov, was reportedly killed by a sniper on 3 March.\n\nLike Gerasimov, Sukhovetsky was part of Russia's military operations in Crimea and in Syria.\n\nUnlike the other generals, Sukhovetsky's death was reported in the Russian media and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a speech that a general had died in Ukraine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Marina Ovsyannikova says none of her interrogators thought her TV protest was her idea\n\nA Russian journalist who interrupted a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine says Russians are \"zombified\" by propaganda.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Marina Ovsyannikova said Russians should stop listening to state media coverage.\n\n\"I understand it's very hard... to find alternative information, but you need to try to look for it,\" she said.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova, an editor at state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after her protest on Monday.\n\nShe ran onto the set of one of Russia's most-watched news programmes, Vremya, holding a sign reading: \"No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.\"\n\nShe could also be heard repeating the words \"no war, stop the war\".\n\n\"I was aware that if I went to protest in [Moscow's] central square I would be arrested like everyone else and thrown into a police van and be put on trial,\" Ms Ovsyannikova said on Thursday.\n\n\"Half the poster was in Russian, half the poster was in English. I really wanted to show the Western audience that some Russians are against war,\" she said.\n\n\"I feel of course some responsibility lying on me. I was an ordinary cog in the propaganda machine. Until the very last moment I didn't think about it too much,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova also responded to various allegations in Russian media about her motivation for staging the protest. \"There are lots of conspiracy theories building up about me,\" she said.\n\n\"That's why I had to explain to the world what really happened, the fact that I am just a normal Russian woman, but I could not remain on the sidelines.\"\n\nBefore her protest she recorded a video in which she said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda.\n\nThe journalist said she was detained and questioned by police for 14 hours, and fined 30,000 roubles ($280; £210) for the video. The authorities had been convinced she had been acting on someone else's behalf, she said.\n\n\"Nobody believed it was my personal decision. They suggested it could be conflict at work, relatives who were angry about Ukraine or that I was doing it for Western special services.\"\n\n\"They couldn't believe that I had so many objections to the government that I could not stay silent,\" she said.\n\nRussian state television news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all the major channels.\n\nIt is also unusual for employees of state-controlled news organisations to express an opinion that differs from the official Kremlin position.\n\nBut since the war in Ukraine began, a number of journalists have resigned from top Russian TV channels: Zhanna Agalakova from Channel 1, and Lilia Gildeyeva and Vadim Glusker from NTV.\n\nState-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a \"special military operation\" and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, describing Ukraine's elected government as neo-Nazis.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. P&O Ferries workers were told via video that it \"was their final day of employment\"\n\nP&O Ferries has sparked outrage after sacking 800 staff with plans to replace them with cheaper agency workers.\n\nStaff were told in a video call that Thursday was their \"final day of employment\", but some refused to leave their ships in protest and were removed.\n\nP&O said it was a \"tough\" decision but it would \"not be a viable business\" without the changes.\n\nBut the government called the workers' treatment \"wholly unacceptable\".\n\nAnd the RMT union is threatening legal action against the ferry company, calling it one of the \"most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations\".\n\nFurther protests on Friday are being organised in Dover, Liverpool and Hull.\n\n\"Reports of workers being given zero notice and escorted off their ships... shows the insensitive way in which P&O have approached this issue,\" said Robert Courts, parliamentary under secretary for transport.\n\n\"I am extremely concerned and frankly angry at the way workers have been treated by P&O.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Courts said the company had told him it will be suspending services for \"a week to 10 days while they locate new crew\" on the Dover to Calais, Larne to Cairnryan, Dublin to Liverpool and Hull to Rotterdam routes.\n\nOn Friday morning, the company again said on Twitter it would not run services \"for the next few days\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Department for Transport says neither the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps, nor Mr Courts, was aware of what was happening with P&O until Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sacked P&O employee Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" at losing his job after 22 years' service\n\nThe BBC has seen details of a contract for handcuff-trained security professionals which began two days before they were deployed to Dover to remove staff from ferries.\n\nTUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said P&O's \"secret plan\" to sack staff with no notice was \"reprehensible\".\n\nP&O passengers were told to use DFDS while services were suspended.\n\nRMT union members blocked traffic in Dover on Thursday in response to the 800 redundancies announced by P&O Ferries\n\nCrew on one ship docked at Larne Harbour in Northern Ireland had lifted the gangway after private security officers arrived to remove them.\n\nThe crew has now left the ship and Gary Jackson, a full time officer and RMT union member onboard the Pride of Hull, said they were \"absolutely devastated\".\n\n\"At 11am ratings and officers were informed there was going to be a pre-recorded Zoom meeting. After that two to three-minute call all the crew were made redundant,\" he said.\n\n\"I've seen grown men crying on there because they don't know where they're going to go from today.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Robert Courts says he is \"frankly angry\" at the way P&O Ferries staff have been treated\n\nJames, who has worked for P&O Ferries in Dover for around four years, said he felt abandoned by the company after all he received \"was a three minute pre-recorded message saying we are out of a job. Nothing else.\"\n\n\"It was a complete surprise. I would have understood if it was at the height of Covid, but now we're seeing the end of travel restrictions and the start of summer bookings. So this has come completely out of the blue,\" he said.\n\nMark Canet-Baldwin, from Hull, was one of the agency workers brought to Cairnryan to take over from the crew that were being sacked.\n\nBut after talking it through with his wife, he said: \"I felt I can't do it. I felt sick to my stomach. And I walked off. Two others came with me. It's just wrong.\"\n\nWorkers are reported to have been escorted off their ships while being told that cheaper alternatives will take up their roles.\n\n\"The approach adopted by P&O is not unheard of, but it is exceptional to forego appropriate notice and consultation processes,\" said Nathan Donaldson, employment solicitor at Keystone Law.\n\nHe said a government review of firing and rehiring in November 2021 did not outlaw the practice but emphasised \"that it should be a process of last resort\".\n\nRustom Tata, chairman and head of the employment group at law firm DMH Stallard, said P&O's actions would affect the brand's reputation due to the \"apparently wholly planned approach being taken to such a large proportion of its workforce ignoring some of the basic fundamentals of employee relations.\"\n\nAnn Francke, chief executive of The Chartered Management Institute, said P&O had \"got it very wrong\".\n\n\"It's shocking and appalling. It's like management behaviour from another era,\" she said.\n\nP&O said its survival was dependent on \"making swift and significant changes now\".\n\n\"We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World. This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.\"\n\nThe cross-Channel operator said on Twitter that sailings between Dover and Calais scheduled for Thursday will no longer run, and customers with tickets were instructed to sail with rival ferry company DFDS.\n\nP&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies, carrying more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and about 15% of all freight cargo in and out of the UK.\n\nHowever, like many transport operators it saw demand slump in the pandemic.\n\nThe firm claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees.\n\nP&O is owned by DP World, the multi-national ports and logistics company based in Dubai. It paid a £270m dividend to shareholders in 2020.\n\nDiane Riley has travelled to Rotterdam for a Northern Soul event\n\nDiane Riley has travelled with a friend from Hull to Rotterdam with P&O for a Northern Soul event.\n\nShe was on a day trip to Amsterdam on Thursday when she heard from her daughter in the UK that P&O had suspended its services.\n\n\"It was a shock,\" says Diane, adding: \"I thought she was joking at first.\"\n\nShe got a text from the company at around 4pm, advising her to return to the ferry to spend the night.\n\nShe says passengers have been told they may be put on a DFDS ferry to Newcastle on Friday morning, and will then be taken back to Hull by coach.\n\n\"We don't know anything for certain - we'll have to wait and see what happens when we get back to the ferry,\" she says.\n\nMeanwhile, Lauren Shaw and her husband told the BBC they were booked with P&O to travel on a ferry from Cairnryan to Larne at 4pm on Thursday.\n\n\"We had a phone call at 10am to tell us there would be no sailings today and that they hadn't been told a reason why,\" she said.\n\nThey travelled to the port in the hope getting a ferry, but said: \"It's really frustrating.\"\n\nAre you affected by issues covered in this story? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Mr Putin and Mr Biden met at a 2021 summit in this file photo\n\nUS President Joe Biden has labelled Russian leader Vladimir Putin a \"war criminal\" in a move likely to escalate diplomatic tensions even further.\n\nMr Biden delivered the remark off-the-cuff in response to a reporter's question at the White House.\n\nIt is the first time he has used such language to condemn President Putin, and the White House later said he was \"speaking from his heart\".\n\nThe Kremlin, however, said it was \"unforgiveable rhetoric\".\n\n\"We believe such rhetoric to be unacceptable and unforgivable on the part of the head of a state, whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world,\" spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency Tass.\n\nThe exchange in Washington happened Wednesday when a reporter asked the US president: \"Mr President, after everything we have seen, are you ready to call Putin a war criminal?\"\n\nThe President replied \"no\" before being challenged, and then changed his reply: \"Did you ask me whether I would tell ....? Oh, I think he is a war criminal.\"\n\nWhite House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later said the president had been speaking from his heart after seeing \"barbaric\" images of the violence in Ukraine, rather than making any official declaration.\n\nShe noted that there was a separate legal process, run by the State Department, to determine war crimes - and that was ongoing separately.\n\nThe president's official Twitter account posted: \"Putin is inflicting appalling devastation and horror on Ukraine - bombing apartment buildings and maternity wards... these are atrocities. It is an outrage to the world.\"\n\nOne by one, diplomatic bridges between the United States and Russia are being set ablaze.\n\nMr Biden's statement was an odd one, albeit not out of keeping for a politician who has a history of making monumental policy shifts in seemingly off-the-cuff remarks (see, for instance, his comments on gay marriage in 2012).\n\nAfter initially telling a reporter he did not think Mr Putin was a criminal, he came back and reversed himself. If there had been an internal debate at the White House over how to handle the growing calls in Congress and the press to condemn Mr Putin in this way, the president settled it in an aside, not a set-piece speech.\n\nThis, of course, will make it harder for Mr Biden and his administration to work with the Russians going forward. Every concession or negotiated agreement, on whatever topic, will invite the rejoinder: How can you associate with a criminal?\n\nPerhaps Mr Biden, in his comments, was simply acknowledging the new reality - that the world's political order has irrevocably shifted, and there's no going back to the way things were.\n\nIt came after a busy day of political theatre in both the US and Russia over Ukraine.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier gave a speech by video link to the US Congress, receiving a standing ovation. Hours later, Mr Biden approved additional weapons aid for Ukraine, bringing the total US contribution to $1bn (£760m).\n\nOn the other side of the world, President Putin also gave a televised speech laden with anti-Western rhetoric.\n\nHe accused the West of trying to divide Russia with lies, and railed against those he called \"traitors\" inside of Russia.\n\n\"Of course they will try to bet on the so-called fifth column, on traitors - on those who earn their money here, but live over there. Live, not in the geographical sense, but in the sense of their thoughts, their slavish thinking,\" Mr Putin said.\n\nThe term \"fifth column\" is often used for a group that tries to undermine a nation or organisation from the inside.\n\n\"Any people, and especially the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish the true patriots from the scum and the traitors, and just to spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,\" Mr Putin said. Such a \"self-purification\" of society would strengthen Russia, he added.\n\nMr Putin also accused the West of trying to provoke civil conflict with the goal of \"the destruction of Russia\".\n\nHis speech was greeted with concern by some Russia-watchers and journalists.\n\nTatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst, told the New York Times that Mr Putin was signalling authorities across Russia to target \"all spheres of society that show any sympathy to the Western way of life\".\n\nMikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian Prime Minister who also worked in Mr Putin's first government before becoming one of his fiercest critics, tweeted that Mr Putin \"is intensifying his actions to destroy Russia\".\n\nHe is \"essentially announcing the start of mass repressions against those who don't agree with the regime,\" Mr Kasyanov wrote. \"This has happened in our history before, and not only ours.\"", "Shape Of You is the biggest hit of Ed Sheeran's career\n\nMusic experts have given contrasting views over whether Ed Sheeran copied the work of another singer when he wrote his 2017 single Shape Of You.\n\nThe star denies stealing the chorus of Sami Switch's Oh Why for the \"oh I, oh I, oh I\" hook of his hit song.\n\nForensic musicologists were called by both sides to argue the case at London's High Court.\n\nOne said the songs were \"distinctly different\" but the other argued they contained \"significant similarities\".\n\nShape Of You was the world's best-selling song of 2017, with more than three billion plays on Spotify alone.\n\nThe track earns Sheeran and his co-writers Steven McCutcheon and Johnny McDaid about £5m a year, despite almost 10% of the payments being frozen due to the ongoing copyright dispute, the court heard.\n\nWednesday's testimony came from copyright consultant Christian Siddell and Anthony Ricigliano, a former head of music theory at the Manhattan School of Music, who previously helped Led Zeppelin win a plagiarism trial over Stairway To Heaven.\n\nIn a joint written statement, they agreed that \"when heard in the context of their respective works, the words 'Oh why' and 'Oh I' may be phonetically indistinguishable from each other to the casual listener\".\n\nThey also agreed that neither of them had found \"the same combination\" of phonetic sounds, pitch and rhythm \"in any other compositions\".\n\nHowever, they differed on whether Sheeran had copied his song from Sami Switch, whose real name is Sami Chokri, and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue.\n\nMr Ricigliano, who was instructed by Sheeran's lawyers but told the court he was \"completely impartial\", said he considered the extent of the alleged similarities to be \"overstated\".\n\nHe wrote that \"the overall design and musical development of the melodic, harmonic and lyrical content in the relevant phrase in Shape Of You are distinctively different from that utilised in Oh Why\".\n\nCalling the similarities \"coincidental\", he added that it was \"objectively unlikely\" that any overlap came as a \"result from copying\".\n\nIn his written evidence, Sheeran noted that his song's \"Oh I\" melody is based on \"a basic minor pentatonic pattern\" which is \"entirely commonplace\".\n\nMr Ricigliano agreed, paraphrasing a quote from West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein: \"The pentatonic scale is humanity's favourite scale and is so well known that one can find examples of it from all corners of the Earth\".\n\nIn court, Andrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue, asked him: \"You accept, don't you Mr Ricigliano, that despite all your research you have not found any examples in any corner of the earth over the past 200 years which sound phonetically the same as the chorus in Oh Why and the post chorus in Shape Of You?\"\n\n\"Do you not find this extraordinary?\" Mr Sutcliffe asked, with the expert replying: \"No\".\n\nMr Siddell, who was instructed by Mr Chokri's lawyers, disagreed, saying the similarities between the two songs were \"so numerous and striking that the possibility of independent creation is… highly improbable\".\n\nHe said the two melodies were \"nearly identical in respect of their rhythm and pitch\", the phonetic sounds of the vocal lines were \"musically indistinguishable to the ear\" and other compositional similarities included the use of \"phrase repetition\" and \"the musical dynamics\".\n\nThe crossover was \"unlikely to be the consequence of coincidence\", he added.\n\n\"Had I been consulted in a 'copyright compliance' capacity as to whether a licence should be sought from the writers of Oh Why, my guidance would have been, in summary, that either the melodic phrase should be omitted and replaced with original new material or a licence should be obtained.\"\n\nSheeran and his co-writers deny copying Mr Chokri's song, stating they had not heard it before the copyright claim was raised.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The mystery of a decades old tank debt with Iran, and how it may have ended up costing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe her freedom today.\n\nWhat’s the key to bringing home Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman who has been held hostage in Iran for almost six years? And how closely linked is Nazanin’s release to a tank deal debt more than 40 years old? In episode 1 of Nazanin, former Today programme editor, Ceri Thomas, explores the origins of the debt, the apparent corruption which surrounded the deal which created it, and its long, difficult legacy. It’s a story which begins in the freewheeling 1970s when the need to ‘grease the wheels’ of big arms deals seemed barely controversial, and when the Shah of Iran and a notorious middleman known around Whitehall as ‘Mr 1%’ were able to pocket millions in commissions paid by the UK. And it leads back to the fate of more than one hostage today.", "Interest rates have increased for the third time in four months as the Bank of England tries to calm the rise in the cost of living.\n\nThe rise from 0.5% to 0.75% means rates are now at their highest level since March 2020, when Covid lockdowns began.\n\nEnergy bills and food costs are increasing and there is concern the war in Ukraine will push prices up further.\n\nThe Bank has warned inflation, the rate at which prices rise, may reach 8% and possibly higher, in the coming months.\n\nExplaining why it had lifted its forecast, it said that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia \"has led to further large increases in energy and other commodity prices including food prices.\n\n\"It is also likely to exacerbate global supply chain disruptions, and has increased the uncertainty around the economic outlook significantly,\" it added.\n\nPrices had already increased by 5.5% in the year to January, the fastest rate for 30 years and well above the Bank's 2% inflation target. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that energy and fuel prices had contributed to the rising cost of living.\n\nThe Bank's policymakers cited the rising cost of living and strong employment as the reasons for the latest rate rise.\n\nThe members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) felt that \"given the current tightness of the labour market, continuing signs of robust domestic cost and price pressures, and the risk that those pressures will persist\", an interest rate rise was justified.\n\nIt also warned that inflation could hit double-digits later in the year if energy prices push up the energy price cap.\n\nThe MPC voted by a majority of 8-1 for the move, with deputy Bank governor Jon Cunliffe the only member to vote for keeping rates unchanged. He said this was because of the impact of rapid price rises on household incomes.\n\nThe committee said that more interest rate rises \"might be appropriate in coming months, but there were risks on both sides of that judgement depending on how medium-term prospects evolved.\"\n\nThe invasion of Ukraine was likely to push prices up even faster than the Bank expected at its last meeting in February, it added.\n\n\"The economy had recently been subject to a succession of very large shocks. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was another such shock,\" it wrote.\n\nMorag Milligan is the operations manager at Milligan's Coaches\n\nMorag Milligan, the operations manager at Milligan's Coaches in East Ayrshire, said that the business had barely recovered from the shock of coronavirus-related lockdowns and travel restrictions.\n\nCiting rising fuel prices, she said: \"It feels it's just never-ending for the industry... it's crisis after crisis.\"\n\nThe company has seen an 8% increase in fuel costs which had been a drain on resources. \"The increase just makes it harder and harder to run,\" she said.\n\nAbout two million households will see an immediate increase in their mortgage payments as a result of the rise in rates, according to UK Finance.\n\nThe increase will add about £26 a month to the cost of a typical tracker mortgage, and £16 to the cost of a typical standard variable rate mortgage.\n\nThe Bank said that higher global prices for energy and other goods were responsible for the faster rise in inflation than the MPC predicted at its last rate-setting meeting.\n\nHowever, it expects inflation to \"fall back materially\" once prices stop rising and the impact of inflation on household incomes starts to bite.\n\nWhile the headline impact of a rise in rates will be felt by homeowners on variable rate mortgages, the big change today was in the mood music at the Bank of England.\n\nLast month, it indicated that the rise was the first in a series likely over the coming months. That language has been toned down and indeed there was one member of the committee who voted to keep them on hold.\n\nThis indicates that the Bank is nervous about the economic impact of the massive rise in energy and food prices. More nervous than it is about the fact that already eye-watering 30 year highs for inflation, are not just going to be even higher at 8%, but potentially breach that by the end of the year.\n\nThe Russian invasion is one of a series of so-called \"stagflationary\" shocks, that send both growth figures and inflation figures in the wrong direction.\n\nThere is not much the Bank can do to stop the energy price cap and food prices sending the increase in the cost of living to 9 or 10%. But it is signalling its concern about the overall impact on the economy of a prolonged hit to consumers, from events 1,500 miles away.\n\nBut the union Unite hit out at the Bank's decision, with its general secretary Sharon Graham saying that it comes at a time when \"millions of working people are facing the worst cost-of-living crisis for generations\".\n\n\"This rise will put even more pressure on household finances as inflation and energy bills continue to skyrocket.\"\n\nSarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, pointed out that energy bills were already set to increase in April with the rise in the energy price cap.\n\nThe British Chambers of Commerce argued that higher rates will do little to curb some of the global causes behind the surge in prices and risk intensifying the financial squeeze on consumers and businesses.\n\nSuren Thiru, its head of economics, urged the chancellor to use his Spring Statement on 23 March to tackle the \"cost of doing business crisis\" by delaying the National Insurance rise and introducing a temporary energy price cap for businesses.\n\n\"This would give firms the headroom to keep a lid on prices, protect jobs and make investment that is so vital to sustaining our economic prospects.\"", "Ben Wallace and Priti Patel are leading members of the cabinet\n\nTwo UK ministers have revealed they have been targeted with hoax calls linked to the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace blamed Russian \"dirty tricks\" after revealing a man had called him earlier pretending to be Ukraine's prime minister.\n\nHe became suspicious and ended the call after the \"imposter\" posed \"several misleading questions\", he said.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel then tweeted that she had received a similar call earlier this week.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Mr Wallace had ordered an immediate inquiry into what happened.\n\nIt was not immediately clear who was behind the call, but Mr Wallace linked the incident to Russia and President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nIn a tweet about the call, Mr Wallace wrote: \"No amount of Russian disinformation, distortion and dirty tricks can distract from Russia's human rights abuses and illegal invasion of Ukraine. A desperate attempt.\"\n\nReplying to him shortly afterwards, Ms Patel said: \"This also happened to me earlier this week. Pathetic attempt at such difficult times to divide us. We stand with Ukraine\".\n\nA Ministry of Defence source said it was a \"fairly sophisticated\" video call that was not made to Mr Wallace's own mobile phone.\n\nThe source said the call came to him via \"another government department\", which added to its credibility.\n\nIt is understood that Mr Wallace was put through to a Microsoft Teams video call which lasted about 10 minutes.\n\nThe video call was set up after an email, purportedly from an aide at the Ukrainian embassy in London, was sent to a government department and then forwarded to the Ministry of Defence.\n\nThe BBC has been told that the call to Mr Wallace involved someone posing as Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in front of a Ukrainian flag, who asked a range of \"wild questions\".\n\nMr Shmyhal later replied to Mr Wallace in a tweet, writing: \"Despite all attempts of Russian disinformation, the world can see that the truth is behind Ukraine.\"\n\nDenys Shmyhal, shown here at a press conference in January, has been Ukraine's PM since March 2020\n\nDuring the call, Mr Wallace was asked about Nato and the state of the negotiations taking place between Ukraine and Russia, the defence source added.\n\nMr Wallace was apparently asked about whether the UK would send warships to the Black Sea, and if Ukraine should get nuclear weapons.\n\nThe defence secretary was also apparently asked about the prospect of Ukraine dropping its ambition to join Nato and becoming a \"neutral\" state.\n\nThe defence source said Mr Wallace \"was asked leading questions to encourage inappropriate comments\" but he \"didn't say anything that was not factual or appropriate\".\n\nBut defence sources say they are concerned that there may be an attempt to distort or edit Mr Wallace's answers before he terminated the call.\n\nMr Wallace was on a visit to the Polish capital Warsaw when he shared the tweet about the hoax call.\n\nThe calls come at a time of sensitive peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as the war launched by President Vladimir Putin three weeks ago exacts an ever-higher human cost.\n\nThe UK government has been providing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine while imposing punishing economic sanctions on Russia.\n\nSince the war started, there have been regular conversations between British and Ukrainian ministers, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.", "Even the worst war comes to an end. Sometimes, as in 1945, the only outcome is a fight to the death. Mostly, though, wars end in a deal which doesn't satisfy anyone entirely, but at least brings the bloodshed to an end.\n\nAnd often, even after the worst and most bitter conflicts, the two sides gradually resume their old, less hostile relationship.\n\nIf we're lucky, we're beginning to see the start of this process happening now between Russia and Ukraine.\n\nThe resentment, particularly on the Ukrainian side, will last for decades. But both sides want and need peace: Ukraine, because its towns and cities have taken a terrible battering, and Russia, because it has already, according to the Ukrainian president, sacrificed more men and material than it lost in its two shockingly violent wars in Chechnya - although that is impossible to verify.\n\nBut no-one willingly signs a peace agreement which is likely to lead to their own downfall.\n\nFor Russian President Vladimir Putin the search is on for ways of saving face. Ukraine's President Zelensky has already shown remarkable skill as a diplomat, and he's clearly willing to say and do whatever is acceptable to himself and his people in order to get Russia off his country's back.\n\nFor him, there's one overriding objective - to make sure that Ukraine comes out of this appalling experience a united, independent country, not a province of Russia, which is what President Putin originally seemed to think he could turn it into.\n\nFor President Putin, all that counts now is that he can declare victory. No matter that everyone in his entire administration will understand that Russia has been given a bloody nose in this unnecessary invasion. No matter that the 20% or so of Russians who understand what's really going on in the world will know that Putin has bet the house on a fantasy of his own devising, and lost.\n\nThe battle will be for the support of the remaining majority of the population, who tend to believe implicitly what they're told on state television - even when there are moments such as the sudden popping-up on screen of the extraordinarily brave TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova with a placard to say that everything people are being told is propaganda.\n\nSo what will make President Putin come out of this disastrous war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?\n\nFirstly, an assurance, perhaps even to be written into Ukraine's constitution, that it has no intention of joining Nato in the foreseeable future. President Zelensky has already prepared the way for this, by asking Nato for something it couldn't agree to (establishing a no-fly-zone over Ukraine), then criticising the alliance for letting him down on this, and finally musing out loud that he wasn't sure that if Nato behaved like this, it was actually worth joining.\n\nAs clever and wise political positioning goes, it doesn't get much better than this. Nato gets the blame, which it can easily cope with, and Ukraine gets the freedom to act as it wants.\n\nBut that's the easy bit. It'll be harder to finesse the urgent ambition which Zelensky and Ukraine have to join the EU, something Russia is almost equally hostile to, though there are ways around that too. Hardest of all for Ukraine to swallow will be Russia's outright theft of Ukrainian territory, in total defiance of the solemn international treaty it had signed to protect Ukraine's borders.\n\nThe loss of Crimea in 2014 is something Ukraine may well be forced to give its formal acceptance to, in some way. And Russia clearly intends to hang on to those areas in eastern Ukraine which are pretty much effectively under Russian control already - and perhaps more.\n\nIn 1939, Joseph Stalin invaded Finland, which had once been part of the Russian empire. He was sure his troops would carve their way through it in no time - just as Putin thought about Ukraine in 2022. Stalin's generals, understandably terrified for their lives, promised him he was right. And, of course, he wasn't.\n\nThe Winter War dragged on into 1940, the Soviet army was humiliated, and Finland was left with a justifiable national pride in itself for resisting a superpower. It lost territory, because autocrats like Stalin and Putin need to come out of these things looking as though they've scored a victory. But Finland kept the most important, most imperishable thing: its full independence as a free, self-determining nation.\n\nAs things stand today, Ukraine - having beaten off so many Russian attacks and made Putin's forces look feeble and ineffective - should be able to do that. Unless Putin's armies can capture Kyiv and much more of Ukraine's territory, then Ukraine will survive as a national entity, just as Finland did in 1940.\n\nLosing Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine would be a bitter, illegal and wholly unjust loss. But Vladimir Putin would have to start using far more serious weapons even than he has already, if he's to come out on top. As things stand, in the third week of fighting, no-one can seriously doubt who the real winner in this war will be.\n\nJohn is the BBC's World Affairs editor. His weekly news programme, Unspun World with John Simpson, is broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 23:15 GMT on BBC Two, and on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran nearly six years ago, is on her way to the UK where her family await.\n\nHer husband Richard Ratcliffe campaigned for his wife's release, while caring for their daughter, Gabriella.", "The family of a teenager killed in a crush outside a disco have said they have been \"kept in the dark\" about what happened.\n\nIt comes as Justice Minister Naomi Long stuck to an earlier decision not to hold a public inquiry.\n\nLauren Bullock, 17, Morgan Barnard, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, died as hundreds queued outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown on March 17, 2019.\n\nMrs Long believes an inquiry could prejudice any criminal proceedings.\n\nThe Public Prosecution Service (PPS) is currently examining evidence gathered in two separate inquiries and has yet to decide if anyone should be charged, including police officers who attended the scene.\n\nSpeaking to BBC News NI, Morgan's father, James Bradley, said the system had \"kept us in the dark as to what happened\".\n\n\"Life is going at a snail's pace, but the next thing three years have elapsed,\" he said.\n\n\"A public inquiry would expose all the truth, the before, the during and the after.\"\n\nFour police officers who arrived at the scene withdrew for a time to await further support.\n\n\"I think there were vital minutes lost. I really believe Morgan's life would have been saved. We will find that out later down the line,\" Mr Bradley added.\n\n\"The 'what if Morgan had not gone?' has moved to 'what if things had been put in place better on the night, what if the response had been better?'\n\nJames Bradley's son Morgan Barnard died as hundreds queued outside a hotel in Cookstown\n\nCalls for a public inquiry, or a multi-agency investigation, were first made last year, amid concerns that lessons have not been learned.\n\nInitially supported by the Police Ombudsman, they were recently backed by the Police Federation.\n\nMrs Long has been reconsidering an initial decision not to hold a public inquiry and in a statement her department said she still felt \"it would not currently be appropriate\" ahead of decisions by the PPS.\n\n\"The minister is deeply aware of the pain and the anguish of the families,\" the statement added.\n\nShe said the matter would be reviewed in September.\n\nThe justice minister has also written to ministerial colleagues \"to urge them to satisfy themselves that all appropriate steps have been taken within their areas of responsibility to mitigate the possibility of a tragedy such as this occurring in the future\".\n\nThe statement also pointed out that any decision to hold a public inquiry required executive approval.\n\nA solicitor for the family says a public inquiry is needed to prevent something similar happening again\n\nDarragh Mackin, the solicitor acting for the family of Morgan Barnard, said it was likely Mrs Long's decision will be challenged by a judicial review.\n\nHe said \"a systemic investigation\", by way of a public inquiry, was necessary \"to learn lessons and prevent further incidents like this happening again\".", "Court artist sketch of Mr David Carrick at a hearing earlier this year where he denied charges against him\n\nA Metropolitan Police officer accused of a string of sex offences has been charged with additional offences including rape.\n\nDavid Carrick, of Hertfordshire, has been charged with 12 further offences, bringing the total to 41.\n\nSome of the charges relate to three new complainants and allegedly took place between 2003 and 2015.\n\nThe 47-year-old denied 20 of the charges in court in December.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service said the latest charges were two counts of rape, one count of attempted rape, and two counts of assault by penetration relating to three new complainants between 2003 and 2015.\n\nAdditionally he has been charged with three counts of rape and four counts of sexual assault relating to one of the existing complainants between 2018 and 2020.\n\nMr Carrick is due to appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on the new charges on 21 March.\n\nHe is also listed to appear for trial on 26 April at St Albans Crown Court.\n\nThe 41 charges he faces are:\n\nMr Carrick worked as part of the Met's Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and has been suspended from duty.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than a fortnight after falling under Russian occupation, the residents of Kherson are wrestling with acute shortages of medicine and holding daily protests against the Kremlin's forces. They are also worried that increased shelling on the outskirts might signal the start of a Ukrainian push to recapture their southern city, which is a key port.\n\nA series of loud explosions rattled the windows of Yuri Stelmashenko's office in a government building in the centre of Kherson on Tuesday afternoon, as the city's deputy mayor was on a phone call, busy explaining they had less than a week's supply of food and medicine left.\n\n\"Can you hear the shelling outside? Not far off. Unfortunately, we're having to get used to this terrifying reality,\" said Stelmashenko calmly.\n\n\"We're looking at a real humanitarian catastrophe here,\" he said.\n\n\"We've been left here alone - there's no other legitimate authority apart from the mayor. Russian officials came to our office and we agreed that we would continue working. But it's not clear how long that will continue.\"\n\nThere have been reports that Russia might stage a referendum in Kherson on independence from Ukraine - as they previously did in Crimea after it was annexed in 2014, as well in the Russian-backed separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nResidents of Kherson have held repeated protests against the Russian occupation\n\nBut Stelmashenko rejected the idea of this happening in his city, saying it was clear there was no support for Moscow's actions among the largely Russian-speaking population.\n\nVideo footage showing a small pro-Russian demonstration in Kherson has been dismissed as a Kremlin propaganda stunt by locals.\n\nOn the streets nearby, there were queues for milk, and frustration in local pharmacies which have reportedly run out of most essential drugs.\n\n\"There's no medicine left for people with heart conditions, or asthma. The hospitals are working but there's just no medicine,\" said a medic, speaking by telephone. She asked that we only use her first name, Galina.\n\n\"No-one is starving here,\" said a local university lecturer, Lada Danik, who praised the mayor's office for focusing on trying to support residents of the city without appearing to endorse the Russian occupation.\n\n\"The situation is quite stable. We have electricity, water, and there is central heating and transport.\"\n\nBut Danik condemned officials in other occupied cities who have submitted to Russian rule. \"If they want to make our city Russian, then it's treason,\" she said.\n\nIn Melitopol, to the east, the Ukrainian mayor was reportedly abducted by Russian forces last week and has not been seen since.\n\nA local pro-Russian official, Galina Danilchenko, has now claimed that she is Melitopol's new mayor and recorded a video message urging residents \"to adapt… to the new realities, so we can begin to live in a new way\".\n\nBut in Kherson, thousands of residents, including Danik, have continued to take part in peaceful daily protests outside government offices in the city centre.\n\nVideo footage shows large crowds screaming \"fascists… have you no shame?\" and \"go home\" at Russian troops.\n\n\"The quantity of soldiers is getting bigger. But they're not military now. They wear different, grey uniform. Like a kind of police,\" said Danik.\n\n\"There were so many people at today's protests that the Russian troops started shooting into the air. It seemed to me they were afraid. I was crying to them: 'Go home, go to your mother.' Two of [the Russian soldiers] were laughing. I was really furious, so I just cried out some curse words.\n\n\"I'm not an activist, but I want people to understand what's happening here. I'm in my homeland, not doing anything wrong. I'm trying to protect my daughter.\"\n\nTo the east, another key city, Mykolaiv, has so far managed to hold off a Russian advance.\n\nMykolaiv's governor, Vitaliy Kim, hinted that Ukrainian forces near Mykolaiv were now looking to recapture Kherson, too.\n\n\"Fighting is taking place, clearing out several villages [of Russian forces]…The occupiers are fleeing, and people all say that the troops are running away. It's true. They run,\" he said in a post on social media.\n\n\"Kherson residents, we are with you. Wait! Together we'll be victorious.\"", "Edwin Poots has said he wants farmers to grow more potatoes and cereal crops in response to the Ukraine war\n\nAgriculture minister Edwin Poots has warned of potential grain shortages and price rises as the war in Ukraine continues.\n\nHe confirmed he had asked Stormont's finance department for £70m to help farmers hit by supply issues.\n\nUkraine and Russia are major exporters of basic foodstuffs, and the war has hit crop production, driving up prices.\n\nMr Poots has asked the UK government to press the EU to relax rules on importing agriculture seeds.\n\nHe has said he wants farmers to grow more potatoes and cereal crops in response to the war.\n\nThe seed trade comes under the Northern Ireland Protocol - part of the Brexit deal - and involves an onerous import process.\n\nMr Poots told members of his assembly scrutiny committee he had \"grave concerns that the longer the conflict continues the more likely we are to see a real and damaging impact on local industries\".\n\nHe said the consequences of supply chain difficulties could be \"brutal\" and consumers would see less choice on the shelves.\n\n\"The Northern Ireland agricultural food sector had already undergone a period of severe disruption as a result of the Covid pandemic and unworkable complexities of the Northern Ireland protocol,\" he added.\n\nAbout 40% of Northern Ireland's corn supply is sourced from Ukraine, he said.\n\nMr Poots said some pig farmers are at risk of going out of business\n\nMr Poots also said much of the grain exported from Ukraine was used for animal feed, and warned that a fall in supply will have significant consequences for the chicken, pork and dairy industries.\n\nHe continued to say some pig farmers are at risk of going out of business as the problems are most acute in the pork sector.\n\nNorthern Ireland also rely on nitrogen fertiliser imported from Russia so a reduction in supply would also result in lower crop yields.\n\n\"There is not going to be cheap fertiliser,\" he said.\n\n\"The question is, is there is going to be fertiliser? There will be fertiliser at a price.\"\n\nOn the issue of fuel, the minister said he hoped people would show common sense.\n\n\"If people stop panic buying then that would be a good thing and perhaps prices would settle a bit,\" he said.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Poots met his ministerial counterparts from across the UK to discuss the difficulties the war in Ukraine was causing to the food supply chain in Northern Ireland.\n\nHe also confirmed he had written to George Eustice, the UK Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to urge greater Government intervention.\n\n\"Alongside reductions in labour supply, rising input costs, supply chain disruptions and concerns about long-running inflation, they're all combining to create that perfect storm,\" said the Agriculture minister.\n\n\"It is vital we protect Northern Ireland's food supplies, making sure everyone can access safe quality food at prices that are affordable.\"", "A man convicted of murder after stabbing a man he met on a dating app has been jailed for a minimum of 16 years.\n\nDavid Bain, 28, stabbed 60-year-old ScotRail worker Clifford Anderson in the heart with a knife before leaving the fatally-injured victim in his home.\n\nIt happened in Aberdeen's Jasmine Terrace in August 2020.\n\nJailing Bain for life at the High Court in Edinburgh, a judge said his actions were \"brutal and callous\".\n\nBain had denied murder, but was convicted on a majority verdict by a jury last month.\n\nHe was seen outside in the street with a can of lager shouting: \"I have stabbed him.\"\n\nThe former labourer and slaughterhouse worker later told police: \"I need to stop taking drugs. That's what it is.\"\n\nThe court heard that the men took part in consensual sexual activity before Bain inflicted a single stab wound to the heart of his victim.\n\nWhen a paramedic arrived at Mr Anderson's home, police officers were giving the victim CPR but he was in cardiac arrest and unresponsive.\n\nHe was taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary but was pronounced dead.\n\nAdvocate depute Christopher McKenna, prosecuting, had argued that there was \"clear and compelling evidence\" to convict on the murder charge, but the defence asked the jury to return a guilty verdict to the lesser offence of culpable homicide.\n\nOn Thursday, solicitor advocate Kris Gilmartin told the court that Bain had a criminal record but it was not extensive and he had never previously served a jail sentence.\n\nHe said: \"He wishes to express he is truly and deeply remorseful for what took place and he has struggled to come to terms with the enormity of his actions.\n\n\"He carries the burden of causing the death of a man to whom he harbours no ill will and that is a burden he will carry for the rest of his life.\"\n\nLord Boyd of Duncansby told Bain: \"You have struggled with mental health issues and addiction for some time, as well as issues about your own sexuality.\n\n\"You say you wish to now apologise to Mr Anderson's family, but recognise they may not want this. At least you have shown some insight into the harm you have caused.\"\n\nHe added: \"Whether or not you will be released on bail will be a matter for the parole board.\"", "Rory and Finn, accompanied by their parents, completed what is known as the Seven Sevens all before their seventh birthday\n\nReaching the summit of seven of Northern Ireland's highest peaks is a challenge for even the most experienced hikers - imagine completing that feat at just six years old.\n\nThat is exactly what twins Rory and Finn McCullough from Bangor, County Down, have just managed to achieve.\n\nTheir efforts were all in aid of their five-year-old friend, Jodi Tomalin, who was diagnosed with cancer.\n\nJodi was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma after a tumour was discovered in his liver in March last year.\n\nThe P1 pupil has undergone several intensive chemotherapy treatments and has been in and out of hospital throughout his young life.\n\nJodi has since had the tumour removed and is now receiving a low-dosage chemotherapy at home, as well as attending weekly visits to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children with his mum, Lisa.\n\nRory and Finn, who attend the same primary school as Jodi, told their mum and dad they wanted to do something special for him.\n\nChristine McCullough pictured with Rory and Finn on the seven seven challenge\n\nThe boys, accompanied by parents Christine and Richard, set themselves the challenge of completing what is known as the Mourne Mountains Seven Sevens, all before their seventh birthday in July this year.\n\nThey successfully reached the summits of Slieve Donard (850m), Slieve Commedagh (767m), Slieve Bearnagh (739m), Slieve Meelmore (687m) Slieve Meelbeg (702m) Slieve Binnian (747m) and Slieve Lamagan (704m).\n\nRory and Finn completed their final mountain on their list last weekend.\n\nChristine McCullough says she has \"two little mountain goats\" for children\n\nChristine McCullough told BBC News NI she was initially worried about how the two young boys would cope with such a formidable task.\n\nBut after a trial run in the mountains, she soon realised they were more than up to the challenge.\n\nChristine and husband Richard, who are experienced hillwalkers themselves, said even they struggled at times to keep up with the two intrepid mini-mountaineers when they first started.\n\n\"We spent most of the time actually telling the boys to slow down when we were up there,\" Christine said.\n\n\"Myself and Richard definitely have two little mountain goats on our hands,\" she added.\n\nChristine, Rory and Finn McCullough taking a well-earned breather in between some rocks\n\nChristine said her husband was nicknamed \"the donkey\" throughout the challenge because he was the one left carrying all the supplies.\n\nThis was all while the boys meandered their way up the mountains getting high-fives from fellow hikers as they passed-by.\n\n\"We were always well prepared, we brought enough food to feed an army and had enough clothes on and spares to keep us all wrapped up warm.\n\n\"Both myself and Richard were always very mindful of what the weather forecast would be like before the boys and us went out, and planned everything right down to best routes to take.\"\n\nIt wasn't always smooth sailing for the boys: Rory and Finn's challenge was temporarily halted when Northern Ireland experienced a series of storms within a short space of time.\n\n\"After we got to the top of Slieve Lamagan, the sixth mountain on the list, they were all absolutely chomping at the bit to get the final mountain of Slieve Binnian done,\" Christine said.\n\n\"The boys' school, all our friends and family were all behind us but then Storm Dudley, Storm Eunice and Storm Franklin and all the bad weather after meant we had to wait a bit to just tick that final one off.\"\n\nChristine said it was a great relief for the boys to finally complete their challenge and said she is incredibly proud of what they have achieved.\n\nFinn said that his favourite mountain was Slieve Donard, while Rory, not wanting to copy his brother, found Slieve Lamagan to be his own personal highlight.\n\nEven after the boys finished their last mountain, Christine said when they all got back to the car - understandably quite tired - the boys turned to their parents and asked: 'When are we climbing Ben Nevis?'.\n\nJodi's mum, Lisa, described Rory and Finn as \"little stars\" and said their family have been completely blown away by what the boys have done.\n\nLisa said their family are now planning to celebrate the boys achievement in a couple of weeks time, where they will have a little ceremony for Rory and Finn as a thank you.", "The Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko addressed the crowd\n\nThe Ukrainian ambassador to the UK has called for Britain to do more to help his country.\n\nVadym Prystaiko, addressing a Downing Street rally, called for more support, weapons and humanitarian assistance as Russia continues its invasion.\n\nHundreds gathered at the rally with chants of \"stop Putin\" being heard and calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.\n\nThe UK has rejected a no-fly zone over fears it would start a Europe-wide war with a nuclear-armed power.\n\n\"We need support, we need weapons, we need humanitarian assistance,\" Mr Prystaiko said.\n\nHe added: \"We will fight. We will bring [Putin] down.\"\n\nDemonstrators shouted \"stand with Ukraine\" and \"shelter our sky\", and held banners with \"stop Putin\" written in mock blood.\n\nSome in the crowd called for a no-fly zone to be established over Ukraine, while others wanted the UK to take in more refugees.\n\nSome protesters were calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine\n\nCampaign group London Euromaidan, set up by Ukrainians living in London, organised the protest. They want the UK to expel Russian companies and oligarchs that support Putin's regime from London.\n\nIt comes as Ukrainian cities face heavy shelling from Russian forces, including at a military training base near Poland.\n\nKatya, a Ukrainian attending the protest, told the BBC more help was needed for Ukrainian refugees, including those who do not have family ties in the UK.\n\nShe said: \"A lot of people just lost their homes, just help them to live in these difficult times...\n\n\"Already more than two million people have left Ukraine. Countries such as Poland take a lot of refugees and it has become a humanitarian catastrophe.\n\n\"I think the UK should allow more people to come and stay here.\"\n\nKatya, originally from Ukraine, said more help was need for refugees\n\nThe protest follows criticism of the government - including from its own MPs - over the speed and scale of its response.\n\nThe government has offered households in the UK £350 a month to open their homes to tens of thousands of people that could come fleeing war in Ukraine.\n\nA separate Ukraine protest also took place outside the BBC's headquarters, near Oxford Circus, and was heading to Parliament Square.\n\nOn Saturday hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Downing Street.", "Vishnu, pictured with his dog Leo, was studying medicine at university in Ukraine before Russia invaded\n\nSmiling down the camera from his parents' home in southern India, with his dog Leo on his lap, it's hard to believe that only a few days have passed since Vishnu thought he was going to die as he sheltered from Russian shelling in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia.\n\nEven though Vinnytsia is in western Ukraine, a long way from the Russian border, it has still faced attacks. Last week nine people died in a missile strike that destroyed the airport on the outskirts of the city, officials say.\n\nPolla Vishnu Vardhan Rao, 21, is one of the tens of thousands of Indian students in Ukraine to have escaped the country since Russia invaded.\n\nHe says the kindness of Ukrainians is the main reason he is still alive.\n\nTwo weeks ago Vishnu had been enjoying life as a fourth-year medical student.\n\nHis days were spent attending classes at the university and in the city's hospitals, studying in the library, and swimming in the river with Leo.\n\n\"Ukraine is the most beautiful, peaceful country. In Vinnytsia there are so many peaceful places,\" Vishnu says.\n\nBut on 24 February, the day Russia's invasion began, he woke up to \"blasting sounds, firing sounds\".\n\nHe and his two flatmates, also Indian students, had no idea what was happening.\n\n\"We were very panicked,\" he says.\n\n\"I see outside the window some Ukrainians running with bags - I don't know where they are going.\"\n\nHe'd never heard the sound of air-raid sirens and didn't understand the accompanying announcements blared out in Ukrainian.\n\nLuckily, Vishnu's Ukrainian neighbours could translate the warnings into English and explain that war had broken out.\n\n\"They [said] some planes and tanks came and are fighting Ukraine - so don't go out, please stay inside,\" he says.\n\nOver the course of the next two days, Vinnytsia's sirens sounded every few hours, forcing Vishnu and his friends into the dark bunker beneath their apartment, which was full of rubble.\n\nHe couldn't sleep, so spent hours on the phone, trying to work out a plan to escape the city.\n\n\"I thought: 'Maybe I will die in this situation,'\" he says.\n\nThis was the scene after a missile hit a building at the airport on the outskirts of Vinnytsia\n\nOne of Vishnu's friends managed to find a Ukrainian minibus driver willing to take them to the Romanian border 250km (155 miles) away.\n\nThe driver, whose normal job involved taking people on day trips out of Vinnytsia, was not yet ready to leave the country himself because his wife was ill. So he agreed to make the risky trip, for which the group paid him a total of 12,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (£300).\n\nVishnu says he owes this driver his life.\n\n\"I can't express - it's because of him, only, we got saved. I say to him thank you, from the bottom of my heart.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Indian students on the trauma of escaping Ukraine's war\n\nVishnu was worried pets might not be allowed on the border, so he left Leo with his Ukrainian teacher and boarded the minibus.\n\nAs the bus rolled through the roads of south-west Ukraine, Vishnu and his friends started to relax. There was one moment of tension when planes whizzed overhead - Ukrainian or Russian, Vishnu doesn't know - but for the most part they felt like they were moving to safety.\n\nBut the worst part of Vishnu's journey was yet to come.\n\nVishnu was among 20 Indian students taken to the Romanian border by a minibus driver from Vinnytsia\n\nWhen the bus driver dropped Vishnu and his friends off, they joined a throng of hundreds of people trying to pass through a gate at the border.\n\nVishnu says only Ukrainians were being allowed through - and each time he got close to the crossing, guards would \"drag\" him to the back again.\n\nAfter a whole day standing in an ever-growing crowd, Vishnu began to worry that he would never get through the border.\n\nPop-up cafes serving refugees had run out of food and drink, and Vishnu had finished the bananas and buns he'd brought with him as snacks.\n\nVishnu says the worst part of his journey was waiting to cross the border into Romania\n\nEventually he resorted to pleading with the guards to let him and his friends through.\n\n\"We [were] asking: 'Please let us pass, we [have been] standing for two days, we are getting pains, we don't have food, water.\n\nSo Vishnu passed through the border with a few of his friends - but 13 of his original group of 20 were left behind.\n\nThe Indian embassy in Romania helped Vishnu (left) fly home after 30 hours on the border\n\nSpeaking of how he felt in that moment, Vishnu said: \"Personally, I'm happy. But so many friends aren't. I'm selfish, at this point. We have to be selfish because it's our own life. We can't risk our life for our friends - so we moved on.\"\n\nEveryone in Vishnu's group of 20 has since made it home to India.\n\nBut he remains worried about other friends in Kyiv - also Indian students - who are stuck in their bunkers as Russian forces continue to bombard the capital city with attacks.\n\nVishnu is now safe at his parents' home in southern India, but hopes one day to return to Ukraine\n\nWith the help of the Indian embassy in Romania, Vishnu was taken by bus from the border to Bucharest airport. His worried mum and dad smothered him with hugs and kisses when he landed at Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad.\n\nA few days after he arrived to parents' house in Suryapet, Telangana, Vishnu was also reunited with his beloved Leo.\n\nHis teacher in Ukraine had fled with her family to Moldova but took Leo on the bus all the way to Bucharest, from where the dog was flown to India.\n\nVishnu says he and Leo couldn't have got home without the kindness of the people of Vinnytsia.\n\n\"I'm lucky, so many guys helped me - my neighbours, the bus driver, my teacher.", "He wears it well: Sir Rod Stewart was pictured in a high-vis vest, shovelling gravel\n\nA council has urged people not to try to repair potholes themselves after Sir Rod Stewart was filmed doing it.\n\nInstagram videos showed the singer, 77, shovelling gravel near his home near Harlow, Essex, claiming drivers were \"bashing their cars up\" on the road.\n\nHis post was liked more than 75,000 times in a day and prompted comments praising his actions.\n\nAn Essex County Council cabinet member warned anyone attempting to repair a road could become liable for accidents.\n\nLee Scott, who is responsible for highways maintenance at the authority, said: \"You can't take matters into your own hands.\n\n\"People must always report potholes to the council and we will fix anything that's dangerous.\"\n\nThe rural road near Harlow in Essex has many potholes\n\nIn the Instagram post, Sir Rod claimed the road had been in need of repair \"for ages\" but that \"no-one can be bothered to do it\".\n\nDressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest, he explained why he and \"the boys\" decided to fix it themselves.\n\n\"People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all,\" he said.\n\nMr Scott promised he would \"endeavour to rectify it\" and asked for an officer report as quickly as possible.\n\nHe said: \"All road repairs have to be done to a professional level or the person doing it could become liable for any problems or accidents\".\n\nHe added he would be happy to arrange a meeting with the singer to discuss the issue.\n\nThe BBC has approached Sir Rod for comment.\n\nThe 77-year-old is seen singing and shovelling gravel near Harlow in Essex\n\nDominic Zarian from the area spent about £130 on car repairs after being unable to avoid \"a massive crack\" in the road, which he says he reported to the council four weeks ago.\n\nHe said: \"That road is dark, when it's wet it can be treacherous. Someone's going to get hurt.\"\n\nEssex County Council's pothole webpage said all reports were inspected but \"the timescale for the repair depends on the risk assessment and which type of road the pothole is on\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A police cordon remained in place on Old Christchurch Road and Horseshoe Common on Sunday\n\nA 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man was stabbed outside a sandwich shop.\n\nThe 21-year-old died in hospital after being seriously injured outside Subway in Old Christchurch Road in Bournemouth at about 04:45 GMT on Saturday.\n\nThe man's family is being supported by specially trained officers.\n\nDorset Police said a section of Old Christchurch Road and Horseshoe Common remained closed on Sunday as investigations continued.\n\nDet Insp Simon Huxter, of the force's Major Crime Investigation Team, said police are still appealing for any witnesses to come forward with information, \"no matter how small you think it may be\".\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The first ministers of Scotland and Wales want to get Ukrainians settled and cared for faster\n\nScotland's first minister and her Welsh counterpart have proposed that both governments become \"super sponsors\" to Ukranian refugees fleeing the war.\n\nNicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford have written to the UK government to confirm their commitment in contributing to its community sponsorship scheme.\n\nBut Scotland and Wales have offered to step further to support refugees by acting as super sponsors.\n\nIt is hoped this would allow Ukrainians to come to the two countries faster.\n\nThe idea would be to get them into temporary accommodation immediately and then work with local partners to provide longer-term places to stay, including with host individuals, and give them access to safeguarding and services.\n\nHouseholds in the UK will be offered £350 a month to open their homes to people fleeing the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe UK government's Homes for Ukraine scheme calls on people to offer a spare room or an empty property to a refugee for a period of at least six months.\n\nIn a joint letter to Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, Ms Sturgeon and Mr Drakeford have emphasised that the government must provide more clarity on how the scheme will work.\n\nThe letter makes clear that no cap will be set by Scotland and Wales on the numbers of refugees they will welcome.\n\nScotland has made an immediate commitment to support 3,000 refugees in the initial wave, in line with the numbers that were resettled under the Syrian scheme. Wales would take 1,000.\n\nThe Scottish government said it would welcome \"at least\" a proportionate share of the total number who come to the UK.\n\nThe letter also says it is essential that all arrivals have access to public funds, including welfare benefits, and are exempted from the Habitual Residence Test for accessing these.\n\nThe first ministers also call for urgent clarity on funding arrangements to support local government and they have suggested a \"per head\" funding arrangement similar to the Syrian and Afghanistan schemes to support resettlement and integration costs.\n\nFinally, the letter calls for all visa requirements for Ukrainian nationals to be waived.\n\nNicola Sturgeon said: \"I want Scotland to play our full part in welcoming Ukrainians seeking sanctuary from war. The UK response so far has been beset with bureaucracy and red tape, when what is needed is humanity and urgent refuge for as many as possible.\n\n\"We are still awaiting full details of the proposed community sponsorship scheme. If the UK government is still unwilling to waive visa requirements, it is essential that this scheme works efficiently and effectively and allows people to come to the UK as quickly as possible.\n\n\"However, I am very worried that if people have to be matched with an individual sponsor before even being allowed entry to the UK, it will prove slow and cumbersome.\"\n\nPeople called for more help for Ukrainian refugees at a rally in Glasgow on Saturday\n\nShe said that super sponsorship would allow large numbers to come to the respective nations quickly and that she would be able to welcome Ukrainians to Scotland as soon as possible.\n\nHowever, refugee support groups fear the main problem is not with hosting Ukrainians, but in visa restrictions stopping them from entering the country in the first place.\n\nRobina Qureshi, director of refugee homelessness charity Positive Action in Housing, said there were skilled and experienced hosting networks up and down the country with thousands of hosts.\n\n\"Britain is not planning on taking its fair share of refugees, even though there is public support for taking in Ukrainian refugees,\" she said.\n\n\"The families who host refugees don't do it for money, they are helping because they see a government that is heartless and won't lift visa restrictions.\n\n\"The number of houses is not the problem and this is a gimmick - just another distraction from the fact that the UK is still the only country in Europe that hasn't lifted visa restrictions and there are still no safe routes here for Ukrainian war refugees.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Levelling Up said: \"We are always grateful to the devolved govts for their offers of support.\n\n\"We will continue to work with the devolved governments in the organisation of this scheme and see how best it can continue to be delivered.\"\n\nDo you plan to open your home to a Ukrainian refugee? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Olgun Ibrahim, known as 'Ozzie' - a former worker at Clarity\n\nThe Pensions Regulator is investigating whether the owner of one of the UK's oldest social enterprises fraudulently failed to make disabled workers' pension contributions.\n\nThe 168-year-old soap maker Clarity was bought from administration in 2020.\n\nWorkers say they lost their jobs and are still owed redundancy payments, furlough money and wages.\n\nThe owner, Nicholas Marks said he looked forward to \"clarifying the position\" with the Regulator.\n\nOlgun \"Ozzie\" Ibrahim caught Covid a week before Christmas 2020. By the time he recovered, he was told not to come back to work. He was put on furlough in January, and received two months furlough money but nothing more - no pension payments, and no notice period or redundancy when he finally lost his job in July.\n\nRegistered blind, he had worked for 29 years at Clarity & Co, a social enterprise which had been providing employment opportunities for blind and disabled people since 1854, making toiletries under the Clarity, the Soap Co. and Beco brands.\n\nThe business, whose patrons ranged from Queen Victoria to Joanna Lumley, was losing money, and it was put into administration in January 2020.\n\nOn the same day the business and its assets were bought by a businessman, Nicholas Marks, who now stands accused of not paying workers' wages and pensions.\n\nClarity and Co sign at the site of the former factory in North London\n\nClarity had around 80 workers when it was sold, of whom 65 were blind, disabled, or had a health condition.\n\nIt was more than a job, says Mr Ibrahim, it was like a family too.\n\nSince leaving, he and his fellow workers have struggled to find work. “No-one wants to employ disabled, blind people,” he says. “Though we can do the work, no-one wants to take the chance.”\n\nThe BBC has also spoken to a number of former Clarity employees who say pension contributions were deducted from their pay packets but were never paid to the pension provider, Scottish Widows.\n\nAmong them is former team leader Allan Brooks, who worked at the company for 17 years. Registered blind, he says he didn't receive furlough money or redundancy either.\n\nWhen he heard he was losing his job, “it was a massive shock,” he says. “I was expecting to see my working days out at the company.”\n\nHe is now taking medication for depression, and hasn’t worked since he left. A number of his former colleagues are also suffering from mental health issues, Mr Ibrahim says.\n\nThe BBC has learned that The Pensions Regulator has begun an investigation into Nicholas Marks for alleged fraudulent evasion of the duty to pass on pension contributions to a workplace pension scheme, under the 1995 Pensions Act. The Pensions Regulator would not confirm or deny the investigation.\n\nThe UK Employment Tribunal website also lists judgements in favour of over 40 individuals who have won claims for unauthorised deduction of wages and other monies owed to workers by Clarity Products (the company's new name under Mr Marks's ownership).\n\nThe BBC has spoken to seven of them, who say they have not been paid the money the tribunal awarded.\n\nClarity Products - renamed Jublee Number 7 Ltd - is now being liquidated. Documents from the insolvency practitioners Quantuma, seen by the BBC, show the company owed more than £435,626 to 84 employees, including Mr Ibrahim and Mr Brooks.\n\nScottish Widows is owed £37,068 and NEST Pensions £15,494. The company's total debts amounted to more than £1.3m.\n\nLocal MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith wrote to the minister responsible, Jesse Norman, in November 2020 to highlight the case but HMRC cannot confirm or deny whether it has begun an investigation. HMRC is owed £231,839 by Jublee Number 7, the insolvency documents show.\n\nIn a statement, Mr Marks told the BBC: \"I understand that there are some technical questions being asked by the Regulator as to the supply of certain documents. Whilst I was not involved with the detail of these, much if not all of this is attributable to the pandemic which left our offices being unmanned, correspondence going astray and the departure of staff whose responsibility it was to provide this information.\"\n\nHe also said he has personally lost around £500,000 and so \"any suggestion that I took money out is both absurd and patently untrue.\"\n\nHe said that \"During that chaotic period [following the sale, and during the pandemic] some people weren't paid. I'm sorry that happened but some workers were TUPE'd [transferred] over from offices that no longer existed and didn't have any roles. That's not an excuse but I'm trying to explain how we inherited a complete mess.\"\n\n\"For me, my biggest regret is that I couldn't save the business and the jobs but unforeseeable events conspired to make it an impossible task,\" the statement continued.\n\nMr Marks did not comment on whether he would repay any of the workers who are still owed money.\n\nLittle is known about Nicholas Marks. Born in 1967, he describes himself as British on Companies House, though he also has links with South Africa.\n\nIn 2019, he bought a company in Lancashire called Lunar Caravans out of administration. Workers there have also complained about unpaid furlough money.\n\nNicholas Marks was banned from acting as a director of a company for a year from 3 August 2020 for infringements at another company, Stafferton Waste, which has since been dissolved.\n\nHe was subject to bankruptcy orders in 2007 and 2017, according to official notices published in the London Gazette.\n\nThe gates at the former Clarity and Co factory in North London\n\nFollowing reports on BBC News and elsewhere about the plight of former Clarity workers, Nicholas Marks sued two people for spreading what he claimed was false information about the company.\n\nThey were Camilla Marcus-Dew, Clarity’s former Head of Commercial, and Cemal Ezel, a social entrepreneur who made an unsuccessful bid to buy Clarity out of administration in 2020.\n\nThe pair - who deny Mr Marks’s allegations - initially had to represent themselves without legal advice. They are now represented on a pro bono basis by two law firms, Quinn Emanuel for Ms Marcus-Dew and Hausfeld for Mr Ezel.\n\nSeparately, on 27 January Ms Marcus-Dew was awarded £38,491 by an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal from Clarity, on top of £11,000 awarded earlier for unpaid wages (she has received nothing, she says).\n\nMr Ezel said that the ongoing litigation had forced him to scale back plans to expand his social enterprise, Change Please, a coffee business which provides opportunities and training for homeless people.\n\nSocial Enterprise UK has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support former workers and campaign for policy changes to prevent similar situations occurring in the future.\n\nNest Pensions, Scottish Widows and Quantuma all declined to comment.", "Sir Rod Stewart said his Ferrari could not get through the potholes\n\nSir Rod Stewart has filmed himself fixing potholes on a road near his home and complaining about the state of it.\n\nVideos on the 77-year-old singer's Instagram account showed him shovelling gravel in Harlow, Essex, claiming \"no-one can be bothered to do it\".\n\nIn one, he said: \"People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all.\"\n\nAn Essex County Council cabinet member promised to investigate the situation.\n\nIn the post, Sir Rod is seen dressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest while singing and shovelling.\n\nHe said: \"This is the state of the road near where I live in Harlow and it's been like this for ages.\n\n\"So me and the boys thought we would come and do it ourselves.\"\n\nThe 77-year-old is seen singing and shovelling gravel near Harlow in Essex\n\nThe post was captioned: \"Working for a living, filling holes is good for the soul!\"\n\nHis daughters Kimberly and Ruby commented with heart and clapping emojis, while one fan urged him not to hurt himself as he had tickets for his concert in June.\n\nLee Scott, Cabinet Member for highways maintenance at Essex County Council said: \"This was brought to my attention this morning, and I have asked for an officer report as quickly as possible.\n\n\"I will endeavour to rectify it.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A maternity and children's hospital in the southern city of Mariupol was one of the health facilities attacked by Russian forces\n\nThe UK has sent six more plane-loads of medical aid and equipment to Ukraine, as Health Secretary Sajid Javid accused Russia of war crimes in attacking medical facilities.\n\nMr Javid said there had been more than 25 attacks on health centres and hospitals since the invasion began.\n\n\"This is a war crime and Russia will pay for the crimes it's carrying out,\" he said.\n\nRussia has claimed, without evidence, that hospital bombings were faked.\n\nOne attack on a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol on Thursday which killed three people, including a child, was condemned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as \"depraved\".\n\nAn intelligence briefing from the Ministry of Defence says several cities remain encircled by Russian forces and continue to suffer heavy shelling.\n\nMost Russian ground forces are now 15 miles (25km) from the centre of Kyiv, the MoD said, while part of a large armoured column appears to be dispersing to try and surround the city.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Birmingham Children's Hospital, Mr Javid said that \"Russia needs to stop its aggression\".\n\n\"This is a war started by Russia, completely unprovoked, completely unjustified,\" he said.\n\nHe said the World Health Organization had counted more than 25 health facilities which had been targeted or hit by Russian forces, describing it as \"completely unacceptable\".\n\nUnder the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements which attempt to regulate wars, civilians cannot be deliberately attacked, and neither can the infrastructure they depend on to survive.\n\nThe UK is among 39 countries which on 3 March referred Russia to the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes war crimes, following the bombardment of civilian areas in several cities.\n\nMr Javid said more medical aid, on top of the six plane-loads already sent, will go out in the coming days.\n\nThe Department for Health and Social Care said the shipments held 650,000 items, including wound-care packs, needles, syringes, intravenous lines, patient monitors, infusion pumps and protective equipment.\n\nMore than £400m of UK aid has been promised to Ukraine, including humanitarian aid and economic support.\n\nThe UK was also among the first to send weapons and other military aid, starting in January.\n\nAnti-tank weapons supplied by the UK and other western nations have been used to destroy Russian tanks, such as this one near Kharkiv\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace said this week that the UK had delivered 3,615 light anti-tank missiles and promised to continue to deliver more.\n\nHe said the UK would also start delivering a \"small consignment\" of Javelin anti-tank missiles, which can target tanks up to 1.5 miles (2.5km) away, and is considering donating Starstreak portable anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nAid to Ukraine's military has also included body armour, helmets, boots, ear defenders, ration packs, rangefinders and communications equipment, the defence secretary said.\n\nBut the UK has faced criticism over its response to the displacement of over 2.5 million Ukrainians, with only 1,000 refugees given visas via the Ukraine Family Scheme as of Friday. No updated figures were available on Saturday.\n\nA new visa scheme allowing individuals and organisations to sponsor Ukrainians to come to the UK if they do not have family connections is expected to be announced on Monday.\n\nLabour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said the country needed \"a simple, safe, quick and efficient route to sanctuary\" rather than the current approach, which is \"too narrow, too slow, with too many hurdles in place\".\n\nAsked if he would be prepared to host a Ukrainian refugee in his home in north London, Sir Keir said the British public have shown \"incredible support towards the Ukrainian people, whether that's giving money, whether it's giving things that they can provide or whether it's providing sanctuary - and like many, many other people, I'd be more than happy to play my part in that\".\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said the UK's moves towards making its system more generous were \"going in the right direction\" and \"maybe at some point they will totally match\" the European Union approach of allowing refugees from the war a three-year residency without a visa.\n\nMr Macron said a letter from his interior minister accusing the UK of a \"lack of humanity\" had been \"useful\" and France would assess over the next few days whether enough was being done. He said France had offered to host visa application centres in Lille or other cities.", "The scene in Melitopol. \"We have not stopped protesting,\" one resident said\n\nIn the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.\n\nHe told his followers that the Russian forces occupying the city had now taken control of the city's communications network, so they needed to be wary of what they heard on TV and the radio.\n\nHow many people would see his warning, he didn't know. Melitopol's internet connection had also all but disappeared, making it nearly impossible to reach people inside by WhatsApp or Telegram call, or stay connected for more than a few minutes.\n\nThe ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. \"We cannot use,\" he said. \"Too easy for the Russians to listen in.\"\n\nWhen the invading forces took control of Melitopol a week ago they ransacked the mayor's offices, Federov said, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Federov said emphatically. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is liberating historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.\n\nRussian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine\n\n\"There are protests in Melitopol every day,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, 33, who before the invasion helped run her family business of electronics stores.\n\n\"At some point the Russian army started shooting at us and one man got shot but we have not stopped protesting,\" Kovaliova said. \"We are not afraid to protest because we are together. We are afraid to walk alone at night, but we are not afraid to protest.\"\n\nAbout 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.\n\n\"I don't know how to count the number of people protesting, I thought it was 2,000 at least,\" said Yunona, a 29-year-old IT worker in the southern city of Kherson. \"One of our friends was beaten and taken by the Russian soldiers and people got so angry they chased the occupiers down the street and took him back.\"\n\nThe Russian troops in Kherson looked young and uncertain, said Olha, a 63-year-old English teacher. \"We go to the protests every day and they are close to us but they look afraid,\" she said. \"We are all just waiting for the Ukrainian army to kick them out.\"\n\nBerdyansk in the south-east has also seen protestors take to the streets\n\nReports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.\n\n\"Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,\" said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. \"I have asked them - please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.\"\n\nVadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors - non-fatally - and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.\n\nNovopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.\n\n\"A new 'administration' has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose\n\nGaev and his team left town when Russia seized Novopskov, in order to keep his administration running - a move he said had divided residents, some of whom accused him of a betrayal while others said they were grateful he was still able to work.\n\nTwo residents of Kherson told the BBC they thought the mayor there had betrayed the city by co-operating with Russian forces - an accusation circulating in Telegram chat groups. Two others said he was simply doing what he could to ensure the city kept running.\n\nThe mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, told the BBC: \"If I had betrayed the city would I still be here? I am in the office every day, working with my team to keep things running.\"\n\nThe priority was to restart food production and get people back to work, Kolykhayev said.\n\n\"We are running out of food and there is no aid coming in, it's just not happening,\" he said. \"So we are telling everyone in the city: make any food you can make, manufacture anything you can manufacture.\"\n\nMost residents who spoke to the BBC from the occupied cities said food was fast running out.\n\n\"Shops are almost empty. You can buy the things that are left but very few things are left,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, the electronics shop owner from Melitopol. \"Pharmacies are empty and my mother can't buy her heart medicine.\"\n\nKovaliova said that two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said.\n\n\"Later we saw on it on TV. Russia has taken over the TV towers here so we only have one Russian channel being shown now and it was showing people taking the food and saying how thankful they are to the Russian humanitarian convoy.\"\n\nMaxim, a 22-year-old piano teacher in the city, also described the supposed humanitarian convoy. \"They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,\" he said. Yunona, the IT worker in Kherson, said she saw the same thing there, and Ukrainian media reported on the phenomenon in Berdyansk.\n\nIvan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these 'humanitarian convoys' too. But there were \"no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,\" he said.\n\n\"They could open humanitarian corridors at any time to allow food and medicine in, but they do not want to. We know, we have tried.\"\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, as usual, Federov put out his daily Facebook update, appealing to anyone in the city who could afford it to pay their utility bills and congratulating Ukraine's women on International Women's Day. \"I'm sure the war will end soon and we will celebrate all our holidays in a peaceful, Ukrainian Melitopol,\" he said.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Ukrainian refugees wait for a train at the railway station in Lviv, western Ukraine\n\nHouseholds in Northern Ireland will be offered £350 a month to open their homes to people fleeing the war in Ukraine.\n\nEarlier Housing Secretary Michael Gove said that tens of thousands of people could come to the UK under the scheme.\n\nThe Northern Ireland Executive Office said has encouraged expressions of interest in providing accommodation from both individuals and groups.\n\nA website to express an interest in being a sponsor is launching on Monday.\n\nWestminster confirmed that, like in other parts of the UK, people in Northern Ireland who allow Ukrainian refugees to stay in their homes rent-free will be entitled to government payments.\n\nDetails of the Homes for Ukraine scheme were announced on Sunday and the project will be overseen by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.\n\nBBC News NI asked the department how additional funding would be allocated to support refugees coming to Northern Ireland, including any extra school places and healthcare provision they may need.\n\nIt said the department will work with devolved administrations to decide the best funding route for them, and discussions were ongoing.\n\nHowever, ministers working in Stormont's devolved government - the Northern Ireland Executive - are currently having problems with the allocation of their existing funds.\n\nPaul Givan, from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), resigned in protest over post-Brexit trade rules in early February, which meant the deputy first minister automatically lost her job.\n\nWithout both leaders in post, Northern Ireland Executive ministers cannot meet as a team to take any major new decisions.\n\nIn England, local authorities will also receive £10,500 in extra funding per refugee for support services - with more for children of school age, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said.\n\nIt is not yet known how this money will be allocated in Northern Ireland.\n\nOn Sunday night, a spokesperson for the Executive Office said that \"while not all the details have yet been announced by Westminster, we are working at pace, making preparations so we stand ready to provide sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees\".\n\n\"Mindful of the pressure on social housing stock, officials are also engaging with councils and the voluntary and community sector to find creative ways of bringing suitable accommodation into use and identifying all available capacity,\" added the spokesperson.\n\n\"We are in close contact with the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing and with colleagues in other jurisdictions.\n\n\"We will participate fully in this humanitarian effort. Partnership across sectors and wider society will be key to ensuring we can support as many Ukrainian people seeking sanctuary here as possible.\"\n\nMatthew O'Toole previously worked in Downing Street and the Treasury as a civil servant\n\nOn Sunday morning, the SDLP's economy spokesperson called on Northern Ireland's devolved government to \"do more\" to support Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing the war.\n\nMatthew O'Toole made the call after leaders in Scotland and Wales proposed both their governments become \"super sponsors\" to take in more refugees.\n\nHe said it was \"not good enough\" for Stormont to take no action because of the current absence of its leaders.\n\nMr O'Toole was asked if there was more Stormont could do to support Ukrainian refugees in the absence of a first and deputy first minister.\n\n\"Yes, there definitely is,\" he told the BBC's Sunday Politics programme.\n\n\"From my perspective, I've already called on on the Executive Office to do more more to prepare to receive Ukrainian refugees.\n\n\"This is the biggest humanitarian crisis on our continent in probably most of our lifetimes, probably since the Second World War.\"\n\nThe Home Office in Westminster has faced criticism in recent days over the numbers of Ukrainian refugees it has allowed into the UK so far and the amount of bureaucracy involved its visa system.\n\nIn contrast, EU member states, including the Republic of Ireland, lifted visa restrictions on Ukrainians arriving in the country shortly after Russia invaded.\n\nTo date, about 5,500 Ukrainian refugees have now arrived in the Republic of Ireland, the country's taoiseach (prime minister) confirmed to the BBC's Sunday Morning programme.", "High-performing schools in south Liverpool are oversubscribed, the council says\n\n\"It's like the children are fighting with the system, where the system's telling our children that they are second-class citizens.\"\n\nIsmail Saleh is among hundreds of parents in Liverpool who could appeal against their children's allocated secondary-school places because they failed to get any of their five choices.\n\nHe says his daughter is \"angry and depressed\" about potentially facing a two-hour round bus trip to a school outside her home in south Liverpool, which has the most popular schools in terms of preferences.\n\n\"My fear is racial discrimination - would she get home safe, would she get to school safe?\"\n\nMany other local youngsters also face long school journeys from this September because nearby Christian faith schools have been oversubscribed.\n\nIsmail Saleh plans to appeal against his daughter's allocated place\n\nAurelie Maigrat is concerned that her son's admission in a school outside their area \"with no one that he knows\" could have a \"massive impact\" on him.\n\n\"Will he suffer discrimination as one of the few Muslim kids attending the school?\" she said.\n\nDr Amina Elmi, from the Granby Somali Women's Group, has been lobbying for a change in schools admissions, saying: \"This is an issue that has been ongoing for decades - it's never been addressed.\n\n\"If an admission policy stops people from a certain community - from a certain race or faith - from getting into the schools in their locale, then it's up to Liverpool City Council to tackle and change that.\"\n\nHowever the authority says they do not have the power to amend admissions policies for certain schools, including academies and faith-based schools, but they will work to find out if Muslim youngsters are missing out more than others.\n\nAurelie Maigrat is concerned over whether her son will adjust to an unfamiliar setting\n\nA recent council report reveals that the proportion of Liverpool children allocated their first preference fell this year, with 10% given places at a school that was not among their choices.\n\nThis meant that 519 students were offered places as a result of not being granted any of their preferences - compared to 435 in 2021 and 385 in 2020.\n\nCouncillor Tom Logan, cabinet member for schools, said the demand for places in south Liverpool was particularly intense.\n\n\"We've got really good, desirable, well-respected schools but lots of people find it difficult to get places at them.\n\n\"A number of schools have admissions criteria that limit the number of places which are open to everyone and then they offer them on a random basis, so it doesn't matter where you live.\"\n\nCllr Tom Logan says Liverpool needs more schools in the coming years\n\nHe said there was also \"a cluster of schools with a religious element to their admissions policies so if you're not Catholic or from the Church of England or you don't want a faith-based education, you'll find it difficult to get a place as well\".\n\n\"The appeals process would normally be used for anomalies\" he said, \"but this year we are expecting hundreds of parents to appeal.\"\n\nIn a report circulated to councillors, Cllr Logan said the council had \"no silver bullet to fix the issue in secondary schools\".\n\nHe has facilitated some advice sessions for parents who want to appeal although, given the demand for places, it is uncertain how many will succeed.\n\nDr Amina Elmi says there have been problems with school admissions for \"decades\"\n\nThe green light has been given for one new free school but Councillor Logan said Liverpool was in \"such dire need\" of more pupil places that more schools were required.\n\nHe added that about 400 places in Year 7 were needed across the city \"over the next couple of years\" as the local authority plans its schools' strategy and works with the government to see where places could be needed.\n\nJonathan Jones, director of education and skills at the council, added that some of the city's schools had a historic \"reputation\" that deter parents, despite good results.\n\nBut he said the council itself could not build a school to solve the admissions policy and that a free school or academy would have to be established by external trusts instead.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nKai Havertz has scored in three consecutive Premier League appearances for the first time, and in all competitions he has had a hand in six goals in his last five games (five goals, one assist) Chelsea snatched a dramatic winner against Newcastle in the first game at Stamford Bridge since Blues' Russian owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government. The game looked to be heading towards a goalless draw before Kai Havertz expertly controlled a ball forward and fired into the net in the 88th minute. It was a tough goal to concede for Newcastle who had wanted Havertz to be sent off in the first half for catching Dan Burn in the face with an elbow when jumping, but the German only received a booking. Before the goal, both sides had struggled to create clear-cut chances, with Chelsea taking 75 minutes to produce an effort on target. Newcastle's Miguel Almiron had earlier forced a fine save from home goalkeeper Edouard Mendy with a well-struck 25-yard volley and Burn headed just wide. Just as had happened in Chelsea's 3-1 away win over Norwich on Thursday, a small section of fans chanted Abramovich's name, for a brief period in the second half. Abramovich has been sanctioned as a part of the government's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, meaning his assets, including Chelsea Football Club, have been frozen.\n• None Prospective owner Candy wants fan on club board if Chelsea takeover successful\n• None Chelsea v Newcastle as it happened, plus reaction and analysis A good end to a tough week for Chelsea and Tuchel Chelsea stay third, but are now only seven points behind second-placed Liverpool and 10 adrift of leaders Manchester City. Meanwhile, Newcastle, beaten for the first time in nine Premier League matches, are 14th, 10 points clear of the relegation zone. The relief and delight shown from Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, both at the goal and again at the final whistle, showed what this meant to him by screaming at the fans and punching the air. And it was easy to see why he was so emotional with the club's very existence potentially under threat. Abramovich has been the Chelsea owner for nearly 19 years, a period in which they have won 21 trophies, including the Premier League on five occasions and the Champions League twice. But the current sanctions against him have stopped him selling Chelsea, and mean the club are unable to buy or sell players, cannot sell any more tickets for games, have had their credit cards suspended and have had to close the club shop. The government said it would issue a special licence that allowed fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches, although the club's wage bill stands at £28m a month. It seemed fitting that Newcastle, another side with hugely controversial owners following their takeover in October by the Saudi Arabian-backed Public Investment Fund (PIF), were Chelsea's opponents on a day when events off the field were talked about as much as those on it. Newcastle's takeover and the potential huge investment into the club was celebrated by their fans a few months ago, although Amnesty International said \"it represented a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football\". Despite the late defeat, this was another sign of the progress Newcastle are making on the pitch. There was plenty for Newcastle boss Eddie Howe to be positive about given his side were only a few minutes away from securing a point away at the current European and world champions. Arriving at a club without a league win and with only six points from 12 matches, he began with five defeats in his first eight games in all competitions, including a humiliating home loss to third-tier Cambridge United in the FA Cup third round. But, after spending £80m in the January transfer window, the Magpies had been on a run of eight games unbeaten, including six victories, before this narrow loss. The visitors had defended superbly up until Jorginho's excellent ball over the defence found Havertz, who showed his class to control it and then score the winner to delight the packed crowd at Stamford Bridge. Howe said he thought Havertz could have been sent off but was also disappointed his side did not get a second-half penalty when Trevoh Chalobah had a hold of Jacob Murphy's shirt. Newcastle wanted Chelsea's Kai Havertz to be sent off for elbowing Dan Burn, but Havertz only received a yellow card after a check by the video assistant referee\n• None Attempt saved. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Dwight Gayle (Newcastle United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Goal! Chelsea 1, Newcastle United 0. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Jorginho with a through ball.\n• None Offside, Chelsea. Mateo Kovacic tries a through ball, but Romelu Lukaku is caught offside.\n• None Mateo Kovacic (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Fabian Schär (Newcastle United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Matt Targett with a cross. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "John Rutherford and his wife have previously hosted refugees from Ethiopia and Iran\n\nPeople in the UK are being asked to offer a spare room to Ukrainian refugees. But what is it like sharing your home with someone who has fled war or persecution?\n\nFor the third time in a year, John Rutherford and his wife Sue are considering opening up their south London house to a refugee.\n\n\"We have a big house, my kids have left home,\" says John. \"It's not a great hardship for us to make some space for a refugee.\"\n\nIn 2021, they hosted one person from Ethiopia and one from Iran, each for a couple of weeks while they awaited longer-term accommodation during the asylum application process.\n\nAnd now, he is ready to open his five-bedroom house again.\n\nHe says: \"It was the sheer numbers involved that made me want to help. The fact that this is only down the road... means there is even more obligation for us to be hospitable.\n\n\"There could be four or five million people looking for places to stay, so the UK has to do its bit and the British people have to do their bit.\"\n\nHe says the system for Ukrainian refugees will involve a bigger commitment than his Ethiopian and Iranian guests - the government are asking for people to offer a place to stay for at least six months.\n\nBut John says hosting refugees can be very rewarding.\n\n\"I really enjoy meeting people and talking to people from different cultures,\" he says. \"I just found the experience absolutely fascinating, talking about their country, their experiences, their culture.\"\n\nHe says his refugee guests wanted to be useful. The Ethiopian made a meal for his hosts to introduce them to his country's cuisine, while the Iranian repeatedly offered to use his professional skills to repair things around the house.\n\nBut he advises anyone considering being a host to be \"patient and understanding\" - and to learn as much about their guest as they can, in order to offer them the right kind of environment.\n\n\"A lot of refugees will be severely stressed, maybe they even have PTSD,\" John says.\n\n\"Chances are, refugees have had terrible experiences, and you have to know when to give them some space and some peace and quiet, or when they might want companionship.\"\n\nEfrem, from Ethiopia, shared his country's cuisine with John and Sue when he stayed with them\n\nHe suggests finding out about their interests; whether they want to attend a church or other religious services; whether they have hobbies; or whether they prefer peace and relaxation or keeping busy.\n\nBut with the Homes for Ukraine scheme requiring people in the UK to identify a named refugee they can host, John questions how many people who might want to help - but don't have a personal connection with a Ukrainian - could be matched with someone.\n\nOn previous occasions John hosted refugees, it was arranged by the charity Refugees At Home, which visited him to check on the accommodation being offered and asked about any house rules.\n\nHe then received information about the refugee they hoped to place with him - with details such as their age, country of origin, and whether they spoke English.\n\nJohn says he is concerned about the lack of a similar system for Ukrainians, with the government suggesting people in the UK could make contact with refugees via social media. \"I am concerned about what support mechanism there will be,\" he says.\n\nSince the Ukraine scheme was announced, John has contacted Refugees at Home, and urges anyone considering opening their doors to see it as an opportunity.\n\n\"It might be challenging,\" he says, \"but it can also be very enriching.\"", "The St Patrick's Day parade has returned to the streets of London after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.\n\nAn estimated 50,000 people attended the annual parade, showcasing Irish culture, in the city centre.\n\nIrish premier Micheal Martin joined in the event, wearing the colours of Ukraine and walking alongside its flag.\n\nThe Taoiseach, who is on a two-day visit to the UK, met up with Irish community leaders and NHS workers who worked in the pandemic.\n\nMr Martin said he was also meeting with Ukrainian first responders to \"illustrate our solidarity in terms of the plight of the people in Ukraine\".\n\nIrish premier Micheal Martin wore the colours of the Ukrainian flag\n\nThe Taoiseach said he wanted to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people\n\nThis year key workers from across London were grand marshals at the event in recognition of their work during the pandemic.\n\nThe parade made its way from Green Park to Trafalgar Square, where a festival is taking place.\n\nThe annual London Mayor's annual St Patrick's celebration is in its 19th year\n\nAbout 50,000 joined in the parade and the festival, despite the weather\n\nThe festival in Trafalgar Square featured Irish music and dancing", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland had to settle for a draw in the first Test against West Indies despite a spirited performance on the final day in Antigua.\n\nA bold declaration from captain Joe Root, who reached his 24th Test hundred in the morning session, gave England the chance to push for an unlikely victory.\n\nHis side took four wickets for eight runs either side of tea to boost their hopes, spinner Jack Leach claiming 3-57 on a lifeless pitch.\n\nBut West Indies, who did not attempt to chase their target of 286 in 71 overs, were steadied by a stubborn, unbroken stand of 80 between first-innings centurion Nkrumah Bonner and all-rounder Jason Holder, which lasted 35.5 overs.\n\nCrucially England did not review an lbw appeal against Holder with 22 overs left. Had they done so he would have been dismissed by Leach.\n\nInstead he ended 37 not out and Bonner unbeaten on 38, the players shaking hands with the score 147-4.\n\nEngland's cause was hurt by the absence of fast bowler Mark Wood, who sat out the innings with an elbow injury and is now a doubt for the second Test, which begins on Wednesday in Barbados.\n\nEarlier, despite the loss of five wickets, England added 132 to their second-innings total before declaring 20 minutes before lunch on 349-6.\n\nRoot turned his 84 not out overnight into 109, while Dan Lawrence scored 37 from 36 balls in an enterprising cameo as England sought quick runs.\n\nThe Test, the first of three in this series, may have ended in a draw but England's improved performance on the final two days offers some momentum as they look to move on from their humiliating 4-0 Ashes defeat.\n\nWith the bowlers at their disposal, England did all that could realistically have been expected of them in their quest for victory on the final day.\n\nRoot declared earlier than expected and slow left-armer Leach in particular bowled well, but the tourists were thwarted by a docile pitch.\n\nAfter West Indies slowly reached 59-0, Ben Stokes removed Brathwaite, getting him lbw with a ball that scuttled low, but there was little mischief in the pitch thereafter.\n\nWood's extra pace was missed and, without it, seamers Chris Woakes and Craig Overton were ineffective.\n\nOpener John Campbell was caught at mid-on trying to whack Leach over the top and Jermaine Blackwood was out lbw slogging across the line - two wretched strokes that helped England's cause.\n\nHowever, once Bonner and Holder played themselves in, they were able to defend with relative ease, even with fielders surrounding the bat.\n\nEngland would have had a glimmer had they reviewed the lbw decision against Holder but Root, wary after earlier burning two reviews on optimistic lbw shouts, was unmoved. The technology suggested Leach's delivery would have hit leg stump.\n\nRoot held on until there were only five balls left before accepting the cause was lost.\n\nEngland were aggressive from the outset and opener Zak Crawley, who resumed on 117, was bowled trying to strike a Holder yorker for 121.\n\nThat ended a stand of 201 between Crawley and Root, but the England captain continued to complete one of his most straightforward Test centuries.\n\nA chanceless knock helped him overtake Alastair Cook in the list of most Test tons as England captain, and will silence any debate around his return to number three in the batting order.\n\nPerhaps most impressive was Lawrence's brief innings which gave England impetus. Having been recalled to the side for this Test, the 24-year-old cracked the ball over the off side from the outset and hit one extravagant six.\n\nThis series has been billed as a new era for England after a run of one win in 14 Tests.\n\nLawrence's innings, plus the performances of Leach, Crawley and first-innings centurion Jonny Bairstow are positives.\n\nThere is still much concern about Woakes' potency overseas and Overton's wicket-taking threat at this level, while Stokes, who has been nursing a side injury since the fourth Ashes Test in January, bowled 41 overs in the match.\n\nEngland must hope that does not come back to hurt them.\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"I'm really proud of the team today and throughout the week.\n\n\"We found ourselves in a tricky position on day one, and to get ourselves back in the game through that fantastic innings from Jonny [Bairstow] was very pleasing. Throughout the game we got better and better.\n\n\"And today, chasing those last wickets, I can't fault any of the efforts of anyone.\"\n\nPlayer of the match Nkrumah Bonner: \"We are happy with the draw, but wanted a win.\n\n\"I think we showed real character the way we bowled this morning especially.\n\n\"We have a lot of positives to take from this game.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"England tried all they could to squeeze a result out. Root's declaration took a lot of people by surprise, but it was always difficult without Wood.\n\n\"Leach's three wickets will perk him up after the Ashes, the fact that three batsmen scored centuries is also a boost to a team desperate to move into more positive territory.\n\n\"There was more of a spring in the step of the fielders - and signs of the collective responsibility Root is trying to establish.\"\n• None What power does the platform hold over us?\n• None Dive into a raw and unfiltered motorsport with promise of high-speed crashes", "Protesters blocked traffic outside of the Met Police headquarters New Scotland Yard\n\nProtesters demanding \"radical change\" to the Metropolitan Police have marched through central London.\n\nActivists held traffic outside New Scotland Yard before marching to Charing Cross Police Station.\n\nThey carried banners reading \"police are perpetrators\", set off bright blue smoke flares and said they activated 1,000 rape alarms.\n\nThe protest marks a year since an unofficial gathering to pay respects to Sarah Everard saw clashes with police.\n\nIt also comes a day after judges ruled police breached the rights of the organisers of a planned vigil for Sarah Everard.\n\nThe Met has previously said it is trying to rebuild trust with the public after several misconduct cases involving its officers.\n\nAbout 300 demonstrators from various groups chanted \"racist police, sexist police\" while walking towards Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross Police Station.\n\nPatsy Stevenson, who was arrested at a vigil for Sarah Everard in the days following her murder last year, said \"radical change from the whole of the policing system\" was needed.\n\nGina Cane of Sisters Uncut, a feminist activist group who organised the protest, said: \"We reject the authority of the police, a racist misogynist institution built on coercion and control.\"\n\nDemonstrators were also protesting against the the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill\n\nProtesters set off blue smoke flares as they walked through central London\n\nProtesters also said they opposed the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill which, if passed, would give police greater powers to control protests.\n\nMs Everard was kidnapped in south London on 3 March 2021 as she was walking home from a friend's house. Her attacker was sentenced to a whole-life term after pleading guilty to murder.\n\nA spontaneous vigil in Clapham Common, south London, led to the Met being heavily criticised for its actions - although it went on to be cleared by the police watchdog.\n\nA previously organised vigil was cancelled after organisers were told it would be illegal to stage it under lockdown conditions.\n\nMet officers were accused of oppressing women on Clapham Common in March last year\n\nIn February, an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) report discovered misogyny, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment within the ranks of the force.\n\nAddressing the IOPC report, the Met said in a statement it acknowledged the damage in trust their behaviour had caused.\n\nIt added it would take \"urgent action\" to improve.\n\nBaroness Louise Casey is carrying out an independent review of culture and standards within the Met. It will examine the force's vetting, recruitment and training procedures.\n\nMetropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick resigned from the role after London's mayor said he had no confidence in her leadership", "This livestream has now ended.\n\nOn this week's Sunday Morning, Sophie Raworth is joined by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth, and Dr Anthony Fauci - the chief medical adviser to the US president.", "That's the end of our coverage after a day that's been long-awaited for the survivors of historical institutional abuse.\n\nYou can continue to follow this story online on the BBC News NI website.\n\nBBC Radio Ulster will have the latest on Evening Extra from 4pm, as will BBC Newsline on BBC One NI at 6:30pm.\n\nThanks for following along with our coverage.", "Russian-British businessman Lord Lebedev was made a peer by Boris Johnson in July 2020\n\nMichael Gove has said no-one raised security issues with him about Lord Lebedev after reports security services had long-held concerns about him.\n\nThe Sunday Times claimed the head of MI6 was worried about the Russian-born businessman, and concerns were raised with Boris Johnson in 2020.\n\nBut the PM has denied he intervened to ensure Lord Lebedev's peerage.\n\nHousing Secretary Mr Gove told the BBC the process for appointing peers was \"rigorous\".\n\nHe said he had dinner with Lord Lebedev at Boris Johnson's house before the Brexit referendum, but did not know of any possible security concerns.\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the PM had \"serious questions to answer\" about the appointment, and has asked the House of Lords Appointment Commission to release the vetting advice they gave to Mr Johnson.\n\nAnd speaking at his party's spring conference, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for a full public inquiry into the PM's decision to give Lord Lebedev a peerage.\n\nHe told party members: \"The cosy relationship between Putin's oligarchs and the Conservative political elite has been the dirty secret of the British establishment for far too long.\"\n\nLord Lebedev was given his peerage in July 2020.\n\nHe has denied posing a \"security risk\" to the UK, writing an article in the Evening Standard newspaper - which he owns - saying: \"I am not some agent of Russia.\"\n\nThe son of billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, who moved to the UK as a child, has condemned President's Putin's actions in his newspaper, writing: \"I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.\"\n\nAnd he has warned it is \"crucial we do not descend into Russophobia\" during the war in Ukraine.\n\nAn article in the Sunday Times last week claimed security services withdrew their assessment that giving the honour to Lord Lebedev posed a security risk after the PM got involved.\n\nThe newspaper said that in March 2020, the commission that vets peerage appointments advised the prime minister against granting the newspaper owner a seat in the House of Lords, due to security concerns.\n\nBut Mr Johnson, who ultimately decides who gets a peerage, is said to have responded to the advice by claiming it was \"anti-Russianism\".\n\nThe PM denied the report, saying it would \"obviously be extraordinary\" if he had intervened, \"but that's not the case\".\n\nBut in another Sunday Times article, the newspaper claimed the head of MI6 had held concerns about the businessman for as long as a decade.\n\nBoris Johnson - pictured here with Lord Lebedev in 2009 - denied he intervened over security concerns with the peer\n\nAsked on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme about the reports, Levelling Up Secretary Mr Gove said he was \"not aware of any of the concerns that had been expressed until they appeared in the newspapers\".\n\nHe added: \"Of course there are questions that are going to be asked, but no one has ever said to me that there are any specific security concerns that they have about Lord Lebedev.\"\n\nThe government minister also pointed to the fact Lord Lebedev was a British citizen, adding: \"I think it is important to draw a distinction between Evgeny Lebedev's father, who obviously... worked for the KGB, and Lord Lebedev himself, who is someone who has made his home in this country.\n\n\"There is a distinction to be drawn between the actions of parents and the actions of children.\"\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir has written to the chair of House of Lords Appointment Commission, Lord Bew, asking for vetting information to be made public, and for him to \"commit to a review of the propriety of Lord Lebedev's place in the House of Lords\".\n\nSpeaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge, he said: \"I think the prime minister has got serious questions to answer. What did he know? And did he override security advice?\n\n\"Let's have a process to look into what actually happened, what did the prime minister know and what did he do in response to that. I think that is the least we are entitled to in relation to this appointment.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Boxing\n\nLeigh Wood produced a brutal last-round knockout of Michael Conlan to retain his WBA 'Regular' featherweight title amid worrying scenes in Nottingham.\n\nThe powerful punch sent Conlan through the ropes and on to the floor and he was later carried from the arena on a stretcher and taken to hospital.\n\nConlan posted a video on Instagram on Sunday morning saying \"I'm all good\".\n\nEngland's Wood had himself been knocked down in the first round and was losing before the late knockout.\n\nWood, who stopped his celebrations as his opponent received immediate medical treatment, told broadcaster Dazn immediately after the fight: \"I just hope Michael is all right; I can't celebrate until I know he is.\n\n\"He is so tough and it was a bad knockout so I just want to see he is all right.\"\n\nAnd Belfast fighter Conlan gave an update on his condition from hospital hours later, saying his CT scans were clear.\n\n\"Congrats to Leigh Wood, congrats to his team, that was the best shot of the night he got me with at the end,\" he said. \"But it is what it is, I'll be back.\"\n\nOn Twitter, he followed up with: \"Definitely want a rematch.\"\n\nConlan's words on Sunday morning will come as a huge relief for all concerned.\n\nWood was in tears at the post-fight news conference and admitted: \"I'm in an emotional state and there have been some tears.\n\n\"I heard he is up and talking but I would like to see him.\"\n\nPromoter Eddie Hearn called Wood's win \"one of the greatest comebacks\" but added \"we're all praying for Michael\".\n\n\"It looked a masterclass from Michael and coming into the 12th I could not see a way Leigh could turn the fight around,\" Hearn said.\n\n\"Michael was two ahead going into the last round - Leigh had to knock him out in the 12th and he did.\n\n\"I would love to celebrate but all our thoughts are with Michael.\"\n\nWood, 33, won the 'regular' version of the WBA title with a points win over China's Xu Can in July at Matchroom's Fight Camp, staged in Hearn's garden in Brentwood, Essex, because of Covid-19 restrictions.\n\nWood was set to fight at his hometown venue on the undercard of Carl Froch's IBF super-middleweight world title fight against Lucian Bute 10 years ago, but his bout did not go ahead.\n\nHowever, Wood, who was in the crowd that day cheering on his fellow Nottingham boxer as he beat Bute with a fifth-round knockout, called the opportunity to fight in front of a crowd of just under 10,000 people at the same venue, the Motorpoint Arena, \"a fairy tale\".\n\nHis hopes nearly ended inside the opening three minutes when he was caught late in the first round by a brilliantly timed and brutally powerful overhand left.\n\nPreviously unbeaten, Conlan was fighting for a world title in his 17th professional fight after a glittering amateur career that earned him an Olympic bronze medal and gold medals in both the World and European Amateur Championships and was close to winning the fight in the second.\n\nBut Wood showed great character and desire, despite suffering a cut over his eye in the fourth round, as both men repeatedly traded blows in a hugely entertaining clash, which was described as the \"best fight I've ever seen\" by two-weight former world champion Carl Frampton.\n\nWood gradually started to work his way back into the fight, aided by some great shots to Conlan's body, before the away fighter was judged to have been knocked down in the 11th, despite arguments from his corner, who told referee Steve Gray their fighter had slipped.\n\nBut, after one minute 25 seconds of the final round, the fight ended in dramatic circumstances. Wood caught Conlan with a glancing blow to the head. Conlan dropped his arms, looking exhausted, and Wood landed the knockout blow.\n\nThe WBA 'super' featherweight belt is vacant, Mexican Emanuel Navarrette, is the WBO champion, and Mark Magsayo of the Philippines holds the WBC crown after ending the long reign of American Gary Russell Jr with a majority points decision win in January.\n\nBut Wood will be very keen to watch the fight for the IBF title as Spanish title holder Kiko Martinez takes on England's Josh Warrington in Warrington's home city of Leeds on 26 March.\n\nIf Warrington beats Martinez for the second time in his career, that could set up an all-English world title fight at a stadium, with Leeds United's Elland Road and Nottingham Forest's City Ground potential venues.\n\nHearn said: \"If Leigh Wood fights in Nottingham again it will be at the City Ground - that has been his dream for a long time.\"\n\nCaoimhin Agyarko extended his professional record to 11 wins from 11 contests.\n\nHe was never in trouble against Mexican Juan Carlos Rubio, who showed great courage to reach the final bell.\n\nTwo judges gave Agyarko every round (100-90), and the third judge called it 98-92, as the Belfast fighter kept hold of his WBA international middleweight title.\n\nFormer women's super-featherweight world champion Terri Harper got back to winning ways after stepping up to lightweight with a big points win over Argentina's Yamila Belen Abellaneda.\n\nHarper, 25, said she was \"embarrassed\" by her loss to Alycia Baumgardner in November, which saw her relinquish the title she had held since July 2019.\n\nHarper started well against Belen Abellaneda but sustained a bad-looking cut over her left eye in the third round.\n\nBelen Abellaneda kept coming forward but took a lot of punishment with Harper having success with lefts to the head and body and some powerful uppercuts on her way to a deserved win.\n\nIrish lightweight Gary Cully maintained his unbeaten record with his 14th professional win as he knocked out Miguel Vasquez in five rounds after earlier putting him down in the third.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nCristiano Ronaldo scored his first Manchester United hat-trick in 14 years as Tottenham were defeated in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford. The brilliant Portuguese put United ahead twice before heading home the winner from Alex Telles' corner nine minutes from time, the 807th goal of his career. Tottenham twice responded to Ronaldo's efforts, through a Harry Kane penalty and a Harry Maguire own goal. But it was Ronaldo who had the final word, completing his first United treble since January 2008, in a 6-0 win over Newcastle. The result was a major confidence boost for United before Tuesday's Champions League last-16 second leg against Atletico Madrid. It also moves them back into the top four and keeps Tottenham in seventh, although Arsenal - two points behind in fifth - remain favourites to clinch the final Champions League berth as they have four games in hand. There were reports that Ronaldo is now the Fifa-recognised all-time top goalscorer, surpassing Josef Bican's 805 goals but there are doubts about the Czech-Austrian's figure - which includes reserve games.\n• None 'A staggering performance' - Shearer on Ronaldo's response to his critics\n• None Go straight to all the best Manchester United content The debate around Ronaldo's value to this United team has been going on from the moment their season started to unravel barely a couple of weeks after his much-heralded return. At 37, it is clear his best days are behind him. Yet he remains capable of such moments of brilliance that it is hard to see how this present squad would benefit from him not being there. His opener was a prime example. Fred's deft flick to the side helped considerably but Ronaldo's two precise touches teed up the right-footed shot that flew over Hugo Lloris and into the top corner. The second was further evidence of Ronaldo's ability to exploit weakness. He timed his run to perfection as Jadon Sancho made the most of Sergio Reguilon's struggles within the Tottenham defensive line to deliver the low cross that his vastly experienced team-mate turned home with ease. And if anyone was likely to get a winner, it was United's number seven. When he did, Ronaldo was immediately replaced to a standing ovation that was totally deserved. Tottenham's season was summed up by Antonio Conte's reaction to what he thought was a first-half equaliser from Ben Davies. As the ball hit the net, there was wild celebration. Then the assistant's flag went up and Conte was stopped in his tracks. Tottenham's past seven results have alternated between wins and defeats - with three victories punctuating four losses. And their tendency to wobble let them down again here. Having gone behind, they worked their way back into the game once - and there was never much doubt Kane would drive home the spot-kick after Telles had handled in the area. But the manner in which they went 2-1 down three minutes later highlighted obvious deficiencies, with Reguilon switching off on the far side of the pitch. Tottenham then got back into the game a second time, and deserved to, even if Maguire scored for them. But such is Spurs' inconsistency, few would believe they can genuinely overhaul Arsenal to seal a top four berth even if, mathematically, they still have a better chance of doing so than United.\n• None Paul Pogba (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Goal! Manchester United 3, Tottenham Hotspur 2. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by Alex Telles with a cross following a corner.\n• None Attempt saved. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Jadon Sancho. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "Five-and-a-half-thousand Ukrainian refugees have now arrived in the Republic of Ireland, the country's taoiseach (prime minister) has said.\n\nIreland lifted restrictions on Ukrainians arriving in the country shortly after Russia invaded.\n\nThis allows them to enter Ireland without checks or visas beforehand, as well as access benefits and healthcare, and the right to work.\n\nMore than 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, in what the UN has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War Two.\n\nThe Irish government has previously said it could take up to 100,000 refugees.\n\nAsked about the figure by Sophie Raworth on BBC's Sunday Morning, Mr Martin said Ireland had \"never experienced anything on this scale before, but we believe we need to do it\".\n\nHe added: \"Our primary impulse is to assist those fleeing war.\n\n\"The Irish people are very seized by a series of atrocities that are going on, what we're witnessing on our screens every evening is really shocking people and there is huge human empathy there to help the women and the children.\n\nThere is no sign of any end to the war in Ukraine, now in its 18th day\n\n\"There is always a balancing of issues, we keep channels open with our UK counterparts. The Home Secretary and our Minister for Justice Helen McEntee have been in regular contact.\"\n\nMr Martin is in London on a two-day trip, where he has discussed the Northern Ireland protocol with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as well as the international response to Ukraine.\n\nWhen asked about security concerns Mr Martin said: \"The humanitarian response trumps anything as far as we're concerned.\n\n\"But our security people will keep on monitoring the situation in terms of what's on.\n\n\"We can all see the humanitarian crisis, we do know that that can be exploited by certain bad actors, but our security personnel will keep an eye on that in a more general way.\n\n\"The prime minister's only discussion with me was on the basis of praising the Irish humanitarian response and no more than that. We didn't get into the security issues as such.\"\n\nIreland's military is neutral, and it is not a Nato member.\n\nBecause of this Ireland sends only \"non-lethal\" aid to Ukraine, like medical supplies, body armour and helmets - not weapons.\n\nAsked about Ireland's military neutrality and Ukraine's international plea for arms, Mr Martin said his country would have to look at its position in the future but added: \"One cannot, in the middle of a crisis, change a long-held policy overnight.\"\n\nEvents in Ukraine including the flight of refugees have caused some to question Ireland's military neutrality\n\nHe said Ireland was not morally or politically neutral.\n\n\"We're not a military power, what Ireland does best is on the humanitarian side and on the peace keeping side.\"\n\nOn Sunday, the government announced a scheme to offer UK households £350 a month to host refugees.\n\nUnlike the EU, the UK has not waived its visa rules.\n\nOn 9 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said about 1,000 Ukrainian refugees had received UK visas.\n\nBut some MPs have called for restrictions to be scrapped.\n\nThe programme asked the taoiseach whether the talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol - the post-Brexit trade arrangements which led to the recent collapse of Stormont's devolved government - would be \"kicked into the long grass\" because of the crisis in Ukraine\n\n\"I think we should concentrate, obviously, on our response to Ukraine,\" Mr Martin replied, but he also said he believed it would also be possible to make progress on the protocol talks.\n\nHe suggested the war in Ukraine had showed the strength of international cooperation on \"big issues\", which gave him hope for agreement on the protocol.\n\n\"What's interesting - and I welcome this warmly - is the very strong partnership between the UK, the EU, the US on fundamental issues of substance - which is democracy; human rights; the freedom of the individual - and that is something that I think really trumps the issues.\n\n\"It really says to us all that we should be able to resolve issues to do with the Northern Ireland Protocol.\"\n\nMr Martin said access to the EU Single Market was important to Northern Ireland for inward investment but he added both sides were trying to find solutions.\n\nHowever, he said he did not believe there would be a break-through before the Stormont election on 5 May.\n\nHe said some progress had already been made, and the EU had \"put forward a lot of sensible compromises and their mindset is to really resolve this, and I believe the foreign secretary (Liz Truss) is in the same mode of thought.\"", "Campion didn't attend the Baftas as she was at the Directors Guild Awards and the Critics Choice Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend\n\nNetflix's moody Western The Power of the Dog won the top prize at the Bafta Film Awards, picking up best film and best director for Jane Campion.\n\nIts star Benedict Cumberbatch wore a badge to show his support for Ukrainians as he accepted the best director prize on behalf of Campion.\n\nHe also said he hopes to offer a place to stay for a Ukrainian refugee.\n\nCumberbatch was beaten to the best actor award by Will Smith. Joanna Scanlan was named best actress.\n\nScanlan, who was previously best known for British TV comedies like The Thick Of It and Getting On, triumphed for her performance in the independent film After Love. She played a 60-year-old Muslim convert who suffers an identity crisis following the sudden death of her husband.\n\n\"Come on!\" she said on stage in disbelief. \"Some stories have surprise endings don't they?\"\n\nShe beat a field including Lady Gaga, fellow musician-turned-actress Alana Haim, and Emilia Jones, the daughter of Welsh TV presenter Aled.\n\nJoanna Scanlan said backstage that she was \"disbelieving to be perfectly honest\"\n\nJones starred in Coda, a film about the daughter of deaf parents, and her co-star Troy Kotsur made history as the first ever deaf Bafta film winner.\n\nDelivering his best supporting actor acceptance speech via an interpreter, he said: \"I think it's all great you're recognising my work from all the way across the sea, it's truly amazing.\"\n\nAnother US performer, Ariana DeBose, won best supporting actress for playing Anita in Steven Spielberg's new version of the musical West Side Story.\n\n\"This means so much to me, I'm somebody who sings, dances, acts,\" she said. \"I speak dance better than I speak English.\"\n\nBest actress nominee Lady Gaga was on the red carpet\n\nSir Kenneth Branagh's Belfast was named outstanding British film, while sci-fi saga Dune won five awards in total - best score for Hans Zimmer plus best cinematography, production design, sound and special visual effects.\n\nJames Bond's latest outing No Time To Die won two prizes including the EE Rising Star award for Lashana Lynch.\n\nLashana Lynch (centre) with Lady Gaga (left) and last year's Rising Star winner Bukky Bakray\n\n\"I would like to thank the women of this country who taught me what it is to be in this industry as a dark-skinned woman,\" she told the ceremony. \"I thank you for laying the foundation for people like me.\"\n\nThe ceremony was held at the Royal Albert Hall and was hosted by Australian comic actress Rebel Wilson, who largely kept the atmosphere light but did refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a couple of occasions.\n\nAfter the In Memoriam section, paying tribute to film industry figures who have died over the past 12 months, she said: \"Our thoughts are also at this time with the people afflicted by the conflict in Ukraine.\"\n\nAnd in a segment about sign language, she raised her middle finger, saying it was \"the gesture for Putin\".\n\nAustralian actress Rebel Wilson hosted the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall\n\nThe war was a topic of conversation on the red carpet earlier, when Cumberbatch said he was aware badges like his \"could be dismissed as tokenism\".\n\n\"This [ceremony] is a celebration of an industry that's about imagery, and images speaking as loud as if not louder sometimes than words. So it's a small gesture,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"But away from this, what we all have to do is continue to put pressure on our politicians as far as the refugee crisis goes, continue to put pressure on the Putin regime, continue to help in any which way we can - whether that's through donations or housing refugees, all of which I'm looking to do and have done.\"\n\nFellow best actor nominee Stephen Graham, who was wearing a blue and yellow bow, said it was \"vital\" to acknowledge the war at the event.\n\n\"I want to show my support and solidarity for what people are going through,\" he said.\n\nBafta chairman Krishnendu Majumdar told the audience before the ceremony: \"We are hugely grateful to the journalists and film-makers covering Ukraine, many of whom are Bafta members, who are bravely reporting and documenting the conflict and humanitarian crisis.\"\n\nBlack Widow and Little Women star Florence Pugh was also among the presenters\n\nDame Shirley Bassey then opened the event with a performance of her classic James Bond theme Diamonds Are Forever.\n\nBig names returned to the Royal Albert Hall after a subdued affair last year, when many nominees appeared via Zoom amid tight Covid-19 restrictions.\n\nNo Bafta Fellowship or other lifetime achievement award was presented on Sunday, after last year's recipient Noel Clarke was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment following his win.\n\nClarke said he was \"deeply sorry\" for some of his actions but \"vehemently\" denied sexual misconduct.", "Desperate new attempts to evacuate civilians from towns and villages around Kyiv are under way\n\nFresh attempts to evacuate civilians from cities under siege in Ukraine are being complicated by constant Russian shelling, Ukrainian officials say.\n\nHumanitarian corridors are being set up from Mariupol, Sumy and towns and villages outside the capital Kyiv.\n\nBut Ukraine officials accused Russian forces of firing on a convoy of women and children from Peremoha village, near Kyiv, killing seven.\n\nAnd the evacuations come as fighting continues around Kyiv and other cities.\n\n\"A column of civilians, exclusively women and children, was fired on by the occupiers,\" a statement by Ukraine's military intelligence service said. \"The result of this barbaric act was seven killed, one of whom was a child.\"\n\nThe BBC's Abdujalil Abdurasulov in Irpin, one of the towns outside the capital being evacuated, earlier reported that it was not possible to say that the humanitarian ceasefire was holding because of explosions and artillery fire, including from the Ukrainian side, could still be heard.\n\nRegional officials also said that fighting in the area was continuing and that there was a constant threat of air attacks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Abdujalil Abdurasulov is in Irpin, where people are forced to flee via a makeshift river crossing\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk later said that about 13,000 Ukrainians had been evacuated through humanitarian corridors on Saturday but that no one had managed to leave Mariupol.\n\nThe situation in Mariupol is particularly desperate after two weeks of bombardment, the UN has said, with little access to food, water and power.\n\n\"Medicines for life-threatening illnesses are quickly running out, hospitals are only partially functioning, and the food and water are in short supply,\" the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.\n\nDeputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC a convoy had left Zaporizhzhya for the city carrying aid and that it included buses for the evacuations.\n\nPreviously, he said, convoys were \"not let through, they were bombed, the road was mined, there was shelling in the town\".\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that about 1,300 of his country's troops had died since the start of the Russian invasion.\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, arguing that it felt threatened by a neighbour intent on joining Western-led organisations such as the Nato military alliance.", "Empty plinths and cabinets now line the large rooms of the National Museum of Lviv\n\nIn one room of the National Museum of Lviv, an enormous scaffold is bare. In another, brackets hang loosely from the walls. Plinths sit empty along the corridors and wooden pallets and cardboard boxes are strewn on the floors. The staff used whatever they could to pack away the museum's priceless artefacts in a hurry.\n\nAs Russian shelling has devastated other parts of Ukraine, the picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far. But it is bracing for war. Some preparations you can see in the open - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets - but some are taking place behind closed doors.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage. Thousands of artworks and artefacts have been carefully removed and taken to secret underground locations, or down to basement storage rooms.\n\nThe climate-controlled cabinets in Lviv's national museum now sit empty, their treasures hidden underground\n\nIhor Kozhan, the director of the National Museum of Lviv - the largest art museum in Ukraine - took the BBC on a tour of its now empty rooms, which looked as though they had been looted. Climate-controlled display cases, usually home to artworks, icons and manuscripts dating as far back as the 14th Century, were bare.\n\nNearly every one of the 1,500 artefacts on display has now been removed from the museum. The other 97% of the collection - 180,000 pieces in total - was already in storage in some form.\n\n\"Everything, everything is gone,\" Kozhan said.\n\n\"It is sad for me to be in these empty rooms,\" said Ihor Kozhan, the director of the museum\n\nDespite overseeing the operation, Kozhan was amazed by the speed with which the 17th-century Bohorodchany Iconostasis - a grouping of religions paintings measuring 10m by 8m and one of the museum's most valuable pieces - had been dismantled by his team. It had taken six months to hang, piece by piece, he said, and less than six days to pull down from its scaffold and store away.\n\nConstructed and painted over seven years beginning in 1698, the iconostasis represents the high watermark of the work of the icon painter Yov Kondzelevych. It has been in Lviv since 1924, then a Polish city, brought there by an archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.\n\nIt was dismantled and hidden from the Nazis in 1939, forbidden from display during the Soviet era, painstakingly restored in 2006, and now dismantled once more.\n\nIhor Kozhan describing the Bohorodchany Iconostasis, one of the museums largest and most valuable pieces\n\nThere was no plan in place for the evacuation of the museum's artefacts before the invasion began two weeks ago, Kozhan said - not even after Russia began months ago to mass troops along Ukraine's borders.\n\n\"There was no plan because no one could imagine this would happen,\" he said. \"We had no plan at all - not before the war, not even in December. You must understand, we did not believe it could come to this.\"\n\nTerritorial defence soldiers gathered outside a Lviv church where the statutes have been wrapped in protective fabric\n\nAround Lviv, cultural and religious officials are running complex operations to wrap up statues, seal off stained glass windows and spirit away sacred artefacts.\n\nIn the city's main square, fountains with sculptures of Greek gods and goddesses have been wrapped in flame-retardant fabric and covered with scaffolds to protect them from falling masonry.\n\n\"At first it was a bit chaotic but it has become more organised,\" said Liliya Onischenko, the head of Lviv's city council heritage protection office.\n\n\"We are photographing everything before we take it away and we are photographing all the pieces in their hidden places,\" she said\n\nGreek gods and goddesses on fountains in Lviv's town square have been wrapped and scaffolded\n\nOnischenko said the priority was protecting the stained glass windows in the city's historical old town, a Unesco world heritage site whose architecture was built over centuries by different nationalities - Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Armenians - as the region changed hands.\n\nAt the Armenian cathedral, a prized 15th-Century wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross was removed for the first time since World War Two and taken to a secret, safe place.\n\nOther artefacts besides the sculpture have been removed, the deacon, Armen Hakopian said, but he would not elaborate. \"What needed to be taken out was taken out,\" he said, with a smile.\n\nThe windows along the side of the 850-year-old Armenian cathedral are plain, because the original stained glass was blown out in the 1940s by German bombing. But above, stained glass remains in the cupola and the high parts of the church.\n\nA stained glass window in the 14th-Century Armenian cathedral in Lviv, among those not destroyed during World War Two\n\nThe institutions of Lviv have had the benefit of time to prepare. And they may yet escape the violence. But there are grave fears for the cultural, religious and architectural treasures in the parts of Ukraine under attack.\n\nThere has already been significant damage. The stained glass windows and nave of the assumption cathedral in Kharkiv were damaged by Russian shelling. Russian troops have reportedly destroyed a 19th-century wooden church in the village of Viazivka in Zhytomyr. And a museum in Ivankiv, north of Kyiv, was razed, destroying 25 works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko.\n\nThe stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals in Lviv's historic old town have been covered\n\nScaffolders in Lviv's historic old town preparing to cover more of the city's stained glass windows\n\nIhor Kozhan, the national museum director, said he feared that destroying Ukraine's cultural fabric was part of Russia's goal, and he feared greatly for Lviv.\n\n\"If the same damage is done here as in Kharkiv, Mariupol, it would be a terrible tragedy,\" he said.\n\n\"This is a place of historical memory. The museums here hold the history of the nation. They give us an understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.\n\n\"Russia wants to destroy that.\"\n\nA statue, too heavy to move underground, lies on the floor of the museum's atrium\n\nThe job of emptying the national museum was virtually complete by Wednesday - only a few cardboard boxes of manuscripts were left, near the doors, alongside a sculpture lying on the floor - one of several too heavy to move that will be protected in other ways.\n\nThe artefacts that have been moved underground are on a clock - too long there without adequate climate control and they would begin to degrade, Kozhan said.\n\nAnd they would not probably not survive a direct hit, he said, with a long sigh, because the bunkers are not designed to withstand powerful bombs.\n\nA picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary sits on an otherwise empty shelf in the National Museum of Lviv\n\n\"I hope we can bring them up soon,\" he said. \"It is difficult for me to be here in these empty rooms and hallways. We could have walked the whole day here together looking at our history and our art.\"\n\nAsked to estimate the total value of the museum's works, Kozhan declined.\n\n\"Of course there is no number,\" he said.\n\n\"If these things are destroyed they cannot be remade.\"\n\nCorrection 8 April 2022: This article has been amended after we mistakenly stated Lviv was part of Ukraine in 1924. It was in fact a Polish city at that time.", "William Hurt at the premiere of Marvel's Captain America: Civil War in 2016\n\nWilliam Hurt, the Oscar-winning US actor whose roles ranged from acclaimed 1980s dramas to Marvel films, has died at the age of 71, US media say.\n\nHurt won the best actor Oscar in 1986 for playing a prisoner in a Brazilian jail in Kiss of the Spider Woman.\n\nHe was nominated two more times in the next two years, for Children of a Lesser God and Broadcast News.\n\nIn recent years, he has been known as General Thaddeus \"Thunderbolt\" Ross in five Marvel blockbusters.\n\nHurt made his Hollywood breakthrough at the start of the 1980s in films including Body Heat alongside Kathleen Turner\n\nHollywood website Deadline quoted a statement from Hurt's son Will as saying: \"It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar winning actor, on March 13, 2022, one week before his 72nd birthday.\n\n\"He died peacefully, among family, of natural causes. The family requests privacy at this time.\"\n\nVariety said the news was confirmed by Hurt's friend Gerry Byrne.\n\nHe received his third Oscar nomination in three years for Broadcast News in 1988\n\nFellow Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo wrote on Twitter: \"Wow, another Major loss to the acting community. Great actor. Great mind. RIP.\"\n\nMatthew Modine described him as \"a consummate professional\" who was \"continually searching for greater truth and human understanding\".\n\nAntonio Banderas said \"a great actor has left us\", while other tributes came from Russell Crowe, M Night Shyamalan Rebecca Front.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Russell Crowe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by M. Night Shyamalan ⌛ This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Rebecca Front This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHurt began acting on stage in the 1970s before making his big-screen breakthrough as an obsessed scientist in Altered States, which earned him a best newcomer nomination at the Golden Globes in 1981.\n\nThat year, he also starred as a womanising lawyer in erotic thriller Body Heat, before being cast in The Big Chill and Gorky Park.\n\nWinning an Oscar for playing a gay man who shares a cell with a political prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman was \"very isolating\",he later told the Los Angeles Times.\n\n\"The instant they gave it to me, I thought, God, what do I do now? How am I going to walk into a room and have any other actor trust me?\"\n\nThat did not stop him getting two more consecutive nominations, though, before roles in The Accidental Tourist, Lost in Space, Contagion and AI. Then came a fourth Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg's A History of Violence in 2006.\n\nHe also received Emmy nominations for playing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2011's Too Big to Fail, and for legal TV drama Damages.\n\nHe returned to the theatre in productions including Henry V, A Midsummer Night Dream and Hurlyburly, the latter of which saw him recognised with a nomination at Broadway's Tony Awards.\n\nHurt had been diagnosed with prostate cancer\n\nHe was regarded as a compelling but complex and often confrontational presence, however. Fame was \"a challenge\" and \"not a happy condition for me\", he admitted.\n\n\"It's a privilege and a responsibility, and I'm not sure I carried the responsibility well at times, which is embarrassing,\" he told The Telegraph in 2013. \"And I've had to look and be disappointed in myself occasionally for how I behaved in some circumstances.\"\n\nHe drank heavily for a spell and in a high-profile palimony trial in 1989, former partner Sandra Jennings described his drunken rages.\n\nAnother former girlfriend, Children of a Lesser God co-star Marlee Matlin, later accused him of physical and emotional abuse. He apologised \"for any pain I caused\".\n\nThe actor revealed in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.", "Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson sat together at the Ireland-England Six Nations match\n\nThe international co-operation shown in response to Ukraine suggests it should be possible to resolve a matter like the Northern Ireland Protocol, the taoiseach (Irish PM) has said.\n\nMicheál Martin was speaking a day after meeting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, during which they discussed both the Ukraine war and the protocol.\n\nThey met before attending the England-Ireland rugby match on Saturday.\n\nMr Martin has a series of engagements in London ahead of St Patrick's Day.\n\nSpeaking a day after his meeting with Mr Johnson, the taoiseach told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme that some progress has already been made in the post-Brexit trade dispute between the EU and the UK.\n\nHowever, he said he did not believe there would be a breakthrough before the Northern Ireland Assembly election on 5 May.\n\nAsked if the protocol talks had now been \"kicked into the long grass\" because of the crisis in Ukraine, Mr Martin said: \"I think we should concentrate, obviously, on our response to Ukraine.\"\n\nHowever, he added he also believed the crisis showed it should also be possible to make further progress on problems like the post-Brexit trade dispute.\n\n\"What's interesting - and I welcome this warmly - is the very strong partnership between between the UK, the EU, the US on fundamental issues of substance - which is democracy; human rights; the freedom of the individual - and that is something that I think really trumps the issues.\n\n\"It really says to us all that we should be able to resolve issues to do with the Northern Ireland Protocol.\"\n\nDuring Saturday's meeting, Mr Martin and Mr Johnson also discussed ways of working together to ensure the return of the Northern Ireland Executive following May's assembly election.\n\nDemocratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said it would be difficult for his party to form a government if issues around the protocol are not addressed.\n\nThe mechanism to ensure free trade across the Irish border post-Brexit has been criticised by some unionists for its knock-on impact to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nIn February, the DUP's Paul Givan resigned as first minister as part of the party's protest against the protocol, causing the collapse of the executive.\n\nTaoiseach Micheal Martin wore a scarf with the colours of the Ukrainian flag as he led Sunday's St Patrick's Day parade in London\n\nThe taoiseach welcomed the ongoing engagement between the UK and the European Union on the protocol issue.\n\nMr Martin said access to the EU single market was important to Northern Ireland for inward investment but he added both sides were trying to find solutions.\n\nHe argued that the EU had \"put forward a lot of sensible compromises and their mindset is to really resolve this, and I believe the foreign secretary (Liz Truss) is in the same mode of thought\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Micheál Martin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDuring his trip to London, the taoiseach led the city's parade to mark St Patrick's Day on Sunday, which paid tribute to the role played by Irish people in London during the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nMr Martin also wore a scarf with the colours of the Ukrainian flag during the march.", "Fewer people are commuting to work even after work-from-home guidance was lifted\n\nJobs on the railways \"will need to change to become more passenger-centric\", according to the group that represents train operators.\n\nThe Rail Delivery Group (RDG) was responding to reports that hundreds of rail ticket offices could potentially close as part of a plan to modernise the railways.\n\nRDG said it is talking to unions about how to address job changes.\n\nOne union said it will ballot staff if compulsory redundancies are used.\n\nA spokesperson for the RDG, which represents the rail industry, said: \"The pandemic has been an unprecedented financial shock to the railway.\n\n\"While no decisions have been taken over ticket offices, with the acceleration of changing travel patterns and more passengers migrating to digital technology, many jobs will need to change to become more passenger-centric.\n\n\"Train companies are working with unions on how to address those changes, while making sure the industry takes no more than its fair share from the taxpayer,\" they added.\n\nThe bosses of rail operators are in talks with the government about the closures, which may result in redundancies if staff cannot be moved into other roles, the Sunday Times reported.\n\nDuring the pandemic, train passenger numbers collapsed and so did revenues.\n\nPassengers numbers are still recovering, with big changes such as hybrid working affecting commuter levels and season ticket sales.\n\nTo ensure the railways kept running during the pandemic, the government stepped in to finance the industry.\n\nRecently, rail minister Wendy Morton told the BBC that taxpayers had supported the railways with more than £14bn of funding, and that taxpayers had to get a good return on what they had invested.\n\nAs part of plans to modernise the railways, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps committed to modernising ticketing with more digitisation, as part of the Williams-Shapps plan for rail.\n\nTrain tickets purchased online can be collected at self-service kiosks in train stations\n\nManuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary, said: \"Grant Shapps needs to realise that this daft plan is likely to result in the threat of compulsory redundancies, and if that happens we will be issuing ballots for industrial action.\n\n\"Closing ticket offices will not only be opposed by the unions but the public at large.\n\n\"Shapps must stand up to the faceless accountants in the Treasury because a properly run and fully functioning railway is vital in building an economic recovery from Covid.\n\n\"The government should share their plans in detail with us and commuters now if they are so sure that closing ticket offices and taking £2bn a year out of our railways is the best way forward.\n\nRailway ticket offices are run by train operating companies in different stations, and not by Network Rail.", "When the Russian offensive started, as sirens sounded in Kyiv for the first time, some people here feared that the city might fall by the afternoon.\n\nReports were coming in of a long convoy of armour and heavy weapons pushing down from the north-west. Military analysts had a high opinion of the Russian army. It had, they said, been professionalised, with invaluable experience of perfecting weapons and seasoning men in the war in Syria. The tactical errors I had seen the Russians commit when they tried to crush a rebellion in the republic of Chechnya in 1995 were, I was told, ancient history.\n\nThe consensus about the Ukrainian armed forces on the first day of the war was that they were much stronger than they had been in 2014, when they could not stop Russia seizing Crimea and establishing two breakaway enclaves in eastern Ukraine. But Russia had the numbers and the firepower. The Ukrainians, it was said, would rediscover the truth of an aphorism attributed to Stalin: \"quantity has a quality of its own.\"\n\nThe first two weeks of the war proved that those predictions were wrong. The Russians blundered; the Ukrainians resisted. Around Kyiv the Russian advance stalled. In the south, it was a different story. They worked steadily towards opening a land corridor between Crimea and Moscow's enclaves in eastern Ukraine.\n\nBut it has been clear from the outset that control of Kyiv is crucial to winning arguments in politics as well as on the battlefield. While President Volodymyr Zelensky's government holds the city, he can claim not to be defeated, and President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin cannot claim victory.\n\nThe last couple of days have been bright and sunny, after more than a week of thick cloud. That means satellites have a clear view of movements on the ground. One conclusion is that the 40-mile Russian convoy north-west of Kyiv is slowly dispersing and reorganising. The latest word from the US Department of Defense is that the rear elements are catching up, but the vehicles closest to Kyiv are not moving.\n\nThe fighting around Kyiv has been concentrated in the north-west and has been going on since the first morning, when Russian airborne troops landed at a cargo airport near Hostomel and Irpin, small commuter towns that evacuees say are now badly damaged. They looked to be trying to secure a staging area for a push into Kyiv. But Ukrainian troops stopped them.\n\nIn the last few days, I have seen more defenders moving forward to continue the fight around Irpin and the Hostomel airport and heard steady artillery fire from the Ukrainian side from gunlines concealed in belts of thick woodland.\n\nThe heavily contested north-west is just a 20-minute drive from the centre of Kyiv, which has barely been touched, although sirens sound regular alerts.\n\nIn the week or so that I have been here the Ukrainians have improved their physical defences, which in places barely existed. Checkpoints that were just a few concrete blocks have become barricades. Across the city men have been filling and positioning sandbags. Kyiv's metalworkers have been busy. At strategic junctions, and on the dual carriageways that run out of Kyiv steel anti-tank obstacles stand ready.\n\nKyiv is a grand city of broad, sweeping avenues, bisected by narrower streets often paved with lumpy cobblestones. Many of the buildings have extensive basements and cellars. Street fighting here, if it happened, could grind on for months.\n\nThe city sprawls along both banks of the Dnieper, one of Europe's great rivers. Docks and marinas leading off the river are still frozen. Crossing the water under fire would be a formidable military undertaking. The bank on the west side of the river, near the government buildings and the great cathedrals, is steep and heavily wooded. Defenders would have many advantages.\n\nBut crossing the Dnieper might not be on Russia's agenda until it is able to control both banks. One theory is that the stalled offensive from the west and north-west is not just because of Ukrainian resistance and what appears to be the Russian army's own badly handled logistics. A column coming from the east has been moving slowly, and the generals might be waiting for it to catch up.\n\nThe Russians attempted to move a regiment of tanks into Kyiv's eastern approaches on Thursday. They were mauled badly as they rumbled slowly down a highway in broad daylight. Drone pictures showed that the tanks were bunched together making easy targets for Ukrainian artillery or drones. It was another tactical blunder for Moscow.\n\nIt is not clear whether Russia plans to encircle Kyiv or attempt to force a surrender by thrusting into the centre with armour supported by infantry. The choices are not great for them. Direct attacks have so far been stopped. Encircling a big city might take too many men.\n\nOne possibility is that President Putin expected the rapid collapse of a government that he has dismissed with contempt as a Nazi collaboration with the west and did not think his soldiers would need to do either.\n\nIt is certain that Putin and his generals are reassessing, regrouping and will not accept defeat. Putin's mission has been to restore Russia to what he believes is its rightful place as a world power. In a country the size of Ukraine - only Russia itself is bigger in Europe - victory in Kyiv is the most direct way for him to declare mission accomplished.\n\nWithout a doubt the Russian armed forces have been operating at half power and half speed. That is partly due to their own mistakes, and partly because the Ukrainians are proving to be formidable, nimble opponents. The stalled attacks around Kyiv have turned into a respite for the city's defenders, allowing them time to dig to improve defences that were rudimentary, and presumably to receive some of the increasingly sophisticated weapons that NATO is bringing into Ukraine.\n\nA question that nags uncomfortably at the minds of many in Kyiv is whether President Putin will conclude that the time has come to turn the deadliest conventional weapons in Russia's arsenal against the city's defenders. So far that has not happened. If it does, many more people will die and terrible damage will be done.\n\nSome people here do not believe President Putin will hammer Kyiv in the way that cities in eastern and southern Ukraine have been attacked. They argue Putin will hesitate to destroy an ancient city which has been at the centre of Russian culture, religion and history. Some of the same people also believed Russia would not invade.\n\nOthers fear that if Russian infantry and armour are held up, Putin and his generals will default to the tactics they are using in Mariupol in the south, surrounding the city and attempting to break the will of its defenders with artillery and air strikes. It is a method that worked well for the Russians in Syria, and in the 1990s when Grozny, the capital of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, was flattened.\n\nThe next few weeks will be critical for the future of Kyiv, and for the wider war over the future of Ukraine. If Russia cannot reactivate its attack on the capital, its defenders will grow in confidence and the strength and the morale of Russian forces, including conscripts, will take more blows.\n\nIf the Putin regime can find a way to end resistance here, the president will be closer to achieving his war aim of ending Ukraine's independence. Forcing the country back into Russia's orbit, in the face of what would most likely be a Nato-backed insurgency, would be an altogether more difficult job.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThe Premier League has disqualified Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a director of the club after the oligarch was sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nAlso on Saturday, sleeve sponsor Hyundai became the latest company to suspend its deal with the club.\n\nAbramovich had his British assets - including Chelsea - frozen on Thursday as part of the government's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe move put the Russian's prospective sale of the club on hold.\n\nThe Premier League said Abramovich's disqualification would \"not impact on the club's ability to train and play\".\n\nRemoving an owner from a board would usually trigger the sale of the shares, a process that Abramovich had instigated on 2 March after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.\n\nHe had instructed American investment firm Raine Group to seek £3bn for the club, but finance experts believe that price could drop given the current uncertainty around Chelsea.\n• None Q&A: What do UK government sanctions on Abramovich mean for Chelsea?\n• None The Sports Desk: Life after Abramovich - what's next for Chelsea and English football?\n\nRaine Group temporarily halted the sale process on Thursday while answers were sought from the government about the implications of the sanctions.\n\nThe government is open to considering an addition to the special licence it granted the club that would allow a sale to go ahead.\n\nA condition for that to happen, however, would be that Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people and believed to be close to the country's president, Vladimir Putin - receives none of the proceeds.\n\nThe special licence granted by the government will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket-holders to attend matches.\n\nChelsea, however, cannot receive money for match tickets which have not already been sold, future gate receipts for FA Cup games or money from merchandise sold via the club shop.\n\nThe European champions will also be unable to buy or sell players, or offer new contracts, while the sanctions are in place on Abramovich and he still owns the club.\n\nAn amendment to the licence has been granted by the government, allowing Chelsea to spend up to £900,000 on costs for home games, up from the £500,000 set on Thursday.\n\nThe allowable away costs of travel, however, remain at £20,000 per game.\n\nThe licence update also allows the club to receive prize money from existing competitions including Premier League payments and Champions League money for getting through each round.\n\nA statement from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirming the changes to the licence also welcomed the league's move to disqualify Abramovich as a club director.\n\n\"The government has made clear that we need to hold to account those who have enabled the Putin regime,\" the DCMS statement said.\n\nSouth Korean car manufacturer Hyundai is the second sponsor to suspend its deal, after Chelsea's main shirt sponsor Three suspended its £40m-a-year deal on Thursday.\n\nHyundai signed a multi-year partnership with the Blues in 2018\n\nLike Three, Hyundai has asked for its logo to be removed from the team's shirts \"as soon as feasibly possible\".\n\n\"Hyundai has become one of the strongest partners in football over the years and the company supports the sport to be a force for good,\" the company said.\n\n\"Through our partnership with Chelsea, we are proud supporters of the players, the fans and grassroots football. However, in the current circumstances, we have taken the decision to suspend our marketing and communication activities with the club until further notice.\"\n\nThe unravelling of Roman Abramovich's time as Chelsea owner is happening at rapid pace.\n\nIt is only 28 days since Abramovich celebrated on the pitch with manager Thomas Tuchel as Chelsea became world club champions.\n\nNow, the club is up for sale and Abramovich is becoming a non-person within the Premier League.\n\nHe wasn't involved in the sale of the club even before this latest development but it does underline the need for a deal to be done pretty quickly.\n\nThe name of the man who changed Chelsea's fortunes may still be revered by some of the club's supporters but it is clear his association with Vladimir Putin is creating serious issues at Stamford Bridge.\n\nA sale cannot come soon enough.\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Russia has been shelling the city\n\nThe boom of artillery, muffled by heavy snowfall, echoes across the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, triggering a series of air raid sirens.\n\nIn the faded grandeur of a long-abandoned club for navy officers, 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva is gathering food supplies, medicines and even home-made steel plates, carved out of local cars, for use as body armour.\n\nMykolaiv is now firmly in the sights of the Russian army - troops invaded from the nearby Crimea peninsula and have had more success in taking territory in this region than Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine.\n\nAs the Russians work their way west towards the city people are starting to flee and the hospitals are filling with the injured.\n\nBut Anastasia has decided to stay, sending her one-year-old daughter and her mother away to safety.\n\n\"I'm a mum of my baby. But I have to help because I know how to do it,\" the former army captain explains to the BBC.\n\nThe attack on a hospital in the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol on Tuesday made her decide she had no other choice.\n\n\"That was the hardest moment for me,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm a mum - but I have to stay,\" says ex-army captain 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva\n\nUkrainian forces in the city have, for more than a week now, successfully thwarted a major Russian advance west towards the larger port of Odesa.\n\nIn the city centre, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaliy Kim is standing in fatigues, explaining how Ukrainian soldiers, helped by new reinforcements, had pushed Russian troops back between 15 and 20km (nine to 12 miles) towards the east, and had even surrounded some Russian units which were now in negotiations for their surrender.\n\nSome of those troops were reportedly preparing to bring the captured and damaged Russian tanks into the city to show to residents.\n\nBut Mr Kim warns this is not a time to celebrate prematurely.\n\n\"We are winning this fight, but not this war,\" he says.\n\nThe governor said a relatively weak Russian force had underestimated local resistance and expected to \"be greeted with flowers\", but Russian reinforcements and planes could quickly turn the tide and enable the Kremlin to capture the whole Black Sea coastline.\n\n\"We need a closed sky,\" he said, referring to the idea of a no-fly zone enforced by Nato. The Western alliance has so far rejected such an idea, as it could bring them into direct conflict with Russian planes that entered the area.\n\nIn the local hospital, head doctor Alexander Dimyanov said 250 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been injured in the past fortnight, 12 fatally. Three patients, too sick to be moved further west to safety, remained on the trauma ward.\n\n\"We're exhausted,\" said a nurse, who declined to give her name. Dr Dimyanov showed a video of his colleagues in tears, explaining that they were overwhelmed by the workload and by fears that their own families might be hurt.\n\n\"They're crying because they don't know if they'll see them again. They don't run away. They work here every day. We have a lot of wounded people, every day. They see the blood,\" said Dr Dimyanov, who also called on the West to impose a no-fly zone.\n\nCivilians have been fleeing, heading west towards Moldova\n\nInhabitants of several apartment blocks in a civilian neighbourhood in the east of the city showed us where rockets or shells had hit their buildings in recent days, tearing holes in a stairwell and water pipes, and breaking dozens of windows.\n\n\"It's rocket and artillery fire at night. And it's pretty scary here. Very loud, especially at night,\" said 17-year-old Bogdan Somberakov.\n\nHe was waiting for a lift with his luggage and his family on the western edge of Mykolaiv.\n\nAs he spoke a long convoy of coaches passed by, carrying children west towards the Moldovan border and safety.", "A campaigner for survivors, Margaret McGuckin, pictured with some others who went to Stormont to hear the apology\n\nSurvivors of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland have been told that the state believes them - and is sorry.\n\nMinisters from the five main Stormont parties made statements of apology in the Northern Ireland Assembly.\n\nIt follows a 2017 inquiry which examined the abuse of hundreds of children at Church and state-run institutions over seven decades.\n\nThe move was welcomed by some; others said it was too little, too late.\n\nSix institution representatives also spoke in the assembly chamber - four representing Catholic orders, one from the charity Barnardo's and one from a Church of Ireland missionary organisation.\n\nSome survivors, about 80 of whom were present in the assembly chamber, left while those speeches were being made.\n\nThe first minister to speak was the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) Michelle McIlveen, who said there was no \"excuse or defence\" for what happened.\n\n\"We are sorry that the state did not protect you,\" the education minister added.\n\nThe Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry examined the period from 1922 to 1995 and found there had been widespread and systemic abuse at institutions.\n\nIts late chairman, Sir Anthony Hart, had recommended compensation, an apology and a permanent memorial to be erected at Stormont.\n\nAlliance Party leader and Justice Minister Naomi Long said it was \"fitting and proper\" that the apology was made in the assembly.\n\n\"This is where our laws are made, where we - ministers and those responsible for governing - are held to account. We are united in our acceptance of responsibility,\" she explained.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Victims of historical institutional abuse in NI have been told that the state believes them\n\nA minute's silence was held in the chamber, followed by a brief applause, before the statements began.\n\nInfrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon, from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), told the chamber that the inquiry \"shone a light on a dark, harsh and bleak period of our past\".\n\nShe also said the \"guilt and shame\" of what happened to survivors has never been their burden to bear, but belonged to \"those who should have protected you\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the children were sent to Rubane House in Kircubbin, County Down, run by the De La Salle brothers\n\nHealth Minister and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MLA Robin Swann said victims and survivors had shown \"courage\" and had \"taught us much in government\".\n\n\"Systemic abuse should never have happened - we are truly sorry that it did happen and we commit fully to ensuring that it will never happen again,\" he said.\n\nFive long years after this apology was first recommended, today saw five Stormont ministers finally delivering it.\n\nAddressing directly those men and women whose childhoods where stolen, in places where they were meant to be protected.\n\nFrom early this morning, the Great Hall at Stormont was filled with emotion as survivors arrived in different groups to take their places.\n\nSome of the tireless campaigners smiled as they reflected on reaching this step of their journey.\n\nBut others felt while the politicians hit the mark, the institutions had offered a cold, half-hearted apology.\n\nFor a time, making this moment happen seemed out of reach, but now 11 March will always belong to these survivors.\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy, from Sinn Féin, recognised it had taken \"too long\" for the apology to be made.\n\n\"We acknowledge that the delay in progressing this recommendation from the Hart report has further added to the stress that you experienced. For this, we are sorry,\" he said.\n\nFiona Ryan, commissioner for victims of institutional childhood abuse, also spoke during the proceedings and paid tribute to the \"courage of all survivors\".\n\n\"The fact that the inquiry happened is due to the victims and survivors themselves who fought to be seen and heard by an officialdom that was largely blind and deaf to the abuse they had suffered, to their anger and to their ongoing pain,\" she outlined.\n\nCommissioner Fiona Ryan paid tribute to the courage shown by survivors\n\nAddressing members at the start of proceedings, Speaker Alex Maskey said he was mindful that many victims of abuse had died before they could hear an apology.\n\nWhile Stormont's power-sharing institutions were suspended in 2019, Westminster passed legislation to allow the establishment of a redress board for payments.\n\nBut the delivery of an apology required ministers in the Stormont Executive - Northern Ireland's devolved government - to be in place.\n\nIt was initially due to be offered by the first and deputy first ministers in March, but was in doubt after the executive collapsed again last month.\n\nSir Anthony Hart recommended a compensation scheme, an apology and a permanent memorial to be erected at Stormont\n\nThe DUP's withdrawal of Paul Givan as first minister meant Michelle O'Neill could not remain as deputy first minister.\n\nFollowing the ministers' statements, representatives from six of the institutions highlighted in the HIA Inquiry made statements.\n\nBr Francis Manning from De La Salle Brothers said his organisation's \"actions and sometimes inaction caused pain and hurt and for our part we wish to say we are sorry and offer our sincere apology\".\n\nFrom the Sisters of Nazareth, Sr Cornelia Walsh offered a \"heartfelt apology\" and acknowledged there was \"systemic physical abuse and that bullying was prevalent\".\n\nSr Uainin Clarke, representing Sisters of St Louis, apologised for the \"harshness and a lack of love and understanding\" experienced by children and teenagers in their care.\n\nMichele Janes from Barnardo's said children had experienced a climate of fear in its care\n\nSr Cait O'Leary, from Good Shepherd Sisters, accepted that \"mistakes were made\" in the care provided to girls and young women and they did not receive \"appropriate, long-term, child-centred care\".\n\nThe director of Barnardo's in Northern Ireland, Michele Janes, said the charity acknowledged organisational failings which had created \"a climate of fear and insecurity\" when children should have felt \"nurtured and safe\".\n\nRev Mark Jones, from Irish Church Missions, said the organisation apologised for failing to \"detect and prevent\" sexual abuse endured by children in the care of Manor House Home in Lisburn.\n\nAfter these remarks, Margaret McGuckin from Savia said she felt \"broken\" after a long campaign.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Chris Page This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs McGuckin said while she believed the ministers were sincere in their apologies, she welcomed the statements by the organisations \"with a pinch of salt\".\n\n\"More damage was caused throughout this campaign than perhaps was in those institutions,\" she told reporters.\n\nJon McCourt from the Londonderry-based group, Survivors North-West, said the politicians' words were \"touching\".\n\nHowever, he said the church representatives spoke \"without emotion\".\n\n\"If what happened today was the best that the church could offer by way of an apology they failed miserably,\" he said.\n\nMr McCourt said he does not believe the church had \"atoned\" for its actions and called for religious organisations to make a \"significant contribution\" to the survivors' redress scheme.\n\nMarie-Therese Rogers-Maloney, who suffered abuse at Nazareth House in Belfast, said she did not like the apology she received but it would represent \"the end of the road\" for her journey.\n\nShe told BBC News NI's Evening Extra she \"hated\" the institution \"for its cruelty, for its lack of compassion; they had no empathy for any child\".\n\nIn a separate statement, Archbishop Eamon Martin, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, apologised \"to all those who suffered from their horrific experience in Church-run institutions, and to their loved ones\".\n\nMany were \"blinded\" in the church to the \"shocking neglect, sins and crime being perpetrated in their midst\", he continued.\n\nThe lack of a first and deputy first minister in place to deliver a statement meant the apology was \"stolen\", according to Gerry McCann, from the Rosetta Trust.\n\nGerry McCann said the apology was stolen without a first and deputy first minister in place\n\n\"Today was very tough in many ways for survivors, but to come to parliament and expect an apology from the first and deputy first minister and that didn't happen - that in itself is an indictment of our politics,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't help but feel the opportunity was there for the political parties to reinstate the first minister, even for two hours.\"\n\nEarlier this week, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Brandon Lewis welcomed the apology to victims and survivors of historical and institutional abuse.\n\nHe said: \"It was only right they are now receiving an apology for the abhorrent abuse they suffered.\"", "Wagner member in the Donbas region in 2014/15\n\nSocial media channels and private messaging groups are being used in Russia to recruit a new brigade of mercenaries to fight in Ukraine alongside the army, the BBC has learned.\n\nThe BBC has spoken to a serving mercenary and a former fighter with close links to one of Russia's leading mercenary organisations, who have shared details of the recruitment campaign.\n\nThe serving mercenary said many veterans of the secretive Wagner organisation were contacted on a private Telegram group a few weeks before the start of the war. They were invited to a \"picnic in Ukraine\", with references to tasting \"Salo\", a pork fat traditionally eaten in Ukraine.\n\nThe message appeals to \"those with criminal records, debts, banned from mercenary groups or without an external passport\" to apply. The message also included that \"those from the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea - cordially invited\".\n\nThe Wagner group is one of the most secretive organisations in Russia. Officially, it doesn't exist - serving as a mercenary is against Russian and international law. But up to 10,000 operatives are believed to have taken at least one contract with Wagner over the past seven years.\n\nThe serving mercenary who spoke to the BBC said new recruits are being placed in units under the command of officers from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit of the ministry of defence.\n\nHe stressed that the recruitment policy had changed, and fewer restrictions were applied. \"They are recruiting anyone and everyone,\" he said, unhappy with what he described as the lower professionalism of the new fighters.\n\nHe said the new units being recruited are no longer referred to as Wagner, but new names - such as The Hawks - were being used.\n\nIn 2021, the BBC gained access to an electronic tablet left behind by a Wagner fighter in Libya\n\nThis seems to be part of a recent tendency to steer away from the Wagner group's reputation, as \"the brand is tainted\", says Candace Rondeaux, professor of Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies at Arizona State University.\n\nWagner has faced repeated accusations of human rights abuses and war crimes in its operations in Syria and Libya.\n\nThe mercenary sources who spoke to the BBC, said the recruits are trained at the Wagner base in Mol'kino in southern Russia, next to a Russian army base.\n\nAs well as the private messaging groups, there has also been a public campaign in Russia to recruit mercenaries.\n\nOn the Russian social media platform VK, a page that describes itself as a specialist in security activities, posted an advert during the first week of the invasion calling for \"security guards\" from other former Soviet Union countries to apply for \"the near abroad\". Military experts have said this is a reference to Ukraine.\n\nPreviously, a criminal record was a block for those wanting to join the mercenaries. Also restrictions were placed on anyone born outside Russia because of doubts around loyalty.\n\nTranslated advert for mercenaries on the VK social media site\n\nThere is a \"high demand on fighters\" and to make a difference on the ground \"they're going to need thousands of mercenaries\", says Jason Blazakis, senior research fellow at the Soufan Centre, a US-based security think tank.\n\nOn Friday, the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said that 16,000 fighters from the Middle East had volunteered to fight with the Russian army. The Russian president Vladimir Putin gave orders allowing fighters from the Middle East to be deployed in the war.\n\nIt has been reported that up to 400 fighters from the Wagner group have been in Ukraine.\n\nThe Wagner group was first identified in 2014, when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.\n\nThe serving Wagner fighter explained that in the first days of the invasion of Ukraine he was sent to the country's second city, Kharkiv, where he said his unit successfully completed a mission without revealing what it was.\n\n\"We were then paid $2,100 (£1,600) for a month's work and returned home to Russia,\" he told the BBC.\n\nBlazakis describes using mercenaries as a \"sign of desperation\" to keep the Russian public's support. Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has stirred several protests in Russia. Thousands have been arrested. Blazakis added that using mercenaries allows the Kremlin to \"keep the death toll down because mercenaries are used like cannon fodder\".\n\nMoscow has always denied any links with mercenary groups.\n\nThe BBC asked the Russian ministry of defence whether the base in Mol'kino was being used to recruit additional forces for what the Russian authorities call \"a special military operation in Ukraine''. No response was received.", "Previous executions have triggered protests like this one in New York three years ago\n\nSaudi Arabia says it executed 81 men on Saturday - more than during the whole of last year.\n\nThe group - including seven Yemenis and one Syrian national - were convicted of \"multiple heinous crimes\", including terrorism, state news agency SPA said.\n\nSome were charged with belonging to the Islamic State group (IS), al-Qaeda or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.\n\nRights organisations say many do not receive fair trials in Saudi Arabia, an allegation the government rejects.\n\nAccording to SPA, the latest group had been tried by 13 judges and gone through a three-stage judicial process.\n\nThey were accused of plotting attacks on vital economic targets, killing or targeting members of the security forces, kidnapping, torture, rape and smuggling weapons into the country.\n\nSaudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world - fifth in a list compiled by Amnesty International, the other four being China, Iran, Egypt and Iraq.", "Denis Donaldson was shot dead in April 2006 months after he was exposed as a Security Service spy\n\nPolice failed to properly evaluate the threat informer Denis Donaldson was under before he was shot dead in County Donegal, a report has found.\n\nHowever, Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson said she could not conclude the former Sinn Féin official's murder in 2006 could have been prevented.\n\nHis family said the police had been negligent in a duty of care to him \"for reasons that remain unexplained\".\n\nMr Donaldson's murder was claimed by the dissident republican Real IRA.\n\nThe 55 year old, who once held a key administrative role for Sinn Féin at Stormont, admitted in December 2005 that he had been working for MI5 and the police for 20 years.\n\nHe then moved to a family cottage in Glenties, where he was murdered in April 2006.\n\nMr Donaldson was shot dead at a cottage in Glenties, County Donegal\n\nTwo weeks before his killing, the Sunday World newspaper published a story on him that included a photograph of him standing outside the property.\n\nThe Police Ombudsman found no evidence police had leaked information on his whereabouts.\n\nShortly after the story appeared, the PSNI received information indicating Mr Donaldson's life \"may be at increased risk\".\n\nThis information was shared with An Garda Síochána (Irish police).\n\nBut Mrs Anderson found no evidence of a PSNI risk assessment having been carried out following the Sunday World article.\n\n\"It is likely that this important measure to assess the threat to Mr Donaldson's life was not undertaken,\" her report stated.\n\n\"I am of the view the family's concerns about the steps taken by PSNI in management of this threat are legitimate and justified.\"\n\nIn a BBC News NI interview, Ms Anderson added: \"I believe it was a corporate failing, but I cannot say if they carried out the risk assessment Denis's murder would have been preventable.\n\nOmbudsman Marie Anderson said Donaldson family concerns over the PSNI's management of the threat were \"legitimate and justified\"\n\n\"There is certainly an indication others in County Donegal knew of his whereabouts.\"\n\nIt read: \"For reasons that remain unexplained and unaccounted for, the PSNI abandoned its routine practice of risk assessments.\n\n\"This course of action was taken at precisely the moment when the risk to Denis's life was at its greatest.\n\n\"The key question has always been: 'Did the PSNI do enough to protect Denis's life?' The ombudsman's answer today was no, they did not.\"\n\nThe PSNI said it recognised \"the pain and suffering\" of the Donaldson family.\n\nAss Ch Con Mark McEwan added: \"We note the findings of the investigation and will now take some time to review her comprehensive report.\n\n\"We have reviewed our operational policies and service procedure regarding the management of threats to life and will continue to do so on a regular basis.\"\n\nThe ombudsman's report also found that the PSNI had provided \"a high-level of co-operation and assistance\" to the the Garda's murder inquiry.\n\nDuring the course of its investigation, the ombudsman's office questioned one officer under caution and he denied sharing information about Mr Donaldson's whereabouts.\n\nAs he has subsequently retired, the issue of disciplinary proceedings could not be considered by the ombudsman.\n\nA DUP assembly member who sits on the Policing Board, Trevor Clarke, said: \"The ombudsman has been oddly critical of the PSNI for not carrying out a full risk assessment after the Sunday World had identified where Mr Donaldson was living.\n\n\"This is despite the PSNI advising the Garda of the potential increased risk and the victim living outside of their jurisdiction.\n\n\"Now that this investigation is complete, our sights must be firmly fixed on identifying those responsible for this brutal murder as well as those in the republican movement who have something to hide.''\n\nBy the time the Troubles erupted in 1969, Denis Donaldson was in the IRA.\n\nIn the 1970s he was jailed for explosives offences and during his time in the Maze prison became close friends with Bobby Sands.\n\nHis double-life began in the next decade.\n\nHe was recruited as an agent in the 1980s, at a time when he was becoming more prominent in Sinn Féin.\n\nHe was its candidate in the 1983 Westminster election in his native east Belfast.\n\nLater, he travelled widely as a representative of Sinn Féin to the likes of the Middle East and United States.\n\nAfter the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, he assumed a key backroom role for the party based at Parliament Buildings in Stormont.\n\nIn what was dubbed Stormont-gate, Mr Donaldson was one of three men arrested in 2002 over an alleged IRA intelligence gathering operation.\n\nThree years later, charges were dropped on the grounds that prosecutions were not in the public interest.\n\nWithin a matter of days, Mr Donaldson admitted having been an informer.\n\nHe said he had been paid to work for MI5 and the police \"after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life\".\n\nFour months later, he was murdered in Donegal.", "Mr Zelensky chatted to the injured troops, posed for selfies with them and awarded them and hospital workers with medals.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nFormer world number one Naomi Osaka was brought to tears by a heckler during her 6-0 6-4 defeat by Veronika Kudermetova at Indian Wells.\n\nThe four-time Grand Slam winner was taunted in the first set by someone in the crowd yelling \"Naomi, you suck\".\n\nOsaka was playing her third event since taking a break in September.\n\nSpeaking on court after the match, an emotional Osaka said it reminded her of Venus and Serena Williams being heckled at the same tournament in 2001.\n\nWhile holding back tears, Japan's Osaka said: \"I've been heckled before and it didn't really bother me.\n\n\"But being heckled here. I've watched video of Venus and Serena get heckled here and if you've never watched it, you should watch it. And I don't know why, but it went into my head and got replayed a lot.\"\n\nThe Williams sisters boycotted Indian Wells for 14 years over the events of 2001.\n\nVenus had pulled out of a semi-final match against her sister with a knee injury, and when she and her father Richard took their seats to watch Serena in the final against Kim Clijsters the next day the crowd jeered. Serena was also subjected to boos throughout the match.\n\nSerena went on to win the title and embraced Venus and her father courtside, with Richard later saying he was the target of racial abuse.\n\nIn an interview in 2021, Serena said she was still traumatised by the incident two decades later.\n\nOsaka's second-round exit at Indian Wells is the earliest she has been knocked out of a tournament since returning from an indefinite break that began last year after her US Open title defence ended in the third round.\n\nThat break was her second of the year, after she withdrew from the French Open amid controversy over her wish not to speak to the media after matches, and revealed she has struggled with her mental health since first becoming a Grand Slam champion in 2018.\n\nThe 24-year-old also missed Wimbledon before returning to the sport later in the summer at the Tokyo Olympics, where she lit the flame at the opening ceremony.\n• None Alerts: Get tennis news sent to your phone\n• None What power does the platform hold over us?\n• None Dive into a raw and unfiltered motorsport with promise of high-speed crashes", "More than two million people have now fled Ukraine because of the Russian invasion\n\nHome secretaries must know how to deal with flak. It goes with the job.\n\nBut when accusations of foot-dragging, complacency, heartlessness and lies come from your own backbenches, you know you have got a serious problem.\n\nOne Tory MP has called for Priti Patel to resign over her handling of the Ukrainian refugee emergency.\n\nThe Home Office is in crisis mode, trying to convince an increasingly sceptical nation that the department has got a grip of the situation.\n\n\"We are doing our best,\" one insider tells me, before adding: \"But we haven't got everything right.\"\n\nThe nightly images of desperate families fleeing a war but turned away by UK government officials confirm the latter point.\n\nThis is becoming deeply damaging for the Home Office and the prime minister. Priti Patel is under intense pressure, with suggestions that Downing Street is losing confidence.\n\nThe surprise appointment of a minister for refugees operating across two government departments suggests the Home Office is not trusted to sort matters out alone.\n\nTellingly, the sponsorship scheme launched to bring some Ukrainians to Britain is being run by Michael Gove's communities department.\n\nHome Office staff were overstretched before the latest humanitarian disaster started to unfold - trying to deal with thousands of Afghans coming to Britain to escape the Taliban, migrants arriving by the boatload having crossed the channel, tens of thousands of Hongkongers fleeing the Chinese clampdown, and increasing numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with nowhere to stay.\n\nFor a department trying to convince sceptical voters its attitude to immigration has changed from the days of the \"hostile environment\" and the Windrush scandal, accusations of inhumanity over the plight of Ukrainian refugees are damaging.\n\n\"We are working 24/7 to try to respond in really, really challenging circumstances,\" an official tells me.\n\n\"Some of the criticism has been soul-destroying, but we are not going to give up.\"\n\nShe shows me a box of Pringles. \"This is my breakfast,\" she says, as evidence of how hard everyone is working.\n\nBut it was the sight of hapless officials handing out crisps and Kit Kats to desperate refugees in Calais that will stick in the public's mind, a sense that the home secretary was not taking the plight of those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine seriously.\n\nThe Home Office says it has been preparing for a possible humanitarian crisis in Ukraine since January, designing detailed policies for how to respond. But officials accept that their plans had to be adapted almost as soon as the first refugees asked for sanctuary in Britain.\n\n\"You can create a scheme on paper, and the first family group that applies does not meet the criteria,\" an insider tells me. \"We set up a scheme that we thought was very generous and then a case came onto the helpline and it wasn't suitable.\"\n\nCritics see a department that is on the back foot, constantly forced into embarrassing U-turns, accused of both inhumanity and incompetence. But inside the department's headquarters in Westminster, they insist they are listening to the feedback and adjusting their policies in response.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel visited the Ukrainian embassy in London at the weekend\n\nOne senior official gives me an example: \"In issuing a visa to a child, the original process required both parents to consent. But we realised that conscription in Ukraine meant fathers were away fighting and could not give consent. So we went to the home secretary and she agreed to change the rules.\"\n\nThe question, though, is why did they not realise the problems earlier? Why was eligibility under the Ukrainian Family Scheme not initially applied to aunts and uncles, cousins and step-children? Why did the rule changes have to be forced out of the Home Office when the emergency reached the UK border?\n\nThe answer is that the Home Office's response to desperate people fleeing a war is shaped by a determination to maintain the integrity of the UK border. This is a government and a home secretary elected to get Brexit done, and for many of those who campaigned to leave the EU, taking back control of our borders was the central goal.\n\nThat is why Priti Patel's initial response was to say that people escaping the conflict should claim asylum in the first safe country they reached. \"It's important to note that the situation in Ukraine is very different from Afghanistan,\" I was advised by the Home Office, as the Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border.\n\nIn those first days of the war, anyone displaced who wished to come to the UK had to satisfy the rules of the government's post-Brexit immigration system. The points-based approach meant refugees would have to demonstrate they earned enough money or had skills that benefited the United Kingdom.\n\nIt was a serious miscalculation. As the scale of the humanitarian crisis became clear, the Home Office was forced to move away from its hard-line policy. Time and again the Home Office has found itself having to adjust its policies as the pressure for a more compassionate response has increased.\n\nThe central challenge stems from the insistence that any refugee coming to the UK must apply for a visa, complete biometric tests and satisfy ever-changing rules on eligibility.\n\nThe prime minister has defended the checks.\n\n\"Some sort of control is an important feature of the way we do things,\" Boris Johnson said. \"Uncontrolled immigration is not the way forward\".\n\nThe government is trying to respond to a humanitarian disaster while still following the Brexit playbook. There are understandable concerns about opening Britain's doors to large numbers of refugees, that undesirable individuals may use the crisis to sneak into the country, posing a threat to national security.\n\nControlling our borders remains central to the approach, a challenge currently most acute in Calais, where hundreds of Ukrainians are pleading to be let into Britain.\n\nThere is no visa application centre in Calais, so refugees are advised to travel to Paris or Brussels to sort out their paperwork before boarding a ferry or driving through the tunnel. The department claims it wants to ensure there is not a \"choke point\" in the city which might lead to vulnerable refugees being preyed upon by people-trafficking gangs.\n\nMigrants camped around Calais continue to cross the channel in small boats, 2,214 already this year, a phenomenon that infuriates Brexit-supporting MPs who demand the home secretary do more to police the UK's border.\n\nThere have been calls from across the House of Commons for the government to waive the visa requirements as countries across the EU have done. Priti Patel, though, remains opposed to such a move, preferring to tweak the existing immigration rules rather than set up a new humanitarian pathway for those displaced by the war in Ukraine.\n\n\"We need to be really careful managing this process, organising housing, education, access to public services, registering for benefits,\" an official explains. \"We don't want services or resources not to be available.\"\n\nThe experience of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, welcoming people who had fled the Taliban after the British military withdrawal, may help explain the reluctance to open the UK borders this time.\n\nFinding housing for the thousands who have already arrived has proved hugely problematic, with the department currently paying more than £1m a day to keep Afghans in requisitioned hotels.\n\nChastened by that experience, perhaps, the home secretary supported the idea of a Ukrainian sponsorship scheme - in which private individuals or companies can apply to bring a refugee into the UK, with the sponsor rather than the state taking responsibility for accommodation and support.\n\nSponsorship has been used before, notably to help Syrian refugees. But it is not a quick or straightforward response to a humanitarian emergency. The details are still being worked out. It remains unclear who will be eligible. It will be some time before any Ukrainian will arrive by that route.\n\nThe 21st Century Home Office must look tough and compassionate in equal measure. It must navigate the complex politics of immigration and balance the demands for freedom and control.\n\n\"We are genuinely less worried about the reputational side of this than getting the right messages across,\" an insider claims.\n\nBut the concern is that the Home Office is destined always to be playing catch-up as the human tragedy of the Ukrainian refugee emergency unfolds.", "Samuel Crawford spoke about his Christian faith when he addressed his church in December 2020\n\nA man who died on the UK's highest mountain last Tuesday was Samuel Crawford from Newtownards, County Down.\n\nThe 28-year-old was climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland on 8 March when he suffered fatal injuries.\n\nMr Crawford was married just 18 months ago and his wife is expecting their first child, their minister said.\n\nThe Reverend Garth Wilson, from Sandown Free Presbyterian Church in east Belfast, expressed \"heartfelt sympathies\" to the Crawford family.\n\nIn a tribute on the church's Facebook page, the minister said: \"He was one of the brightest lights in our congregation in Sandown and we will miss him terribly.\"\n\nHe described Mr Crawford as a \"fantastic husband\" and said he \"would have been the best father\".\n\nSpeaking to BBC News NI, Mr Wilson said Mr Crawford had a \"very, very strong Christian faith\" and the congregation was taking comfort in that.\n\nJust over a year ago, Mr Crawford spoke at the church about how his faith had helped him through serious illness.\n\nSamuel Crawford was with friends on Ben Nevis when he was fatally injured on Tuesday\n\nStrangford MP Jim Shannon said he had known the Crawford family for years and was \"incredibly sorry to hear of his passing\".\n\n\"He was very committed to his family... he was from a family of great faith, which will be all the more necessary now,\" the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician said.\n\nMr Shannon also expressed his sympathy to his \"many friends who are missing him\" and added: \"He is very much in our prayers.\"\n\nBen Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK\n\nMr Crawford was among 24 people who got into difficulty on Ben Nevis on 8 March.\n\nThe other climbers were helped to safety by the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, search and rescue helicopters and a group of soldiers who were climbing the mountain at the time.", "The incident caused a \"great deal of damage\" at St Nicholas the Wonderworker\n\nA Russian Orthodox church was ransacked and several valuable items were stolen after it was broken into.\n\nSt Nicholas the Wonderworker in Oxford was burgled in the early hours of Saturday, causing a \"great deal of damage\", Archpriest Stephen Platt said.\n\nCollection boxes for Ukrainian refugees and the church's safe were forced open and relics and crosses were stolen.\n\nThames Valley Police are investigating and Sunday's service was able to go ahead as normal.\n\nDrawers were left opened after the burglary on Saturday\n\nWriting on Facebook, Father Stephen said: \"Fortunately, although the holy table was interfered with, the antimension and the tabernacle containing the Holy Gifts were left undisturbed.\n\n\"The church safe and money boxes were forced open with violence, and the proceeds of a collection to support refugees from Ukraine was stolen. The church bookstall was burgled and stock taken.\"\n\nThe church, in Ferry Road, is a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church within the South East Deanery Deanery of the Diocese of Sourozh.\n\nA Thames Valley Police spokesperson said investigations are ongoing and that no one has been arrested.\n\nPolice are investigating the burglary at the church\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nIreland kept their hopes of a Six Nations title alive as they finally saw off a valiant, spirited England who played 78 minutes with 14 men after Charlie Ewels' red card.\n\nEwels was dismissed with just 82 seconds on the clock after clashing heads with James Ryan in an attempted tackle.\n\nIreland, the pre-match favourites, seemed set for a procession. Instead they were dragged into a desperate, captivating dogfight by the depleted hosts.\n\nJames Lowe and Hugo Keenan scored first-half tries, but Marcus Smith's boot kept England in touch with three penalties for a 15-9 scoreline at the break.\n\nSmith potted another two to bring England level after the hour. It seemed an extraordinary heist may be on as Twickenham roared like it rarely has before.\n\nIreland though finally made their advantage and strength in depth pay as they came on strong late on with Jack Conan and Finlay Bealham crossing to squash the resistance.\n\nThe defeat ends England's hopes of winning the Six Nations, but they could have a say in the trophy's destination. Denying France in Paris next weekend would open the door for Ireland, who take on Scotland in the final round.\n• None Rugby Union Daily: England see red & Ireland eye up the title\n• None Six Nations permutations - how France and Ireland can win the title\n\nThe pre-match pyrotechnics were still floating on the Twickenham air when the momentum swung decisively in Ireland's favour.\n\nSecond row Ewels' tackle on Ryan was more clumsy than callous, but, whether he was trying to strip the ball or hold his man up in the tackle, his body height was high and risky.\n\nThe clash of heads was nasty, the mitigation non-existent. To the consternation of the crowd, French referee Mathieu Raynal brandished red after just 82 seconds - the earliest dismissal in the Championship's 139-year history.\n\nEwels trudged to the touchline, Johnny Sexton slotted the penalty, and jeers rolled down from all sides.\n\nAfter the disbelief, came the defiance.\n\nEngland raged against perceived injustice, throwing caution to the wind and their bodies into the fray.\n\nHarry Randall tapped and went, Maro Itoje swarmed over the line-out and breakdown, Ellis Genge milked opposing prop Tadhg Furlong for a string of penalties as wing Jack Nowell filled in at flanker at the scrum.\n\nCoach Eddie Jones had cast England as the underdog in the build-up and, with their odds dramatically lengthened, his team and their crowd seemed to relish their status.\n\nShortly after Ewels' departure, wing Lowe trotted in following good work from hooker Dan Sheehan and flanker Josh van der Flier to put Ireland into an 8-0 lead.\n\nBut the visitors could not make the cold logic of their superior numbers count.\n\nReferee Raynal ruled out a Caelan Doris score with a highly debatable knock-on call, while the penalty count was 9-4 in favour of England at the break.\n\nKeenan's short-range surge on 37 minutes ensured Ireland reached half-time with a 15-9 lead, but captain Sexton was in animated discussion with Raynal all the way down the tunnel.\n\nSexton's concern was justified. England refused to submit. Ireland continued to fumble their advantage.\n\nTadhg Beirne forced a pass and knocked on when another phase would surely have unpicked the England defence.\n\nEngland revelled in the error. They whooped and hollered as they sent the Ireland front row, badly missing the injured Andrew Porter, into reverse once again. Hooker Jamie George exhorted more volume from the crowd and slowly the apparently impossible became tantalising feasible.\n\nSmith slotted penalties in the 53rd and 61st minutes to finally bring parity on the scoreboard. Doubt gnawed at Ireland, England grew shirt sizes.\n\nBut the final quarter was always going to be the hardest. Ireland unloaded a bench that contained four British and Irish Lions, fatigue ambushed England and the home fans' dream withered.\n\nItoje escaped more severe punishment for a cynical piece of breakdown skulduggery inside his own five metre, while Doris butchered a glorious chance to put Conor Murray in under the posts.\n\nBut the dam finally burst as Conan crashed over in the wake of Andrew Conway's break and Bealham picked and burrowed through some flagging white shirts in the final four minutes.\n\nThe two teams took a lap of appreciation after the final whistle, accepting applause for a thrilling spectacle that few saw coming after Ewels' early dismissal.\n\nThe result is only England's third loss in their past 26 Six Nations games at home and Ireland's second win at Twickenham since 2010.\n\nReplacements: Ford for Steward (79), Daly for Marchant (69), Youngs for Randall (52), Marler for Genge (67), Blamire for George (79), Stuart for Sinckler (38), Dombrandt for Curry (14), Launchbury for Dombrandt (67).\n\nReplacements: Henshaw for Aki (66), Carbery for Sexton (79), Murray for Gibson-Park (67), Kilcoyne for Healy (53), Herring for Sheehan (53), Bealham for Furlong (73), Henderson for Ryan (2), Conan for O'Mahony (61).\n• None What power does the platform hold over us?\n• None Dive into a raw and unfiltered motorsport with promise of high-speed crashes", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Maksym Lutsyk,19 (left) and Dmytro Kisilenko, 18 are at war with three days training.\n\nJust over a week ago I met a group of young men who had volunteered at a centre in Kyiv to fight for Ukraine.\n\nMost of them were in their late teens, not long out of school. They told me that after three days' basic training they would head for the front line - or very close to it.\n\nMaksym Lutsyk, a 19-year-old biology student, told me he wasn't fazed about trying to become a soldier after less than a week of instruction. He'd manage, after five years in the Scouts, not just learning backwoods skills, but also some weapons training. He was 10 when Ukraine's long war with separatists sponsored by Moscow started in 2014.\n\nMaksym had gone to join up with his friend Dmytro Kisilenko, 18, who was studying economics at the same university.\n\nThe recruits were like any bunch of young lads who had decided they were no longer boys, laughing too loudly when someone told jokes to hide their nerves, or trying a bit of bravado.\n\nSome of them were wearing knee pads that looked too small, as if they had come with skateboards on their 12th birthdays. A few had sleeping bags. One had a yoga mat. When they waited outside for the bus that was going to be taking them to the training base, they looked like friends on the way to a festival - apart from the guns. Each had been given custody of a Kalashnikov assault rifle.\n\nMaksym (far left) and Dmytro (centre, with green jacket and white trainers) before their training\n\nI'm in touch with Dmytro and Maksym and the other volunteers. This weekend I went to see them at their posts on the eastern edge of the city, where they have been issued with uniforms, body armour, proper infantry kneepads and helmets.\n\nA bitter wind blew through the checkpoint which the volunteers were trying to turn into a real obstacle with sandbags and steel tank traps. They made the best of their very basic training.\n\nDmytro told me: \"I got used to my gun. I learned how to shoot and how to act in the battle, also many other things that will be very crucial in the fight with the Russians.\" He laughed, as if he found it hard to imagine what he was contemplating.\n\nMaksym looked more urgent, more serious, less like a laid-back student.\n\n\"I feel much more confident than I was before, because we get enough knowledge in tactics, in martial arts, in tactical medicine and in how to do something on the battlefield.\" Only half joking, he wanted to see the Ukrainian flag flying from the Kremlin.\n\nThe question on everyone's mind here is whether the battle is coming for Kyiv.\n\n\"It's definitely possible\" said Dmytro. \"We just have to stop them here, because if they get to Kyiv this war might be over.\"\n\nBarricades have been set up on roads in Kyiv using concrete blocks and \"tank traps\" from the city's museum\n\nThey are from the same town near the Russian border, which is being shelled. Their families are still there. I asked the boys what their parents thought of what they were doing. Maksym joked that his mother had told him to stay in a shelter and volunteer to cook the food. He had spared them the details of his deployment because he didn't want to worry them.\n\nDmytro's parents knew what he was doing. He had started by volunteering to make Molotov cocktails and after a few days rang his dad to tell him he had decided to join the territorial defence force. His father told him not to try too hard to be a hero.\n\nMy parents, Dmytro said, are proud of what I'm doing. He looked delighted. I asked him if he felt scared of what is ahead.\n\n\"Not much, but it is human nature to feel scared, and of course deeply in my soul I feel a bit scared, as no one wants to die, even if it's for your country. So, death is not an option for us.\"\n\nDmytro and Maksym talked about their dreams for the future, fun with friends, finishing their studies, careers and eventually families. Their parents must be praying that their sons' plans, energy and even their lives are not smashed by the brutal realities of war, like so many in all the other generations of young men who have joined up to fight in Europe's wars.\n\nForeign journalists have no access to the young Russian men only a few miles away on the other side of the front line. Many are believed to be conscripts, who were not told properly what was being planned for them. Wars are mostly fought by young men.\n\nI have no doubt that many young Russians in the war have hopes as high as Dmytro and Maksym. One difference might be less motivation to fight, though without the chance to report their side properly, it is hard to say with certainty.\n\nThe two young Ukrainian students-turned-soldiers went back to work on the checkpoint. The professional army is a couple of miles ahead, directly facing the Russians.\n\nBut if the Russians come, like all the volunteers, Maksym and Dmytro will be firing out of the trenches they helped dig into the surrounding ground, where boxes of Molotov cocktails are waiting - old bottles filled with petrol and pieces of grated polystyrene and stuffed with a rag to ignite what they hope might even disable a tank.\n\nIf that doesn't work, the Nato military alliance is pouring in thousands of much more sophisticated anti-tank weapons.\n\nEveryone here in Kyiv is waiting for what is likely to be the key battle of the war, soldiers, civilians in and out of uniform, along with Maksym and Dmytro and the other volunteers who are getting ready to fight with them.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Yevgeny says it is his responsibility as a Russian to help Ukrainians\n\nOutside Georgia's parliament, Yevgeny Lyamin heaves boxes of clothes and food parcels on to a waiting truck bound for Ukraine.\n\nHe is one of more than 25,000 Russians to have arrived in Georgia since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russians have been struggling to find affordable accommodation in all the major cities. Many can be seen wandering around the capital, Tbilisi, with their suitcases and often even their pets.\n\nA blue-and-yellow ribbon is attached to the lapel of Yevgeny's trench-coat - the colours of the Ukrainian flag. It was these ribbons that got him arrested at an anti-war protest in Russia, a day after it launched its war on Ukraine.\n\n\"I understood the best way to act against Putin's regime would be my emigration from Russia,\" says the 23-year old politics graduate. \"It's my responsibility to do anything I can to help the Ukrainians.\"\n\nThe exodus does not stop at Georgia. The EU, US, UK and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian flights, so they are heading for countries where flights are still permitted and where visas are not required, such as Turkey, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Many have fled to Armenia.\n\nAccording to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Konstantin Sonin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBelarusians are on the move too, fleeing repression and the Western sanctions imposed on authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko's government for collaborating with Russia's Vladimir Putin.\n\nThat has prompted prices to surge on last-minute flights and rental accommodation in the main host cities, such as Istanbul and Armenia's capital, Yerevan.\n\n\"A one-way flight to Istanbul cost me and my husband more than our combined monthly income,\" said Anya, who did not want to give her surname.\n\nFor her the moment of decision came with a new \"state betrayal\" law that has come into force in Russia. Anyone expressing support for Ukraine could face jail sentences of up to 20 years and Anya believed she could be a target.\n\n\"Fear of closed borders, political repression and forced military service is in our DNA. I remember my grandmother telling me stories about the state of fear they lived in during Stalin's time, and now we are experiencing it,\" she said.\n\nAn estimated 25,000 Russians have left for Georgia\n\nMany of the new emigres are tech industry professionals who can work remotely. A video games developer I met at a cafe in Tbilisi told me that he and most people he knew disagreed with Russian policy and they knew now that any protest would be violently suppressed.\n\n\"The only way we can protest is to leave the country, take our skills and money with us. Almost everyone in our circle has made a similar decision,\" said Igor (not his real name). He plans to leave the Georgian capital, because he does not feel welcome here.\n\nThere have been numerous reports of Airbnb hosts refusing to let their properties to Russian and Belarusian citizens.\n\n\"I do not accept Russian and Belarus people\" one host told a Belarusian couple, who shared their exchange with the BBC. \"You do not have time for vacations - revolt against your corrupt governments.\"\n\n\"They think we are running away from Russia because Apple Pay no longer works there,\" Igor complained. \"We are not running for comfort, we've lost everything there, we are basically refugees. Putin's geopolitics has destroyed our lives.\"\n\nAt Tbilisi's public service hall, new arrivals are registering businesses or applying for residency.\n\nKristina and Nikita, who are both IT specialists from the Belarusian capital Minsk, have registered as sole entrepreneurs. That will allow them to open Georgian bank accounts.\n\n\"We don't support our governments, which is obvious because we ran away. We want to be safe here,\" said Kristina. \"But we are being bullied just because of our nationality, I need to hide my country of origin, I don't feel comfortable when people ask me where I am from.\"\n\nSince the start of the war Tbilisi has seen some of the largest rallies in support of Ukraine. A recent survey found that 87% of Georgians view the war in Ukraine as their own war with Russia.\n\nBut many Georgians are uneasy about this dramatic influx of Russians, as it is less than 14 years since Russia's leader invaded Georgia.\n\nSome 30,000 Georgians listened to Ukraine's President Zelensky during a mass protest\n\nSome fear President Putin might claim Russian citizens abroad need protection, because that was his excuse to justify sending troops into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia in 2008. To date, 20% of Georgian territory remains under Russian occupation.\n\nHowever, tech entrepreneur Lev Kalashnikov thinks Georgia will benefit from what he asserts is the biggest brain drain in Russia's modern history. He opened a group for expats on the Telegram messaging app while standing in a queue.\n\n\"There were 50 people in front of me and 50 people behind me. They became my first subscribers and now we have nearly 4,000 members.\"\n\nMembers discuss where to find accommodation, how to open bank accounts, and whether or not it is safe to speak Russian in public.\n\nYevgeny Lyamin is already learning Georgian, practising Georgia's unique alphabet in an exercise book.\n\n\"I am against Putin, I am against war. I still can't withdraw money from my Russian bank account, but that's nothing like the problems that Ukrainians face.\"", "Witnesses to a deadly Russian attack on a Ukrainian military base have told how \"the sky turned red\" as missiles struck the site near the Polish border.\n\nAt least 35 people died in the strike on the Yavoriv training base, near a major crossing point into Poland used by refugees from the conflict.\n\nRussia fired around 30 cruise missiles at the base, outside the city of Lviv, early Sunday, the local governor said.\n\nHours after the attack, ambulances were still rushing to the scene.\n\nRoads leading to the facility were blocked with checkpoints and authorities were conducting search-and-rescue operations.\n\nRussian jets fired around 30 cruise missiles at the site, also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, authorities in Lviv said. Most, though, were intercepted by the air defence system.\n\nVideo of the aftermath of the attack posted online and verified by the BBC showed a huge crater at the site and thick smoke billowing from a massive fire at a small building nearby.\n\nDukhnych Vitalii, a 19-year-old student who lives in a nearby apartment complex, said \"the night sky turned red\" as the attack happened. \"We can't hear the air raid sirens in this area. We woke up when we heard the sound of the first explosion. We went to the bunker,\" he said. \"It looked scary.\"\n\nHis 25-year-old cousin was training at the facility, Mr Vitalii said, and his family were still trying to contact him.\n\nAnother resident, Nadin Berezovska, said she could see the fire from her parents' flat, where she had been living after fleeing the country's capital, Kyiv. \"It was very scary. We're in shock,\" Ms Berezovska, a 39-year-old photographer, said.\n\n\"Now we realise that it doesn't matter where you live,\" she said. \"We aren't safe. How can Poland be safe?\"\n\nThe base has previously been used for military training of Ukrainian troops, often with instructors from the US and other Nato countries. It was not immediately clear whether foreign instructors were at the centre when it was hit.\n\nThe attack is significant because the base, one of Ukraine's largest military facilities, is located just 25km (15 miles) from Poland, a Nato member. The border with Poland is a vital route for refugees, but also for weapons being sent by countries in the military alliance - which have included anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nIt is also the first major attack in western Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country, on 24 February. The region has become a hub for millions of people escaping the war in other areas, and around 2.6 million have left Ukraine so far.\n\n\"We're very scared,\" Yurii Vitiv, a 50-year-old driver, said. \"Until this morning we had hoped that the war would stop on eastern Ukraine.\"\n\nHours earlier, Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said Moscow had warned the US that \"pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn't just a dangerous move, it's an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets\".\n\nDespite sending weapons, Nato has, so far, ruled out a request by Ukraine's government to establish a no-fly zone over the country, saying this would trigger a wider conflict with Russia.\n\nBut Andriy Sadovyy, the mayor of Lviv, said such a measure was necessary to prevent Russia from carrying our aerial strikes.\n\n\"Europeans, understand this situation: it's easy to talk and drink coffee and say they're deeply concerned... but every hour the skies are not closed, the Russians are killing civilians and children,\" he told the BBC in an interview.\n\n\"We need closed sky. We need decision today. We need bullet-proof vests today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow Russian missiles [will] end up in the European Union.\"\n\nMs Berezovska, the photographer, agreed. \"In Ukraine, there's no place to hide,\" she said. \"We ask Nato to close the sky.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Lviv? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Ukraine's foreign minister said Yevhen Matveyev was abducted by \"Russian war criminals\"\n\nUkraine's government has accused the Russian military of abducting another mayor in an area that it has captured.\n\nYevhen Matveyev was seized in the southern town of Dniprorudne, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted, accusing Russia of \"terror\" tactics.\n\nEarlier, Russia installed a new mayor in Melitopol, after allegedly abducting the city's previous incumbent.\n\nUkraine's president also accused Russia of trying to create \"pseudo-republics\" to break his country apart.\n\nIn her first public appearance, Melitopol's newly installed mayor Galina Danilchenko urged residents not to take part in \"extremist actions\" and declared her main task was construction of \"basic mechanisms under the new reality\".\n\nHundreds of people took part in a protest outside the city hall on Saturday to demand the release of previous incumbent Ivan Fedorov, who had refused to co-operate with Russian troops since they took the city on the third day of the invasion.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Myroslava Petsa This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Fedorov was last seen on Friday evening being dragged away from the city's crisis centre by several armed men with a bag over his head.\n\nUkrainian officials shared a video of the incident and said the armed men were Russian soldiers.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Mr Fedorov had told the BBC earlier in the week. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nRussian authorities have not commented on his disappearance, but the prosecutor's office of the Russian-backed breakaway eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk has reportedly accused him of \"terrorist activities\".\n\nCCTV image from the video allegedly showing the mayor being marched away\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded Mr Fedorov's immediate release and asked the leaders of Israel, Germany and France to put pressure on Russia to free him.\n\nIn his latest video address on Saturday night, Mr Zelensky said Russia was to create \"pseudo-republics\" in Ukraine.\n\nHe praised those refusing to collaborate in the Russian-controlled Kherson region.\n\nThe council there had earlier adopted a resolution reaffirming that it \"has been, is and will be an inalienable part of the united state of Ukraine\" in response to what it said was a Russian plan to stage a referendum on the creation of a \"people's republic\".\n\nMr Zelensky also warned \"certain figures\" of dire personal consequences of any collaboration - an apparent reference to Ms Danilchenko.", "A rabbi who helped Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich obtain his Portuguese citizenship has been told he cannot leave Portugal and must present himself to authorities when required.\n\nDaniel Litvak was detained on Thursday as part of an investigation into how citizenship had been granted.\n\nThe naturalisation process of several Jewish people is being investigated.\n\nOn Friday, Mr Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is the owner of Chelsea FC and he is one of seven oligarchs to be hit with fresh sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans.\n\nThe Premier League has disqualified him as a director of the club.\n\nMr Abramovich was granted Portuguese citizenship in April 2021 under a law that offered naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews, who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula more than 400 years ago during the Inquisition.\n\nApplicants for Portuguese citizenship via this route are assessed by experts at one of Portugal's Jewish communities in either Lisbon or Porto. Mr Litvak is the rabbi for the community in Porto (northern Portugal) and was responsible for assessing Mr Abramovich's application.\n\nMr Litvak was detained by authorities as he was preparing to travel to Israel. He was asked to hand over his passport and will have to periodically present himself to authorities.\n\nPortugal's Judicial Police and public prosecutor said on Friday that there were suspicions of money laundering, corruption, fraud and falsification of documents in the process of of granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews.\n\nPorto's Jewish community has denied any wrongdoing and said it was the target of a smear campaign. They added that Mr Litvak oversaw the department that grants certification of an individual's Sephardic Jewish heritage and the criteria used for granting someone Portuguese nationality had \"been accepted by successive governments\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Brent Renaud won a Peabody Award for his journalism in 2015\n\nA US journalist working in Ukraine has been shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv, police say.\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who was working in the region for Time.\n\nKyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.\n\nIt is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.\n\nOne of the injured journalists, Juan Arredondo, told an Italian reporter he had been with Renaud when they came under fire.\n\n\"We were across one of the first bridges in Irpin, going to film other refugees leaving, and we got into a car\", he said in a video published on Twitter.\n\n\"Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge and we crossed a checkpoint, and they start shooting at us. So the driver turned around, and they kept shooting; there's two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud, and he's been shot and left behind... I saw him being shot in the neck.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPhotographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times.\n\nIn a statement, the newspaper said it was \"deeply saddened\" to hear of Renaud's death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine.\n\nRenaud last worked for the publication in 2015, the Times said, and the press ID he was wearing in Ukraine had been issued years ago.\n\nTime editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal and Ian Orefice, the president and chief operating officer of Time and Time Studios, said they were \"devastated by the loss\".\n\n\"As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud,\" the statement said.\n\nRenaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High.\n\nHe often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine.\n\nRenaud's death comes less than two weeks after Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Skaum, a camera operator for the Ukrainian television channel LIVE, was killed when a TV transmission tower in Kviv was hit by shelling.\n\nA few days later, a British journalist covering the war in Ukraine was shot and wounded after coming under fire in Kyiv.", "It's already week three of the Russian invasion - and the scenes below are becoming all too familiar across Ukraine.\n\nCities across the country often wake up to the haunting call of air raid sirens and skies filled with traces of rockets, missiles and artillery strikes, like this one from Baryshivka, east of the capital, Kyiv.\n\nRussia may have been slow to advance inside Ukrainian territory, but the shelling has been intense.\n\nThe Russians say they are hitting military targets - the scene below is from a storage facility in Kalynivka, in the centre of the country.\n\nUkrainians, however, say the occupying force has been aiming for civilian targets indiscriminately.\n\nOne of the worst-hit cities has been Kharkiv in the east.\n\nThe BBC's Quentin Sommerville says entering the centre of the city is almost like entering another world. Few neighbourhoods have escaped some kind of damage.\n\nThe relentless Russian shelling has meant that most of the 1.5 million population has fled.\n\nEarly in the mornings, queues can still be seen at pharmacies, banks, supermarkets and petrol stations, as those who stayed behind stock up on supplies, our correspondent says.\n\nA huge logistical and humanitarian effort is going on behind the scenes to keep Kharkiv running - these volunteers below are preparing food for the defenders, and others who may need it.\n\nAnd the toll is mounting by the day. Even though official figures are patchy, thousands are believed to have lost their lives or sustained serious injuries, many losing limbs in the shelling.\n\nThe situation is said to be dire in the port city of Mariupol, which has been surrounded by Russian troops for nearly two weeks.\n\nAuthorities say nearly 1,600 have died as a result of Russian shelling alone - and they are unable to collect the bodies amid unrelenting Russian firepower to force it to surrender.\n\nNot far from Mariupol, another battle is being waged to conquer the city of Mykolaiv. Cluster bombs have been used, but the locals are resisting.\n\nHowever, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaly Kim is loath to celebrate prematurely, telling the BBC's Andrew Harding, \"We are winning this fight, but not this war.\"\n\nDnipro was hit for the first time on Friday - a day when Russia expanded its strikes from east, where the city lies, to the west.\n\nThe capital city is bracing for the worst. Ukrainian forces have been holding the Russians back for days on the outskirts.\n\nAnd in Kyiv city itself, volunteers have been preparing - digging trenches and building barricades. The city is turning into a fortress, says our correspondent there Jeremy Bowen.\n\nOthers are trying to contribute to the effort. Field kitchens have sprung up in various neighbourhoods.\n\nHowever, for many Ukrainians - women and children only, as men have to stay behind to fight - the scramble to flee has become the norm. More than 2.5 million people have now left the country.\n\nThe shock is all too real. Here in Moldova, Smadar the Clown tries to lighten the mood with this mock interview with a young Ukrainian girl at a refugee centre in the country's capital, Chisinau.\n\nCulture is randomly a victim of the war, too, as seen in too many conflicts this century alone. The picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far.\n\nBut it is preparing - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets can be seen by all - but some preparations are taking place behind closed doors, says the BBC's Joel Gunter.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage, he says.", "CCTV image from the video allegedly showing the mayor being marched away\n\nResidents in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol have come out to protest against the alleged abduction of the mayor by Russian forces.\n\nUkrainian officials have posted video saying it shows Ivan Fedorov being led away blindfolded on Friday.\n\nIn a message, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of \"moving to a new stage of terror\".\n\nMelitopol, a small city in south-eastern Ukraine, was one of the first to fall to the Russians.\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, arguing it felt threatened by a neighbour intent on joining Western-led organisations such as the Nato military alliance.\n\nIn his message late on Friday, Mr Zelensky called Mr Fedorov a \"mayor who bravely defends Ukraine and the members of his community\".\n\n\"This is obviously a sign of weakness of the invaders,\" he said.\n\n\"They have moved to a new stage of terror in which they are trying to physically eliminate representatives of legitimate local Ukrainian authorities.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Myroslava Petsa This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Fedorov told the BBC days ago that his administration was not going to co-operate with the Russians \"in any way\".\n\nHe said that invading forces had ransacked his offices, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\nThere have been protests in Melitopol every day since the Russian occupation.\n\nOn Saturday, hundreds surrounded the administration building demanding the mayor's release.", "On day 18 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a military training base in the western city of Yavoriv was struck by a barrage of cruise missiles.\n\nAt least 35 people were killed and 134 injured in the deadly attack at the facility, near a major crossing point into Nato member Poland.\n\nVideo of the aftermath of the attack posted online and verified by the BBC showed a huge crater at the site and smoke billowing from a fire at a nearby building.\n\nWitnesses told the BBC how \"the night sky turned red\", sparking fears that the conflict would soon spread to the up-to-now peaceful regions in the west.\n\nFighting continued in areas outside the capital Kyiv, and a US journalist was shot dead in the town of Irpin.\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who had previously worked for the New York Times, though he was not on assignment for the publication in Ukraine.\n\nKyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.\n\nIt is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.\n\nBrent Renaud won a Peabody Award for his journalism in 2015\n\nInside the capital, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen spoke with teenagers who had volunteered at a centre in Kyiv to fight for Ukraine.\n\nMost of them were in their late teens, not long out of school. They told our correspondent that after three days' basic training they would head for the front line - or very close to it. Some of them were wearing knee pads that looked too small. A few had sleeping bags. One had a yoga mat.\n\n\"I feel a bit scared, as no-one wants to die, even if it's for your country. So, death is not an option for us\", 18-year-old Dmytro told him.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Maksym Lutsyk,19 (left) and Dmytro Kisilenko, 18 are at war with three days training.\n\nIn the UK, the housing secretary announced the details of a scheme designed to accommodate Ukrainian refugees.\n\nUnder the Homes for Ukraine plan, people will be able to nominate a named individual or a family to stay with them rent-free, or in another property, for at least six months. A website to express an interest in being a sponsor will launch on Monday. Ukrainians on the scheme will be given leave to remain for three years, with the right to work and access public services. Sponsors would get a \"thank you\" payment of £350 a month.\n\nCritics of the plan say it falls short of what is needed.\n\nOn the red carpet, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch hinted that he hoped to take in a refugee.\n\n\"What we all have to do is continue to put pressure on our politicians as far as the refugee crisis goes, continue to put pressure on the Putin regime, continue to help in any which way we can - whether that's through donations or housing refugees, all of which I'm looking to do - and have done\", he said.\n\nAccording to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war.\n\nThe EU, US, UK and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian flights, so they are heading for countries where flights are still permitted and where visas are not required, such as Turkey, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Many have fled to Armenia.\n\nThe BBC's Rayhan Demytrie spoke to Russians who have arrived in neighbouring Georgia. Many can be seen wandering around the capital Tblisi, with their suitcases and often their pets.\n\n\"I understood the best way to act against Putin's regime would be my emigration from Russia,\" Yevgeny, a 23-year old politics graduate told her. \"It's my responsibility to do anything I can to help the Ukrainians.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Yevgeny says it is his responsibility as a Russian to help Ukrainians", "Mountain rescue teams and a helicopter had been searching for Neil Gillingham and his dog\n\nPolice have confirmed that a body recovered on Stob Coire Sgreamhach in Glen Coe is that of missing hillwalker Neil Gillingham.\n\nThe 43-year-old and his springer spaniel had been missing since Sunday 6 March.\n\nThe pair were last seen at about 13:30 near Stob Coire Nam Beith, a summit on the mountain Bidean Nam Bian.\n\nMr Gillingham had planned to walk to both locations with his dog before descending to the Lost Valley.\n\nSearches covered Glencoe, Lochaber and Oban and involved RAF and police mountain rescue teams and a coastguard helicopter.\n\nOn Saturday, Police Scotland confirmed the hillwalker's family had been made aware of the find and were being supported by officers.\n\nThe death is not being treated as suspicious and, as with all sudden deaths, a report will be sent to the procurator fiscal.\n\nSgt Keith Almond said: \"Our thoughts are with Neil's family at what is a very difficult time for them.\n\n\"Officers would like to pass on their thanks to the mountain rescue teams, HM Coastguard helicopter crews and members of the public who assisted with the searches.\n\n\"We would also like to thank all those who shared and responded to our appeal.\"\n\nPolice also confirmed that the dog was found safe and well on Monday.\n• None Hillwalker and his dog missing on Glen Coe walk", "Within hours of Russia’s invasion, all over Ukraine, volunteers began to mobilise.\n\nIn the west of the country, BBC Ukraine's Zhanna Bezpiatchuk visits one community centre where locals have been working around the clock, to move up to 100 tonnes of food and medicine out to the frontline, everyday.", "The Herald of Free Enterprise was bound for the Port of Dover on 6 March 1987 when it capsized\n\nBereaved families and survivors of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster gathered to mark its 35th anniversary.\n\nThe Herald of Free Enterprise was bound for the Port of Dover on 6 March 1987 when it capsized at Zeebrugge harbour in Belgium, killing 193 people.\n\nA remembrance service was held at St Mary's Church in Dover, and the names of all the passengers and crew who lost their lives were read out.\n\nBeverly Willows said it still upsets her mother too much to talk about the loss of her sister\n\nMs Willows, from Mansfield, said: \"It doesn't get easier. There's not a day goes by when you don't think about it.\n\n\"I daren't talk to my mother about it. I never mention my sister, because of the upset.\n\n\"Sometimes you get angry because it could have been avoided. But you can't change it now.\"\n\nThe ship overturned too quickly for lifeboats or life jackets to be used\n\nThe roll-on roll-off ferry operated between Dover and Zeebrugge.\n\nThat afternoon it set off without the bow doors being closed and became unstable. Vehicles rolled from port to starboard and back and the ship capsized within 90 seconds.\n\nThere was not enough time to send an SOS signal, lower the lifeboats or deploy life jackets.\n\nSailors' Society chaplains comforted and supported families and survivors affected that night. Every year since, the charity has organised the memorial service near the port.\n\nLast year the service was carried out remotely via an online video, due to the pandemic, but this year families were able to gather again.\n\nKim Spooner said those who lost loved ones in the disaster had become like a family\n\nKim Spooner was eight when she lost her aunt and uncle in the disaster, after the pair made a trip using an offer in a national newspaper.\n\nMs Spooner, who travelled from Manchester for the service, said: \" Over the years we've all become like a family, with our collective grief and experience.\n\n\"It's nice to come together every year and remember those who died, honour those who were injured and survived and thank those who helped on the night and the rescue workers who did such a fantastic job.\"\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.", "Petrol prices have hit another record high as oil and gas costs soar amid fears of a global economic shock from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOil jumped to $139 a barrel at one point, the highest level for almost 14 years, while wholesale gas prices for next-day delivery more than doubled.\n\nIt came as the US hinted at a ban on buying Russian energy, as it looked to other countries to increase supplies.\n\nHowever, European leaders rejected that idea on Monday.\n\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Europe had \"deliberately exempted\" Russian energy from sanctions because its supply cannot be secured \"any other way\" at the moment.\n\nAnd Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte said: \"The painful reality is we are still very much dependent on Russian gas and Russian oil and if you now force European companies to quit doing business with Russia that would have enormous ramifications around Europe including Ukraine but also around the world.\n\n\"We have to reduce our dependency. That will take time,\" he added.\n\nUK petrol prices have hit an average of 155p a litre, the AA motoring group said.\n\nThe market turmoil is fuelling concerns that the price of many everyday items from food to petrol and heating, already rising at their fastest rate for 30 years, could be pushed higher.\n\nAnalysts have already warned that UK energy bills could reach as high as £3,000 a year due to the surge in oil and gas prices.\n\nRussia is the world's second top producer of crude oil after Saudi Arabia, and supplies about a third of Europe's needs. The price of Brent crude rose by more than a fifth last week amid fears of a reduction in Russian supplies.\n\nAfter peaking at $139.13 a barrel early on Monday, the price of Brent crude - an international benchmark - fell back to around $125.\n\nThe latest rise in UK petrol prices has pushed the cost to more than £7 a gallon, the AA said. Filling up a car with a 55-litre tank now costs nearly £17 more than a year ago, rising from £68.60 to £85.59.\n\nThe boss of fuel delivery firm Portland Fuel, James Spencer, told the BBC he thought fuel prices could reach £1.70-£1.75 a litre. \"Even if we can get extra [oil] supplies on to the market, nothing will happen quickly.\"\n\nHe said that, to a certain extent, individual car drivers have options to cut their use by driving less, but added that businesses that have no alternatives were really starting to feel the squeeze.\n\nThe crisis continues to affect share markets. The main stock exchanges in France and Germany sank more than 4% in early trading before paring their losses, closing 1.3% and 2% lower respectively.\n\nIn London, the FTSE 100 dropped more than 2%, but then recovered to close 0.4% lower. Last week, the FTSE had its worse week since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.\n\nIn the US, markets ended lower with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 down 2.4% and 3% respectively. The Dow is now in a \"correction\", having fallen 10% since its last record closing level on 4 January.\n\nThe price of gold, a haven in troubled times for investors looking for security, hit $2,000 an ounce for the first time in almost 18 months.\n\nThese are massive movements in the price of commodities - the raw materials that eventually feed, warm and transport us.\n\nThe extra movements this morning arose out of talk of an embargo on Russian oil. That is very significant, because Russia is the second biggest world exporter. Anyone passing a petrol station would have seen the impact. If there was an actual embargo, the price of an average tank could head close to £100, and indeed is already there at the most expensive service stations in the UK.\n\nBut we don't need to be physically reliant on actual Russian supplies for it to feed through into the prices our suppliers pay and then pass on to us. The price for gas in international markets was already at incredible highs last week. It further increased by a third to frankly frightening levels, 10- to 15-times normal, above £6 per therm.\n\nIf in the first half of this year these prices average £3.20, then typical dual fuel bills in October could rise to £3,000 a year or £250 a month.\n\nOn Sunday, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration and its allies were discussing a ban on Russian oil supplies.\n\nThe comments came as pressure grows on the White House and other Western nations to take tougher action against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nA Russian oil embargo would be a major escalation in the response to the invasion of Ukraine and would potentially have a major impact on the global economy.\n\nHowever, some European countries are reluctant given their dependence on Russian energy supplies.\n\n\"While the US might just push through a ban on Russian oil imports, Europe can ill-afford to do the same. More worryingly, [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin, with his back to the wall, could turn off gas supplies to Europe, cutting off the continent's energy lifeline,\" said Vandana Hari at oil markets analysis firm Vanda Insights.\n\nMr Johnson said Europe could not simply shut down the use of oil and gas overnight, but that countries should move together quickly to look beyond Russia for its oil and gas supplies.\n\nOn Sunday, energy giant Shell defended its decision to purchase Russian crude oil despite the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe company said it was forced to buy oil from Russia in order to maintain timely supplies of fuel to Europe.\n\n\"To be clear, without an uninterrupted supply of crude oil to refineries, the energy industry cannot assure continued provision of essential products to people across Europe over the weeks ahead,\" a spokesperson added.\n\nA possible ban on buying Russian oil has intensified pressure to find alternative supplies.\n\nThe US is this week expected to press Saudi Arabia to increase crude production, and there is fresh impetus for a deal over Iran's nuclear ambitions that would lift sanctions on its oil exports.\n\nHowever, progress on a deal has been hampered after Russia sought a US guarantee that the sanctions it faces over the Ukraine conflict will not affect its trade with Tehran.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video shows people running to escape Russian shelling in Irpin, just outside of the capital Kyiv", "Keepers are being asked to prevent birds mixing with wild birds\n\nRestrictions and biosecurity measures have been introduced to stop the spread of bird flu on Jersey.\n\nKeepers are being asked to prevent their birds having contact with wild birds, the island's chief veterinary officer, Alistair Breed, said.\n\nA dead red-breasted goose from Jersey Zoo became the third bird this year to test positive for Avian Influenza on the island.\n\nThe Government of Jersey said more details would be released on Monday.\n\nThe rules come into effect immediately for birds less than 3km (1.9 miles) from Jersey Zoo, but for owners further away they have until 11 March to comply.\n\nMr Breed said he expected the restrictions to stay in place for \"at least one month\" but this was dependent on how the situation developed on the island.\n\nIn February, two dead wild buzzards tested positive for bird flu in Jersey.\n\nThe UK Health Security Agency said that Avian Influenza was primarily a disease of birds and the risk to public health from bird flu was low.\n\nHowever, the public are advised not to handle unwell or dead wild birds, the government said.\n\nFollow BBC Jersey on Twitter and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A little girl clutches a doll at a checkpoint on the Ukraine-Slovakia border\n\nIn Ukraine, families are having to adapt to a terrifying new reality. How do you tell young children that you're at war?\n\nTen days ago Anton Eine, a science fiction writer in Ukraine, had been due to launch his latest book - but then the Russians invaded. Now, he says, none of that matters any more. He is hunkering down in Kyiv with his wife and their three-year-old son.\n\nThey live in a 24-storey apartment block with an underground car park, where people are sleeping on the concrete floor. It's bitterly cold, and Anton is worried about what might happen if the building collapses, so he and his family feel safer in a square concrete well between the lifts. That has become their sanctuary during the constant air raid sirens. They bring toys and their son's tablet and make sure he sits in the corner, which is the safest place.\n\nAnton says their son is worried, and asks lots of questions. \"Yesterday, my wife went downstairs and when she returned, he was asking, 'Mum, did they shoot you?' and she said 'No baby', and he said, 'Will they shoot me? I don't want them to go bang-bang'.\"\n\nAnton says some parents have sewn badges with their child's blood group on to their clothes and are teaching them their home address and parents' names, in case they are separated. And while they hide in shelters or try to board trains to safety, many parents are also talking to each other about how the war is affecting their children, and how best to protect them from trauma.\n\n\"Some parents tell the kids it's a game,\" says Anton. \"We are trying to tell our son the truth, but in a softer way, adapted to the mind of a three-year-old kid.\n\n\"We tell him that bad soldiers attacked us and the good soldiers, the ones with the Ukrainian flag, are the ones who protect us, and you don't need to worry here in this sanctuary.\"\n\nHis own son's drawings don't appear to show any signs of trauma, but some of Anton's friends have older children, and the pictures they draw clearly show they've been affected by the situation.\n\nA friend of Anton's shared her four-year-old son's drawing after spending the night in a bomb shelter - it shows people fleeing a big red devil\n\nThe parents and staff from his son's nursery stay in touch via the social media app Telegram, where they share advice about how to talk to the children about what's going on. This even included a tutorial on how to explain to the kids why it was OK for adults to swear now, while it was not OK in normal life. \"Because people are swearing right now,\" says Anton.\n\nThey have become more relaxed about other little things, too. \"Because of this situation, he has to watch much more cartoons than normal, and is eating much more sweets than normal. We need something to occupy him - he has to not pay too much attention to what's going on.\n\n\"The psychologists advise us to be gentler with kids in these times, and to love them much more than usual,\" says Anton.\n\nWhen it comes to safety, though, they have to be quite strict. Their three-year-old quickly learned that when there's a siren, the family have to run and hide. \"As soon as we hear sirens or get a notification we shout, 'To the shelter!' and whatever he's doing he leaves it and runs. He understands that the situation is extraordinary. It even surprises us how well children understand the necessity to behave properly.\"\n\nEvacuees and a child, sitting on top of a suitcase, wait for a train to Romania from Lviv\n\nAs the Russian shelling gets worse and the convoys close in, many Ukrainian parents have decided to flee their homes with their young children in tow.\n\nHanna, a scientist, left Kyiv and travelled to Poland with her two sons, who are eight and six years old. For days, they had been at home listening to explosions, the windows trembling, and she somehow had to tell them what was going on. She found it hard to strike a balance between reality and how much a child's mind can take.\n\n\"This was a challenge for me as a mother because I have to choose between how to explain the truth, but at the same time not to scare them too much,\" she says. \"So I was just telling them that we are under attack, and at the moment we are safe, but when we feel we have to move, they have to listen.\"\n\nHer parenting style had to change, too - there was no room for discussion. \"Normally I ask them to do something, but this is a time to get orders.\"\n\nA child on a swing outside a residential building in Kyiv damaged by a missile\n\nAfter a few days of shelling, Hanna felt she no longer wanted her children to hear the bombs and decided to leave Ukraine. \"It was a very, super hard decision,\" she says.\n\nHer children had to make a hard decision too - they could only take one of their toys. Her eldest chose Toothless, a toy dragon from the How to Train your Dragon series, and her youngest chose a Transformer toy car that turns into a robot. It was a huge decision for them, says Hanna - perhaps as momentous as it was for her to leave her country. \"I think that we were in the same emotional decision-taking position.\"\n\nIt took them 52 hours to reach safety in Poland. Hanna's ex-husband came with them for the first part of the car journey but then had to turn back, to fight. Hanna says travelling in a war zone with two kids was exhausting and she can understand why many of her friends are choosing to stay nearer home.\n\nNow they are safe, but the boys ask lots of questions, about their grandparents and especially their father, who has stayed behind. \"Heart-breaking questions, because they ask me every day if he is alive, or if he still has his hands and legs. They are afraid that he can get super hurt.\"\n\nHanna tells them to try and live in the present. \"All we have is just now. At the moment we are safe,\" she says.\n\nHow much to tell their children is something all parents are having to weigh up. Oksana fled her home town of Lviv, in the west, and is now also in Poland. Her six-year-old daughter is autistic and hates loud noises, so she found the air raid sirens very scary. She could tell her mother was nervous too, so Oksana told her the truth about what was happening.\n\n\"I was explaining that it's a war and we need to be safe, and that a lot of people are dead now because of all this,\" says Oksana. \"I think it is important that when children are old enough to understand they are not misled, because they can sense the atmosphere is bad.\"\n\nIryna's son is just two, and she has decided not to tell him too much. After spending three nights in a bomb shelter they left Irpin, a small city near Kyiv, and went to western Ukraine.\n\nShe told her son they were going to stay with friends, because he's too young to understand that they're in danger. \"I didn't tell him that it's a war. I'm not sure I have to when he's so young, because I think it makes this situation only worse.\"\n\nAs for Anton and his family, the Russian troops are closing in and they may have to evacuate soon. He's not sure where to. \"No-one knows which place is the safest - so it's gambling,\" he says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: A mother in Kyiv speaks to the BBC about the decision to tell her children why dad joined the war", "Shell has defended its decision to purchase Russian crude oil despite the invasion and bombardment of Ukraine.\n\nThe oil giant said in a statement that the decision to purchase the fuel at a discounted price was \"difficult\".\n\nIt confirmed that it had bought a cargo of Russian crude oil on Friday but it had \"no alternative\".\n\nUkrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit out at the energy company, asking on Twitter: \"Doesn't Russian oil smell Ukrainian blood for you?\"\n\nSo far Canada has announced a ban on Russian oil imports but other Western countries have not imposed sanctions on Russian oil imports, fearing it will drive up already record high energy prices around the world.\n\nBut on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was now in \"active discussions\" with European partners about banning them while also maintaining a \"steady global supply\".\n\nRussia is the world's second top producer of crude oil after Saudi Arabia, and supplies about a third of Europe's needs.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Dmytro Kuleba This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCommenting on its move, Shell said it was forced to buy oil from Russia in order to maintain timely supplies of fuel to Europe.\n\nThe firm said it remains \"appalled by the war in Ukraine\" and has stopped most activities involving Russian oil, but it added the situation with supplies is \"highly complex\".\n\nRussian oil currently makes up about 8% of Shell's working supplies. One of the firm's refineries, which produces diesel and petrol and other products, is also among the biggest in Europe.\n\n\"To be clear, without an uninterrupted supply of crude oil to refineries, the energy industry cannot assure continued provision of essential products to people across Europe over the weeks ahead,\" a spokesperson said.\n\n\"Cargoes from alternative sources would not have arrived in time to avoid disruptions to market supply.\n\n\"We didn't take this decision lightly and we understand the strength of feeling around it.\"\n\nThe firm also said that it will try to choose alternatives to Russian oil \"wherever possible\", and that profits from Russian oil will go to a dedicated fund aimed at helping people in Ukraine.\n\nIt comes shortly after the company announced that it would end all of its joint ventures with the Russian energy company Gazprom following the invasion.\n\nThat will involve the company selling its 27.5% stake in a major liquefied natural gas plant and a 50% stake in two oilfield projects in Siberia.\n\nIt will also end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany. The 1,200km pipeline under the Baltic Sea had already been put on hold by German ministers.\n\nIn a statement issued on Monday, Shell said that it expected the move, which will also apply to any \"related entities\" to Gazprom, would be worth about $3bn (£2.2bn). The associated costs will be marked on its balance sheet later this year.\n\nShell followed on from the likes of BP, which had already announced that it would offload its stake in the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft - a potential hit of $25bn.\n\nBP said earlier this week it was too soon to say how or to whom its stake in Rosneft would be sold.\n\nNorwegian oil and gas producer Equinor has also announced its exit from Russia, saying the conflict made its current position \"untenable\".\n\nCorrection 22nd April 2022: This article originally reported that Western countries have not imposed sanctions on Russian oil imports and has been amended to make clear that Canada had announced a ban.", "Pressure is growing on Western food and drink giants to pull out of Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMcDonald's and Coca-Cola have been criticised on social media for failing to speak out about the attacks and continuing to operate in the country.\n\nWell-known firms including Netflix and Levi's have already suspended sales or stopped providing services in Russia.\n\nMcDonald's and Coca-Cola have not responded to the BBC's request for comment.\n\n#BoycottMcDonalds and #BoycottCocaCola were trending on Twitter on Monday and over the weekend respectively.\n\nDragon's Den investor Deborah Meaden also spoke out on social media against the fizzy drinks company, urging people to stop drinking its products.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe criticism comes amid calls for other well-known Western firms such as KFC, Pepsi, Starbucks and Burger King to close their outlets and stop sales in Russia.\n\nHowever, most firms have stayed silent on the issue with Pepsi, Starbucks and Burger King also declining to respond to the BBC's requests for comment.\n\nFast food chain KFC did not respond initially but its owner Yum Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut, has since announced that it has suspended future investments in Russia.\n\nYum Brands is the world's second-biggest restaurant chain, and there are about 1,000 KFC outlets and 50 Pizza Hut restaurants in Russia. The company was not pulling out entirely, but Yum said that it would \"redirect all profits from operations in Russia to humanitarian efforts\". It is also donating $1m (£762,000) to the Red Cross.\n\nMany of the firms the BBC has contacted have a large number of stores in the country.\n\nIn recently-published information on its website, McDonald's said that it has 847 stores in Russia. The company also owns the majority of these outlets, whereas across the rest of the world most are typically operated by franchisees.\n\nBoth McDonald's and Pepsi, who have had a presence in Russia for decades, have also been singled out by the boss of New York state's pension fund.\n\nThe oldest Russian McDonald's branch, off Pushkin Square in central Moscow, opened in 1990.\n\nThomas DiNapoli, comptroller of the New York state common retirement fund, wrote letters to the companies, according to Reuters reports, urging them to review their businesses in Russia because they face \"significant and growing legal, compliance, operational, human rights and personnel, and reputational risks\".\n\nOften, franchise owners will be able to take the decision as to whether or not to shut chains down, depending on terms of agreements they might have with big food chains like KFC or Starbucks.\n\nIn a recent statement, Kevin Johnson, the boss of Starbucks, described attacks on Ukraine as \"unprovoked\" and \"unjust\".\n\nBut most of its sites in Russia remain open, according to its website. Most of these franchises are run by the Kuwait-based Alshaya Group.\n\nKathleen Brooks, director at Minerva Analysis, said McDonald's and Coca-Cola were \"very complicated businesses\", which would not make it easy to make a decision to leave Russia quickly.\n\nShe told the BBC's Today programme that Coca-Cola had an \"incredibly complicated structure\" with bottling plants in Russia.\n\n\"I don't think it's as simple as saying can you just pull out of Russia,\" she said. \"These are complicated businesses and there's a lot to consider, but right now the reputation risk could really hit their share prices so they may have no choice going forward.\"\n\nBut Dr Ian Peters, director of the Institute for Business Ethics, told BBC News: \"This is not a time to sit on the fence.\n\n\"The world is likely to judge companies by what they do in such circumstances, and ethical judgement will be as important as complying with any government-led regulations and sanctions.\"\n\nHe said that most firms would have what they refer to as an \"ethical compass\" they use to make big decisions.\n\n\"We would advise firms in such circumstances always to look at the bigger picture and seek to do the right thing, putting the wider interest above short-term profit,\" he added.\n\nHe cited important ethical dilemmas that might come up for companies when considering to suspend operations in Russia too: What duty of care do these companies hold to employees on the ground? Is it fair to deprive Russian citizens of basic goods?\n\nProfessor of business ethics at Henley Business School, Kleio Akrivou, suggested that these types of decisions might be more difficult to reach for food companies than, say, consulting firms.\n\n\"When it comes to sanctions which deprive the Russian population of its basic goods and dignity, firms may need to approach the situation more thoughtfully, with an appeal to practical reason.\"\n\nShe said now is the time for fast food giants to balance how real people are affected by such moves, alongside any reputational risk.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says no European country had done more than the UK to settle vulnerable people since 2015\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has called for a \"step-by-step\" move away from dependence on Russian oil and gas as a result of the Ukraine war.\n\nAfter talks with the Canadian and Dutch PMs, Mr Johnson said nations have to work together to secure alternatives.\n\nCanada's PM Justin Trudeau said Europe did not want to repeat its mistake of being too dependent on Russia.\n\nBut Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warned forcing a boycott now would have \"enormous consequences\".\n\nAnd in Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz cautioned against banning Russian oil and gas.\n\nIn a statement, he said Europe had \"deliberately exempted\" Russian energy from sanctions because its supply cannot be secured \"any other way\" at the moment.\n\nMeanwhile, Russia warned that oil prices could surge to $300 a barrel and it might close the main gas pipeline to Germany if the West halted oil imports over the invasion of Ukraine.\n\n\"Foregoing Russian oil will have catastrophic consequences for the world market,\" said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.\n\nMr Johnson's call came at a Downing Street news conference after he, Mr Trudeau, and Mr Rutte discussed new sanctions against Russia and aid for Ukraine.\n\nAsked about claims that the US was in active discussions with European nations about banning imports of Russian oil, Mr Johnson said Western allies are \"moving very, very fast\" - and things which weeks ago would not have been considered are \"now very much on the table\".\n\nHe said he would set out a new energy supply strategy in the coming days, saying the UK was looking at using more of its own fossil fuels.\n\nBut he said the UK was not abandoning its commitment to cut carbon emissions.\n\nThe UK gets less than 5% of its gas from Russia - but for EU countries the figure is about 40%.\n\nMr Rutte told the news conference the change would have to be \"diligent and not overnight\", combined with a faster uptake of renewable energy.\n\nAn immediate change would \"basically undermine supply chains the world over, particularly in Europe,\" he said, adding: \"It would also have an impact on Ukraine itself.\"\n\nMr Johnson also announced a further £175m of UK support for Ukraine and Mr Trudeau said Canada would sanction 10 more Russian oligarchs and officials.\n\nLater the prime minister joined a call with Mr Scholz, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, where they said they were determined to continue raising the cost on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Johnson said previously unthinkable options for Western leaders were now \"very much on the table\"\n\nWestern nations are facing calls to do more as Russia continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.\n\nThe UK has also been criticised after it emerged that only about 50 refugees have been granted visas to enter the country as of Sunday.\n\nDuring a visit to an RAF station with his fellow leaders, Mr Johnson said the UK was \"processing thousands\" and would be \"very generous\" to refugees, but would not let people in without any checks.\n\nThe government has so far announced two main schemes for people fleeing Ukraine to come to the UK - one which allows family members of people settled in the UK to join them and the other which allows organisations to sponsor a Ukrainian's entry.\n\nHome Office sources have said they are in the early stages of exploring a scheme to provide humanitarian access to people fleeing the conflict.\n\nBut a senior government source told the BBC the focus was still on the two schemes for Ukrainian refugees that have already been announced, and the need for further action was being kept under review.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the Home Office was in a \"complete mess\" and the government must establish a \"simple route to sanctuary\", while Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the UK was \"not doing anywhere near enough\" to help refugees.\n\nMore than 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion began, according to the UN refugee agency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says the Home Office is in a \"complete mess\" over how Ukrainians can get to the UK\n\nMeanwhile, MPs are expected to vote later on the Economic Crime Bill, which aims to make it easier to sanction individuals.\n\nIn recent days, the government has announced asset freezes and travel bans on a number of oligarchs - but has faced accusations of being too slow to sanction those with links to President Putin.\n\nThe bill will set up a new register that will mean foreign owners of UK property must declare and verify their identities with Companies House.\n\nMPs are expected to vote through all stages of the bill in a single sitting.\n\nLabour said it would support the legislation, but wanted the proposed timeframe for property owners to register to be cut from six months to 28 days.", "At least seven people are dead after three tornadoes tore through central Iowa, including two children and a family of four. The most powerful tornado generated wind gusts of up to 138 mph (222kph) and left over 50 houses damaged and destroyed.", "Catching Covid may cause changes to the brain, a study suggests.\n\nScientists found significant differences in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans before and after infection.\n\nEven after a mild infection, the overall size of the brain had shrunk slightly, with less grey matter in the parts related to smell and memory.\n\nThe researchers do not know whether the changes are permanent but stressed the brain could heal.\n\nThe study is published in the journal Nature.\n\nLead author Prof Gwenaelle Douaud, from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, at the University of Oxford, said: \"We were looking at essentially mild infection, so to see that we could really see some differences in their brain and how much their brain had changed compared with those who had not been infected was quite a surprise.\"\n\nThe UK Biobank project has followed the health of 500,000 people for about 15 years and has a database of scans recorded before the pandemic so provided a unique opportunity to study the long-term health impacts of the virus.\n\nBut the researchers do not know whether the changes are reversible or truly matter for health and wellbeing.\n\n\"We need to bear in mind that the brain is really plastic - by that we mean it can heal itself - so there is a really good chance that, over time, the harmful effects of infection will ease,\" Prof Douaud said.\n\nThe most significant loss of grey matter was in the olfactory areas - but it is unclear whether the virus directly attacks this region or cells simply die off through lack of use after people with Covid lose their sense of smell.\n\nIt is also unclear whether all variants of the virus cause this damage.\n\nThe scans were performed when the original virus and alpha variant were prevalent and loss of smell and taste a primary symptom.\n\nBut the number of people infected with the more recent Omicron variant reporting this symptom has fallen dramatically.\n\n'Your mind is what is being exercised'\n\nPaula Totaro lost her sense of smell when she caught Covid, in March 2020.\n\n\"When it was gone, it was like living in a bubble or a vacuum - I found it really isolating,\" she told BBC News.\n\nBut after contacting the charity AbScent, which supports people who have lost their ability to smell and taste, she began smell training.\n\n\"What smell training does - particularly if you do it twice a day, regularly, religiously - is it forces you to take the smell, allow it to go back into your nose and then to think about what it is that you're smelling,\" she said.\n\n\"And that connection between what's in the external world and what goes into your brain and your mind is what is being exercised.\"\n\nMs Totaro has now recovered most of her sense of smell - although she still has trouble identifying what different smells are.\n\n\"It's a mix of joy that the sense has come back but still a little bit of anxiety that I'm not quite there yet,\" she said.\n\nUK Biobank chief scientist Prof Naomi Allen said: \"It opens up all sorts of questions that other researchers can follow up about the effect of coronavirus infection on cognitive function, on brain fog and on other areas of the brain - and to really focus research on how best to mitigate that.\"\n\nProf David Werring, from the University College London Institute of Neurology, said other health-related behaviour could have contributed to the changes seen.\n\n\"The changes in cognitive function were also subtle and of unclear relevance to day-to-day function,\" he said.\n\n\"And these changes are not necessarily seen in every infected individual and may not be relevant for more recent strains.\"", "Successive US presidents have struggled to get the measure of Vladimir Putin but now that Brussels and Berlin have joined the fray with such resolve, it's a different story, writes Nick Bryant.\n\nIt is often tempting to look upon Vladimir Putin as the millennium bug in a human and deadly form.\n\nThe Russian president rose to power on 31 December 1999, as the world held its breath that computers would go into meltdown when the clock struck midnight, unable to process the change from 1999 to 2000.\n\nIn the 20 years since, Putin has been trying to engineer a different kind of global system malfunction, the destruction of the liberal international order. The former KGB spymaster wanted to turn back the clock: to revive Russia's tsarist greatness and to restore the might and menace of the Soviet Union prior to its break-up in 1991.\n\nThis Russian revanchist has become the most disruptive international leader of the 21st Century, the mastermind behind so much misery from Chechnya to Crimea, from Syria to the cathedral city of Salisbury. He has sought - successfully at times - to redraw the map of Europe.\n\nHe has tried - successfully at times - to immobilise the United Nations. He has been determined - successfully at times - to weaken America, and hasten its division and decline.\n\nPutin came to power at a moment of western hubris. The United States was the sole superpower in a unipolar world. Francis Fukuyama's End of History thesis, proclaiming the triumph of liberal democracy, was widely accepted.\n\nSome economists even peddled the theory that recessions would be no more, partly because of the productivity gains of the new digital economy. It was also thought that globalisation, and the interdependence it wrought, would stop major economic powers fighting wars. The same utopianism attached itself to the internet, which was seen overwhelmingly as a force for global good.\n\nAn honour guard greets Air Force One on the Moscow tarmac in 2002\n\nIn the early days especially, the same misplaced optimism and wishful thinking coloured the west's approach to Putin - a figure, it is now obvious, who was trying to buck history and thwart democratisation, however many lives were lost in the process.\n\nSuccessive US presidents have played into his hands. Bill Clinton, the occupant of the White House when Putin came to power, handed this ultra-nationalist a popular grievance by pushing for the expansion of Nato right up to Russia's borders. As George F Kennan, the famed architect of America's Cold War strategy of containment, warned at the time: \"Expanding Nato would be the most fateful error of America policy in the entire post-Cold War era.\"\n\nGeorge W Bush completely misjudged his Russian counterpart. \"I looked the man in the eye,\" Bush famously said after their first meeting in Slovenia in 2001. \"I found him very straightforward and trustworthy… I was able to get a sense of his soul.\" Bush mistakenly thought he could mount a charm offensive with Putin, and gently cajole him further down the democratic path.\n\nBut even though Bush visited Russia more than any other country - including, as a personal favour, two trips in 2002 to Putin's home city, St Petersburg - the Russian leader was already displaying dangerously despotic tendencies.\n\nIn 2008, Bush's final year as president, Putin invaded Georgia - what he called a \"peace enforcement operation\". The Kremlin argued then - and has continued to argue ever since - that it was hypocritical for Washington to complain about this violation of international law after Bush had invaded Iraq.\n\nBarack Obama sought to reframe US-Russian relations. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, even handed her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a mock reset button (which was mistakenly labelled with the Russian word for \"overloaded\"). But Putin knew that America, after its long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no longer wanted to police the world.\n\nWhen Obama refused in 2013 to enforce his red-line warning against Bashar al-Assad when the Syrian dictator used chemical weapons against his own people, Putin saw a green light. By helping Assad carry out his murderous war, he extended Moscow's sphere of influence in the Middle East when the United States wanted to extract itself from the region. The following year, he annexed Crimea, and established a foothold in eastern Ukraine.\n\nDespite being told by Obama to \"cut it out,\" Putin even sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in the hope that Hillary Clinton, a long-time nemesis, would be defeated and that Donald Trump, a long-time fan boy, would win.\n\nThe New York property tycoon made no secret of his admiration for Putin, a sycophantic approach that seems to have further emboldened the Russian president. Much to Moscow's delight, Trump publicly criticised Nato, weakened the US post-war alliance system and became such a polarising figure that he left America more politically divided than at any time since the Civil War.\n\nArguably, then, you have to reach back 30 years to find a US leader whose approach to the Kremlin has stood the test of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, George Herbert Walker Bush resisted the temptation to rejoice in America's Cold War victory - much to the astonishment of the White House press pack, he refused to travel to Berlin for a victory lap - knowing that it would bolster hardliners in the Politburo and military seeking to oust Mikhail Gorbachev.\n\nThat magnanimity in victory helped when it came to bringing about the reunification of Germany, which was arguably Bush's greatest foreign policy success.\n\nPutin is obviously a more formidable adversary, harder to deal with than even Leonid Brezhnev or Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But since the turn of the century no US president has truly had his measure.\n\nBill Clinton pushed for the expansion of Nato which some said was a mistake\n\nJoe Biden, like George Herbert Walker Bush, is a Cold War warrior, who has dedicated his presidency to defending democracy at home and abroad. Seeking to re-establish America's traditional post-war role as the leader of the free world, he has sought to mobilise the international community, offered military aid to Ukraine and adopted the toughest sanction regime ever targeted against Putin.\n\nAs Russian forces amassed at the border, he also shared US intelligence showing that Putin had decided to invade, in ways that sought to disrupt the Kremlin's usual misinformation campaigns and false flag operations.\n\nHis State of the Union address became a rallying cry. \"Freedom will always triumph over tyranny,\" he said. And while Biden does not speak with the clarity or force of a Kennedy or a Reagan, it was nonetheless a significant speech.\n\nWhat's been striking since the Russian invasion started, however, has been the assertion of forceful presidential leadership from elsewhere. Volodymyr Zelensky has been lauded and lionised, as he has continued this extraordinary personal journey from comedian to Churchillian colossus.\n\nIn Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been another commanding presence. This former German politician has been a driving force behind the decision, for the first time in EU history, to finance and purchase weapons for a nation under attack, a commitment that includes not just ammunition but fighter jets as well.\n\nHer compatriot, the new Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, has also shown more resolve in dealing with Putin than his predecessor Angela Merkel. At warp speed, he has overturned decades of post-Cold War German foreign policy, an approach so often predicated on caution and timidity towards the Russian leader.\n\nBerlin has sent anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine (ending the policy of not sending weapons to active war zones), halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, withdrawn its opposition to blocking Russia from the SWIFT international payments system, and even committed to spending 2% of its GDP on defence spending.\n\nThe biggest assault on a European state since World War Two has stiffened European resolve. But so, too, it seems has the relative weakness of America. Mindful of the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan and possibility of a Trump 2.0 presidency, European leaders seem to have realised that they can no longer lean so heavily on Washington to defend democracy in this hour of maximum peril. Leadership of the free world has, in this crisis, become a common endeavour.\n\nEven since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been calling upon European nations to do more to police its own neighbourhood, something they failed to do when the break-up of the former Yugoslavia sparked the Bosnian war. Historians may well conclude that it took a combination of Putin's aggressiveness, America's fragility, Ukraine's heroic resolve and the fear that Europe's post-war stability is truly on the line to finally make that happen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: What Americans think of Biden's Ukraine response\n\nIt would be naive to be swept away by the romanticism of Zelensky's speeches or to succumb to the dopamine high of watching the seizure of Russian-owned super-yachts unfold on social media. Putin is intensifying the war. But the last week has sent a message to Moscow - and to Beijing as well - that the post-war international order still continues to function, despite the deployment of the Russian war machine to bring about its collapse. Just as history never ended, nor has liberal democracy.\n\nAs Joe Biden put it in his State of the Union, during a passage in which rhetoric served also as sober analysis: Putin \"thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of resistance he never imagined\".\n\nNick Bryant is the author of When America Stopped Being Great: a history of the present. He is the former New York correspondent for the BBC and now lives in Sydney.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Racheal Diyaolu has been taking cover in her university's bunker since the Russian invasion\n\nAn Irish medical student is attempting to leave Ukraine after sheltering for days from airstrikes and shelling in the eastern town of Sumy.\n\nRacheal Diyaolu, who is 19 and from Carlow, was among hundreds of international students in the city close to Ukraine's border with Russia.\n\nSumy has been under attack by Russia since its invasion started last month.\n\nRacheal told BBC News NI she had been mentally \"blocking out\" the dangers she faced.\n\nIt is understood she left Sumy on Monday after she was picked up by two Scottish men attempting a rescue who her family had been in contact with.\n\nHer sister, Christiana, said she had passed safely through a number of checkpoints and was staying overnight at a \"safe stopover location\" before a curfew begins.\n\n\"The relief just knowing that they're safe and sheltered,\" she told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme.\n\n\"We're hoping for the best now.\"\n\nA previous rescue effort failed on Sunday when a minivan used by the men was targeted by \"warning shots\" from Russian forces as they tried to enter Sumy, Racheal said.\n\nHowever, they managed to reach an agreed pick-up location on Monday morning.\n\nOn Monday night, Racheal said that the group planned to head for Moldova on Tuesday.\n\n\"Hopefully we'll be able to get to the border and find our way through, and get home soon,\" she said in a video, posted on Twitter.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEarlier, she had told RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme they hoped to travel in the direction of Poland, a journey which could take up to 20 hours.\n\nShe was not sure if they could make use of humanitarian corridors.\n\n\"I have left behind lots of friends who are still stuck there and still looking for ways to get out, and most of my belongings as well,\" she explained.\n\n\"I'm fine, just trying to stay in high spirits and keep positive that we'll make it to Poland.\"\n\nChristiana said the Scottish men had their phones seized during the attack on Sunday before being told to turn back.\n\n\"Luckily they were able to find an alternative route into Sumy and stayed there overnight and then continued their mission this morning,\" she added.\n\nRacheal has been studying in Ukraine since November\n\nThe Irish Department of Foreign Affairs told BBC News NI it was aware of 52 Irish citizens remaining in Ukraine.\n\nOn Sunday, UN monitors said 364 civilian deaths had been confirmed in Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February, but the real figure was likely to be \"considerably higher\".\n\nMs Diyaolu arrived in the country from the Republic of Ireland for her studies last November.\n\nSince the invasion started, she has been taking cover in her university's bunker when air raid sirens have sounded.\n\n\"Someone will come and knock on your door on all the floors to let them know that it's time to go down and take cover, bring your essentials and your documents,\" she told BBC News NI before her latest attempt to leave Sumy.\n\nThe Ukrainian deputy prime minister has said Russia is striking civilian targets in Ukraine, including hospitals, nurseries, and schools.\n\nAt the beginning of the invasion, Russian tanks and troops poured into Ukraine at points along its borders including northern regions such as Sumy.\n\nMs Diyaolu said it had been \"an out-of-body experience\" to know there is such danger outside.\n\n\"I've had to train my mind to block out the fact that this is incoming danger,\" she told BBC News NI.\n\n\"It does happen so frequently at this point that you kind of don't have time to be afraid any more.\"\n\nRussian forces have been heavily shelling towns outside the capital of Kyiv\n\nThe student said things had become quite difficult in Sumy, \"especially for people who are trying to get out\".\n\n\"It's been quite hard going, we've had a lot of air strike threats, we've had quite a few bombs being dropped,\" she said.\n\nThe medical student said she had tried to \"hold on to hope\" that she would be able to get home.\n\n\"It's especially hard on my mother, she's just worried to death all day every day, trying to get in contact with me,\" she said.\n\n\"The best thing I can do is stay calm when I am talking to her, letting her know that I'm OK.\n\n\"I know that I'm in a scary situation and in a dangerous area, but letting her know that I'm OK, mentally and physically, and that my mind is with them at home and my mind is focused on staying safe and trying to find ways to get out.\"\n\nMs Diyaolu's family have been calling for more help from the Irish government to bring the 19-year-old home.\n\nIreland's Department of Foreign Affairs said it could not comment on specific cases, but confirmed it was in contact with Irish citizens in Ukraine.\n\nIt has advised people to \"shelter in a secure place\" or, if it is safe to do so, to \"consider leaving Ukraine, depending on their location and prevailing circumstances\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video shows people running to escape Russian shelling in Irpin, just outside of the capital Kyiv\n\nPresident Volodymyr Zelensky has said everyone who commits atrocities against Ukraine's civilians will be punished.\n\nHe said Ukrainians would not forgive or forget, and accused invading Russian troops of deliberate murder.\n\n\"There will be no quiet place on Earth for you. Except for the grave,\" the president said.\n\nUkrainian officials say Russia is striking civilian targets around the country, including hospitals, nurseries, and schools.\n\nBut Russia denies targeting civilians, saying it is carrying out a \"special military operation\" against Ukrainian \"nationalists\" and \"neo-Nazis\".\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told the BBC that, after \"strong resistance\" from the Ukrainian army, there was an \"enormous operation\" by Russia against civilians.\n\nOn Sunday alone, a family of four were killed when Russian forces fired shells at people fleeing the conflict in the town of Irpin, north-west of Kyiv.\n\nAnd in the port city of Mariupol, promised evacuations were cancelled on both Saturday and Sunday amid fresh attacks.\n\nThe city council there said Russian shelling had made safe movement impossible. Russia has blamed Ukrainian forces.\n\nThe city is now in its sixth day with no running water, no power, and no sanitation. Food and water are fast running out.\n\nMoscow announced it would open new evacuation corridors at 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT) in Mariupol and other cities. However, the routes published by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency show some of the corridors end in Russia and Belarus.\n\nThe corridor from Kyiv will lead to Russian ally Belarus, and civilians from Kharkiv will only have a corridor leading to Russia.\n\nCorridors from the cities of Mariupol and Sumy will lead both to other Ukrainian cities and to Russia, the AFP news agency reports.\n\nMs Stefanishyna spoke to the BBC from a sandbagged room on Sunday morning\n\nIn a video address to mark the Orthodox Church's Forgiveness Sunday, Mr Zelensky said that instead of forgiveness there would be a day of judgment.\n\n\"We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land,\" he said.\n\nHe said Russia had announced shelling of defence targets which were built in cities in Soviet times.\n\n\"Thousands of people work there. Hundreds of thousands live nearby. This is murder. Premeditated murder,\" he said.\n\nHe also condemned Western governments for failing to speak out against the plan.\n\nThe World Health Organization said health facilities were being attacked, with its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying they had caused \"multiple deaths and injuries\".\n\nThe British government has accused Russia of targeting populated areas \"in multiple locations\", noting in an intelligence update that it had \"previously used similar tactics in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016\".\n\nOn Sunday, UN monitors said 364 civilian deaths had been confirmed in Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February, but the real figure was likely to be \"considerably higher\".\n\nThe UNHCR said more than 1.5 million people had fled Ukraine since Russia invaded.\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna - who was speaking to BBC TV's Sunday Morning programme - accused Russia of \"military tactics right in the cities of Ukraine\", adding they were carrying out a \"terroristic plan\", with attacks coming from the air and also by land.\n\n\"Shelled hospitals, the shelled houses for kindergartens and schools, and the ordinary households,\" she said. \"This is how the reality looks.\"\n\nShe said Ukraine was seeing \"another wave of implementation of this terroristic plan of [the] Russian Federation\".\n\nMs Stefanishyna claimed Russia was suffering \"enormous losses\" of soldiers and equipment, but this \"does not deter Russia\".\n\n\"It only encourages further aggression,\" she said.\n\nAttacking civilians and civilian infrastructure - such as schools and hospitals - is against the Geneva Conventions, which are treaties agreed by all countries that are supposed to regulate war.\n\nAs well as the WHO, other non-government organisations have also reported attacks on civilian targets.\n\nAmnesty International says it has verified various attacks - including cluster munitions hitting a kindergarten and nursery, and a ballistic missile hitting a hospital.\n\nAre you personally affected by the issues raised in this story? If it is safe to do so email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Boris Johnson says the UK \"has always been very generous\" to those fleeing war\n\nBoris Johnson has promised to be \"very generous\" towards Ukrainian refugees, amid criticism over the number who have been granted visas.\n\nThe Home Office says 300 visas have been issued since Russia invaded Ukraine - up from 50 on Sunday.\n\nThe figure comes amid confusion over whether access will be widened beyond the current schemes.\n\nLabour says the situation regarding refugees is a \"mess\" and that clearer rules are urgently needed.\n\nThe two UK schemes announced so far require Ukrainians either to have family in the UK, or have a designated UK sponsor for their application. Only the family scheme is in operation so far.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel told the Sun she was examining \"legal options\" to grant humanitarian access to people \"without ties to the UK\".\n\nBut the prime minister did not confirm whether a third route would be set up when questioned on Monday, saying only that the UK would have a \"very generous and open approach\" to refugees.\n\nHowever, Boris Johnson said the UK would not \"abandon controls altogether\" on those wanting to come to the country, adding it was \"sensible\" to \"have some basic ability to check who is coming in and who isn't\".\n\nMore than 1.7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, according to the United Nations.\n\nMost are in neighbouring countries, with the Polish border agency saying on Monday that more than one million people have now crossed into Poland.\n\nForeign Office Minister James Cleverly said Ukrainian refugees preferred to stay in the region - and the UK was providing humanitarian support to those in neighbouring countries.\n\nThe UK has steadily increased its visa offer to refugees.\n\nThis includes widening the range of family members that allow Ukrainians with relatives in the UK to apply for visas and creating a the second route allowing UK-based organisations to sponsor applications - with details to be set out this week.\n\nBut the government has faced criticism that its offer of help is less generous than the EU's.\n\nThe UK had been warning about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine for many weeks.\n\nThe likelihood of a refugee crisis was known.\n\nAnd yet there is a sense of Whitehall scrambling to refit its new immigration and asylum policy to the reality of refugees fleeing war in Europe.\n\nIn contrast to the EU's policy, Ukrainians wanting to come to the UK need a visa - obtained either through existing family links or a sponsor.\n\nBut Home Secretary Priti Patel told the Sun newspaper she was considering a new route for refugees to come to the UK.\n\nCue a day of confusion as ministers insisted that wasn't the case.\n\nThe problem could be the ambiguity of Ms Patel's words.\n\nOr it reveals confusion within Whitehall about what should be done as the exodus from Ukraine continues and public concern grows.\n\nThe Home Office said 8,900 applications had been submitted for visas via the Ukraine Family Scheme, with 300 issued so far.\n\nIt added that it had \"surged\" staff in nearby countries to process cases as quickly as possible.\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the government should be offering a \"simple route to sanctuary\" for people in danger.\n\n\"The Home Office is in a complete mess about this. They keep changing the rules,\" he said.\n\n\"The government now talking about a third route is something that we've been talking about now for days.\"\n\nThe government is also facing pressure over the situation in Calais, where there now are more than 500 Ukrainians hoping to get to the UK.", "The chart-topping rapper had denied assault by beating\n\nGrime artist Dizzee Rascal has been found guilty of assaulting his former partner.\n\nThe rapper, whose real name is Dylan Kwabena Mills, attacked Cassandra Jones at a property in Streatham, south London, in June 2021.\n\nThe 37-year-old, of Sevenoaks, Kent, \"barged\" his way into the house, put his forehead against Ms Jones' and \"pushed her to the ground\".\n\nThe couple had two children before they split up in February 2021.\n\nAt Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Monday, the musician - whose chart-topping singles have included Bonkers and Dance Wiv Me - had denied assault by beating.\n\nThe court heard Mills \"barged\" his way into the property on 8 June, with his son under his arms before \"screaming and shouting\" and banging his own head on the fridge three times.\n\nHe then approached Ms Jones, \"put his forehead against hers and pushed her around the room\" and then \"pushed her to the ground\", the court heard.\n\nHe had accused her of causing injuries to his arm.\n\nThe grime artist was made an MBE for services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2020\n\nThe court heard how Ms Jones began filming him but he took her phone from her and then took the phone from her mother, Dawn Kirk, who was there.\n\nThe shouting became so loud it alerted two neighbours and police were called.\n\nWhen they arrived, Mills said \"I'm the aggressor\", but later gave a prepared statement in a police interview, denying the allegations and claimed he had been assaulted by Ms Jones, the court heard.\n\nDelivering her verdict, District Judge Polly Gledhill said Mills had lost his temper in an argument over child contact and finances.\n\nShe added he was \"abusive and aggressive\" and \"assaulted her as outlined by the Crown\".\n\nFollowing the verdict, Mills took a camera from a Press Association photographer outside the court and threw it into a road, smashing it.\n\nA Press Association photographer said Mills smashed his camera outside court\n\nPhotographer, James Manning, said: \"He came out of the court, I was taking his picture, just standing still on the corner.\n\n\"He then pushed my camera into my face, which then caused it to fall to the floor, at which point he then picked it up and then threw it across the road. It smashed into a lot of pieces.\n\n\"He was angry, he came straight out of the door, didn't say anything, didn't say anything until the point at which he pushed my camera.\n\n\"I think he said something like 'get away' or 'get out of my face' or something along those lines.\"\n\nDet Con Hannah Barton said she wanted to \"praise the woman who Mills assaulted - she has shown immense strength throughout this investigation\".\n\n\"No woman should be subjected to violence of any form and I would urge anyone who finds themselves in this position to trust police - we will investigate and you will be provided with the support you need to help you through,\" she added.\n\nMills released his debut album, Boy In Da Corner, in 2003, and is due to release his seventh album later this year.\n\nIn 2020, he was made an MBE for services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours.\n\nHe will be sentenced at Croydon Magistrates' Court on 8 April.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last month, the inquiry into the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena heard its final scheduled evidence. The BBC's Judith Moritz has followed the family of Saffie-Rose Roussos - the youngest of the 22 victims - as they have uncovered details of their daughter's death while learning to live with their grief.\n\nSaffie Roussos' bedroom looks just how you would expect an eight-year-old's room to look. Her name plate is on the door. Her vibrant My Little Pony dressing gown hangs on a peg. Her tiny pink Converse boots sit on a chair. And at the centre of it, her white bed is festooned with scatter cushions, fairy lights and pom poms.\n\nHer artwork adorns the walls. A painting which reads, \"I love mummy so much\" and a drawing of the whole family, with \"me, Saffie\", written in felt tip.\n\nBut Saffie has never visited this room. And although the bed is beautifully made up, she'll never sleep in it. Saffie's childhood stopped abruptly when she was murdered in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.\n\nBefore she was killed, Saffie lived with her parents Lisa and Andrew, and brother Xander, in their flat above the family fish and chip shop in Leyland, Lancashire. But when the bomb went off, their lives were changed in a fraction of a second.\n\nAfter the explosion they never returned home. They never opened up the chippy again. Lisa went through months of hospital treatment, and when it was over the family went on holiday to Dorset. And they decided to stay there for good.\n\n\"We just basically escaped. I suppose a bit like running away,\" says Andrew Roussos.\n\nSaffie's things were packed up, and for a long time her parents found it too painful to go through them. Their move south gave them space, and put distance between them and the intensity of Manchester. There, the civic \"bee\" emblem had taken on a new dimension, spread across the city on posters, walls and tattoos. Lisa found it both supportive and stifling.\n\nShe says: \"In the north, where it happened, they still talk about it now. They still think about the families and everybody, and that's beautiful and I wanted that. But at the same time, with us moving here, you can pick and choose when to look at it, when to face it. It's quiet, you've got the sea, the countryside. I think it was the best decision.\"\n\nLisa admits she had been torn. She initially did not want to move as she felt she was moving away from Saffie, wanting to be where she had lived.\n\nIt was a while before she realised that it would be possible to relocate, and still feel close to her little girl. \"Saffie will always be with us,\" she says simply.\n\nLisa and Andrew started house-hunting. They needed a two-bedroom house, for themselves and Xander, but they decided to search for a three-bed. Saffie would have her own room again as her parents decided it was time to unpack her belongings, and create a new room for her.\n\nLisa explains they did not want to put her things away into cupboards or the loft, wanting instead to move forward with Saffie.\n\n\"We've changed the knobs on her wardrobe. Even though we wanted to keep her furniture, I've updated it a little bit because I know she would like new things.\n\nThe Roussos family is an intensely private unit. They take comfort in each other, and have largely eschewed public attention. But they have always wanted the world to know how special Saffie was to them. That is what led them to invite me to their home as part of the process of making our film about Saffie for Panorama.\n\nI first met Andrew just weeks after the bombing, when Lisa was still in hospital and the family was reeling from the attack. He told me then that Saffie had always wanted to be famous for singing and dancing like her idol Ariana Grande.\n\nHe could never have imagined that her name would be connected with the singer's for the most tragic reasons. He said he was determined to reclaim the joy that had surrounded his daughter during her short life. That meant telling as wide an audience as possible about the wonder of his little girl and the happiness she brought.\n\nWe filmed an interview and I told Andrew to keep in touch. I also asked him if Lisa was likely to want to say anything publicly when the time was right. There was significant media interest in their story, and I wondered if she would be as keen to speak about Saffie as her husband.\n\nA few weeks later, Andrew suggested that I visit the couple at Wythenshawe hospital in Manchester. Lisa had been so badly hurt in the attack that she was initially only given a 20% chance of survival. By the summer of 2017, they were living as a family in hospital accommodation while her treatment continued.\n\nWhen I met Lisa, it was clear that the time was not right for her to do an interview. She was having to cope with her own rehabilitation while coming to terms with the news that her youngest child had not survived the atrocity. I had been invited to meet her as a journalist, but I am also a mum, and my heart went out to her on a personal level. I had been to the arena with my own children a few weeks before the bombing, I knew that it could have been me in Lisa's shoes. I struggled to find the right words to express my sympathy.\n\nIt took another two years before Lisa decided that she wanted to talk publicly about what she was going through, and another two before she reached the point of inviting me to see her daughter's room in Dorset. She said she wanted to show me something special.\n\nManchester Arena Bombing: Saffie's Story is on BBC One Monday 7 March at 20:00 or watch later on BBC iPlayer\n\nThere, we sat on Saffie's bed - she felt it was finally time to look through her daughter's baby box of keepsakes, something that she had found too painful after the attack, worried about the emotions it would unleash.\n\nIn fact, Lisa beams as she shows me the scan pictures, talking about the pregnancy and how Saffie would not stop moving, a real livewire as she had been throughout her life. Each treasure - her first lock of hair, her newborn ID bracelet - unlocks a memory and she basks in them.\n\nShe picks out a pair of miniature flip flops. \"I bought them in Kefalonia. I remember pushing her in her pram with them on and they kept falling off.\"\n\nThe tears come, but they are mixed with laughter as Lisa remembers the happy moments. She and Andrew have spoken to me several times about the pattern grief has taken for them. They describe it as a constant never-ending presence that has evolved into something they are learning to live with.\n\nAt the same time, they have also reached the stage of wanting to find out more about what happened to Saffie. For a long time, they did not want to know a great level of detail. But as the public inquiry into the attack started in September 2020, their legal team prepared them for hard times ahead.\n\nFinding out exactly what happened is hard to take… it's torture on top of torture\n\nThe couple had always believed that their daughter died within seconds of the bomb exploding, and that she had not suffered. But at the inquiry they learned that Saffie had lived for an hour, and that she had died as a result of blood loss from leg injuries. Her legs were never given tourniquets or splinted. Two sets of experts at the public inquiry are in dispute over whether she might have survived if she had received better emergency care.\n\nAndrew says: \"It was our biggest fear. Our minds were set to, 'right, a bomb detonated, she lost her life, and it went quickly'. So that's what we chose to carry on life with. Finding out exactly what happened is hard to take… It's torture on top of torture.\"\n\nThe couple have been represented at the public inquiry by Pete Weatherby QC, who explains: \"Saffie was able to talk, able to drink water. In the ambulance something like 40 minutes after detonation she asked the ambulance staff if she was going to die. Therefore, the issue of whether there were further interventions that might have made a difference to Saffie became apparent.\"\n\nThe Roussos family solicitor, Nicola Brook, had to tell the couple Saffie had lived for a while, with an unknown degree of possibility about whether she could have survived. She then had to ask whether they wanted to explore that further.\n\n\"That is, without a shadow of a doubt, the hardest conversation I've ever had to have,\" she says.\n\nLisa and Andrew agreed they were ready to look into the intricacies of Saffie's case. But they have had very different approaches to the Manchester Arena Inquiry, which has been running for 18 months.\n\nAndrew has followed nearly every day of the hearings by remote video link. Lisa has found them too distressing to listen to, and relies on Andrew to outline the main issues for her.\n\nBut when it came to giving evidence, both were determined to go into the witness box in person, and so they steeled themselves to make the trip from Dorset back up to Manchester. I joined them again that morning, as they packed their car for the trip, which Lisa confessed she had been dreading.\n\nShe said it had been causing her sleepless nights and she would not do it if she didn't have to. \"I know it's going to be emotionally draining. But I just thought, 'Lisa, you've got to do it. You've got to do it for Saffie. She hasn't got that voice, so we have to give it to her.'\"\n\nAt court, the couple told the inquiry about their experiences on the night of the attack. How Lisa lay on the floor of the arena foyer unable to move. And how Andrew spent all night searching for her and Saffie. He and Xander travelled to three hospitals, and only discovered that Saffie had died the following afternoon.\n\nAndrew Roussos with his son outside the Manchester Arena following the bomb attack\n\nThe public inquiry has given him an opportunity to dig deep into what happened. He says, \"What drives me, I suppose, is knowing the information. So I'm there representing us as a family and Saffie as our daughter. Even though the legal team are there to do that, I want to know. I want to scrutinise everybody to the point of getting to the truth.\"\n\nGrieving for a child can destroy a marriage. But Lisa and Andrew each say they could not have managed without the other. Their characters complement each other. Andrew is passionate and talkative. Lisa is a calming presence.\n\nThe experience of speaking in court was draining for them both. Afterwards they were clearly exhausted, but relieved. Lisa said she was glad she had taken part as it was her one chance to say what she needed to say. \"The build-up to it was awful but I do feel better now that I've done it,\" she says.\n\nBut the couple are clear that the inquiry has to make a real difference.\n\nAndrew says he is angry lessons still need to be learned: \"My argument is why didn't you learn from 7/7? Why didn't you learn from 9/11? Why didn't you learn from the Paris attacks in 2016? This wasn't the first terrorist attack.\"\n\nHe adds: \"I just hope the whole process of this inquiry does what it set out to do. What it's meant to do. We're never going to stop this… but at least at the next attack we'll be more prepared.\"\n\nTheir time at court was not the only intense moment of the family's trip to Manchester.\n\nSaffie used to love playing with her mobile phone. She had taken endless selfies with it. Naturally, she took it with her on the night of the Ariana Grande concert. But it shattered in the blast and when it was returned to her parents, it seemed beyond repair.\n\nLisa and Andrew told me they had tried everything to make it work again. They badly wanted to look at the photos on it, to have a last glimpse of Saffie's world. I asked them if they would trust me to take the phone away for forensic work.\n\nIn truth, I was not sure if I would be able to get any results, so I was thrilled when I was able to tell them that despite such extensive damage, I was able to have the phone reconstructed - and there were photos to look at.\n\nThe pictures were Saffie's last selfies. She took them in the car with Lisa on their way to the concert. The little girl is wearing her Ariana Grande T-shirt, and beaming, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life.\n\nTearfully, Lisa remembered them being taken. She said, \"Me and Saffie were in the back of the car on the way to the arena. It's just so so sad… I wish I'd taken more pictures of me and her. You take them for granted because you don't think of the worst, ever. Why would you? But afterwards you realise how precious and important they are.\"\n\nAlthough it is upsetting to see the selfies, Lisa and Andrew say they will always treasure them. They are determined that Saffie will always be a part of their lives. I ask Lisa about the concept of \"closure\" which is sometimes spoken about.\n\nShe says, \"Who wants closure? It's the opposite. You can't have closure. You don't want closure. You want to take that memory with you forever. We want to take her with us forever. I want to talk about her. I want to remember her. I want everyone to remember her.\"", "The Queen posed in front of blue and yellow flowers, the national colours of Ukraine, as she held her first in-person meeting at Windsor Castle since falling ill with Covid.\n\nOn whether this was a symbolic show of support, a Royal source indicated it was unlikely to be accidental.\n\nThe 95-year-old monarch was pictured smiling warmly at the Canadian PM as he held her right hand in both of his.\n\nJustin Trudeau was visiting for talks with the UK PM about the Ukraine war.\n\nThe monarch, who is also Queen of Canada, tested positive for Covid-19 on 20 February and has carried out only \"light duties\" since then, cancelling several events.\n\nShe carried out her first virtual engagements on 1 March before Monday's face-to-face meeting.\n\nDuring the audience at Windsor Castle's Oak Room, Mr Trudeau was also pictured laughing as the Queen gestured towards herself.\n\nThe Queen was not seen with the walking stick which she has been using recently.\n\nAsked later at a Downing Street news conference about his meeting with the monarch, Mr Trudeau said: \"She was as insightful and perspicacious as ever, very interested in what is going on, asked me all sorts of questions about Canada.\n\n\"We had a really useful - for me anyway - conversation about global events, as we always do.\"\n\nAs well as this gesture of support for Ukraine at the meeting, the Queen previously made a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal to help people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nShe has two high-profile events scheduled in the coming weeks: the Commonwealth Service on 14 March and the Duke of Edinburgh's memorial service on 29 March, both at Westminster Abbey.\n\nLast month, she reached her Platinum Jubilee after 70 years on the throne.", "We are now well into the second week of this war, and I've noticed that I don't cry any more.\n\nI start the day reading the overnight news, counting new blasts all around Ukraine. A couple of days ago, I woke up to reports of major rocket strikes in Kyiv, near where my dad lives. It took me 10 minutes to pluck up the courage to call him, to ask if he and his partner were all right. They were, and I experienced a wave of relief.\n\nWhen I see horrible pictures of destruction in Kyiv, and Russian tanks in towns and villages just outside, I think of these once-quiet places, where our friends have their dachas, or country cottages. We used to visit them with our kids, we had barbecues, and sipped wine in cosy armchairs. Some of those towns have now been destroyed by heavy fighting and artillery.\n\nAt the start of the war, one thing that did bring tears to my eyes was a message on an app for events in Kyiv. It was a list of things that would not happen that day - concerts and exhibitions, events that now seem like something from a previous life. These apps now provide different kinds of information - notifications about air raids, lists of supermarkets with food and pharmacies with medicine.\n\nMy mother is more worried about how to get food for her dog and cats than for herself, but she called me the other day just to happily announce that she had managed to buy two loaves of bread! This is in a city where food used to be available in great abundance.\n\nThat is more shocking for me than pictures of burned-out Russian tanks. Food shortages and empty shelves are our reality now. People share information on where you can buy and what. Some shops have shortages, but at the same time there is always enough for those who are in need. Restaurants prepare free food for soldiers, people who lost their homes or anyone who needs it.\n\nPeople in Kyiv wait in line to go food shopping\n\nMy 10-year-old son is not going to school, even online. Some teachers have stayed in Kyiv, others have left. His classmates have fled to the countryside or abroad. They chat on Zoom, playing games and pretending to be hackers who fight for Ukraine. One of the chats they have set up on a messaging app is called \"war matters\".\n\nEvery day, Ukrainians face the decision of whether to stay or to leave.\n\nDuring the first week of war, almost a million packed their bags and left Ukraine to become refugees. That number is rising fast. But many others have decided to stay, at least for now. Famous singers, artists and sportsmen have enrolled in the army. Millions of Ukrainians have become volunteers, trying to help those in greatest need.\n\nIt feels like Ukrainians have become one big family where every member is trying to help, in any way they can. Those who can fight, fight. Those who can cook, cook. Those who can deliver, deliver. I heard a heart-breaking story from Kherson, the first city seized by Russian forces, where an elderly man without legs and fingers became a volunteer.\n\nNow every town and village has checkpoints, made of sandbags, cement blocks and cut trees. Armed men - young professionals who fled Kyiv, local farmers or pensioners - check the documents of anyone entering.\n\nThe village where I am staying has two checkpoints, manned by local men who take turns to operate them 24 hours a day. They have hunting rifles, and some carry knives or axes. They are ready to protect their small communities with everything they have.\n\nThis sense of unity has never been so strong among Ukrainians. The country is full of activity like a beehive, producing hope for victory.\n\nAre you personally affected by the issues raised in this story? If it is safe to do so email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The Ukrainian president - pictured here with Boris Johnson in February - will make a statement to the Commons by video link\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address British politicians via video link later, as his country battles the Russian invasion.\n\nMr Zelensky's speech will be broadcast to MPs in the Commons at 17:00 GMT using TV screens being installed in the chamber.\n\nMembers of the House of Lords are also expected to watch from the public gallery.\n\nMPs will be able to follow a live translation over special headphones.\n\nAfter Mr Zelensky's speech, Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will respond.\n\nMeanwhile, the prime minister is hosting meetings in London with the leaders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.\n\nThe series of meetings will be to discuss the UK's support for security in central Europe.\n\nCommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: \"Every parliamentarian wants to hear directly from the president, who will be speaking to us live from Ukraine, so this is an important opportunity for the House.\n\n\"Thanks again to our incredible staff for working at pace to make this historic address possible.\"\n\nHis counterpart in the House of Lords, Lord McFall of Alcluith, said: \"Today we are not members of the House of Lords or Commons, we are parliamentarians, united in solidarity with Ukraine.\"\n\nMr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor, has been the figurehead of Ukraine's struggle since Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces invaded the country last month.\n\nLast week, he received a standing ovation when he spoke, via videolink, to the European Parliament.\n\nBoris Johnson pledged support for European countries as he opened the meetings on Tuesday\n\nMr Zelensky has also spoken frequently to Prime Minister Boris Johnson since the conflict started.\n\nOn Monday, the president promised to punish anyone who commits atrocities against the Ukrainian people.\n\n\"There will be no quiet place on Earth for you, except for the grave,\" the president said.\n\nOn Monday evening, Mr Johnson spoke with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with the four leaders agreeing to maintain pressure on Russia to isolate Mr Putin diplomatically and economically.\n\n\"The prime minister stressed that our goal must be ensuring Putin's failure in this act of aggression against Ukraine,\" said a No 10 spokeswoman.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions last week, MPs stood to applaud Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, who watched parliamentary proceedings from the Commons gallery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The Raminishvili family are stuck in Calais\n\nMisha Raminishvili was close to despair, his daughter in tears, as the news came through. His wife Maria had a vacant look in her eyes that spoke of a nightmare journey still without a final destination.\n\n\"No visa for at least another week,\" he said, simply. \"No-one can help us in Calais.\"\n\nI met Misha, with his Ukrainian wife Maria and two children, at a hostel in the French port which is accommodating 137 Ukrainian refugees.\n\nMisha has a house in Hornchurch, east London, but lives between there and Kyiv.\n\nHe and his son, Misha Jr, have UK passports. But his wife Maria, and daughter Gabrielle, do not - and therefore need visas to enter the UK, which require biometric checks.\n\nMisha has been stuck in Calais for five days, unable to get his family across the Channel, in what would be the last leg of a journey that began on 24 February.\n\nAt the start of that journey, Maria walked 45 miles to Ukraine's border with Romania before Misha reached her.\n\n\"I feel left out,\" Misha told me in Calais. \"Who else is going to help me if not my own government?\"\n\nMisha Raminishvili and his son can enter the UK, but his wife and daughter can not\n\nMore than 500 Ukrainian refugees are currently in Calais, hoping to get to the UK.\n\nAmong them are families with small children and babies, as well as elderly women who have fled the war and crossed a continent.\n\nMany tell of having attempted to reach Britain, only to have been turned back by Border Force officials because they didn't have the right paperwork.\n\nDespite Home Secretary Priti Patel saying she had \"surged a Home Office team\" to help people on the ground in Calais - and denying that anyone had been turned back at the border - there is frustration and despair among those trying to navigate the bureaucracy.\n\nA Home Office presence at a local administrative building disappeared this morning, a sign at the hostel advising people to go to Brussels or Paris to apply for a visa.\n\nDesperate refugees returned from the building to say they didn't know what to do - or where to go.\n\nEventually, Misha spoke to a Border Force official who advised him to head across town to the old port building.\n\nHe has a car and was able to drive there. But when he arrived, the Home Office representation amounted to three men at a table in a deserted departure hall with bags of ready salted crisps and chocolate bars.\n\nWhen Misha asked them how he could get home to England with his family, he was told he could have an appointment in Paris on 15 March.\n\n\"Another week stuck here,\" Misha lamented. \"I have never claimed a benefit in my life and the first time I ask my government for their help, this is how they treat me. I am gutted.\"\n\nThe Home Office had promised refugees arriving in Calais there would be support available to help them complete the final leg of their long journeys.\n\nHowever, a Home Office statement today announced: \"There is no visa application centre in Calais and people should not travel there.\n\n\"Anyone wishing to make an application under the Ukraine Family Scheme should apply online and then to travel to their nearest visa application centre.\n\n\"The only visa application centre in France is in Paris.\"\n\nA charity worker from Care4Calais has become the focal point for many of the refugees in the hostel, but she too is frustrated by the lack of information and support from the UK authorities.\n\nThe prime minister has said the UK government will be \"very, very generous\" in its approach to helping Ukrainian refugees come to the UK, but in Calais people fleeing the war and looking for sanctuary in Britain spoke of a different attitude from those at the border.", "Ambulance crews summoned police to Ostler's Plantation, in Lincolnshire, on Sunday night\n\nA three-month-old girl has been killed in a suspected dog attack at a beauty spot.\n\nParamedics were called to Ostler's Plantation, near Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, at 23:13 GMT on Sunday.\n\nThey called police to the scene, who arrested a 40-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man on suspicion of being in charge of a dog which was out of control. Both remain in custody.\n\nOfficers have not released information about how the baby died.\n\nCh Supt Andy Cox said Lincolnshire Police was doing \"everything we can\" to establish the circumstances.\n\n\"This is an exceptionally sad incident, and one that we know will impact the local community, or indeed anyone hearing about it,\" he said.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Shane Warne's body is being transported from Thailand back to Australia\n\nAustralian cricket legend Shane Warne's death in Thailand on Friday was from natural causes, police have confirmed.\n\nA senior Thai police official said the post mortem exam showed no signs of foul play in the 52-year-old's death.\n\nWarne, who is considered to be one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died of a suspected heart attack on Koh Samui island, where he was holidaying.\n\nThe Australian government is bringing his body back to Australia where he will be given a state funeral.\n\nWarne was a larger-than-life figure whose fame transcended sport and he inspired generations of fans.\n\nThere have been tributes like this one in Melbourne left for Warne on Koh Samui too\n\nHe was found unresponsive at the Thai villa where he was staying with friends. Attempts to revive him in hospital were unsuccessful.\n\nThe post mortem exam showed Warne died of a \"congenital disease\", Songyot Chayaninporamet, deputy director of Samui Hospital, told a news conference, Reuters news agency reported.\n\n\"There is no Covid-19 infection and no sign of assault or murder.\"\n\nThailand's deputy police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen said in a statement: \"Investigators received an autopsy report today in which a forensic doctor concludes the death was due to natural causes.\"\n\nHe said the player's family had been informed and accepted the findings. Warne is survived by his three children with former wife Simone Callahan.\n\nShane Warne was found unconscious in his room at this luxury villa on Koh Samui\n\nThe death of one of Australia's favourite sons has shocked the country, and brought a flood of tributes from cricket fans and others around the world.\n\nWarne's family have made their first comments following his sudden death, with his parents, children, ex-wife and brother saying how much they missed him.\n\n\"To find words to adequately express our sadness is an impossible task for us, and looking to a future without Shane is inconceivable,\" parents Keith and Brigitte said in a statement.\n\n\"I wish I could've hugged you tighter in what I didn't know were my final moments with you,\" his daughter Summer said.\n\nPolice say Warne's body will be flown to Australia on Tuesday.\n\nSecurity concerns were raised when a German woman carrying flowers managed to climb into the back of the ambulance taking the cricketer's body off Koh Samui. Thai police questioned her and later described her as a \"fan who wanted to pay her respects and sincerity\" to Warne.\n\nWarne's mastery of leg-spin - a style of bowling that declined during the 1970s and 1980s when fast bowlers dominated - revolutionised cricket.\n\nHe took 708 Test wickets, the second most of all time, in 145 matches across a stellar 15-year international career.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Shane Warne bowls Mike Gatting with the 'ball of the century' in 1993 Ashes\n\nIn 2000, he was named one of the five Wisden cricketers of the century, alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Sir Viv Richards.\n\nHe retired from international cricket in 2007, going on to a career as a commentator, pundit and coach.", "The war in Ukraine will deliver a shock to the global supply and cost of food, the boss of one of the world's biggest fertiliser companies has said.\n\nYara International, which operates in more than 60 countries, buys considerable amounts of essential raw materials from Russia.\n\nFertiliser prices were already high due to soaring wholesale gas prices.\n\nYara's boss, Svein Tore Holsether, has warned the situation could get even tougher.\n\n\"Things are changing by the hour,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"We were already in a difficult situation before the war... and now it's additional disruption to the supply chains and we're getting close to the most important part of this season for the Northern hemisphere, where a lot of fertiliser needs to move on and that will quite likely be impacted.\"\n\nRussia and Ukraine are some of the biggest producers in agriculture and food globally.\n\nRussia also produces enormous amounts of nutrients, like potash and phosphate - key ingredients in fertilisers, which enable plants and crops to grow.\n\n\"Half the world's population gets food as a result of fertilisers... and if that's removed from the field for some crops, [the yield] will drop by 50%,\" Mr Holsether said.\n\n\"For me, it's not whether we are moving into a global food crisis - it's how large the crisis will be.\"\n\nSvein Tore Holsether said fertiliser prices were already high due to soaring gas prices\n\nHis company has already been affected by the conflict after a missile hit Yara's office in Kyiv. The 11 staff were unharmed.\n\nThe Norwegian-based company isn't directly affected by sanctions against Russia, but is having to deal with the fall-out. Trying to secure deliveries has become more difficult due to disruption in the shipping industry.\n\nJust hours after Mr Holsether spoke to the BBC, the Russian government urged its producers to halt fertiliser exports.\n\nHe pointed out that about a quarter of the key nutrients used in European food production come from Russia.\n\n\"At the same time we're doing whatever we can do at the moment to also find additional sources. But with such short timelines it's limited,\" he said before the news emerged.\n\nAnalysts have also warned that the move would mean higher costs for farmers and lower crop yields. That could feed through into even higher costs for food.\n\nNutrients aren't the only factor to consider, either.\n\nHuge amounts of natural gas are needed to produce ammonia, the key ingredient in nitrogen fertiliser. Yara International relies on vast quantities of Russian gas for its European plants.\n\nLast year, it was forced to temporarily suspend production of about 40% of its capacity in Europe because of the spike in the price of wholesale gas. Other producers also cut supplies.\n\nCombined with higher shipping rates, sanctions on Belarus (another major potash supplier) and extreme weather - this prompted a big jump in fertiliser prices last year, adding to a surge in food prices.\n\nThe company says it's making day-to-day evaluations on how to maintain supply and that it is too early to say if more shutdowns may be on the cards.\n\nIt acknowledges it has a \"very strong obligation\" to keep production running at what it describes as a critical point.\n\nBut Yara's boss says the world must, in the long-term, reduce its dependency on Russia for global food production.\n\n\"On the one hand, we're trying to keep fertiliser flowing to the farmers to keep up the agricultural yields.\n\n\"At the same time... there has to be a strong reaction. We condemn the Russian military invasion of Ukraine so this is a dilemma and one that frankly is very difficult.\"\n\nClimate change and growing populations had already been adding to the challenges the global food production system faces - all before the pandemic started.\n\nThe Yara International chief executive describes the war as \"a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe\", highlighting just how vulnerable to shocks the global food supply chain now is.\n\nIt will increase food insecurity in poorer countries, he adds.\n\n\"We have to keep in mind that in the last two years, there's been an increase of 100 million more people that go to bed hungry... so for this to come on top of it is really worrying.\"", "Northern Ireland's oil prices have shot up more than 35% in the week after Russia invaded Ukraine - so what does it mean for the UK's most oil-dependent nation?\n\nMore than two-thirds of homes in Northern Ireland rely on oil for heating - the highest percentage in Western Europe - compared to just 4% in England and Wales.\n\nIn the seven days after the invasion, the average price for 900 litres of home heating oil went up more than £200, from £555.72 on 24 February, to £758.11 on 3 March, figures from the Northern Ireland Consumer Council show.\n\nMeanwhile the number of households in fuel poverty in Northern Ireland is predicted to have doubled, from 22% to more than 40%, according to National Energy Action (NEA).\n\nIt has also prompted a run on home heating oil, with some companies limiting their sales, or selling beyond their stock levels, so they will likely be selling at a loss if prices continue to rise.\n\nPat Austin, NEA's Northern Ireland director, said the charity was seeing more people who had completely run out of fuel.\n\nTwo weeks ago they topped up oil for a man in Belfast whose tank had been empty since last August, she said.\n\nThe man, aged in his thirties, had been rationing his electricity by using his kettle to bathe - turning on the immersion heater for a shower just once a fortnight.\n\nThe number of households in fuel poverty in Northern Ireland is predicted to have doubled\n\nAs of Friday, a spot check of oil prices in Northern Ireland by the Consumer Council puts the average for 900 litres at £758.11.\n\nThat's a 44% rise since 3 February, when the average price was £527.97.\n\n\"These figures have to be putting fuel poverty in the region of 40% easy; it is a perfect storm,\" Ms Austin said.\n\n\"We're looking at emergency interventions. We're dealing with people who are out of electricity overnight, we are now having to send people on to food banks.\"\n\nTensions between Russia and the West were already driving power prices up and that's accelerated since Russia invaded Ukraine last week, pushing them to 10-year highs.\n\nRussia is one of the world's largest energy producers.\n\nMajor oil and gas companies, including BP and Shell, have also announced plans to exit Russian operations.\n\nAnd price rises are expected to continue in the near-term.\n\nOil prices have been climbing, like gas and electricity, but because oil is unregulated in Northern Ireland, cost increases are passed on directly to the buyer, Peter McClenaghan, director of infrastructure and sustainability at the Consumer Council, said.\n\n\"Russia supplies about 12% of global oil supplies so that's really worrying for Northern Ireland consumers because Northern Ireland consumers pay straight away what the world market is saying.\n\n\"Whereas with gas there's a time period before they can pass on increases, in oil that doesn't happen so those spikes in prices have been seen in Northern Ireland straight away, so it's a really significant, negative change for Northern Ireland consumers and one that's happened just virtually overnight.\"\n\nRussian gas flows through pipelines across eastern and central Europe\n\nIn 2016, when fuel poverty was last measured in Northern Ireland, it was at 22%, but estimates from the Housing Executive for in 2017 and 2018 put it as low as 17% and 18%.\n\nBut in 2009, fuel poverty levels were double that at 44% - and that's where NEA expects it to be in Northern Ireland now.\n\nDonna Lennon gets her oil via a social enterprise buying group, which reduces costs for its members by buying in bulk, and allows smaller purchases so customers avoid the higher costs of ordering low volumes directly from the supplier.\n\nWithout it, the single mother of two, who lives in Newcastle, County Down, said she would be in fuel poverty.\n\nNorthern Ireland also has several oil buying clubs, which work on a similar principle.\n\nDonna Lennon says she relies on the saving she gets buying in bulk via Fuel Round\n\nShe said the discount she gets is the difference between running oil and heating the whole house, and using only her fireplace.\n\n\"Especially when you have a young family and your oil is on a lot, I would have to choose between that and wood, and just light a fire and sit in the sitting room.\n\n\"It could be the difference between heating the bedrooms and sitting in the living room for the fire.\"\n\nJames McGovern, from the buying group Fuel Round in County Down, said households were reducing the size of their orders as costs increased.\n\n\"Overall demand has noticeably risen since the Ukraine crisis, but the per-order volume is markedly down, as households grapple with increased costs.\"\n\nThis week some Northern Ireland oil companies cut the volume of each sale.\n\nOthers sold beyond their stock levels, meaning they could lose money on orders when prices rise beyond what quoted for.\n\nDamian Fusco, from Bangor Fuels, said: \"The general public is under the impression that we have large stocks of oil - stock generally lasts days not weeks.\n\n\"Most heating oil retailers would have a volume of stock on their premises which they replenish daily - that volume is sold.\n\n\"I'm taking orders for more than week away which I haven't got the stock for, so it may by the time I get to that call I may have ended up having to pay more than that for the oil.\"\n\nNorthern Ireland imports all its oil via a handful of multinational suppliers.\n\nThat means local firms have no power to increase their orders to match demand.\n\nOn Tuesday, none of Omagh firm MAC Fuels' three suppliers would deliver oil, its company director Yvonne Wilson said.\n\nThey limited their sales to 400 litres this week.\n\n\"One customer has told me that she is working just to eat and heat, while another said its a case of keeping the house warm while his children get ready for school and bed. When the children aren't at home he just wears a coat rather than waste any oil -this is the reality of how families and the elderly are struggling at the minute.\"", "Corrie Mckeague went missing after a night out in September 2016\n\nAn airman who vanished following a night out developed a \"significant binge-drinking problem\" after a friend died on a railway line when he was a teenager, an inquest heard.\n\nCorrie Mckeague, from Dunfermline, was 23 when he vanished in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September 2016.\n\nPolice believe he died after climbing into a waste bin after a night out.\n\nThe inquest, due to last four weeks, is being held at Suffolk Coroner's Court in Ipswich.\n\nThe last confirmed sighting of Mr Mckeague was at 03:25 BST, when CCTV cameras recorded him walking into an area in central Bury St Edmunds known as the \"horseshoe\", behind Greggs and Superdrug, where industrial waste bins were stored.\n\nA £2m police investigation was carried out into his disappearance, including a trawl of a landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge. His body has never been found.\n\nMr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV after leaving a nightclub\n\nIn a statement read out at the inquest, Martin Mckeague described his son as a \"happy child\".\n\nHowever, Mr Mckeague said there were \"major events\" that shaped his life including the separation of his parents when he was 10 years old and the discovery of his friend's body on a railway line when he was 15.\n\nA landfill site at Milton, near Cambridge, was extensively searched as part of the investigation\n\nHe said the death of his son's friend \"was a terrible shock for a 15-year-old boy to suffer, and one I don't think he ever truly got over\".\n\nMartin Mckeague continued: \"I don't believe Corrie was ever suicidal.\n\n\"This has been a heart-breaking tragedy.\"\n\nNicola Urquhart, second from right, pictured with her two other sons Darroch, left, and Makeyan, is at the inquest in Ipswich\n\nMr Mckeague's mother Nicola Urquhart agreed the friend's death had a \"huge impact\" on her son.\n\nIn a statement read to the inquest, she said Corrie, who had started to train as a hairdresser and then as a PE teacher before joining the RAF, had been prescribed antidepressants in the past.\n\nBut, she said, he was \"back to his usual happy self\" by 2015.\n\nMs Urquhart said her son \"regularly lost his phone or wallet on nights out\" but \"was never aggressive with or without alcohol\".\n\n\"There was nothing to suggest Corrie had any problems or concerns around the time of his disappearance,\" she said.\n\nMs Urquhart said added: \"Despite what's in the press, as far as I'm aware Corrie had never slept in a bin nor had he ever climbed into a bin to sleep.\"\n\nPosters were distributed in the search of Mr Mckeague when he went missing\n\nSuffolk's senior coroner Nigel Parsley said Mr Mckeague, who had served in the RAF for three years, drank a \"significant amount of alcohol during the evening\" of 23 September.\n\nHe said Mr Mckeague was asked to leave Flex nightclub and \"was seen on a number of occasions on CCTV\".\n\nMr Parsley said police investigations and searches failed to locate him and there had been no contact with family and no financial transactions that could be linked to him.\n\nHe said over the coming weeks, jurors would hear evidence about Mr Mckeague's movements, his contact with any witnesses and \"hypotheses and possible scenarios relating to Corrie's disappearance\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.\n\nCovid boosters are being offered to vulnerable people in Scotland. The fourth jab will be given to older care home residents, over 75s and people over the age of 12 with suppressed immune systems. The rollout follows the latest guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.\n\nThe Covid testing system will be wound down in Wales over several months as the nation plans to scrap its remaining rules at the end of March. But there are concerns about this process, with ministers saying they are \"reluctant\" for it to happen. That's according to Wales' health minister Eluned Morgan who said one concern was whether the system would be \"ready to spring back\" if there was a new wave of Covid. Welsh Secretary Simon Hart said testing was now \"more targeted\".\n\nA school has created a wellbeing suite, which employs dedicated staff to help pupils as the country emerges from the pandemic. Head teacher Claire Huddart, from Horizon Community College, in South Yorkshire, says the mental health of her students is the \"worst it has been\", and she's spent more than £500,000 from her school budget on support. Take a look.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A Barnsley school headteacher says her pupils' mental health is \"the worst it's been\"\n\nBefore the pandemic, the Muslim funeral ritual of washing and shrouding a person who has died before burial was carried out by older volunteers. But many of those are still shielding so are unable to perform the religious obligation called Ghusl. A scheme's been set up to teach younger volunteers how to carry it out. Read more here.\n\nWhat happened to the sounds of city life when the pandemic hit and restrictions were imposed? Our absence meant the hustle and bustle was gone and replaced by different, more natural, sounds. Have a listen to what a PhD student found in Belfast city centre.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. During Covid lockdown, sounds of human activity were replaced by natural sounds, such as birdsong\n\nHere's what we know about the long-term safety of vaccines.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAbout 60 people were evacuated from a tower block in east London after a large fire broke out.\n\nMore than 125 firefighters tackled the blaze at the high-rise block of flats and offices on Whitechapel High Street, in Aldgate East, on Monday afternoon.\n\nLarge flames could be seen fanning out of the 17th floor of the building and footage showed burning debris had fallen to the ground.\n\nLondon Fire Brigade (LFB) said a woman had to be given \"fire survival advice\" until firefighters got to her as she was trapped on the 17th floor.\n\nStation commander Chris Jenner, who was at the scene, said: \"Fire crews used a fire escape hood to help lead the woman to safety via the internal staircase.\"\n\nA fire escape hood offers up to 15 minutes protection from four of the main fire gases (carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride and acrolein). They do not provide oxygen but temporarily filter toxic smoke to make breathing easier, LFB said.\n\nThe fire was on the 17th floor of the block of flats and offices\n\nLondon Ambulance Service said two patients were taken to hospital while two others were checked over at the scene.\n\nThe blaze also affected balconies on the 18th and 19th floors.\n\nIt was put out by about 19:00 GMT, LFB confirmed.\n\nLynn Ling, 25, lives on the 20th floor of the tower block with her husband Yuri.\n\nMs Ling said: \"I did not hear an alarm. I think there was a fire alarm on the ground floor but I could not hear it clearly on the 20th.\n\n\"I went out of my door but I found there was smoke in the corridor so I went downstairs. I forgot to take my coat. It was very scary.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by London Fire Brigade This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe fire service said the cause of the blaze was not yet known.\n\nMr Jennar said: \"We mobilised a 64 metre turntable ladder to the scene. This is the tallest firefighting ladder in Europe and allowed us to get water on to the fire from outside the building.\n\n\"The professionalism, hard work and quick actions of control officers and firefighters limited the damage to the block and prevented serious injuries.\"\n\nThe building is a 22-storey mixed use development of commercial office space and 207 residential apartments, according to property developer Hondo Enterprises, which sold the building in 2018.\n\nIt is located over Aldgate East Tube Station between the City - the financial heart of London - and neighbourhoods Aldgate and Spitalfields.\n\nMore than 125 firefighters were sent to the blaze\n\nSmoke could be seen for miles around\n\nThe building is close to Aldgate East Tube station\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Fedorov's mission to create a \"state in a smartphone\" has been put on hold\n\nAs Ukraine's military and citizens battle Russia's advancing troops, the country has opened a new front in the fighting - using tech expertise to rally Silicon Valley's support and undermine the enemy. Digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov is leading the charge, but some of his tactics are proving divisive.\n\nFrom his underground shelter in a secret location in Kyiv, Ukraine's youngest cabinet minister is waging a digital war on Russia.\n\nUsing his preferred weapon - social media - Mykhailo Fedorov has been urging chief executives of big businesses to cut ties with Moscow. He's also taken the unprecedented move of setting up a volunteer \"IT Army of Ukraine\" to launch cyber-attacks against \"the enemy\".\n\nAt only 31, Fedorov has shaped his government role around his lifestyle - he lives through and on his mobile phone.\n\nBefore the war, his main goal was to create a \"state in a smartphone\", where 100% of government services would be offered online. Now that project is on hold, with every muscle strained on the digital war effort.\n\nHe has piled pressure on multinational companies to boycott Russia.\n\nApple, Google, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony, Oracle... no tech giant has missed out on an official government letter.\n\nFedorov then posts his letters on social media so the world can see, plus some of the replies.\n\nIt's impossible to say whether this has influenced the companies' actions, but most have changed their policy towards Russia in subsequent days - either stopping products being sold there, like Apple, or halting operations.\n\nSaturday's announcement from PayPal that it was suspending services in Russia appeared on Fedorov's Twitter feed before it was reported in the media. So too did news that Samsung and Nvidia are stopping all business with Russia, something he publicly called for on his social feeds.\n\nOne tweet from Fedorov to Elon Musk soon after the invasion began brought quick results. Within 48 hours the billionaire tech mogul had adjusted his constellation of Starlink satellites and sent a lorry-load of internet-ready terminals to Ukraine.\n\nThe service is a potential lifeline for the government if internet and telecommunication networks are damaged or destroyed, though Musk has since warned that the satellite dishes could become a target for Russian missiles and should be used with care.\n\nFedorov has more than half a million followers in total across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram and uses them all to get his message across.\n\n\"Each platform is very important to us now and we are using every opportunity to attract large companies to this horror happening now in Ukraine. We are trying to bring the truth to the Russians and make them protest against the war,\" he told the BBC via email.\n\nHe speaks mostly in Ukrainian online, but since the crisis unfolded he's switched to English on Twitter, where he is having the most impact.\n\n\"Twitter has become an efficient tool that we are using to counter Russian military aggression. It's our smart and peaceful tool to destroy Russian economy,\" he says.\n\nTechnology researcher and author Stephanie Hare says she is not surprised Fedorov is having success.\n\n\"[He] is 31 years old. He gets it,\" she says.\n\nUsing persuasion and propaganda is a time-honoured tactic of warfare. But since social media companies entered the equation in the 2000s \"they have changed the calculus due to the speed and breadth with which people can disseminate their messages\".\n\nFedorov's spokeswoman told me his young team was constantly coming up with new ideas, which the ministry then tries to implement at speed. Last week, Kyiv announced it would issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fund its military. But some others have been controversial.\n\nFedorov is urging crypto-currency exchanges to freeze the accounts of all Russian citizens, for example - an idea that many, including the CEO of the Binance exchange, says would \"fly in the face\" of the reason crypto exists.\n\nThe Anonymous hacker collective has declared \"cyber-war\" on President Vladimir Putin\n\nAnd the ministry's launch of an \"IT Army of Ukraine\", including thousands of volunteer hackers from around the world - its Telegram group now has 270,000 members - has caused some unease.\n\n\"Tech is the best solution against tanks,\" Fedorov told the BBC. \"The IT Army is directed against the digital and online resources of Russian and Belarusian business corporations, banks, and state web portals. We have shut down the operation of the web portal of the Russian public services, the exchange, websites of Tass, Kommersant, Fontanka, and other top media in Russia.\"\n\nSo far the hacking seems to be mostly low-level cyber vandalism but Fedorov's team is also explicitly calling for attacks on railway and power grid networks which, if successful and disruptive enough, could cause harm to civilians. It makes some in the cyber-security world anxious.\n\n\"It's really important to be careful in this realm,\" says Suzanne Spalding from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. \"If we get into destructive attacks on critical infrastructure being carried out by citizens I think we begin to run into the kinds of fog-of-war, misattribution, potential cascading impacts that weren't anticipated. We might see retaliation from one side for something a citizen has done and things can escalate fast.\"\n\nOn Friday Ukraine's deputy chairman of the State Service of Special Communications, which works closely with Fedorov's department, defended the decision to rally hackers against Russia.\n\nHe said he welcomed illegal cyber-attacks on Russia from all groups, including the Anonymous hacking collective, because \"the world order changed on 24 February\" when the invasion started.\n\nHacking is also being carried out against Ukraine by people sympathetic to Russia, but currently Russia seems to be coming off worse. Its crack military hackers appear, so far, to have not played a major role, for reasons that are unclear.", "A building on fire after a strike near the centre of Mariupol\n\nA ceasefire, and a chance for civilians to leave, was announced on Saturday morning in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where an estimated 200,000 people are trapped under heavy bombardment by Russian forces.\n\nThe city arranged 50 buses, and many people travelled to the city centre to get them. But after less than two hours, Russia's army began shelling residential areas again, trapping civilians who had begun their escape.\n\nThe city is now in its fifth day with no running water, no power, no sanitation, and food and water are fast running out.\n\nMaxim, a 27-year-old IT developer who is caring for his grandparents in their sixth-floor apartment, spoke to the BBC on Saturday night to describe a day that began with hope and ended in despair.\n\nWe tried to escape today, during the planned time of no shooting. We heard we could get out.\n\nAs fast as I could, I packed four bags for me and my grandparents with warm clothes and food, and all of our remaining water, and I packed them into my car.\n\nMy grandparents are in their eighties, they cannot help. I carried everything down six flights of stairs to my car. There is no lift now.\n\nRight when I was ready to drive, the shelling started again. I heard explosions near to us. I carried everything back upstairs as fast as I could to the apartment. From there, I could see smoke rising from the city and smoke rising from the highway to Zaporizhzhia where people were supposed to escape.\n\nSo I am still in my grandparents' apartment and the shelling and bombing has continued all day. But now instead of three of us here, there are nearly 20.\n\nMany people came into the city centre because they heard there was a ceasefire and buses to take them out, and to flee the shelling there. Then they could not get back to their shelters when it started again.\n\nSo we have taken many people into the apartment. They are from the left side of the city, they say it is destroyed. All the houses are burning and no-one can put out the fires. There are many dead bodies lying in the streets and no-one can carry them.\n\nI know three of the people from before, from my neighbourhood, but the rest I do not know. The oldest is a woman in her late 70s, the youngest is a small child. We also have two cats, a parrot and a dog.\n\nWe have tried to make space for the women and children to sleep on the floor. We don't have any extra mattresses but we have put some spare carpet and clothes on the floor for them to lie on.\n\nWe have run out of bottled water. We are down to the water that I filled in the bath before the taps went off. The gas is the only thing still working - we can use it to boil the bath water to drink.\n\nToday the police opened the stores and told people to take everything, because the people here have no food and drink. Our neighbours managed to take some candy, some fish and some fizzy drinks.\n\nThe ceasefire was a lie. One side never planned to stop firing. If they say there is a ceasefire tomorrow [Sunday] we will have to try to go, but we don't know if it will be real. Maybe now we are better to hide.\n\nYou can keep calling me as long as I have some battery left in my phone, but I don't know how long that will be. After today I am without hope. From now on we do what we have to each day only to survive and for our neighbours to survive.\n\nAfter that I don't know what comes next. We are very tired and we do not see a way out.\n\nAre you in the Mariupol area? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: We have a direct line to Moscow, says UK chief of defence staff Adm Sir Tony Radakin\n\nBritons should not head to Ukraine to fight and should instead help however they can from the UK, the head of the armed forces has said.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Adm Sir Tony Radakin rejected Ukraine's call for a no-fly zone saying it would not help tactically and might escalate fighting.\n\nHe urged the West to have confidence that they were doing the \"right thing\".\n\nThe invasion was not going well, Russia was becoming less powerful and it cannot continue, he said.\n\nOn Britons wanting to join the fight, Adm Radakin said that the \"sound of gunfire\" was not \"something you want to rush to\", and urged people to support Ukraine in sensible ways from the UK.\n\nAsked whether Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had been right to say she would support any Briton who wanted to fight, he said: \"We can all understand that sentiment, and that sentiment needs to be channelled into support for Ukraine.\"\n\nSenior UK military officers are genuinely worried that some British troops - regulars or reservists - might try to join the battle in Ukraine and, in doing so, risk handing Russia a propaganda victory.\n\nLast week the Chief of Defence People, Lt Gen James Swift, sent out a message to the chain of command stressing that UK military personnel were \"not authorised\" to travel there.\n\nHe said that if there was any suspicion that troops were trying to make their way to Ukraine then it should be reported immediately to the Service Police.\n\nThe message warned that if serving British military personnel went to fight in Ukraine then they were putting not only their lives in danger but they also risked giving \"the mistaken perception\" to Russia that Britain had sent in troops to engage in hostilities.\n\nAdm Sir Tony Radakin has now underlined that message, saying it would be \"unlawful and unhelpful\".\n\nAt present the MoD does not believe there are any examples of full-time British military personnel going absent to fight in Ukraine. But it's harder for them to keep tabs on reservists who often also have another career.\n\nIn his interview with the BBC's Sunday Morning show, the defence chief painted a picture of Russian forces suffering from heavy losses and low morale, with kit failings and a massive military convoy stalled outside the capital, Kyiv.\n\nThe Kremlin has lost more troops in a week than the UK did in 20 years in Afghanistan, he said, and some \"lead elements of Russian forces\" have been decimated.\n\nHe described stories of soldiers whose morale had been so knocked they had abandoned the convoy destined for Kyiv to camp in the forest.\n\nUkrainian servicemen near Kyiv - a huge convoy of Russian troops has stopped its advance outside the capital\n\nOn Saturday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a fiery speech saying the West's reluctance to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine had given Russia \"a green light\" to continue bombarding towns and villages.\n\nBut Adm Radakin insisted such an intervention would not help.\n\n\"The advice that we, as senior military professionals are giving our politicians, is to avoid doing things that are tactically ineffective and definitely to avoid doing things that tactically might lead to miscalculation or escalation.\"\n\nHe said most of the shelling and destruction was coming from artillery, not Russian aircraft, and to police a no-fly zone could mean taking out Russian defence systems and shooting down Russian aircraft - leading to an escalation, he added.\n\nSpeaking later on the same programme, UK deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said he understood Ukraine's cri de coeur but insisted the West had been clear all along that it would not engage in direct military confrontation.\n\nThat would give succour to Russian President Vladimir Putin's argument that he was in conflict with the West, he said.\n\nMr Putin said on Saturday that any such move to implement a no-fly zone would be seen \"as participation in an armed conflict by that country\".\n\nThe West has to maintain calmness and responsibility and not react rashly to the latest \"bizarre or ridiculous comment\" from Mr Putin, he said.\n\n\"We are prepared, we are professional armed forces, we will approach this conflict with that level of professionalism and responsibility that you would expect.\n\n\"We will also be incredibly confident in our ability to face down President Putin,\" he added.\n\nHe gave an insight into relations with his counterpart, Gen Valery Gerasimov, head of Russian armed forces, explaining the Ministry of Defence has a direct line to Moscow's operational headquarters.\n\nIt is tested every day, he said, and he has used the line to tell Gen Gerasimov they need to speak. \"I'm waiting for him to come back to me,\" he added.\n\nAdm Radakin was also asked whether the West would know beforehand whether Mr Putin would use nuclear weapons.\n\nHe said he did not want to go into detail but there had been a \"remarkable\" level of intelligence in the months leading up to the invasion.\n\n\"There are some more discreet elements in terms of warning signs if this was going to start to chart a path towards nuclear escalation,\" he said.", "Riot police at a demonstration in Moscow on Sunday\n\nMore than 4,300 people were detained at anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, rights groups and Russian authorities say.\n\nSome 1,700 people were detained in Moscow alone, Ria news agency reports, citing the interior ministry.\n\nThe OVD-Info rights group says detentions took place in 53 cities.\n\nAlthough protests have become increasingly restricted in recent years, numerous rallies have taken place across Russia since the invasion.\n\nIn the last 11 days, more than 10,000 people have been detained at protests, OVD-Info says.\n\n\"The screws are being fully tightened - essentially we are witnessing military censorship,\" Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info's spokeswoman, told Reuters news agency from Tbilisi in Georgia.\n\n\"We are seeing rather big protests today - even in Siberian cities, where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.\"\n\nA policeman by a bus of detained protesters in St Petersburg\n\nA woman being led away in Moscow\n\nEarlier this week, government critic Alexei Navalny - who is in jail on fraud charges - called for daily demonstrations against the invasion, saying Russia should not be a \"nation of frightened cowards\".\n\nHowever, a number of new laws have made it harder to protest in Russia in recent years, rights groups say.\n\n\"Although Russian legislation avoids explicitly using terms like 'permit' or 'ban'... it effectively requires organisers to seek authorisation for their assemblies,\" Amnesty International says.\n\nAccording to Russian human rights group OVD-Info - which was set up in 2011 - more than 2,500 people were detained across Russia on Sunday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt publishes the names and locations of those arrested, as well as total figures.\n\n\"Each police department may have more detainees than published lists,\" it says. \"We publish only the names of those people about whom we know for certain and whose names we can publish.\"\n\nProtesters in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in front of a Lenin statue\n\nThousands of people protested against the invasion in Brussels on Sunday\n\nProtests did not just take place in Russia on Sunday, but around the world. In Kazakhstan - an ally of Moscow - a peace rally was permitted in Almaty, attended by around 2,000 people.\n\nAnti-war protesters also took to the streets in cities like Brussels, in Belgium, and London.\n\nIn Ukraine itself, Russian troops occupying the southern city of Nova-Kakhovka opened fire to try to disperse demonstrators.\n\nA video from the city, in the Kherson region, shows protesters calling for the Russians to \"go home\" amid the sound of gunfire and stun grenades. The demonstrators appear to hold their ground.\n\nOne report said five people had been injured.\n\nAre you taking part in any of the protests? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Health service-committed practices are \"overstretched and underfunded\", the BDA says\n\nNorthern Ireland dental practices that provide NHS services may \"struggle to remain financially viable\", the British Dental Association (BDA) has said.\n\nThe body has warned they are becoming \"increasingly reliant\" on private work to maintain health service dentistry within their practices.\n\nThe BDA has launched its manifesto ahead of the assembly elections in May.\n\nIt said that fees provided for NHS care have fallen by \"as much as a quarter in real terms\" in the last 10 years.\n\nThe chair of the BDA's Northern Ireland Council, Roz McMullan, said an \"ambitious oral health strategy\" is needed.\n\n\"Northern Ireland's dentists are working to a financial model that no longer adds up,\" she said.\n\nThe Department of Health said the uplift in fee levels each year is informed by the recommendations from the UK wide Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration (DDRB) and that its recommendations have been implemented in full since 2016/17.\n\nOn Monday evening, the BDA said it was \"gutted\" at the outcome of talks with the Department of Health and the Health and Social Care Board (HSCB).\n\nIt described new funding arrangements announced for general dental services as \"totally inadequate\".\n\nThe body hoped for a bigger increase in fees to help practices facing financial pressures but said a proposed 25% enhancement to dental fees left NHS dentists \"worried for the future\".\n\nEarlier, Ms McMullan said dentists were \"overstretched and underfunded\"\n\n\"Health service-committed practices are struggling to remain financially viable,\" she added.\n\n\"Colleagues feel they are being pushed out of NHS dentistry - at the very time we face a huge Covid backlog.\n\n\"We all need to know this service has a future, because otherwise the UK's deepest oral health inequalities will only widen.\"\n\nMs McMullan said the association was calling on politicians to ensure that NHS dentistry is a priority in the next mandate.\n\nIn an interview with BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster on Monday, she warned that there was \"a real possibility\" that access to NHS dentistry for all is at risk.\n\nMs McMullan said the fees paid to dentists for NHS work had gone down by 40% in real terms since 2009.\n\n\"It got to the point where the more NHS work a practice did, the less was the income,\" she said.\n\nBut Ms McMullan said dentists wanted to remain positive.\n\nDental disease often affects those less advantaged in society, she said.\n\n\"We are passionate that they can retain access to a preventative-based dental treatment.\n\n\"We have to look at a new way of delivering dentistry that all people can access at the time they need it for NHS dentistry.\"\n\nIn a statement, the department said dentists were \"not sheltered from fluctuations in operating costs and given the current rate of inflation those costs have increased\".\n\n\"It is expected that this will be taken into account in the next publication of the DDRB report due in June 2022, the recommendations of which will be given full consideration,\" it continued.\n\n\"In December 2021 the minister established the General Dental Services Contract Reform group to develop of options for a new contract for General Dental Services.\n\n\"One of the primary objectives of any new contract is that, when considered in isolation to private care, it is financially viable and attractive to providers.\"\n\nThe British Dental Association has also called for investment in increased places at the School of Dentistry at Queen's University.\n\nLast year, the number of allocated undergraduate places in Northern Ireland remained fixed at 60, according to figures from the Office for Students.\n\nThere was a 10% increase in the number of allocated undergraduate places in England in the same period.", "Lynda Baron, Ronnie Barker and David Jason starred in in Open All Hours\n\nActress Lynda Baron, best known for her role as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in BBC TV sitcom Open All Hours, has died at the age of 82.\n\nThe hit show about a Yorkshire corner shop, which starred Ronnie Barker and Sir David Jason, ran in the 1970s and 80s before being revived in 2013.\n\nBaron also appeared in children's show Come Outside and EastEnders.\n\nHer agent said her \"iconic roles\" were \"loved by all generations\", adding that she was \"a leading light of our world\".\n\nBaron and Auntie Mabel's dog Pippin were known to a generation of children for the show Come Outside\n\nBaron told The Sunday Post in 2020 that although she loved playing Nurse Gladys and Auntie Mabel in Come Outside, she \"couldn't name my favourite of the different characters I have played\".\n\nShe told the newspaper: \"Working with Ronnie Barker and David Jason was unbelievable - two great actors in a brilliantly scripted sitcom. There was never a day when we did not have a great laugh ourselves and that carried on when Still Open All Hours became a series.\"\n\nIn Roy Clarke's Open All Hours, she played the long-suffering Nurse Gladys, who resisted the amorous attempts of shop owner Albert Arkwright, played by Barker, to woo her.\n\nSir David played Arkwright's equally long-suffering nephew, who went on to run the shop with his son when the show returned as Still Open All Hours in 2013.\n\nBaron played Linda Clarke in EastEnders on and off over a decade\n\nBaron was nominated for a Bafta Award in 2011 for her role in The Road To Coronation Street, a one-off drama about the early days of the soap. She played actress Violet Carson, who portrayed Ena Sharples in the long-running series.\n\nIn BBC soap EastEnders, she played Linda Clarke, the mother of Jane Beale. She also appeared in Doctor Who, Last of the Summer Wine, Down To Earth, Dinner Ladies and Barbra Streisand's 1983 film Yentl.\n\nBernard Cribbins and Lynda Baron appeared in Down To Earth in 2005\n\nActress Sally Lindsay, who appeared in Still Open All Hours, paid tribute: \"I loved Lynda Baron. She was funny and clever and a joy to work with, and she once gifted me a pair of beautiful red shoes. This has made me very sad. RIP Lynda darling x\"\n\nEastEnders and The Bill actor Stuart Anthony said: \"She was the nicest person and what a legend.\"\n\nLisa Riley, who played Baron's daughter in ITV's Fat Friends, wrote: \"We ALWAYS laughed together.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by LISA RILEY This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by BBC EastEnders This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBaron's agent Donna French said: \"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved client Lynda Baron.\n\n\"She was a wonderful actress and a great friend. Her iconic roles of Nurse Gladys in Open All Hours and Aunt Mabel in Come Outside were loved by all generations.\n\n\"Renowned for her leading roles in West End musicals and dramatic productions alike, we have lost a leading light of our world.\n\n\"We extend our deepest condolences to her daughter Sarah, her son Morgan and all her family.\"\n\nJames Baxter, Sir David Jason and Linda Baron starred in Still Open All Hours\n\nBaron's other credits included The Two Ronnies, 1970s sitcom Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt, plus long-running drama The Bill and soap Crossroads and various Carry On films.\n\nIn 2020, she was in the film Dream Horse, about a race horse breeder, which starred Damian Lewis and Joanna Page. She was also in Woody Allen's 2006 romantic crime comedy film Scoop, and 2005's Colour Me Kubrick, about a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during production of the film Eyes Wide Shut.\n\nOn stage, she featured in the 1987 musical Follies in the West End, the stage version of 2007's In Celebration alongside Orlando Bloom, plus theatre shows including An Inspector Calls, Stepping Out and The Full Monty.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Adil Ray OBE This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Bagel Chipz This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBaron told The Sunday Post she originally trained as a dancer, saying: \"I was with the Royal Academy of Dance so I must have been of some use.\n\n\"I went into rep then and learned so much about acting. It was hard work because you were constantly doing one drama, rehearsing the next one and learning the lines of the one after that. It was a great education and I am so glad to have gone through that.\"\n\nHer first professional job was in panto at Liverpool Empire when she was 16.\n\n\"It was certainly a start and I have been quite busy ever since,\" she said. \"You get your lulls in work and that makes you all the more grateful when the next job comes along and all the more determined to give it your best.\"\n• None The return of Open All Hours", "Last updated on .From the section Gymnastics\n\nRussian gymnast Ivan Kuliak is being investigated after wearing a national war symbol on his leotard as he stood next to a Ukrainian rival on the podium in Qatar on Saturday.\n\nThe International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) said it had opened disciplinary proceedings against Kuliak for his \"shocking behaviour\" at the Apparatus World Cup in Doha.\n\nKuliak earned bronze in the parallel bars final and displayed a letter 'Z' taped to his chest as he stood next to gold medal winner Illia Kovtun of Ukraine.\n\nThe letter Z has become symbolic with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has been seen painted on the side of tanks and military vehicles, as well as being worn by pro-war politicians in Russia.\n\nThis weekend was the final opportunity for Russian and Belarusian gymnasts to compete after their countries were sanctioned by the FIG as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFrom Monday, Russian and Belarusian athletes, officials and judges will not be allowed to take part in FIG competitions or FIG-sanctioned competitions.", "Most refugees are crossing the border into Poland, like this girl who travelled from Lviv\n\nFifty Ukrainians have been granted visas under a scheme for refugees with family links to the UK, the Home Office has announced.\n\nIt is about 1% of the 5,535 people who have applied since the programme launched 48 hours earlier.\n\nEurope minister James Cleverly said he did not know the exact figures but said numbers would increase \"very quickly\".\n\nThe Ukrainian ambassador praised the UK effort but urged for the \"maximum\" number of people to be admitted.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said she was \"doing everything possible\" to speed up efforts to issue the travel permits.\n\nThe UK has steadily increased its visa offer to refugees from the Ukraine war, extending it to parents, grandparents and siblings as well as \"immediate family\" and extending the visas to three years.\n\nBut it has faced criticism that its scheme is less generous than the European Union's, while France accused the UK of a \"lack of humanity\", saying that 150 refugees were turned back at Calais for lacking a visa.\n\nEarlier this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 200,000 Ukrainians would be eligible to travel to the UK as he extended the offer of visas to a wider range of family members.\n\nAs of 10:00 GMT on Sunday, the Home Office said 11,750 had begun applications online, while 5,535 had completed them.\n\nIt added that 2,368 had booked a visa appointment to submit their application and biometric information, while \"around 50\" visas had been granted.\n\nMr Cleverly told BBC Breakfast the final figure would be \"significantly\" more than the 50 figure being quoted and said while a process was needed the government would make it \"as quick, easy and as fast as possible\".\n\n\"We are looking to create something very, very large-scale very, very quickly\" he said. \"Initially it will be slower than we would like but that will pick up.\"\n\nAsked if it was acceptable that about 1% of applications had been granted in the first 48 hours of the scheme, Ms Patel said it was \"the first scheme in the world that's up and running in this short period of time\".\n\n\"This is an incredible scheme and we are doing everything possible, surging capacity across every single application centre across the EU,\" she said, adding that staff were being flown into Ukraine's border countries to speed up applications.\n\nUkraine's immediate neighbours have taken in the majority of the 1.5 million people estimated to have fled the war, with more than one million arriving in Poland.\n\nMr Celverly said that while \"all of us would want to throw our arms open and be generous\" there needed to be a process but there was no upper limit on how many Ukrainians could come to the UK via government schemes.\n\n\"We want to play our part but of course most Ukrainian refugees are in the countries bordering Ukraine and that's where they want to stay and we are providing humanitarian support for them there as well,\" he said.\n\nFrance's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote to Ms Patel on Saturday, saying that 400 Ukrainian refugees had arrived at Calais to cross the Channel, but 150 were sent back and told to obtain UK visas at embassies in Paris or Brussels.\n\nMr Darmanin said the response to people in distress was \"completely unsuitable\" and showed a \"lack of humanity\", calling for the UK to put consular staff at Calais to help Ukrainian refugees cross.\n\nBut Ms Patel said it was \"wrong to say we are turning people back\" and said the Home Office already had people working in Calais to support Ukrainian families.\n\nThe Sun reported that Ms Patel was \"investigating legal options\" to create a humanitarian route, which would mean anyone without ties to the UK fleeing the conflict would have the right to come to the UK.\n\nHowever, the BBC understands this referred to the already announced route where refugees can be sponsored by individuals, communities or organisation and Mr Cleverly confirmed that there had been no change to the government's policy over the weekend.\n\nVadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, said that the visa process could be simplified, adding that any issues could be resolved later but right now the \"maximum\" number needed to be admitted.\n\nHe said any \"bureaucratic nonsense\" should be cleared away, although he said it was necessary to continue security checks.\n\nBut he said the UK was at the \"forefront of the effort\" to support Ukraine.\n\nOn Monday the Disasters Emergency Committee announced its Ukraine appeal had raised more than £100m in four days.", "Residents of Irpin are fleeing the Russian assault on their city, which is half an hour's drive from Kyiv\n\nThey came on foot, in an endless stream - trying to outpace the Russian shells laying waste to their hometown. There were families with children in strollers clutching stuffed toys, young mothers with babes in arms, and the elderly moving as fast as their years would allow. Most were silent. Some were weeping. At the edge of Irpin there was urgency, panic, and anguish. It felt like we were witnessing the death of a city.\n\n\"Everything is bombed,\" said Valentina, as she rushed past us, fleeing her home and her life with just a single bag over her shoulder. \"There are no lights,\" she said, \"there's been no electricity, no gas, and no internet for two to three days. People are sitting in the basements and kids are sick there.\"\n\nRussian forces are already inside the city.\n\n\"Part of Irpin was captured by Russian invaders but part of the city is fighting and not surrendering,\" said the mayor, Oleksandr Markushyn, in a video he posted on social media.\n\nThose trying to flee are still being targeted, as the mayor himself saw yesterday. \"The Russian invaders fired on our local civilians,\" he said. \"A family died. This shell, this mine hit, and in front of my eyes two children and two adults died.\"\n\nIt seems clear that the Russian strategy is to terrorise the residents of Irpin into submission and empty the city - a tactic Moscow has used elsewhere from Grozny to Aleppo. The residents who remain have endured days and nights of relentless bombardment. We could hear the assault during an earlier visit on Saturday. The soundtrack was the same today, except maybe louder. And this time we could also hear grad rocket fire, and occasional gunshots.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee.\n\n\"Tell everyone to close the skies, urgently, we need it,\" said Andrei as he dashed past - with his pet poodle - pleading for a no-fly zone. \"Close the skies - please. It's hell, it's really hell. The Russian soldiers are bombing civilian houses. The Russians are not fighting the army. They are fighting anyone.\"\n\nHe knew it was time to go when the Russians arrived on his street. \"We saw the armoured vehicles near our house. They passed by. Then the tank stopped and blew up a house near me. So, I think we are lucky, we are all really lucky that we are here.\"\n\nAndrei says Russian tanks blew up a house close to his\n\nThe 36-year-old is - or was - an events manager. 'I make the people laugh, with shows, concerts. But I think I have no work now in Ukraine,\" he said. Then he joined the crowds heading for minibuses that are screeching to and from the edge of the city, ferrying people, and pets, to the railway station in Kyiv - a lifeline for those trying to escape to western Ukraine.\n\nGetting out of Irpin means picking your way over a mass of rubble, and jagged boulders and metal bars that now litter the bed of the Irpin river. This is the remains of a bridge blown up by Ukrainian forces to block - or at least slow - Russian armour reaching the capital. Planks of wood are balanced precariously on the wreckage. One elderly man almost tumbled from a plank into the water. Then he summoned his courage and shuffled forward. Nearby a woman lay flat on the ground on the riverbank - conscious but immobile. We were told she had fallen. No one knew how to try to move her.\n\nUkrainian forces blew up the bridge themselves, hoping to slow the Russian advance\n\nAs we filmed a gunshot rang out. A Ukrainian soldier took a screaming young boy by the hand and ran with him to cover. Two others grabbed a buggy. Another helped a woman on a crutch, who was breathless with exertion.\n\nA blackened building was still smouldering, neatly framed by the golden onion domes of the church directly behind (which appeared to be intact). This was an image of Ukraine, past and present, of war and peace.\n\nThe golden domes of a church rise just behind a damaged building\n\nThe country's future is painful to imagine, but it's already being sketched out in cities under bombardment from Kharkiv to Mariupol, where cold, frightened civilians cower in basements, or try to run for their lives.\n\nAnd what we witnessed in Irpin could be a chronicle of the capital foretold. Kyiv lies straight down the road, about half an hour's drive away - a distance of 26km or 16 miles. That's why Irpin matters so much to both sides.\n\nThere's no doubting the fighting spirit here, and the determination to resist. But military experts say a broken bridge won't be enough to stop the Russians, and there is no doubt that they have Kyiv in their sights.", "Video-sharing site TikTok and streaming giant Netflix have limited and cut their services respectively in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTikTok said it had suspended live streaming and new content from its platform as it assesses tough new laws to crack down on \"fake news\" about Russia's armed forces.\n\nNetflix said it was pulling out in protest at the invasion.\n\nVisa, Mastercard and PwC also joined the list of western firms cutting ties.\n\nTikTok, which has around 36 million users in Russia, said its move was about ensuring the safety of its staff and users.\n\nSince Friday, anyone who writes news deemed false about the military could face up to 15 years in jail.\n\nAmong other things, the Kremlin objects to the conflict being called a war, instead calling it a \"special military operation\".\n\nThe BBC and other news outlets have already stopped reporting in Russia, saying they can no longer be independent.\n\nIn a series of Tweets, TikTok said: \"In light of Russia's new 'fake news' law, we have no choice but to suspend live-streaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law.\n\n\"Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.\"\n\nIt added: \"We will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when we might fully resume our services with safety as our top priority.\"\n\nChinese-owned TikTok, which has one billion users worldwide, has been criticised for not speaking out against Russia invading Ukraine, unlike its peers Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter.\n\nBut in a longer statement on its website on Sunday, it described the war in Ukraine as \"devastating\", adding that it had \"brought pain to our community and our people\".\n\nTikTok says it \"doesn't break down user numbers by country\" but we know that Russia is one of the company's top territories.\n\nIt's thought that around 36m people use the app and TikTok's new rules reduce them to spectators of other people's content.\n\nTikTok says it's making the move to protect its users from breaking Russia's new \"fake news\" laws.\n\nBut it will no doubt help the company too.\n\nModerating social networks during times of crisis is hard enough, but having to vet content under the new draconian laws in Russia puts all platforms in a tough position.\n\nI wouldn't be surprised if other apps took similar measures to protect themselves.\n\nRussia has many high-profile creators who make their living from TikTok so we can expect even more people to be motivated to protest against the \"fake news\" laws.\n\nThe Kremlin may also lose out in the information war too with less pro-Russia content on people's timelines.\n\nLast week, Netflix temporarily stopped all future projects and acquisitions in Russia as it assessed the impact of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut on Sunday, a spokesperson said: \"Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia.\"\n\nThe firm launched in Russia in 2016 and only has 1 million subscribers there - a fraction of the 220 million it has worldwide.\n\nBut according to Variety magazine, the streaming platform had four Russian originals in the works.\n\nThat includes the crime thriller series Zato, which was shooting and has since been put on hold.\n\nA host of companies have suspended their operations in Russia since it attacked its neighbour, including Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, H&M and Burberry. Many other firms are reviewing their positions, while some are looking to offload stakes in Russian ventures.\n\nOn Sunday, two of the Big Four accounting firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said they would no longer have a member firm in Russia because of the invasion.\n\nVisa, Mastercard and American Express also suspended operations in Russia, although the country's banks played down the impact on consumers.", "Ed Sheeran gave evidence at the High Court on Monday\n\nEd Sheeran has told the High Court he does not \"borrow\" ideas from unknown songwriters without credit.\n\nThe singer-songwriter has been accused by two other songwriters of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape Of You.\n\nSami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue's barrister suggested Sheeran treated lesser-known songwriters differently from famous ones.\n\nSheeran denied this, telling the court he had cleared parts of songs with \"lots\" of unknown artists.\n\nShape of You was number one for 14 weeks in the UK in 2017, becoming the best-selling song of the year around the world.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Ed Sheeran This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nChokri and O'Donoghue claim the song's \"Oh I\" hook is \"strikingly similar\" to part of their track Oh Why, which was released by Chokri under the name Sami Switch in 2015.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by Sami Switch This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nOn Friday, their barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC claimed Sheeran \"borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won't\".\n\nBut Sheeran denied the claim that he is a \"magpie\" who lifts other people's work without acknowledgment, pointing out that he has often shared credit with lesser-known artists, including Shivers and Visiting Hours, and a song that sampled an \"unknown composer's\" work from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.\n\n\"All those examples are not famous artists that we've cleared songs with and that's what I have to say on that,\" he told the court.\n\nSami Chokri performs under the name Sami Switch\n\nSheeran created Shape of You with co-writers Steve Mac - real name Steven McCutcheon - and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid, both of whom were also in court.\n\nAfter its release, Sheeran added the team behind TLC's 1999 single No Scrubs to the song's writing credits after some commentators pointed out similarities.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Sutcliffe told the star: \"The evidence is overwhelming that at the time of writing Shape of You, your songwriting process involved collecting ideas.\"\n\nSheeran replied: \"You say it's overwhelming, I don't agree with that.\"\n\nIn written evidence, the singer said the contested element of Shape of You was \"very short\", and the relevant parts of both songs were \"entirely commonplace\".\n\nHe said: \"Even so, if I had heard Oh Why at the time and had referenced it, I would have taken steps to clear it.\"\n\nHe added: \"I have always tried to be completely fair in crediting anyone who makes any contribution to any song I write.\n\n\"I do refer to other works on occasion when I write, as do many songwriters. If there is a reference to another work, I notify my team so that steps can be taken to obtain clearance.\n\n\"I have been as scrupulous as I possibly can and have even given credits to people who I believe may have been no more than a mere influence for a songwriting element. This is because I want to treat other songwriters fairly.\"\n\nDressed in a sharp black suit, Ed Sheeran is firm, determined and just a little bit irritated on the stand as lawyers for Chokri and O'Donoghue deconstruct his songwriting process, looking for hints that he might take inspiration from outside sources.\n\nSheeran testifies that he mostly works in collaboration with other writers, and that it's often hard to identify who has written each individual part of a song once it's finished.\n\nReferencing his Shape of You co-writer Johnny McDaid, he says: \"My and Johnny's writing partnership is very much like a game of tennis. He'll say something and I'll say something back. We're quite quick when we go back and forth.\"\n\nAsked repeatedly whether he is responsible for the chorus to his 2015 song Photograph, Sheeran replies tersely: \"I honestly couldn't tell you. I don't know. We wrote the song together.\" It's a phrase he returns to several times throughout the morning's questioning.\n\nPhotograph is relevant because it was the subject of a separate copyright claim from Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, who wrote Matt Cardle's 2011 single Amazing. The duo were eventually given a share of the song's royalties and a £4m lump sum in an out-of-court settlement.\n\nSheeran says he settled the claim because it was a \"nuisance\" and \"more trouble than it was worth\". Asked why he would pay out such a \"substantial\" sum instead of taking the case to court, he says he did so on the advice of his lawyers.\n\nMr Sutcliffe said Sheeran had known about Chokri before Shape Of You was written because the grime artist had tweeted Sheeran directly, and the singer had given a shout out to Sami Switch on stage in 2011. But Sheeran replied: \"This isn't stuff that's true.\"\n\nChokri had also appeared on YouTube channel SBTV at around the same time as Sheeran, who described its founder Jamal Edwards as his \"best friend\".\n\nBut he said the music entrepreneur, who died last month, didn't share songs like Oh Why with him. Instead, the pair would \"talk about football, talk about his mum, talk about theatre\", he said.\n\nSheeran was also asked about his role as a talent-spotter for his own label Gingerbread Man Records. He denied being aware of Oh Why, saying he had just signed Jamie Lawson to the label and \"wasn't looking for anyone else\" to work with.\n\nThe musician told the court he quit social media in 2015, adding that for \"the whole of 2016\" he was \"off\" social media and was using a \"flip phone from Tesco\".\n\nIn May 2018, Sheeran and his co-writers issued proceedings asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O'Donoghue's copyright.\n\nThe pair then issued a counter claim for copyright infringement. The trial is expected to continue for about three weeks.", "Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak is facing disciplinary proceedings by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for displaying the letter \"Z\" on the podium next to a Ukrainian rival in Qatar. But what does the symbol mean?\n\nIn Russia, the \"Z\" is fast becoming seen as a staunchly pro-war symbol of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine. It has been sported by politicians, seen on the sides of cars, vans and advertising hoardings - as well as daubed on bus shelters. It has even been used by Serbs at pro-Russian demonstration in Belgrade. Photographs have been widely shared on social media.\n\nIt has become a social media conversation, says Aglaya Snetkova, a lecturer in international politics at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at UCL. \"In many ways, this shows the extent to which Russia is, or has been, very much part of the global world.\"\n\nWhile zed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet is written differently - and looks like a 3 - most Russians recognise Latin letters. Emily Ferris - Russia and Eurasia research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) - says the \"Z\" is a powerful and easily recognisable symbol.\n\n\"Often with propaganda the simplest things catch on the quickest,\" she says. \"It looks rather intimidating and quite stark. From an aesthetic perspective, it's a very powerful symbol.\"\n\nIt has taken less than a fortnight for the \"Z\" to spread among those supportive of President Putin's invasion.\n\nIn the central Russian city of Kazan, about 60 children and staff at a hospice were photographed outside in the snow forming a giant \"Z\" in front of their building.\n\nSeveral theories have circulated as to what the \"Z\" symbol actually means. It first caught attention on social media after Russian tanks with \"Zs\" on the side were spotted en route to Ukraine.\n\nInitially, it was thought that the \"Z\" was in fact a number \"2\" - representing the 22 February (22/02/2022). That was the day Russia ratified an agreement on \"friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance\" with the self-proclaimed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine - Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nBut it is now believed the symbol is simply a way for Russia's military to identify its own forces.\n\nLast week, viewers to a news programme on Russia's state-controlled Channel One were told that a \"Z\" was a common marking on Russian military equipment. The Orthodox Christian pro-Putin website Tsargrad told readers the simple marking could \"avoid friendly fire\" and couldn't be \"mixed up with anything else\".\n\nRussian special forces veteran Sergey Kuvykin told the Russian magazine website, Life, that different symbols signified different military units. \"Symbols like these are used - a 'Z' in a square, a 'Z' in a circle, a 'Z' with a star or simply 'Z' on its own.\" He said the markings helped make sure that troops, who might not be in contact with other comrades, were where they should be.\n\nRussian warplanes fly too quickly to see the daubed white markings, says US Air Force Lt Col Tyson Wetzel - a senior Air Force fellow with The Atlantic Council think tank. But, in an interview with the Task and Purpose website, he agrees the \"Zs\" are a \"de-confliction measure to help prevent fratricide\" - friendly fire from Russian attack helicopters or artillery.\n\nThe spread of \"Z\" in Russia has not only been because of social media spontaneity - cautions Aglaya Snetkov from UCL.\n\n\"It has also been pushed by the regime.\"\n\nOne Russian politician, Maria Butina, shared a video of how to write the \"Z\" insignia on a business jacket - she explains - \"so you can go into work and show it to everyone without shouting about it.\"\n\nBut Ms Snetkov says the symbol shouldn't be seen as fascist. \"There are lots of memes transforming the 'Z' into a swastika, but that's done by people who want to push back against the regime.\"\n\nAnd there are other symbols appearing, too.\n\nThe letter \"V\" for instance - also not in the Cyrillic alphabet - appears in posts on the official Instagram account of the Russian department of defence, alongside images of \"Zs\".\n\nThere are written captions. \"Za PatsanoV\" reads one, meaning \"for the lads\" - while another says \"Sila V pravde\", which translates into English as \"strength in truth\".\n\nOne theory is that the two Latin letters might stand for \"vostok\", meaning east, and \"zapad\", meaning west. But on social media, it has also been suggested that the Ukrainian military believes the \"Z\" refers to Russia's \"Eastern Forces\" - and the \"V\" to the \"Naval infantry\".", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nShane Warne's family have accepted the offer of a state funeral, says Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.\n\nLegendary Australia spinner Warne died of a suspected heart attack in Thailand on Friday, aged 52.\n\nFlowers, beer and photographs have been left at Warne's statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as fans paid tribute.\n\n\"It will be an opportunity for Victorians to pay tribute to his contribution to his sport, to our state and the country,\" Andrews said.\n\nState funerals are held to honour people of national significance.\n\nWarne took 708 wickets - the second most of all time - in 145 Tests across a stellar 15-year international career that ended in 2007.\n\n\"I've spoken with the Warne family again today and they have accepted my offer of a state funeral to remember Shane,\" Andrews said.\n\n\"Details will be finalised in the coming days.\"\n• None Melbourne stand to be named after Warne\n• None Warne obituary: A fascinating life on and off the field\n\nWarne was found unresponsive by friends in his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui.\n\nHis manager James Erskine said Warne's family are in \"complete shock\".\n\n\"I spoke to them yesterday and Jackson (Warne's son) said, 'We expect him to walk in the door. This is like a bad dream,'\" Erskine told Australia's Nine Network.\n\n\"Keith, Shane's father, is a pretty strong individual but, like everybody, he's just shattered. They can't believe what's happened.\"\n\nTributes have been paid to Warne from across sport, with a stand at the MCG set to be named after him.\n\nHis body was taken to the Thai city of Surat Thani on Sunday for an autopsy.\n\nThai police are not treating the death as suspicious.\n\n\"His friends said that he had had chest pain since he was in Australia,\" said Yutthana Srisombat, superintendent of police in Bo Phut.\n\n\"Based on the evidence, we don't see other possible cause of death.\"", "Women and children queue at Lviv station for a train to Poland. Hundred of thousands are passing through the station every day\n\nWhen Svitlana Maksymenko's train pulled into the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, about halfway through her 800-mile journey from home to safety, people pushed onto every part of the carriage, she said, grasping for their own escape route west. Some abandoned their luggage. Some begged to get on.\n\n\"They were on their knees on the platform,\" Maksymenko said. \"There was no room. There were people standing in every space, in every gangway, there were five people on every bed.\"\n\nMaksymenko's journey began in Kharkiv, an eastern city that has been heavily shelled by Russian forces, and stopped, for now, in Lviv, a picturesque western city about 50 miles from the Polish border with a grand central station that has become a waypoint for hundreds of thousands of refugees.\n\nIn almost every corner of the station concourse over the weekend, in the waiting rooms, the underpasses and all along the platforms, there were people taking shelter, sleeping, anxiously waiting, rushing for trains. There were tense moments as volunteer stewards tried to hold back the crowds of people massed at entry gates, fearful of missing their chance to escape. Women with children wept with the stress, clutching their passports and family birth certificates in one hand and their children in the other. Outside the station, there were tearful goodbyes as fighting-age men, banned from leaving Ukraine, stopped and let their families go, unsure if they would ever see them again.\n\nThere were tense moments as stewards attempted to hold back crowds anxious to make the trains\n\nBy the time she reached Lviv, Maksymenko had been on the train with her parents-in-law and three-year-old daughter for 26 hours. Some reported longer journeys. Maksymenko was a drop in a river of people that began flowing into Lviv when Russia invaded and swelled over the past few days as Russian forces escalated their campaign of bombing against Ukrainian civilians.\n\n\"We estimate 30,000 people arrived on Thursday, 100,000 people on Friday and at least a 100,000 more on Saturday,\" said Viktoria Khrystenko, a Lviv city council official helping to manage the influx of refugees.\n\n\"We are doing our best to cope but we have never seen anything like this,\" she said. \"We are expecting more people. It might be millions. It's a disaster. These people have nothing, just one bag because they had only three minutes to run and save their lives.\"\n\nLviv station was heaving with people on Friday night, thinning only slightly as trains departed for Poland before filling again with new arrivals from the bombed-out cities in the north, east, and south of Ukraine.\n\nOutside, Kolya, 46, was standing with tears streaming down his face, watching his wife and two teenage daughters walk away from him.\n\n\"I hope they will make it safely to Europe, I want so badly to be with them,\" he said. \"This is as far as I can go.\"\n\nUkraine has banned men aged 16-60 from leaving the country, unless they have a disability or three children under 18. They are stopped in document checks at the station or at border crossing points further west. Kolya had stood for 10 hours on the train from Kyiv to ensure his family reached Lviv safely, he said, and now he would make the same journey back to join his 19-year-old son and his brothers in the fight against Russia.\n\n\"I will go back to Kyiv and defend my city. It is my home,\" he said. \"How, I don't know - I have asked them for a gun, but how will I protect my city from missiles with a gun?\"\n\nPoland's government began sending buses over the weekend to bring Ukraine's refugees over the border to safety.\n\nKolya's wife and children would press on to Poland, whose government has sent trains and buses to bring people from Ukraine into its country, sparing tens of thousands of refugees traumatic journeys to the border and long waits to cross by foot.\n\nBy Sunday, more than 1.5 million Ukrainians had crossed into Poland, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands more were on the move inside Ukraine.\n\nAmid the chaos in the station at Lviv, volunteers and fellow travellers helped the very young and the very old, carrying pushchairs and suitcases up and down the stairs to the platforms, marshalling children to rooms upstairs where they could get a hot meal, and helping the elderly wherever they could.\n\n\"Physically it was very hard for me of course, people were pushing very hard,\" said Dusia Kostiuk, 91, who boarded a train in Kharkiv at 9pm on Friday, arrived in Lviv at midnight on Saturday, and spent the next 15 hours in a queue at the station to move on Poland.\n\n\"Our house was still there when we left but shelling was happening all around and we were told that terrible shelling is happening there now,\" Kostiuk said.\n\n\"We didn't take anything with us, I took two dresses and that's it.\n\n\"I was born and raised in Kharkiv. I didn't really travel before, I don't like to travel. I never thought I would leave my home like this.\"\n\nDusia Kostiuk, 91, spent 27 hours on a train from the heavily bombed city of Kharkiv to Lviv.\n\nMany of those arriving in Lviv, like Kostiuk, stay in the station until they can board a train to Poland - some bedding down for a night or longer in any free corner. The air inside the grand waiting rooms and gangways was thick with the heat and odour of a mass of people who have been on the move for many days.\n\nThose who cannot move straight on to Poland head out into the city looking for temporary shelter. At a small theatre in Lviv's historic old town, 20 beds had been arranged for those who needed to spend up to three nights in the city before they can leave.\n\nOlha Adamenko, 32, arrived there on Sunday evening with her husband and sick two-year-old daughter. They had driven over four days from Kyiv, stopping in shelters along the way. But the shelter in the theatre was already at capacity and it was not clear whether there was going to be a bed there for her that night, the staff said.\n\nIt was a problem many would face that night, according to Khyrstenko, the city official, who said all of the roughly 20,000 temporary beds in the city were already taken.\n\nAt the theatre, Adam Yemchenko, a volunteer, was preparing to turn people away. \"Most people arrive later than this but people getting to us tonight won't get a bed, we will have to send them somewhere else,\" he said.\n\n\"Some will carry straight on to the border but they face an eight hour wait there in the cold.\"\n\nRefugees rest in a shelter in a small theatre in Lviv. By early evening on Sunday the shelter was full and turning people away.\n\nThis was the choice facing Adamenko, as she sat down inside the small theatre foyer looking tired and stressed. She stopped to breastfeed her daughter, who was restless and tearful. Her husband would soon have to leave them here in Lviv and travel back to Kyiv to join the territorial defence forces.\n\nShe asked the volunteers at the shelter how to reach the Polish border by bus and which were the best border crossings.\n\n\"Maybe we will go tonight,\" she said. But she was worried, there were long queues at the crossing points and it was the depth of winter.\n\n\"I heard people are queuing outside there during the day but at night locals take them into their homes, but I don't know if it is true,\" she said. \"I am worried about the baby, she is sick and tired.\"\n\nAdamenko was also starting to worry more about her husband. She thought their local defence battalion on the outskirts of Kyiv would be relatively safe, but heavy fighting surrounded it over the weekend in the districts of Bucha and Irpin.\n\n\"Maybe that means the Russians will go through our neighbourhood next,\" she said.\n\nA young boy leaves Ukraine on a bus bound for Poland. Thousands of children have spent hours away from home.\n\nAs night fell, Adamenko and her husband left the theatre and walked into Lviv with directions to another shelter, where if she could find a bed they would part - one on to safety abroad, one back to danger at home.\n\nLater on Sunday night, at the station, many thousands more people were still arriving and departing. They formed queues that were as orderly as possible under the circumstances and continued to help each other. Volunteers bustled through the crowds with trays made from cardboard boxes, handing out tea and snacks in plastic cups.\n\nAt the same time, Viktoria Khrystenko, the city council official, was driving her own three children to the Polish border. They had left on Sunday morning and by early Monday morning they had been in the car nearly 24 hours through the bitterly cold night.\n\nEventually they crossed in to Poland and Khrystenko left her children with relatives and began the long return journey to Lviv. As she drove, she wept.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I'm emotional because I didn't sleep at all,\" she said. \"I had a task to take my kids to a safe place across the border and I have done that, so now I need to go back to Lviv and continue to help.\"\n\nKhrystenko was born here in Lviv. She had never been more proud of its people, she said. They were \"ready to give away their last package of buckwheat or can of food\" to help others. \"We have only one Ukraine and we need to save it,\" she said.\n\nShe hung up and drove on, headed for her three-room apartment in the city, where there were 17 women and children from all over Ukraine resting after long journeys to Lviv. She had taken home as many people from the station as she could, she said.\n\nOutside Lviv station fire barrels were lit during the night to keep the crowds warm\n\nOrysia Khimiak and Svitlana Libet contributed to this report. Photographs by Joel Gunter.", "Katrin on holiday in happier times. She found her social media awash with fake posts after the invasion began\n\nWhat's it like being a young Ukrainian experiencing war while wading through chaos and misinformation on social media?\n\n24-year-old Katrin awoke in Kyiv last Thursday to the sound of an explosion - and soon enough found her social media feed awash with distressing posts.\n\n\"The first thing we had to do was to pack and go to the basement,\" she tells me, now safe in her small hometown outside of Lviv where she escaped with her boyfriend, neighbours and their dogs.\n\n\"But right after we went down, I started scrolling Instagram. And it was all on my Instagram stories and my posts.\"\n\nShe wasn't just seeing scary, factual posts from friends, but false information - including comments on TikTok from accounts that claimed the war \"wasn't real\" or that it was a \"hoax\".\n\n\"After I blocked this one account, another sprung up with a profile picture of a different girl, writing to me in Russian,\" Katrin says.\n\nThe trolls have been prolific - and they have been interacting with young women across Ukraine.\n\nAlina, 18, found herself in a total panic after seeing posts in Russian suggesting that her neighbourhood in Zaporizhzhya in south-east Ukraine was about to be shelled and destroyed. But the rumours were false.\n\nScreengrabs of messages in Russia falsely claiming that an attack was imminent on Alina's town\n\nAlina spoke to me from her bedroom, exhausted after nights of air raids and sheltering. She says that rumours moved rapidly on chat app Telegram, spread by people apparently setting out to cause panic.\n\n\"Russians specifically find our chats and write that something is exploding. Someone writes that there is a sign of a bomb in the area - then others refute the information,\" she says.\n\nAnother video she saw on Telegram suggested there had been an explosion at the airport in her hometown. It turned out to be a different explosion, in the nearby city of Mariupol.\n\nA video shared with false claims that there was an explosion in Alina's hometown\n\nOld footage from other conflicts, including the massive blast in Beirut in 2020, has also been shared widely - including on TikTok, where clips have racked up millions of views.\n\nMarta is 20 years old and was stuck in the UK where she was visiting friends when the war broke out. She says she's seen videos from Syria and Iraq.\n\n\"But they posted them as 'Ukraine',\" she says.\n\nShe says videos on TikTok's For You Page - the main gateway into the video-sharing app - have left her terrified and angry, as she desperately worries for friends and family back home.\n\nAll three women have found themselves battling accounts posting comments in support of Russia.\n\nThe videos posted by one of the pro-Russian accounts Jess promoting false claims about the war in Ukraine.\n\n\"Some of them started to post videos, they started to call Ukraine 'liars',\" Marta says.\n\nSome were blaming Ukraine for the violence, writing \"glory to Russia\" - and others falsely suggested that the war was somehow staged.\n\n\"Every time I decided to take a look at those accounts, they were a profile with zero followers, zero likes, zero following, with a profile picture of a Russian flag or something,\" Marta says.\n\nMany of the TikTok accounts that the women shared with me appear to have lifted photos from other accounts online. Like Marta says, they have few or no followers, and they don't use their real names - or use generic usernames.\n\nOne I looked at used the name \"Jess\" and had just one follower. The only videos on the account are ones first shared just days ago, indicating that the account was created very recently.\n\nAlmost all of the videos the account did share featured debunked and false claims: that a woman who was injured during a Russian attack was an actor, that news coverage is filled with footage of old conflicts, and even that the war somehow isn't happening.\n\nOne account Katrin ended up arguing with on TikTok again had few followers - its profile image appears to be copied from the Pinterest page of a Korean woman.\n\nNone of the accounts have responded to my attempts to get in touch - so it's hard to tell who is running them. Russia has created inauthentic accounts before to push messages and sow division. But it's also possible that the accounts are run by real people who believe false claims.\n\nMisinformation is a problem social media companies have been grappling with for some time. Now their policies are coming under fresh scrutiny.\n\nMeta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, along with Twitter and Google, have all announced commitments to tackle false information and propaganda around the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut it's apps like Telegram and TikTok - used a lot by young Ukrainians - is where much of this disinformation continues to proliferate.\n\nTikTok told the BBC it has \"increased resources to respond to emerging trends and remove violative content, including harmful misinformation and promotion of violence.\" Telegram did not respond to our request for comment.\n\nIt's clear that what's happening online is causing even more panic and pain in the real world.\n\n\"We are scared by those who create this fake information,\" Alina tells me, ready to head yet again down to the basement as the air raid siren rings out.", "The Njord had sailed from Peterhead\n\nA man has died and seven crew members have been rescued after a fishing trawler capsized off Norway.\n\nThe Njord, which left Peterhead on Saturday afternoon, got into difficulty in the North Sea, about 100 nautical miles west of Stavanger.\n\nRescuers found the crew on the keel of the capsized boat on Sunday afternoon.\n\nThe Norwegian Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) said three who had ingested diesel were airlifted to hospital in Bergen and one later died.\n\nFive others were picked up by an offshore vessel, the Olympic Challenger.\n\nThe JRCC said there was no radio contact with the stricken 24m (79ft) vessel, which was previously called Courageous when it worked out of Lerwick in Shetland.\n\nA spokesman said they were automatically alerted by the trawler's emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB), which activated when it started taking on water.\n\nStåle Jamtli from the JRCC told BBC Scotland the helicopter rescue was scrambled from a nearby offshore platform.\n\n\"They were there I guess after 20-something minutes,\" he said. \"When they arrived at the wreck, they saw some people sitting on the keel of the vessel - the vessel had capsized and two people I think were in the water.\n\n\"Five of them were picked up by a nearby vessel that came to aid. The three people that were hoisted into the helicopter, they were brought to hospital in Bergen. They all had swallowed some diesel oil. The five other guys were then picked up by another helicopter and sent ashore, but they were in fairly good shape.\"\n\nHe added: \"When you consider the circumstances, I guess they were lucky because they got a really fast recovery or help because there was an offshore helicopter that close by.\n\n\"It probably went very fast, the capsizing, because they didn't have any rescue gear or life rescue suits on them either, so they were just in normal working clothes. They would be cold. So they were lucky that they were rescued that fast.\"\n\nThe Olympic Challenger's captain Sven Tore Ask received the distress message. They were five nautical miles away when they set off towards the fishing boat.\n\nThey sent out a small boat and rescued five of the crew who were in the water, before giving them warm clothes, food and drink, before the rescue helicopter arrived and transported them ashore.\n\nShipowner Stig Remøy said: \"The crew has done a great job, where the quick action taken has clearly saved lives.\"\n\nThe UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said it received a distress alert from the EPIRB at 13:49 on Sunday in the Norwegian search and rescue region.\n\nThe Norwegian Coastguard was contacted and confirmed it had also received the alert and a helicopter had been sent.\n\nIt is believed the boat, built in 1992, sailed from Peterhead on Saturday afternoon and is registered in North Shields.\n\nNo details about the dead man or the crew members have been released.\n\nAn FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) spokesperson said: \"We are supporting the family of a British man following his death in Norway. We are also supporting a British man who is hospitalised in Bergen. We remain in contact with the Norwegian authorities.\"", "A soldier serves soup to a Ukrainian woman in the building of the main railway station of Przemysl which has been turned into a temporary reception centre for refugees\n\nRefugees from across Ukraine are being welcomed as they arrive in the Polish border town of Przemysl, but there are concerns about how the relief effort can be maintained if the war goes on.\n\n\"We have had 180,000 refugees in 10 days. If it carries on like this, we'll have had half a million people coming through by the end of the month.\"\n\nIn the packed train station at Przemysl, eight miles from the Ukrainian border, mayor Wojciech Bakun is both proud of what his town - population 60,000 - is doing for Ukraine but also apprehensive about what could lie ahead. He is an imposing figure, dressed in fatigues as he strides through the elegant 19th Century station where waiting rooms and offices are now stacked with food supplies, bottled water, nappies and donations of clothes, and where Ukrainians are sitting on chairs or on the floor, surrounded by luggage, pushchairs and pets.\n\nWojciech Bakun (L) is the mayor of Przemysl which has seen 180,000 arrivals in 10 days\n\nThe relief effort here is dependent on volunteers, who are currently in their hundreds. Can that be sustained? \"Probably not,\" says the mayor. \"They are ready for a week or two, maybe a month, not for a long period of time. So we are thinking about the longer term and talking to international organisations about how to manage this if it goes on for longer.\"\n\nIn the main ticket hall people who have travelled long distances are holding up bits of paper and cardboard with scribbled signs: \"Hostel for eight in Gdansk\"; \"Can take a family - Warsaw\"; \"40 places available on bus to Germany\". Przemysl is an obvious focal point because it's on the main line across the border, with trains coming in from Lviv, in the west of Ukraine. They are listed on the arrivals board but there's no certainty any more about the timetable.\n\nSigns offering help hang up around the station\n\nMany refugees have travelled to Przemysl with their pets\n\nNext to the platform where the Ukraine trains come in, I asked a Polish couple, Pawel and Magda, who they were waiting for. \"A woman with three cats,\" they said. It turned out that they had seen a Facebook post from a Ukrainian woman living in Taiwan, desperate to find someone to meet her 75-year old mother Lyudmila and give her a bed for a night or so before she could travel on.\n\nPawel and Magda had been waiting for five hours already. Did they know what train Lyudmila would be on? No, and her phone had run out of battery. How would they recognise her? Pawel took out a piece of paper from inside his coat with her name on it but said they'd be looking out for someone with three cats.\n\nIt's been striking for me to see how emotional many Poles are about the situation in Ukraine. There were tears in Pawel's eyes as he spoke about why he and Madga were prepared to stand in the station for so many hours, ready to take not only Lyudmila but others who might arrive with her. He is not the only one to have reacted that way: several people I met here broke down when I asked why they were moved to open their homes or help in other ways.\n\nThere are long links of history that straddle today's border between the two countries and familial and linguistic links too, but Poles also feel strongly because they can imagine how it feels to be up against the Russians. It is only just over 30 years since the collapse of communism here and there are longer memories too of Soviet occupation. And not everyone has confidence that being under the Nato umbrella, as Poland is, is sufficient protection from Vladimir Putin.\n\nEven for Ukrainians who arrive here with a plan about where they ultimately want to get to, there is a palpable sense of shock about their changed circumstances. One woman in her 30s, who was with her 10-year old son Igor, said she wanted to get to Spain but that right now she was in a panic. It was getting dark. \"We will find somewhere to sleep and then in the morning we will think about what to do.\"\n\nIlona, standing nearby, was part of a bigger group - her mother, aunts, cousins and their children. No-one had suitcases, just backpacks and carrier bags in which I could see food and toys. \"We wanted to be able to move easily,\" she said. She is only 22, a final-year medical student who doesn't know when or how she will complete her training to be a doctor, and with her father left behind in Kyiv.\n\n\"The people of Przemysl are warm-hearted,\" the mayor told me, and that is without a doubt true of attitudes to Ukrainians. But last week the local police said there had been an attack on three African refugees by four perpetrators, and another incident of verbal abuse. The mayor blamed a campaign of disinformation, with messages circulating suggesting local women were not safe and that people shouldn't leave their homes. The authorities are now appealing for everyone to stay calm and making it clear that there has been no increase in violent incidents.\n\nA special room has been set up in the railway station only for refugee mothers and children from Ukraine\n\nIf Poles are emotional, many Ukrainians are too - there is relief at making it to safety but also deep appreciation at what they find here - the offers of transport, accommodation, the donations, the support. In the large, high-ceilinged, gilded room that was the station's cafe someone has set up a toy kitchen and a Wendy house in one corner. Two mothers who have just arrived with three young children settle down gratefully next to it, relieved to have something to keep the little girls and the toddler boy occupied. But as soon as they are, and the women have a moment to themselves, I can see how drawn their faces are and how much is on their minds.\n\nOlha is Ukrainian but lives in Germany - she's here to pick up her mother and offer a ride to anyone who needs it\n\nThere is however one bright smile among those at the station. It's Olha's - she is Ukrainian and has been living in Germany for years, travelling here from Heidelberg to pick up her mother. With the Ukrainian flag draped around her shoulders, she is holding up a sign offering rides to other arrivals too. \"I want to tell you that from my family only my mother is prepared to leave Ukraine,\" she says. \"Everyone else is staying to defend the country. And this is the end of Putin.\"", "Sir Keir Starmer has called for a senior parliamentary committee to investigate claims Boris Johnson pushed for a Russian-born businessman to get a peerage, despite security concerns.\n\nThe Sunday Times reports the security services withdrew an assessment that giving Evgeny Lebedev an honour posed a security risk after the PM intervened.\n\nThe Labour leader said he was \"very concerned\" about the case.\n\nHowever, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab insisted there was no \"impropriety\".\n\nSpeaking to the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, Mr Raab said: \"There is a very strict and stringent process when anyone is granted a peerage\".\n\nHe added that the rules around the honours process were \"applied very rigorously in this case.\"\n\n\"This was done properly and correctly and we have procedures and systems in place to make sure it is.\"\n\nEvgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers, was given a peerage in July 2020.\n\nThe son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer, he came to London at the age of eight when his father began working in the Soviet embassy.\n\nHe holds both Russian and British citizenship.\n\nEarlier this week Lord Lebedev published a letter to Vladimir Putin in which he urged the Russian president to \"bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end\".\n\n\"As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.\"\n\nBoris Johnson with his sister Rachel and Lord Lebedev at an Evening Standard party in 2012\n\nThe Sunday Times says that in March 2020 the commission that vets peerage appointments advised the prime minister against granting the newspaper owner a seat in the House of Lords - also known as a peerage - due to security concerns.\n\nMr Johnson is said to have responded to the advice by claiming it was \"anti-Russianism\".\n\nResponding to the Sunday Times, Lord Lebedev said the allegations were incorrect.\n\nAsked about the story, Sir Keir said he was \"very concerned\" and that the \"appropriate thing\" was to refer the reports to the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.\n\nHe said the cross-party group of MPs and peers would be able to look at confidential material and \"come to a view about what actually happened.\"\n\nThe Intelligence and Security Committee said it produced a report in July 2020 which said several members of the Russian elite with close links to Vladimir Putin were involved in UK charitable or political organisations, which put them in a position to help the Russian state influence UK public opinion or policy.\n\nThe committee said its report also highlighted the number of members of the House of Lords with business interests linked to Russia and contained an unpublished annexe covering these issues in more depth, but which it cannot discuss for national security reasons.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"All individuals nominated for a peerage are done so in recognition of their contribution to society and all peerages are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.\"\n\nThe role of the commission is to advise the prime minister on whether it has any concerns about the propriety of a nominee to the House of Lords, Parliament's second chamber.\n\nWhen someone is nominated, the commission carries out checks with other government departments and agencies.\n\nIt can then say whether it supports a nomination, however the commission has no right of veto.\n\nUltimately, it is up to the prime minister to decide whether to award a peerage. The appointments are then formalised by the Queen.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Mark and Vlad show the BBC the daily dangers they face on the front line\n\nIt is a month since Vladimir Putin's forces invaded Ukraine with nearly 200,000 men. One of the first cities to feel the full force of the invasion was Kharkiv in the north-east. Our correspondent Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent time with two fighters who have been at the front line since the very beginning.\n\nThis report contains some content some readers may find disturbing\n\nThe tale of Kharkiv is the story of the army that didn't fail, and an army that failed to win.\n\nWhile Russia stumbles, Ukraine stands firm. Defying widespread expectations that it would collapse in short order, Russian forces have been unable to breach the Ukrainian army's lines around Kharkiv and have not managed to encircle the city.\n\nRussia invaded at 05:00 on 24 February. The night before, 22-year-old Vlad and his brother-in-arms Mark, also 22, were at a fellow private's wedding. Columns of Russian tanks, howitzers, armoured vehicles and troop transports rolled across the border, just 40km (25 miles) away. Despite the long build up of Russian forces, the move came as a shock to the inhabitants of Kharkiv. Troops scrambled to defend the city.\n\nWhen they learned of the attack, Vlad and Mark joined their battalion - the 22nd Motorised Infantry - and headed straight to the front lines. They have been there ever since. I have visited them there twice on the city's northern edge - a once pleasant suburban neighbourhood, which has now become a muddy battlefield strewn with corpses and burned-out Russian tanks and vehicles.\n\nBut it is sound, not sight, that is so jarring here. All manner of Russian artillery and missiles are fired at these positions almost continuously. When there is a respite in the shelling, or the roar of Russian Grad rockets, the silence itself comes as a shock. Ukrainian forces have lived under this terror for weeks now.\n\nAt a nearby command post, its windows all gone, broken furniture is strewn around. In an outbuilding, a belt-fed machine gun sits incongruously by a baby's pram. Children's climbing frames are surrounded by impact craters, and on one nearby abandoned house, a For Sale sign flaps in the freezing wind. Against the regular beat of Russian artillery outside, I ask Mark and Vlad what they are fighting for.\n\nVlad has a blunt message for Russian troops: \"Run away. Either you stay here in the ground or you go back home.\"\n\nVlad's reply is short and to the point, \"For peace in Ukraine.\" Mark shoots him a glance, \"My comrade says for peace in Ukraine,\" he laughs, then he swears and asks, \"Who knows? These people came to our land. No-one was waiting for them here, no-one was calling them.\"\n\nOn that first day, one group of Russians made it into the centre, but were repelled after three days of hard, bloody fighting - with heavy casualties on both sides. The Russians were forced out beyond Kharkiv's edge.\n\nA month on, while Russian missiles still strike at the city centre and at least half the 1.4m population have fled, there are neighbourhoods that remain untouched.\n\nBut, the city's eastern and northern residential neighbourhoods, which were largely intact when I arrived here three weeks ago, are unrecognisable. A tree has an unexploded Russian shell in its base; an apartment block has a 500kg bomb resting on its roof - if it had detonated, the whole building would have been brought down.\n\nMark and Vlad keep this grimness of war from family ears on the calls home they make most most days, just a couple of minutes each to mothers and girlfriends. So there is no mention of the dead bodies at the back door and in the next garden, no mention of the colleagues killed by Russian shelling, or of the tank commander who died the previous day. And nothing that could reveal operational details.\n\n\"Mainly we discuss when this will all end, when we can return to normal life, when everything is good and it won't be dangerous to walk outside,\" says Vlad.\n\nMark and Vlad on the front line\n\nA bank of phone chargers is connected to a generator in the building. The room where they sleep is warm and orderly. An elderly German Shepherd dog lives with them, she's traumatised by the chaos around her and moves from Mark to Vlad, soldier to soldier. A brief head rub and she goes to the next man seeking comfort from the noise and disorder outside.\n\nThe two men live everyday with Russians targeting their positions. Full-time soldiers, the Ukrainian army is their life.\n\nThe Ukrainian soldiers might have it rough, but the Russians seem to have been particularly unprepared for anything other than the shortest possible campaign in Ukraine. The corpses I have encountered in the snow have been poorly dressed for a winter campaign, and Ukrainian soldiers say they found the most meagre of rations with them.\n\nDo they think of the soldiers on the other side, I wonder? Vlad says he has a message for them, \"Run. Run away. Either you stay here in the ground or you go back home.\" He pauses but then adds, \"Don't kill kids, destroy homes and families.\" This time it is Mark who is to the point, \"Go back home while you are still alive.\"\n\nThe Russian war machine is a formidable adversary - but in the initial phase of the war, the Ukrainian military put into practice lessons learned from Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, where the Ukrainians were found seriously wanting. Ukrainian forces however, are still significantly outmatched in numbers, technology and airpower.\n\nSo how have they held off the Russians so successfully?\n\nA purported intercepted phone call, along with Western intelligence reports, may provide some of the answers. It is from a Russian commander in Mykolaiv, near Odesa in south-west Ukraine, to his superiors on 11 March. It was released by Ukrainian officials and has not been independently verified. It paints a picture of Russian misery and incompetence in the Russian campaign that both the US Pentagon and the UK's Ministry of Defence have, in part, detailed.\n\nTroops lack basics such as tents and body armour - and are digging trenches in freezing ground to sleep. Two weeks ago, at another front line position in the city, I asked a young Ukrainian commander if his men slept in trenches. \"Why would we sleep here when we can sleep in houses. The Russians sleep in trenches, but we sleep over there,\" he said, pointing to a well-heated house filled with men. He explained that the dead Russians had Kevlar body armour but many lacked the armoured plates that make the vest effective.\n\nMark and Vlad are well equipped. As we move through forward positions, there is ammunition and weaponry everywhere. Piles of rations and, in the kitchen, tea and coffee being made from a dark, cast-iron kettle. Inside their vehicles there are plenty of cigarettes - despite the familiarity with the chaos around them, many of the men chain-smoke.\n\nWhen news comes over the radio that a colleague has been injured, an ambulance arrives within minutes and the casualty is covered in a heat blanket. He is bleeding, but is quickly stabilised. A Russian shell has peppered him with shrapnel and he has lost most of his fingers on one hand.\n\nHours later, as we head back to the rear, news comes over the radio that the soldier is stable and will recover.\n\nA wounded Ukrainian soldier is put into an ambulance\n\nThe Ukrainians revel in their home-team advantage. They offer us biscuits and freshly delivered cakes from local factories. Their enemy has no such luck. There have been reports of Russian troops looting and foraging for supplies, villagers near Kharkiv complain that chickens and produce have been stolen.\n\nA video of a captured Russian army cookhouse gives an unappetising glimpse of the meals served to troops. Servings piled high with onions and potatoes - all held together with congealed fat. Russian army rations - Meals, Ready-To-Eat (MRE) - with an expiry date of 2015.\n\nWhen I met Mark and Vlad the first time, their commander gave me one of their sturdy green packs of Ukrainian daily rations - a leaving gift, he said.\n\nThere were 17 different things inside: wheat porridge with beef; rice and meat soup; beef stew; chicken with vegetables; pork and vegetables; crackers; biscuits; tea bags; coffee; blackcurrant drink; honey; sugar; black pepper; chewing gum; bar of dark chocolate; plastic spoons; moist wipes.\n\nUkrainian fortitude may be partly thanks to an unlikely suspect - Vladimir Putin.\n\nIn 2014, the Ukrainian army was in a terrible state. As it fought and failed to prevent the annexation of Crimea, its troops went hungry. Corruption was rife, training and equipment lacking and its chain of command unresponsive. Vlad and Mark's battalion was reconstituted the same year. The whole Ukrainian army underwent an overhaul - to make it ready for the next war with Russia.\n\nVlad and Mark, and almost every fighting man I have met on the front line over the past three weeks, have one thing in common - they have all fought in the eastern Donbas region. Some sport combat patches on their body armour with \"donbasonia\" written on them. Some of the patches though, we discovered later, were also symbols used by the ultra-right.\n\nIn the separatist Donbas enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukrainian forces have been combat-tested for the past eight years. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Ukrainian men may have done tours of duty there since 2014.\n\n\"Ukraine is not the same country it was in 2014,\" one front line commander told me - echoing a sentiment that was repeated again and again to me in Kharkiv.\n\nThis has created a more professional army, and one with common purpose. An army that knew Russia wouldn't stop in Donbas or Crimea - and that a day of reckoning was sure to follow for the rest of the country.\n\nIn short, Ukraine isn't the pushover it once was.\n\nAs many as 190,000 Russian troops have been deployed to Ukraine - with additional Chechen and Syria forces boosting their ranks. Ukraine's army stands at 100,000, but Kyiv claims it can rapidly mobilise significantly more.\n\nAnd a month in, here in Kharkiv and across many other fronts in Ukraine, morale is strong among Ukrainian forces. \"We are fighting for our land,\" Mark told me. What are Russia's mainly conscript fighters dying for? There are plenty of dead Russian fighters at various battlegrounds around the city. The Ukrainian dead, on the other hand, are quickly cleared away - but no official casualty numbers have been released.\n\nFew of the Russian corpses appear to be ethnic Russians, instead they are ethnic minorities. White bands on their uniforms distinguish them from regular Russian troops. \"These aren't real Russians,\" another Ukrainian fighter said as we passed bodies by the road. \"They don't know why they are here,\" he said.\n\nFor the Ukrainians, this is seen as a good thing. Ethnic-minority Russian troops have weaker allegiance to Moscow, they say. One senior Kharkiv figure told me, \"We don't fear Chechens, it's the Russians in Moscow restaurants who are afraid of them.\"\n\nKamil Galeev of the Wilson Centre, a US think tank, explores the condition of the Russian army. He suggests the troops are underpaid and undermotivated. Certainly, recruitment is a problem in Russia where dropping fertility rates mean there are fewer young Russians available to fight.\n\nIn Kharkiv, the winter snow and frost is beginning to melt. I join Mark beside his foxhole - a pit dug in the ground, on an embankment that is the front line. His boots squelch in the mud, the battlefield has become gooey, difficult terrain.\n\nThe thawing weather might not help Russia either - two weeks ago the temperature here was -13C, it is now eight degrees. As the mud deepens to grip boots, vehicles and kit, it becomes a trap for attackers and a boon for those defending the farmland around the city.\n\nFurther down the line, a soldier spots movement in nearby woods and opens fire. There is gunfire in response. \"We have to move, there isn't enough protection here,\" says Mark \"One hundred per cent, they will respond [with artillery].\"\n\nMark scours the horizon for the enemy\n\nSure enough, shells begin to fall only metres away and dirt is thrown up in the air. The shells land close enough to feel the shockwaves in your chest. Our team scrambles for cover under a nearby vehicle.\n\nBut Mark and Vlad seem untroubled. Everyone here told me the first three days were the worst. \"This is much easier now,\" says the men's commander, who never once breaks into a run during the constant shelling, and hardly takes his phone from his ear, or the cigarette from his lips.\n\nA quick glance over their shoulders to check where the explosion hits, and Mark and Vlad continue the conversation. \"It's OK, you get used to it. Humans adapt to everything quickly,\" Mark says as another explosion punctuates his sentence.\n\nWhat's going on right now, I ask, aware that cameraman Darren Conway is rolling. \"They are working on our position,\" says Mark. \"It's artillery,\" adds Vlad, with a nonchalant upward nod.\n\nAs the two men head back to shelter for a smoke and some tea, they pass the spent cases of US and UK-supplied anti-tank weapons. These, too, have been a decisive factor in this war. I have seen the aftermath of those missile strikes - at least a dozen rusting shells of Russian armoured vehicles, trucks and tanks.\n\nBut \"the Ukrainian version is just as good,\" says another soldier, patriotically. Now is the time for once-sceptical Western governments to throw their weight, with more supplies and intelligence, behind Ukrainian resistance, another commander tells me.\n\nThe Ukrainian national anthem contains the following lines:\n\nSoul and body shall we lay down\n\nThere is little chance of Russian troops vanishing from Ukrainian soil.\n\nAlready there are reports that north of Kyiv, they may be digging and forming defensive positions, since their advance was stymied. And Russia, with nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as a range of sophisticated conventional weapons, has the power to escalate its bombardments of Kharkiv and other cities. It has done so before in Grozny and in Syria, and there, Russia with all its firepower proved that artillery requires little morale or motivation to be effective.\n\nBut Ukrainian forces, a month into this war, are satisfied they have defied expectations. With each week that passes, their chance of remaining independent grows, they believe. Russia isn't going anywhere, but neither are Mark and Vlad, nor the dozens of other Ukrainian soldiers I've met who say they are in this fight until the very end. Whenever that may be.\n\nThis piece was amended after publication to reflect updated information about the soldiers' insignia.", "The US and the EU have announced a major deal on liquified natural gas, in an attempt to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian energy.\n\nThe agreement will see the US provide the EU with extra gas, equivalent to around 10% of the gas it currently gets from Russia, by the end of the year.\n\nThe bloc has already said it will cut Russian gas use in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nRussia currently supplies about 40% of the EU's gas needs.\n\nThe new deal will involve the US and other countries supplying an extra 15 billion cubic metres of gas on top of last year's 22 billion cubic metres.\n\nThe new total will represent around 24% of the gas currently imported from Russia.\n\nThe eventual aim is for the US and international partners to provide about 50 billion cubic metres per year to the EU.\n\nCutting reliance on Russia will mean generating more renewable energy and improving energy efficiency as well as increasing imports.\n\nThe deal was announced on Friday during a three-day visit by US President Joe Biden to Brussels.\n\nMr Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen discussed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and offered fresh support to Kyiv.\n\n\"Putin is using Russia's energy resources to coerce and manipulate its neighbours,\" Mr Biden told reporters in Brussels. \"He's used the profits to drive his war machine.\"\n\nHe said the long term benefits of the deal would outweigh the short term pain that reducing Russian gas supplies would cause.\n\n\"I know that eliminating Russian gas will have costs for Europe, but it's not only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, it's going to put us on a much stronger strategic footing.\"\n\nPresident von der Leyen said: \"We want, as Europeans, to diversify away from Russia towards suppliers that we trust that are friends and that are reliable.\"\n\nShe pointed out that the target 50 billion cubic metres per year \"is replacing one-third already of the Russian gas going to Europe today. So we are right on track now to diversify away from Russian gas.\"\n\nThe EU gets 40% of its gas from Russia. If it's to wean itself off that dependency, it needs to get its energy elsewhere.\n\nThe question is, where from?\n\nGas is already piped from Norway - but those pipelines are already operating at maximum capacity. The EU gets relatively little from the North Sea.\n\nNew supplies will have to come from further afield, in the form of LNG - gas that's been chilled and liquified.\n\nBut there's already intense competition for LNG supplies from countries such as Algeria and Qatar, and that's been pushing up prices.\n\nThe 50 billion cubic metres of gas a year from the US - more than double the current quantity - would certainly be welcome.\n\nBut it still wouldn't fill the gap if Russian supplies were removed.\n\nThere are also question marks over how much gas the US can supply, how quickly it can increase exports to the EU - and how much those shipments will cost.\n\nThe EU has been enjoying cheap gas for many years - but now it seems to have accepted that era is coming to an end.\n\nRussia's war with Ukraine has helped push energy prices to record highs.\n\nEnergy prices were already rising before the invasion as economies started to recover from the Covid crisis.\n\nThe Ukraine invasion prompted the EU to pledge to cut Russian gas use by two-thirds this year by hiking imports from other countries and boosting renewable energy.\n\nThe White House said that greater energy efficiency can be immediately achieved through increasing the use of smart thermostats and heat pumps.\n\nThe EU said that reductions through energy savings in homes can replace 15.5 billion cubic metres this year and that accelerating wind and solar deployment can replace 20 billion cubic metres.\n\nThe EU's goal is to save 170 billion cubic metres by 2030 through energy efficiency and by using renewable energy.\n\nThat 170 billion on top of the planned 50 billion of additional gas from the US and other countries means Europe's reliance on Russian gas could be replaced by 2030.\n\nIn response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US is banning all Russian oil and gas imports and the UK will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022.\n\nThe EU has said it will switch to alternative supplies and make Europe independent from Russian energy \"well before 2030\".\n\nGermany has put on hold permission for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to open.\n\nMeanwhile in the UK petrol prices have hit record highs as oil and gas costs soar.\n\nOil jumped to $139 a barrel at one point earlier this month, the highest level for almost 14 years, while wholesale gas prices for next-day delivery more than doubled.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nEuropean champions Italy will not play in the 2022 World Cup after being stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off in Palermo.\n\nAleksandar Trajkovski picked up the loose ball in the 92nd minute, drove forward and fired a sensational winner from outside the area.\n\nThe goal sparked wild celebrations on the North Macedonia bench, while Italy's players and coaching staff dropped to their knees in front of their home fans.\n\nIt means Italy have failed to qualify for a second consecutive World Cup, ensuring the Azzurri will endure at least 12 years between appearances at football's showpiece event.\n\nIt is just eight months since Roberto Mancini's side celebrated one of their greatest triumphs - beating England at Wembley to win Euro 2020 having been considered outsiders going into the tournament.\n\nBut they have now paid the price for a disjointed - if previously unbeaten - World Cup qualification campaign during which they finished runners-up to Switzerland in their group, winning four and drawing four of their eight matches.\n\nAs expected Italy dominated possession on Thursday but failed to penetrate the resolute North Macedonia defence, registering five shots on target from 32 attempts.\n\nThe visitors, ranked 67th in the world, are rewarded for their defensive display with a play-off final against Portugal, who beat Turkey 3-1.\n\nNorth Macedonia are 90 minutes away from reaching consecutive tournaments, having never reached a Euros or World Cup before qualifying for Euro 2020.\n\nFour-time World Cup winners Italy, who are ranked sixth in the world, will watch events in Qatar in November and December from afar.\n\nAs the players emerged from the tunnel and the national anthems played, this was billed as a routine victory for Italy.\n\nThe mouth-watering prospect of veteran superstars Giorgio Chiellini and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo meeting in the play-off final loomed large.\n\nBut it was anything but routine.\n\nMancini's side started brightly and Marco Verratti kept them ticking, but they struggled to translate their possession into clear-cut chances.\n\nNorth Macedonia came to Italy with a defensive gameplan and they threw everything in the way of the ball, as Visar Musliu caught the full force of a Domenico Berardi volley in the groin.\n\nBerardi was a rare bright spark for Italy but when he was gifted possession by North Macedonia keeper Stole Dimitrievski, who had left his goal momentarily unguarded, the Sassuolo forward could not get the ball out of his feet in time to roll it into the net.\n\nThat theme continued into the second half as Berardi's movement again proved to be a threat without the final product.\n\nAs he rolled his marker just outside of the area with ease, he could only fire his effort over the bar with just the keeper to beat.\n\nNorth Macedonia had just 34% possession and four shots over 90 minutes, but they took their opportunity against the run of play clinically.\n\nAs the ball bounced up inside the Italian half, Trajkovski, who used to play for Palermo, chested the ball away from two blue shirts and set off towards Gianluigi Donnarumma's goal.\n\nThe Paris St-Germain keeper had virtually nothing to do for 90 minutes, but he was too slow to react to Trajkovski's fizzing effort as it nestled into the bottom corner.\n\nThe journey is not yet complete for North Macedonia, who face Italy's predecessors as European champions in the final, but this is unquestionably the upset of the play-offs.\n• None Attempt missed. João Pedro (Italy) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Alessandro Florenzi.\n• None Attempt missed. Alessandro Florenzi (Italy) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left.\n• None Offside, North Macedonia. Stefan Spirovski tries a through ball, but Aleksandar Trajkovski is caught offside.\n• None Goal! Italy 0, North Macedonia 1. Aleksandar Trajkovski (North Macedonia) right footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Bojan Miovski.\n• None Domenico Berardi (Italy) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "It was one of the most decisive battles of the war so far - a ferocious two-day struggle for control of the farming town of Voznesensk and its strategically important bridge.\n\nVictory would have enabled Russian forces to sweep further west along the Black Sea coast towards the huge port of Odesa and a major nuclear power plant.\n\nInstead, Ukrainian troops, supported by an eclectic army of local volunteers, delivered a crushing blow to Russian plans, first by blowing up the bridge and then by driving the invading army back, up to 100km, to the east.\n\n\"It's hard to explain how we did it. It's thanks to the fighting spirit of our local people and to the Ukrainian army,\" said Voznesensk's 32-year-old mayor, Yevheni Velichko, standing in body armour with his guards outside the town hall.\n\nBut almost three weeks after that battle, the mayor warned that another attack by Russian forces was probably imminent and that the town's defenders lacked the weapons to hold them off a second time.\n\n\"This is such a strategic location. We're not only defending the town, but all the territory behind it. And we don't have the heavy weapons our enemy has,\" he said.\n\nVoznesensk's strategically important bridge was blown up to stop the Russians using it\n\nAs on so many frontlines in Ukraine, British-supplied anti-tank missiles proved crucial in turning the tide against Russian armour in Voznesensk, leaving the town littered with up to 30 tanks, armoured cars and even a helicopter.\n\n\"It's only thanks to these weapons that we were able to beat our enemy here. And we say thank you to our partners for their support. But we need more. The enemy's convoys will keep coming,\" said Mr Velichko.\n\nVoznesensk's strategic significance became clear soon after Russian forces failed to capture an even larger bridge, further to the south, across Ukraine's second-largest river, the Southern Buh.\n\nToday, Voznesensk is not quite a ghost town, haunted by regular air raid sirens. But thousands have left in recent weeks, by train or on pot-holed country roads that wind through vast, rolling fields of wheat.\n\nMany of those who have chosen to stay behind still seem eager to talk about their remarkable victory.\n\nVoznesensk's mayor, Yevheni Velichko, praised the defenders of his town\n\n\"It was a colossal effort by the whole town,\" said Alexander, a local shopkeeper who filmed himself on the frontlines with an AK47, screaming \"Come on my little beauties!\" as another volunteer fired a rocket-propelled grenade towards Russian positions.\n\n\"We used hunting rifles, people threw bricks and jars. Old women loaded heavy sandbags.\n\n\"The Russians didn't know where to look or where the next attack would come from. I've never seen the community come together like that,\" he said, standing by the twisted wreckage of the bridge, which Ukrainian forces destroyed within hours of the first Russian attack.\n\nThe matted swirl of Russian tank tracks still mark Svetlana Nikolaevna's garden, in the village of Rakove, on the southern edge of Voznesensk, where some of the heaviest fighting took place.\n\nBloody bandages and Russian ration packs litter the hedge rows. The 59-year-old pointed to her husband's tool shed, explaining that two captured Ukrainian soldiers had been held there by the Russians and were only saved from execution by a surge in fighting.\n\n\"Look at the blood stains on my door,\" she said, inviting visitors inside her ramshackle cottage. While she and her family took shelter in a nearby cellar, the Russians converted her entire home into a makeshift field hospital.\n\n\"I came back to get some clothes on the second day. There were wounded people lying everywhere. Ten of them, I think. I've cleared up most of the blood,\" she said.\n\n\"They left in a hurry, one night. They left everything behind - boots, socks, body armour, helmets - and just loaded up their dead and their wounded and ran away.\"\n\nIt fell to the local funeral director, Mykhailo Sokurenko, to hunt in the fields for more Russian bodies and then load them into a train wagon.\n\n\"I don't consider them human beings [after what they did here]. But it would wrong just leave them out in the field, still frightening people even after their deaths,\" he said.\n\n\"These Russians are sick in the head, so we'll have to stay on guard. But victory will come, and we'll push the Russians out of all our lands.\"", "Bella-Rae Birch's family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\"\n\nA toddler who was mauled to death in her own home was killed by an American Bully XL dog, police have confirmed.\n\nBella-Rae Birch, who was 17 months old, died in hospital after the attack in St Helens at about 15:50 GMT on Monday.\n\nMerseyside Police said the toddler was attacked only a week after her family had bought the dog.\n\nTests have confirmed the dog was a legal breed and not subject to any prohibitions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, the force added.\n\nCurrently there are four dog breeds banned in the UK - Pitbull Terrier, Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro.\n\nDetectives said inquiries were ongoing into the dog attack\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in Bidston Avenue in the Blackbrook area of St Helens.\n\nOne neighbour said the child's parents were \"hysterical\".\n\n\"We pulled up from school and heard screaming. I just ran over to try to help and started CPR until the paramedics took over,\" she said.\n\n\"I didn't see the dog, I was just focusing on helping the baby.\"\n\nDetectives said the force was continuing their inquiries into the toddler's death and urged anyone with information to come forward.\n\nIn a statement following her death, Bella-Rae's family said they would \"like to thank the community for their support\".\n\n\"We would ask that we are now allowed some space and time to try and come to terms with the tragic loss of our much-loved Bella-Rae,\" they added.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The number of electric vehicle charging points will reach 300,000 by 2030 under government plans but motoring groups say the roll out is not fast enough.\n\nUnder the plans, operators will have to ensure drivers can compare prices and pay by contactless card.\n\nBut the RAC said the chargepoint target \"might sound impressive\", but it is concerned the number is \"not going to be sufficient\" for growing demand.\n\nThe UK currently has 30,000 public electric vehicle charging points.\n\nThe Department for Transport (DfT) said the number of chargepoints by the end of the decade would be the equivalent to almost five times the number of fuel pumps on UK roads today.\n\nIt said the £500m scheme would include £450m to boost public charging stations and on-street charging for people without driveways.\n\nAccording to Melanie Shufflebotham, chief operations officer of Zap-Map, an EV charging app, 80% of electric vehicle owners have off-street parking.\n\nShe went on to say that currently London is the area most \"well-served\" with on-street overnight charging, due to how built up it is, but that other areas of the country have better access to rapid or ultra-rapid charging.\n\nAbout a third of all chargers are currently in London.\n\nThe funds were previously announced as part of the government's £1.6bn Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, but the government has now given details about how the money will be spent.\n\nNew standards and legislation will mean operators will have to provide real-time data for customers to check the status of chargepoints and apps for customers to find the nearest available one.\n\nThey will also be required to have a 99% reliability rate at rapid chargepoints.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said: \"We're powering ahead with plans to help British people go electric, with our expanding charging network making journeys easier right across the country.\"\n\nHowever, Sir John Armitt, chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, which advises the government on major infrastructure, said in a report there was a gap emerging between the government's aspirations on net zero policy and actions taken to reach it.\n\n\"We need to turbo-charge the roll out of electric vehicle charging points, accelerating the installation of both rapid and on-street charging facilities so that the 2030 date for the end of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains viable, he said.\n\nRAC head of policy Nicholas Lyes said it was \"pleasing\" to see the government set \"ambitious reliability targets on the chargepoints themselves\" as many current and would-be electric car drivers \"worry that charging units will be out of order when they arrive\".\n\nHe also warned that the installation timescale of 300,000 chargepoints needed be quicker with drivers looking to switch to electric \"en masse\" ahead of the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.\n\nThe AA said action was needed on the lack of charging points in rural areas.\n\nEdmund King, AA president, said: \"As we advance quickly to the 2030 deadline for new zero-emission vehicles, it is vital that we get our charging infrastructure in order. While great progress has been made, there is still much to do to convince drivers on the number, and importantly reliability, of charge posts.\n\n\"To bring confidence and power to potential electric car drivers we need more, and more reliable and accessible charge points as soon as possible.\"\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC that the increased number of electric vehicles will eventually lead to road pricing or tolls in place of fuel duty.\n\nMr Shapps also acknowledged that electric cars are \"still a little bit more expensive\" to buy than petrol or diesel vehicles.\n\nHowever, he said that people should invest in electric cars as a way of easing cost of living pressures, by saving on fuel.\n\nAlongside the expansion of the UK's charging network, the government also has plans for at least 6,000 chargepoints across English motorways by 2035 though an existing £950m Rapid Charging fund.\n\nOver the decade between 2011 and 2021 the total number of charge points in the UK jumped from about 1,500 to more than 48,000 both public and private, according to industry figures.\n\nThe Society of Motoring Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said electrified vehicles made up more than one in every four cars produced in the UK last month, at nearly 16,000 units.\n\nOverall, UK vehicle production slumped in February, from 105,000 units in 2021 to 61,000 units for the same month this year, due to continued global shortages in computer chips used in car production.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nGareth Bale scored two brilliant goals in a vintage individual performance to take Wales a step closer to qualifying for their first World Cup since 1958 with victory over Austria in their play-off semi-final.\n\nAustria's Christoph Baumgartner hit the crossbar in the fifth minute before Bale's majestic free-kick sparked ecstatic celebrations for an already thunderous home crowd in Cardiff.\n\nWales' captain struck again early in the second half, shooting beautifully on the turn from a short corner.\n\nMarcel Sabitzer's deflected shot brought Austria back into the game and, although the visitors exerted sustained pressure, Wales stood up to the challenge with a stoic defensive display.\n\nWales will now face Scotland or Ukraine in their play-off final, a one-off tie which was meant to be played next Tuesday, but which has been postponed because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nScotland and Ukraine's fixture is expected to be played in June, with the play-off final set to follow later the same month.\n\nThe details of that one-legged final are yet to be confirmed but, for now, Wales can savour this win in the knowledge that they are one victory away from ending their 64-year absence from World Cups.\n• None 'It's disgusting and they should be ashamed' - Bale silences critics to send Wales to brink of World Cup\n• None Wales to face Czech Republic in friendly on Tuesday\n\nCardiff City Stadium heaved with emotion in a highly charged build-up to the game, with Welsh folk singer Dafydd Iwan leading a rendition of his song Yma o Hyd before the crowd took over to bellow the national anthem with even greater passion than usual.\n\nThe fervent atmosphere helped Wales start the game at a blistering pace, pressing Austria high up the pitch and unsettling the visitors. With only 80 seconds gone, Connor Roberts dispossessed Austria captain David Alaba and combined with Aaron Ramsey to set up Daniel James for a shot which Heinz Lindner held.\n\nIt was frenetic at both ends and Austria squandered a golden opportunity when Sabitzer played a fine through ball for Christoph Baumgartner, who had time and Wales keeper Wayne Hennessey to beat, but hit his shot against the crossbar - thanks to a vital deflection from the covering Neco Williams.\n\nThat was a warning for Wales, but they continued to pour forward, their attacking line-up - which included Bale, Aaron Ramsey, Daniel James and Harry Wilson all from the start - playing with an admirable sense of adventure.\n\nThen midway through the first half, Bale produced his moment of genius.\n• None Wales 2-1 Austria: As it happened and reaction\n\nThe 32-year-old has only played two hours of football for Real Madrid in the past six months and the build-up to this game was dominated by conjecture about his fitness, while the captain himself has mentioned that this might be his final World Cup campaign.\n\nBut his first goal was the Bale of old. A direct free-kick - the first he had scored for Wales since Euro 2016 - 25 yards out and hit with vintage precision, dipping just enough to clip the bar on its way in to send the Red Wall into raptures.\n\nThere were chances to extend Wales' lead before half-time - such as Ramsey's shot well saved by Lindner - and it was Bale again who provided the inspiration after the break.\n\nFrom a short corner, Williams swung in a low cross which Davies touched into Bale's path and Wales' all-time leading scorer took his tally to 38 with a fierce drive into the top far corner.\n\nAs Wales fans sang Don't Take Me Home, the soundtrack of their run to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, while they watched a Bale masterclass, it felt like that golden summer in France revisited.\n\nThis has been the most successful period in Wales' history, with the national team qualifying for back-to-back European Championships and soaring to the semi-finals of Euro 2016.\n\nYet despite the record-high world rankings and heroic contributions from Bale, Ramsey and others, World Cups have remained elusive.\n\nThe 1958 tournament in Sweden is still Wales' only appearance at a World Cup and, since then, they have frequently and painfully fallen at the final hurdle.\n\nWhen Sabitzer's shot deflected off Ben Davies and bobbled into the Welsh net, a sense of anxiety swept around Cardiff City Stadium as supporters began to wonder if this was to be the latest setback in a history littered with similar tales of anguish, from Scotland in 1977 to Romania in 1993.\n\nAustria seized on that unease to take control of the second half, albeit without creating many clear-cut scoring opportunities against a resolute Welsh defence.\n\nThere were still openings for Wales, with James wasting two particularly good chances, just to heighten the sense of nervousness among the home fans.\n\nBut this team is not weighed down by the nation's failures of the past.\n\nMost of these players are too young to remember the bad old days and have instead been brought up in an era of regular qualification and winning at home, where they have now not lost in 17 games.\n\nRobert Page's men still have one more game to navigate, but this victory will strengthen their belief that they will be the team to end their nation's long wait to play at a World Cup.\n• None Attempt saved. Brennan Johnson (Wales) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Harry Wilson.\n• None Offside, Wales. Aaron Ramsey tries a through ball, but Brennan Johnson is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Gareth Bale (Wales) left footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Connor Roberts.\n• None Attempt saved. Marko Arnautovic (Austria) header from a difficult angle on the right is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Nicolas Seiwald.\n• None Attempt blocked. Andreas Weimann (Austria) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Stefan Lainer (Austria) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Neco Williams (Wales) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Harry Wilson.\n• None Connor Roberts (Wales) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders?: Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "Joe Biden is taking his third trip to Europe as US president at a moment of international crisis. His last journey, in the autumn for the G20 meeting in Rome and the climate conference in Glasgow, was planned months in advance.\n\nThis one is of the emergency variety.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine is entering its fourth week with no end in sight, and the path ahead for the US-Europe alliance is far from clear.\n\nHere's a look at five of the most pressing concerns as Mr Biden meets European leaders and allies in the days ahead.\n\nEver since Russia invaded Ukraine, the US has made special efforts to move only in concert with its allies. That sometimes meant holding off on actions - such as different forms of sanctions or military aid - until the rest of Nato was ready to take steps concurrently.\n\nThis was never easy given the disparate interests of the 30-nation alliance, but the early, dramatic days of Russia offensive created a sense of urgency that removed some traditional obstacles to consensus. As the war drags on - and the economic fallout from the violence and resulting allied response grows more pronounced - the potential for public discord within the alliance will increase.\n\nThe primary goal of Mr Biden's trip, then, is to be seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with America's allies (literally and figuratively) and to demonstrate that strengthened Nato resolve is not a temporary condition but the new normal in response to Russia's expansionist policies.\n\nAfter meeting other leaders in Belgium, Mr Biden will travel to Poland for a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda. Given the nation's position on Nato's eastern flank, the former Soviet satellite state has been given special attention by the US in the past few months, with visits from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice-President Kamala Harris.\n\nAlthough topics of military aid to Ukraine and an increased Nato presence on Polish soil are sure to come up, US officials say the top issue for the meeting will be dealing with the flood of refugees that has been arriving at the Ukraine-Poland border since hostilities began.\n\nCaring for and processing millions of refugees has put a considerable financial and logistical burdens on Poland and, if not handled competently, could ultimately lead to social unrest and economic instability.\n\nGiven Poland's geopolitical importance in the confrontation with Russia, ensuring the nation remains a reliable Nato member is a pressing US concern.\n\nIn the past few months the US and its allies have open the spigots of lethal military aid to the uniformed and volunteer Ukrainian forces holding off the Russian assault.\n\nAs Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made clear recent in speeches to legislative bodies in Europe and North America, however, the aid so far has not been enough. He says Ukraine needs more sophisticated anti-air systems as well as jet fighters capable of \"closing the skies\" over Ukraine to Russian warplanes.\n\nWhile the US has promised to provide more advanced long-range air defense capabilities, that's easier said than done. As seen with the friction between the US and Poland over the proposed but now shelved effort to supply Ukraine with Polish-owned Soviet-era jets, there are concerns over the kinds of anti-air support that would generate a Russian response against Nato, the logistics of getting weapons into Ukrainian hands and how to replace the weapons that are transferred.\n\nThe US is currently engaged in discussions with Nato members Slovakia and Turkey to move their anti-air systems over to Ukraine, but it will take a more deft touch than was displayed with Poland to accomplish it. If Mr Biden can pull this off while he's in Europe, it would be a notable success.\n\nThe US and its allies promised that they would impose unprecedented, debilitating economic sanctions on Russia if it were to invade Ukraine. After some early fits and starts, that's exactly what the allies have done. The Russian economy, its stock market and its currency have been staggered by the allied punishments, which include trade restrictions, financial isolation, limits on energy exports and targeted sanctions on Russian political and business leaders.\n\nSevere as the restrictions may be, however, they have not deterred Russia from continuing its all-out assault. While western allies insist that the pain of the current sanctions will increase as time goes by, there is growing pressure on US and European leaders to find new ways of punishing Russian aggression that they can announce during Mr Biden's meetings this week.\n\nSome proposals include new sanctions on oligarchs and politicians, greater restrictions on Russian energy exports and the kinds of technology that is imported to Russia.\n\nNone of these seem likely to produce a dramatic new impact on the Russian economy, but sometimes the perception of continued action is as important as the actions themselves.\n\nChinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had a warm meeting in Beijing during February's Winter Olympics, where they described a friendship between their nations that had \"no limits\". If that translates into ongoing Chinese economic and military support for Russia in the months ahead, it could undermine everything the US and its European allies are trying to do in Ukraine.\n\nLast week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met his Chinese counterpart in Rome, followed by a nearly two-hour phone call between Mr Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The US can't act alone here, however. Both America and Europe will need to make concerted, co-ordinated efforts to convince China to keep its distance from Russia and, if possible, be more vocal in its denunciations of Russia's infringement on Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. China's recent backing of Russian participation in the upcoming G20 economic summit suggests the task will not be easy.\n\nLike the US, Europe is a key market for Chinese goods - and the threat of US and European sanctions on China if it were to openly aid Russia is already weighing on the Chinese economy. Mr Biden has frequently spoken of how the world is in an era-defining conflict between democracies and autocracies - but pushing China and Russia into the same adversarial camp at the moment is a risky move.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nLiverpool captain Jordan Henderson says it would \"would make sense\" to have switched the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Manchester City away from Wembley.\n\nHe was speaking after the Football Association said it would provide 100 free buses for fans attending the game.\n\nFans of both clubs and mayors of the respective cities had asked for a venue change given no trains are running from either city to London that weekend.\n\nBut the game will go ahead at Wembley.\n\nThe match is being shown live on BBC One, on Saturday, 16 April at 15:30 BST.\n\n\"I think this time, I've been thinking a bit more about the fans,\" Henderson said. \"In many ways it's their day, and not being able to get down to London for different reasons - the cost of that... in my head it would make sense obviously to change it to a [different] neutral venue, especially with it being two teams from the north-west.\n\n\"That's just my opinion. There's obviously complications within that, I'm sure, which the FA have got to overcome but looking at the fans - which is probably the most important thing for me and something that we've learned over the past couple of years how important the fans are to football - it is really disappointing to see that it's a struggle and it's got to be expensive for them to get there.\"\n\nHenderson, who will hope to feature for England in Saturday's friendly against Switzerland at Wembley (17:30 GMT), said he also thinks semi-finals should always be played away from the national stadium.\n\n\"I love playing at Wembley - I would like to keep Wembley for finals anyway,\" he said.\n\n\"I think that was quite exciting, quite good and then obviously the final at Wembley to make it extra special.\"\n\nThe FA said \"unessential roadworks\" will also be paused to aid journeys on the day of the semi-final.\n\n\"The FA recognises the significant challenges that are being faced by some Liverpool and Manchester City supporters with train services being severely limited,\" an FA statement added.\n\nThe FA has also pledged \"a number of free return bus services\" for Manchester City fans attending the Women's FA Cup semi-final away to West Ham at 12:15 on Saturday, 16 April.\n\nUnlike the men's semi-finals, which are held at Wembley each season, the women's semis are not held at a neutral venue.\n\nCity's trip to West Ham will be live on BBC One, while Arsenal's game at home to Chelsea at 12:30 on Sunday, 17 April will be shown on BBC Two, with both semi-finals also available on BBC iPlayer.\n\nIn a joint letter to the FA, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Liverpool counterpart Steve Rotheram had said keeping the game at Wembley would cause fans \"excessive cost and inconvenience\".\n\nThey argued a lack of train services, due to engineering works, would \"price fans out of the game\" and lead to extra journeys on motorways already \"stretched to capacity by bank holiday traffic\".\n\nHowever, the FA has resisted calls to switch the venue, instead attempting to minimise travel disruption through talks with Network Rail, National Express and National Highways.\n\nThe free return bus journeys \"will ensure that up to 5,000 Liverpool and Manchester City supporters will be able to travel to Wembley Stadium free of charge\", its statement said.\n\n\"Hundreds of miles of unessential roadworks will be put on hold to help supporters enjoy the occasion and enhance their journeys,\" the FA added.\n\nPlaces on the free buses must be pre-booked with the clubs involved.\n\nBoth FA Cup semi-finals have been played at Wembley since 2008 - before that, the semis had mostly been held at neutral Premier League grounds.\n\nThe other FA Cup semi-final is between London clubs Chelsea and Crystal Palace so there is no issue over the venue. That semi-final will take place on Sunday, 17 April, with a 16:30 kick-off.\n\nManchester City v Liverpool - Saturday, 16 April, 15:30, Wembley Stadium, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer\n\nWest Ham United v Manchester City - Saturday, 16 April, 12:15, on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and BBC Radio 5 Live\n\nArsenal v Chelsea - Sunday, 17 April, 12:30 on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer and BBC Radio 5 Live\n• None Watch all of the latest FA Cup highlights and reaction here", "Passengers board the train in Lviv during the first days of the war in Ukraine\n\nTen million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. Most head west to the relative safety of cities like Lviv - and many continue onwards to neighbouring countries. Our correspondent Fergal Keane met some of those who took the 91/92 train between Kyiv and Lviv - the \"Rescue Express\"\n\nThe air raid alarm in the station tower has just started: no bombs are falling, but nerves are fraying. The guard tells us to shelter with the refugees in the tunnel under the platform.\n\nThere are several thousand people here, in a long queue.\n\nWe wait among the anxious and exhausted, the families calming scared children, the elderly woman wrapped in a blanket and pulling a suitcase. She looks as if she cannot possibly walk another step. But she will trudge forward when the all-clear is given. This is not a place of options. Go forward, or run the risk of the war catching up with you.\n\nThen a horn blares. A searchlight appears down the track to the east, a looming brilliance that grows larger as it approaches. Another horn sounds, followed by a conductor's whistle cutting through the clamour of the air raid sirens. A murmur ripples through the crowd. The all-clear is declared, and they can board a train to Poland.\n\nAfter nearly a month reporting on refugees, I have taken to calling this extraordinary evacuation the \"Rescue Express\". Millions of Ukrainians have taken trains from as far south as Odessa on the Black Sea, from Kharkiv close to the Russian border in the north-east, from the Donbas and from Kyiv, and numerous smaller stations in between.\n\nIt has come at great human cost: 33 railway staff have been killed. Tracks and stations have been bombed.\n\nThe head conductor on Train 91/92 between Lviv and Kyiv is Ievgen Propokenko, a 40-year veteran of the railways. He comes from Kharkiv, which is now under Russian siege, and where his daughter and son-in-law also work to keep the Rescue Express going. The railways, he explains, run in the family.\n\nIevgen Propokenko, head conductor on board the \"Rescue Express\" knows that his train could come under fire\n\n\"It is terrifying. My native city is being bombed,\" says Ievgen. \"I can feel it and see it, but I cannot believe it.\"\n\nHe knows that his own train runs the risk of being attacked. One of the conductor's duties is to check that train windows are covered, so its lights don't present an obvious target for Russian aircraft.\n\n\"We can see the war in the faces of the people who come onboard. It is our job. It is what we have to do.\"\n\nAlso onboard is his younger colleague, Oleksandr Shevchenko, 31, the spokesman for the railways who is heading to an awards ceremony. The Prime Minister will be handing out awards to railway staff at the station in Kyiv.\n\nThis service is heading east back towards the conflict, and has only a few passengers. Sitting in a compartment before departure I met Petro Rocharan, a 25-year-old investment banker, who has volunteered to join a battalion defending the capital. Petro is a scout. He has had just three weeks' military training and he is frank about his feelings.\n\n\"I am rather scared honestly. I know Kyiv has been through a lot so far. Including the streets where I am going, where some of my friends are living, and I am just not sure if I am ready to see those buildings destroyed,\" he explains. Petro speaks of different waves of feeling: from fear to excitement and back to fear again.\n\nThe lights of the train could make it a target in these dangerous times\n\nThe train pulls into Kyiv just after dawn, and Petro heads off in search of his battalion. New shifts of drivers, conductors and stewards start to arrive at the station. So do the buses carrying families from the embattled cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kramatorsk and the suburbs of Kyiv itself.\n\nOleg Kryvospytska, 59, comes from Troyeschchyna in the northern suburbs of Kyiv and has brought his wife, Olena, his 29-year-old daughter Olga, and his granddaughters, aged six and 12.\n\nBut Oleg will not be travelling with them. He must stay behind and care for an elderly relative who is unable to travel.\n\nOlena says that they will take the train to Lviv and stay for a few days before deciding where to go in Europe. \"I have no words for this,\" she says. \"This is something terrifying that I can't believe is happening. I'm currently taking sedatives every day to keep me calm, but even that isn't helping.\"\n\nOleg is a tall, strongly-built man and his wife Olena leans into him as the time approaches to board the train. They embrace, and sway gently from side to side. It is a portrait of fortitude and loss, rooted in the 30 years of their life together.\n\nOleg does not speak or cry. For the children's sake, he smiles.\n\nOleg says goodbye to his family, but is careful not to shed any tears\n\nEven as he walks alongside the departing train and can see Olena weeping, he keeps smiling and waving. The little girls shout: \"We love you, we love you.\" His daughter Olga calls out: \"Wait for us.\"\n\nHe will. Of course. However long it takes.\n\nThe train picks up speed. The horn blares and the carriages roll west, through the suburbs, away from the front line and out into the great immensity of Europe's second-largest country. It passes wheat fields ready for spring planting, through small and large towns, further and further from the war zone.\n\nIt is after 22:00 when the Rescue Express pulls into Lviv. Olga and Olena and the children are in the first carriage and it is dark on the platform. A conductor appears with a flash lamp and lights their way. The weary travellers gather their bags and walk towards the lights of the station.\n\nIn a day or two they will board another train, to Poland, peace and exile.", "The UK's largest dairy has warned milk supplies could be under threat unless its farmers are paid more.\n\nThe managing director of Arla Foods said costs are increasing at rates never seen before and that farmers can no longer cover their expenses.\n\n\"Because of the recent crisis, feed, fuel and fertiliser have rocketed and therefore cashflow on the farm is negative,\" said Ash Amirahmadi.\n\nHe added farmers are producing less milk as a result of the higher costs.\n\n\"UK dairy farmers have been producing more for about the last seven to eight years but it's now going the other way,\" Mr Amirahmadi told the BBC.\n\n\"In February, they produced 2% less and in March it's 4%.\"\n\nWith cost increases of some 36%, he warned farmers are facing some hard decisions and that they need confidence to carry on producing.\n\nAnd that means securing a higher price from Arla's customers - the supermarkets.\n\n\"The most important thing now is that we put our arm around the farmers…and pay our farmers more to cover their costs to make sure the milk is flowing, \" said Mr Amirahmadi.\n\nArla Foods is the fifth biggest dairy company in the world and the largest supplier of fresh milk and cream in the UK. The co-operative has 2,100 dairy farmers in the UK and 8,950 across Europe.\n\nDavid Christensen is an Arla dairy farmer based in Oxfordshire\n\nDavid Christensen, an Arla dairy farmer based in Oxfordshire, said he had \"never experienced conditions like this in 30 years\" of working in the industry.\n\nHis fertiliser bill has jumped from £350 to £900 a tonne and his fuel has more than doubled - cost increases he won't be able to absorb after the summer.\n\n\"There's no doubt, if the economics don't stack up one of the options is to scale back production...milk prices need to go up. It's no longer sustainable,\" he said.\n\nThe boss of Arla said the price of milk in the shops is 7% lower now than it was 10 years ago.\n\nBut the price consumers pay is different to the prices which farmers receive to produce it.\n\nFor farmers the break even price is key. This includes any extra income and government subsidies.\n\nOver the years, the industry has kept costs down by becoming more efficient and many supermarkets have direct contracts with farmers based on their own cost of production models to try to give them a fairer deal.\n\nBut industry sources have said even these so-called aligned contracts are failing to keep up with sky rocketing costs.\n\nMr Amirahmadi's comments come as his business unveiled a five-year plan to grow and future proof the business at the same time it faces pressure from surges in inflation.\n\nArla believes increasing global demand for dairy is an opportunity for farmers in the UK. The prices paid to farmers abroad are now 15% higher than the prices paid to farmers here.\n\nIt's already trialling the export of fresh British milk for processing at its European sites which is then sold on international markets.\n\nThe dairy giant is the first producer to consider doing this at scale.\n\n\"The good news here for farmers and actually the British dairy industry is that the opportunities of export give farmers more options and therefore it means that the whole of the UK dairy industry should get a lift as a result of those markets,\" Mr Amirahmadi said.\n\nAs for the UK, he believes the dynamics need to change. He said for too many years the liquid milk market has been failing to deliver for farmers.\n\n\"Over the next five years we will have to make some tough decisions about where our milk goes to ensure farmers can cover their costs and continue to invest in reducing their on-farm emissions,\" he added.\n\n\"The profitability of some of our milk contracts will need to increase significantly when up for renewal in order to compete with more attractive business opportunities that are opening up.\"", "Kyrell Matthews died after being found in cardiac arrest\n\nA man who murdered his ex-girlfriend's two-year-old son has been jailed for life after the couple's horrific abuse was captured on secret recordings.\n\nKyrell Matthews died in October 2019 with 41 rib fractures and internal injuries after weeks of cruelty by Kemar Brown and Phylesia Shirley at his south London home.\n\nBrown, 28, was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years.\n\nShirley, 24, was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 13 years.\n\nMuch of the abuse was caught on audio recordings made at the property in Thornton Heath which were played to the jury.\n\nThe toddler could be heard crying and screaming on files taken from Shirley's phone, which picked up the sound of Kyrell being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying \"shut up\" and \"you have to ruin the fun\".\n\nAnother recording played during the trial at the Old Bailey caught Shirley striking her son, causing him to break down in distress.\n\nProsecution barrister Edward Brown QC told jurors that the mother put her relationship with Brown above her own child.\n\nThe couple, who were unemployed at the time of Kyrell's murder, were both cannabis users and are understood to have been visited by social services at least once.\n\n\"She was prepared to reject what should have been motherly care in protecting Kyrell in favour of abuse by her - his own mother - and in favour of the abuse carried out by a man she knew was abusing her child,\" Mr Brown told jurors.\n\n\"The truth is that his death came when once more he was abused in that flat, once more in a very similar way, causing very similar injuries, except on this occasion it was so much more serious, the abuse and the results were catastrophic.\"\n\nPhylesia Shirley and Kemar Brown will be sentenced on 25 March\n\nPaying tribute to Kyrell outside court after the couple were convicted, his paternal step-grandmother Christine Ernest described the two-year-old as \"the most loving little boy, always smiling\".\n\nDuring the trial, jurors were not told that police had been called to an earlier domestic incident but no offences were identified and Kyrell was said to have appeared \"safe and well\".\n\nA passer-by had alerted officers on 17 July 2019 after hearing shouting and screaming coming from their flat, with a female voice saying: \"Stop hitting my face.\"\n\nIt followed an attack in May 2019 when Kyrell suffered a significant injury to the side of his face and spent five days in Croydon University Hospital.\n\nThe hospital carried out an investigation and found Shirley's explanation that the little boy had fallen off a sofa and hit his head on a highchair was \"plausible\", police said.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The top US court has ruled in favour of a Texas inmate who had argued it is his right to have his pastor touch him and offer a prayer during his execution.\n\nJohn Henry Ramirez said the state's policy of not allowing spiritual advisers to touch inmates during executions violates their constitutional rights.\n\nIn an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court said his request could be carried out.\n\nRamirez was sentenced to death for killing a man during a robbery in 2004.\n\nAfter Ramirez sued Texas last August, lower courts rejected his requests for his pastor to physically touch him and audibly pray as he died, and declined to block his execution.\n\nJust before he was due to be executed in September 2021, a federal judge rejected his request for a stay for religious reasons.\n\nAt the time, the judge said that Texas had \"compelling interest\" in maintaining an \"orderly, safe and effective\" execution process, such as by preventing anything interfering with intravenous lines used for lethal injections.\n\nThe Supreme Court issued a stay that same month, putting the execution on hold.\n\nIn a majority opinion for the Supreme Court released on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the federal judge's argument, noting that a chaplain could feasibly touch a part of the inmate's body away from the IV lines, like the lower leg.\n\nAdditionally, Justice Roberts said that Texas \"appears to have long allowed prison chaplains to pray with inmates in the execution chamber\" and has only prohibited the practice recently. Texas banned all religious chaplains from execution chambers in 2019 after the Supreme Court granted a prisoners' request for a Buddhist monk.\n\nOnly one Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, dissented in Thursday's ruling. He wrote that he believes Ramirez \"has manufactured more than a decade of delay to evade the capital sentence\".\n\nFollowing Thursday's ruling, the case will head back to the lower courts - which had earlier ruled in favour of Texas - for more litigating.\n\nIn his opinion, Justice Roberts said that more court proceedings \"might shed additional light on Texas's interests\", adding that Ramirez is \"likely to succeed in proving that his religious requests are sincerely based on a religious belief\".\n\nIn a statement, Ramirez's attorney Seth Kretzer said the Supreme Court decision \"clarified that the rule of law is as ubiquitous as God\" and that he looks forward to \"prevailing in the forthcoming litigation about the issue\".\n\nRamirez, 37, was convicted of stabbing a man 29 times in a robbery 18 years ago that prosecutors said netted the sum of $1.25 (£0.95). After the murder, he fled to Mexico and remained a fugitive there for years before being arrested near the US border.\n\nTo date, three people have been executed in the US in 2022. Last year, 11 people were executed compared to 17 in 2020.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nThe Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is expected to go ahead as planned after hours of meetings following a missile attack near the track in Jeddah.\n\nThe drivers spent four hours after practice on Friday discussing whether the race should be run.\n\nBut eventually at 2.30am local time on Saturday, after further reassurances from bosses, they agreed to race.\n\nAfter an extraordinary series of events, team bosses emerged from the meetings to say: \"We will be racing.\"\n• None Feature: Why is Saudi Araba's involvement in sport controversial?\n• None Saudis must 'do more' on human rights - Hamilton\n• None How to follow the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix\n\nYemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on an oil depot about nine miles from the track, according to the Associated Press.\n\nSecond practice was delayed by 15 minutes after the attack as team bosses and drivers were called to a meeting with F1 president Stefano Domenicali.\n\nThe drivers went into a meeting with Domenicali and managing director Ross Brawn about an hour after the end of practice and that meeting did not end for another four hours, as various senior figures came and went.\n\nBBC Sport has learned that a significant number of drivers had concerns about the safety of the event following the attack.\n\nBut eventually they were convinced to go ahead and race after being given further information by bosses.\n\nPart of this information involved the possible consequences of not racing, such as how easily teams and drivers would be able to leave the country if the race did not happen.\n\nThe first signs of the attack came as smoke had billowed across the track during the first practice session in the afternoon.\n\nBefore second practice, Domenicali called teams and drivers to a meeting and told them the weekend would proceed as planned and that security for the grand prix has been a priority for the authorities.\n\nHe said he would keep them updated through the weekend and met them again just over an hour after practice finished to share further information.\n\nBut the drivers continued to be concerned about the potential risks of racing so close to a missile strike on a high-profile Saudi facility. The grand prix is also closely associated with the Saudi royal family.\n\nAll the drivers' post-practice media sessions were cancelled.\n\nF1 said after practice had finished but before the drivers went into their marathon meeting: \"Formula 1 has been in close contact with the relevant authorities following the situation that took place today.\n\n\"The authorities have confirmed that the event can continue as planned and we will remain in close contact with them and all the teams and closely monitor the situation.\"\n\nMohammed Ben Sulayem, president of F1's governing body the FIA, said: \"They are targeting the infrastructure, not the civilians, and, of course, not the track. We've checked the facts and we've got assurances from the highest level that this is a secure place. Let's go on racing.\"\n\nThere was a similar attack a week before the race, while F1 was at the opening event of the season in Bahrain.\n\nThe Jeddah Corniche circuit is surrounded by coastline\n\nOnce second practice started, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc set the fastest time by 0.14 seconds from Red Bull's Max Verstappen. But the Monegasque, winner of the first race of the season in Bahrain last weekend, later hit the wall at Turn Four and damaged his car's steering.\n\nVerstappen's best time was set on the harder medium tyres while Leclerc's was on the soft, because traffic and other interruptions prevented the Dutchman completing his run on the softs.\n\nHowever, Verstappen was 0.2secs down on Leclerc's fastest time before he had to abort what would have been his best lap on the soft tyres.\n\nFerrari's Carlos Sainz was third fastest, also with a fastest time on the mediums, after he too hit the wall, this time on the exit of Turn 13 and without damaging his car.\n\nRed Bull's Sergio Perez was fourth fastest, ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The pair were just over 0.1secs apart and Hamilton was 0.4secs off the pace.\n\nThe Mercedes cars were again suffering badly from aerodynamic bouncing - or \"porpoising\" - as their main limitation.\n\nAs a result, Hamilton and Russell were 0.4secs off the pace by the time they reached Turn 13, the halfway point of the track, because of the bouncing affecting confidence through the high-speed swerves of the first sector.\n\nAfter that, they did not lose significant time to the fastest cars.\n\nThe Ferrari drivers' incidents meant they were unable to go out again in the final part of the session to do their race-simulation runs on high fuel.\n\nBehind the Mercedes, Lando Norris was seventh for McLaren, after a more encouraging showing for the team following their dismal start to the season in Bahrain, when the McLaren was the third slowest car.\n\nEsteban Ocon's Alpine was eighth fastest, ahead of Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas and Yuki Tsunoda's Alpha Tauri.\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "Rishi Sunak married Akshata Murty in 2009 and they have two children\n\nRishi Sunak is coming under attack from political rivals over his wife's stake in an Indian multinational operating in Russia.\n\nLabour said the chancellor has \"very serious questions to answer\" over Akshata Murty's shares in Infosys, a firm co-founded by her father.\n\nMr Sunak has said he has \"nothing to do\" with the company.\n\nHe has encouraged UK firms to sever ties with Russia to punish Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.\n\nDowning Street told reporters on Friday that Ms Murty's stake in Infosys was a \"personal issue for the chancellor\".\n\nSoftware giant Infosys is one of India's biggest companies, with a presence in about 50 countries around the world.\n\nIt was co-founded by Ms Murty's billionaire father Narayana, who retired in 2014, but retains a small stake in it along with other members of his family.\n\nMs Murty's 0.9% shareholding in Infosys is thought to be worth more than £400m.\n\nA spokesperson for Mr Sunak has said neither she nor any members of her family \"have any involvement in the operational decisions of the company\".\n\nIn 2016, Infosys set up an engineering centre in Moscow to support its customer, Ansaldo Energia, which was developing gas turbines to sell to Russian power plants, and other clients.\n\nAfter Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, many global IT giants, including Oracle and SAP, suspended operations in the Russian Federation, and expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people.\n\nInfosys is among those who continue to operate there, saying it has a \"small team of employees based out of Russia that services some of our global clients, locally\".\n\n\"We do not have any active business relationships with local Russian enterprises,\" it added in a statement.\n\n\"Infosys supports and advocates for peace between Russia and Ukraine,\" the company said, and had committed $1m to \"relief efforts for the victims of war from Ukraine\".\n\nThe UK has restricted its trade with Russia via sanctions in the wake of its invasion last month - a move not replicated by India.\n\nMr Sunak has said he would support UK firms that voluntarily cut ties with Russia in a bid to inflict \"economic pain\" on President Vladimir Putin.\n\nHe has also urged British investors to \"think very carefully\" about whether investments could support Mr Putin, and he believed there was \"no argument for new investment in the Russian economy\".\n\nPressed on Infosys's presence in Russia on Thursday, Mr Sunak told Sky News he had \"nothing to do\" with the company.\n\nNarayana Murthy founded Infosys in 1981 and the firm now has a presence in a number of countries\n\nBut on Friday, Labour's shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said Mr Sunak had \"very serious questions to answer on this matter\".\n\n\"It is really quite shocking that these allegations have now emerged that Rishi Sunak's family itself is benefiting from business in Russia,\" she told BBC News.\n\n\"The chancellor has explicitly called on business to divest from Russia in order to inflict economic pain and ensure that the sanctions are as deeply felt as possible,\" she added.\n\nAsked whether Mr Sunak should ask his wife to sell her shares, Ms Haigh replied: \"Given that he's called on business to stop doing business in Russia, of course he should be ensuring that his own family follows that advice as well.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Louise Haigh: Rishi Sunak has \"very serious questions to answer\".\n\nLiberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Christine Jardine said Mr Sunak \"needs to come clean and declare any potential conflicts of interest\".\n\n\"Openness and full transparency are key given the risks posed by financial connections to Russia,\" she added.\n\n\"The public deserves full transparency on this issue. It cannot be one rule for the chancellor and another for everyone else.\"\n\nInfosys has had connections in the past to Alfa Bank, one of Russia's biggest financial institutions, which was added to the UK's sanctions list on Thursday, having already been sanctioned by the US and EU.\n\nIn 2004, Mr Putin visited Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore, where he was given a guided tour by Narayana Murthy.\n\nMr Sunak met his future spouse while studying for a business degree at Stanford University in California. They married in 2009 and have two children.", "In her tiny St Petersburg apartment, 76-year-old artist Elena Osipova shows me the anti-war placards she's made.\n\nOn one she's written: \"Putin is war. We don't want to die for Putin.\"\n\nAnother depicts Russia's president as the devil, with the horns of Satan.\n\nElena tells me that after Russia attacked Ukraine, she was so shocked, she didn't eat for three days. Then, filled with anger, she'd taken to the streets to protest.\n\nA small crowd had applauded her: they'd chanted \"No War!\"\n\nThen two police officers took the pensioner by the arms and led her away.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the moment an elderly activist is arrested at a protest in St Petersburg\n\nPolice still haven't returned one of her placards. She describes it to me: \"I'd been given some red tulips, beautiful young flowers. But very quickly they died and wilted. They reminded me of young men falling into their graves.\n\n\"So I'd made a poster and wrote that people were being sent to their deaths. And on another placard I appealed to Russian soldiers: 'Lay down your guns and you will be heroes.'\"\n\nAcross town, a human rights group, Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg, is operating a hotline.\n\nParents call in, worried for their conscript sons, some of whom are already fighting in Ukraine.\n\nMany of them desperately ask for help to bring their boys home. There have been lots of calls - but there's also lots of pressure from above. Olga from the group tells me it is being forced to shut down.\n\n\"The authorities prefer to cover things up, to give society a false picture that everything's fine in the army. They want soldiers' mothers to be patient and to be silent.\"\n\nBut in St Petersburg, and across Russia, the authorities are trying to rally support for what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.\n\nElena's flat is filled with her artworks - not all of which is explicitly anti-war\n\nThe St Petersburg Police press department has been busy. They have made a number of slick videos, complete with thumping soundtrack, to show support for Russia's forces in Ukraine.\n\nIn one, riot officers link arms with people on the street. The camera pans up to reveal that the crowd has formed the letter Z.\n\nThe symbol is painted on many of the Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, and is used to show support for Russia's offensive. And there are many Russians who do support it - who, for now, believe what the state media here is telling them: that Russia is in the right.\n\nOutside the world-famous Hermitage Museum, I stop to talk to Nadezhda, who is out for a stroll. She tells me: \"I love my Motherland and I trust my president, and If you think the West can frighten us by withholding goods, you're wrong. Russians aren't scared of cold or hunger.\"\n\nBut back in her flat, artist Elena Osipova says she will never accept that what Russian is doing in Ukraine is right.\n\n\"What's happening is a disgrace. So many people are being killed. The authorities are trying to arouse patriotic feelings in the public. But it's all a deception. And many are deceived by the propaganda that has gone on for years and that has changed people. It's terrible.\"\n\nIn recent years, Russians have known many wars.\n\nThe Soviet war in Afghanistan, two wars in Chechnya, the Russian military getting involved in the war in Syria. And now Ukraine. The Kremlin insists that its troops there are conducting a special military operation.\n\nBut most of the world calls it Russia's war.", "Protests have been held in east London over the student's treatment\n\nThe governing body of an east London school where a black pupil was strip-searched has publicly apologised for the incident.\n\nA safeguarding report found the search of the 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nIn a statement the governing board said the school \"was not aware that a strip-search was taking place\".\n\nChild Q is suing the Met Police and the school in Hackney over the incident.\n\nThe governing body said: \"The incident involving Child Q is harrowing, and we understand and share the sadness and anger that is being felt by the community.\n\n\"While the school was not aware that a strip search was taking place, we wholly accept that the child should not have been left in the situation that she was.\n\n\"For this, we have offered a full and formal apology to Child Q and her family, and continue to work with them to provide what support we can.\"\n\nLawyers acting on behalf of Child Q have asked for the school not to be named in the media.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: \"When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will\"\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers who were looking for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nNo other adult was present, her parents were not contacted, and no drugs were found.\n\nThe girl's intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review.\n\nScotland Yard has admitted the actions of the two officers were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nOn Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government was taking the matter \"extremely seriously\".\n\nIn the statement, the school's governing board said \"changes were made immediately after the incident, and continued to be made\".\n\nSince the incident, the school has changed the leadership of its governing board. However, research by the BBC shows the chair of governors was still in place six months after the search occurred.\n\nThe make-up of the board has also changed. The governing board said it would not comment on the employment status of anyone involved.\n\nThe Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said a report on the incident is being \"finalised\".\n\nThe incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, near the site of Child Q's school.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "After Viktoriia Roshchyna was released from detention, a hostage-style video began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram channels\n\nUkrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas, the UN has told the BBC.\n\nAt least 36 cases of civilian detentions were verified by the UN, with families often denied any information about the fate of those being held.\n\nUkrainians say they fear an escalating campaign of kidnappings and intimidation, as Russia struggles to assert control over towns it captures.\n\nViktoriia Roshchyna, a journalist, was working in occupied areas in the east of the country when she was taken by unidentified men on 15 March.\n\nHer employer, Hromadske media, said she \"was probably detained by the FSB\", Russia's internal intelligence service, based on witness accounts of her being taken in the city of Berdyansk.\n\nShe was released six days later when a hostage-style video - apparently recorded under duress - began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram outlets. In it Ms Roshchyna said Russia had not taken her captive and thanked Moscow's forces for \"saving her life\".\n\nSvetlana Zalizetskaya, a journalist in the occupied city of Melitopol, accused Russian forces of taking her 75-year old father hostage as punishment for her refusal to co-operate with the new administration.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Andrei Kurkov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Zalizetskaya, the director of local news agency RIA Melitopol, wrote on Facebook that her father had been detained after her meeting with the Russian-installed leader of the city, where she refused to end her criticism of the invasion.\n\nShe said that she received a phone call from his captors, in which her father informed her that he was being held \"in some basement\" and said that he \"didn't know what they wanted from him\".\n\nHis captors demanded that Ms Zalizetskaya, who has pledged to \"tell the world of atrocities\" committed by Moscow's forces in Melitopol, surrender herself.\n\nUkraine's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said four journalists had also been detained and were later released in Melitopol.\n\nThe head of the Ukrainian NUJ, Sergiy Tomilenko, said the detentions were part of \"a wave of information cleansing\" which is aimed towards the \"intimidation of journalists and public figures\".\n\nMykhailo Kumko, a retired local newspaper publisher, is one of the journalists detained in Melitopol\n\nA spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHR), whose monitoring mission in Ukraine has been documenting the abductions, told the BBC that those being targeted \"are mostly representatives of local communities, journalists and people who were vocal about their pro-Ukrainian positions\".\n\nBut they said they were not able to assess whether those being detained form part of \"targeted lists reportedly drawn up by Russian security officials\".\n\nIn February, US officials sent a letter to the UN warning that Russia had drawn up a \"kill list\" of Ukrainians to be attacked or detained following the invasion of the country.\n\nSome sources have suggested that a hack of a Ukrainian digital services app in January may have helped Russia identify targets, while the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has speculated that a hack of the Ukrainian national car insurance registry may have allowed security services to identify the locations of targets.\n\nA number of officials in occupied parts of Ukraine have been detained by Russian forces in recent weeks. In the southern city of Melitopol, Mayor Ivan Fedorov was abducted from a city crisis centre by Russian troops earlier this month.\n\nDiscussing his detention with local media, Mr Fedorov alleged that other detainees at the holding centre he was taken to were being tortured.\n\n\"They didn't touch me physically but trust me, seven armed men were enough to make their position clear,\" Mr Fedorov said. \"In the next cell someone was being tortured - there were screams which generated plenty of psychological pressure.\"\n\n\"They try to accuse them of sabotage and squeeze their fingers in the door to make them say which army they're from, but they're just local residents.\"\n\nIvan Fedorov met with President Volodymyr Zelensky after his release\n\nAlleged abductions have occurred in several other cities, including Nova Kakhovka in the north, where the secretary of the city council has disappeared, and in Bucha, where the local council told the BBC that six employees were detained and later released after a Russian raid.\n\nUkrainian MP Alyona Shkrum said she believed the detentions were likely to increase as Russia faces a lack of co-operation and increased resistance in occupied regions.\n\n\"I'm sure Putin thought it will be just as it was in Crimea, they come they take over the administrative buildings and the mayor will say 'lets co-operate, I will be your mayor now, what difference does it make',\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"It didn't happen at all here... nobody, even from sort of pro-Russian parties agreed to do what Russian soldiers wanted them to do\".\n\nRussian forces have faced opposition in occupied cities like Kherson\n\nMs Shkrum, a pro-Western MP, told the BBC that she was warned by the Ukrainian security services that she was likely on a Russian hit-list and was warned to avoid her apartment in Kyiv.\n\n\"Pretty much there are two lists,\" she said. \"A list of people to be killed as members of parliament, they are mostly people who [Russia] feel they cannot co-operate with. And a list of people to be taken hostage and taken to Moscow and forced to vote on something.\"\n\n\"I also have sanctions against me in Russia, so I presume I am on the list to be killed or captured,\" Ms Shkrum added.\n\nThe abductions have not been limited to public figures, with some civilians and ex-members of the armed forces also detained.\n\nMattia Nelles, a Ukrainian political analyst, told the BBC that his uncle, a former medic with the Ukrainian army who fought in the Donbas from 2016-2018, had been targeted by Russian soldiers in the eastern city of Svatove.\n\n\"Security forces of the Russian Federation have come to his house and searched for him,\" Mr Nelles said. \"Luckily he was not at his house but neighbours confirmed that he is wanted.\"\n\nMr Nelles said it was unclear which element of Russia's forces are behind the wave of detentions, but in his uncle's case he said the troops were \"a mix of army personnel and some other security forces. We can only speculate whether it's FSB, they didn't wear insignia\".\n\nHe fears that the campaign of arrests will escalate in the coming days. He observed that in southern areas, such as Kherson, so far the \"amount of arrests seem relatively low\" and some of the lists appear to be \"drawn up on the go\" as Russian forces identify those resisting occupation.\n\n\"Locals fear we are seeing the beginning of a more sustained campaign,\" he warned.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Catherine was all smiles despite the torrential rain that accompanied the royal visit to Sybil Strachan Primary School\n\nThe Duchess of Cambridge told children to \"cherish\" their friends during a visit to a primary school in the Bahamas.\n\nCatherine spoke of the challenges pupils faced in being apart from classmates and teachers when schools shut for two years during the pandemic.\n\nShe said the friendships made at school were \"special\" and urged the youngsters to \"cherish... and take time for them\".\n\nHer remarks came on the last day of William and Catherine's Caribbean tour.\n\nThe royal tour has seen activists calling for the monarchy to pay reparations for the slave trade and Prince William tell of his \"sorrow\" over slavery in a speech in Jamaica.\n\nThe duke and duchess sheltered from torrential rain under umbrellas as they arrived in Nassau on Friday.\n\nThey jokingly apologised for bringing typical British weather to the Bahamas as hundreds of people gathered to see the royal couple in the capital.\n\nThe deluge did little to dampen the carnival atmosphere as the couple watched a traditional Bahamian Junkanoo parade featuring performers in elaborate costumes.\n\nThe duke and duchess watched performers in elaborate costumes in the Junkanoo carnival\n\nThe duke and duchess sheltered under umbrellas as they watched the parade in the capital Nassau\n\nEarlier, William and Catherine praised the efforts of key workers during the pandemic, with the duchess speaking to medics at the Princess Margaret Hospital about the importance of mental and physical health.\n\nThe duke met members of the Bahamas Red Cross who had dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 before being deployed to Covid-19 hubs.\n\nIn a bid to lighten the mood, he said: \"We don't want any more disasters for you, let's hope the Bahamas Red Cross has a boring few years!\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The Duchess of Cambridge tells Bahamian schoolchildren, \"I see all of you as the stars of this country\"\n\nOn their first engagement of the day at Sybil Strachan primary school, the royal couple joined an assembly, where students presented them with a portrait of the Queen.\n\nIn a speech, Catherine told pupils the pandemic had \"taken you away from your classrooms and your friends and learning from home has had its challenges\".\n\n\"That is why it is so wonderful that after nearly two years away, you have recently returned to school and been reunited with your teachers and friends again,\" she said.\n\nPalace staff must be wondering how the defining image of the Cambridges' trip to the Caribbean was not the explosion of joy and pleasure that greeted the couple in Trench Town, in the Jamaican capital of Kingston.\n\nBut instead, what looked to many as some sort of white-saviour parody, with Catherine and William fleetingly making contact with the outstretched fingers of Jamaican children, pushing through a wire fence.\n\nIt was a bad misstep for a couple who are surprisingly media-savvy. And it was not the only one on this curiously disorganised trip.\n\nThe first engagement in Belize was hurriedly cancelled following a protest by some residents. Another smaller protest popped up on the day they arrived in Jamaica.\n\nIt is worth noting that many things went well. Prince William's speeches were thoughtful and well-received.\n\nAnd at their various events, the Cambridges thanked those who so often go un-thanked and unrewarded for their efforts, drawing attention to stubbornly unfashionable causes and issues.\n\nYou can read Jonny's full analysis here.\n\nThe duchess, who has carried out extensive work on early learning and child development, added: \"The connections, the relationships and friendships that you make during school are so special.\n\n\"So please look after them, cherish them and take time for them. And be kind, understanding and loving to yourself and others.\"\n\nShe also praised the \"spectacular natural environment\" of the Bahamas and said she hoped the couple's three children, Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three, might experience its \"clear waters and beautiful beaches before too long\".\n\nWilliam and Catherine met students at Sybil Strachan Primary School in Nassau on the final day of their tour\n\nWilliam and Catherine were given a painting of the Queen during the school visit\n\nThe duke and duchess arrived in the Bahamas from Jamaica on Thursday, and were greeted by Prime Minister Philip Davis, who conveyed his best wishes to the Queen, \"and congratulations on her Platinum Jubilee\".\n\nHe added: \"I do not think we will see the same again,\" to which William nodded.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge posed for a photograph with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Philip Davis and his wife Ann-Marie Davis\n\nThe Cambridges' week-long tour to mark the Queen's 70 years on the throne has seen them visit Belize and Jamaica before their final stop in the Bahamas.\n\nIn Belize, the royal couple got involved in some traditional dancing, visited a chocolate farm and learned about efforts to conserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nIn Jamaica, they visited the neighbourhood where reggae legend Bob Marley lived and played football with England forward Raheem Sterling, who was born on the island.\n\nThe royal tour has seen demonstrators urge the monarchy to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade. In Jamaica, there have been calls for the Queen to be removed as head of state.\n\nTheir trip comes four months after Barbados became a republic.\n\nDuring a speech at a dinner in Jamaica, William described slavery as abhorrent, saying it \"should never have happened\" and \"forever stains our history\".\n\nThe island's prime minister, Andrew Holness, had earlier told the future king his country planned to pursue its goals as an independent country.", "The Queen was all smiles as she peered at the array of artefacts laid out in the White Drawing Room of her Berkshire home\n\nThe Queen appeared delighted as she viewed a collection of hand-decorated teapots and enamelled trinket boxes, all brought to her Windsor Castle home for her latest public engagement.\n\nThe engagement was fulfilled five days before the planned memorial for her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh.\n\nThe 95-year-old was shown the items by Staffordshire company Halcyon Days.\n\nShe had been due to visit the firm's factory in 2020, but the pandemic prevented her doing so.\n\nSo following the \"working from home\" spirit of the past two years, the factory was invited to come to visit her.\n\nThere have recently been concerns about her ability to travel and mobility, and during the extended audience with the Halcyon Days staff, the Queen - who marks her Platinum Jubilee this year - was briefly pictured with a walking stick.\n\nBut another picture showed her wearing half-moon spectacles as she closely examined the artefacts in the White Drawing Room of her Berkshire residence.\n\nShe also wore her Flower Basket brooch - a basket of gem-studded flowers set with diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds - which was a gift from her parents in 1948 to mark the birth of her first child, Prince Charles.\n\nThe firm's owner Peter Harper, and its chairman and chief executive Pamela Harper, took the monarch through the items.\n\nThe 95-year-old smiled as she viewed a series of intricately-decorated items from the Halcyon Days collection\n\nAmong the pieces on display was a number of intricately-decorated coffee cups, saucers and tiny enamelled boxes, including some of the companies' earliest designs.\n\nHalcyon Days was founded in 1950, two years before the start of the Queen's reign, and marked its own Platinum Jubilee in 2020. It has three royal warrants.\n\nThe Queen was shown the firm's first ever \"year box\" - from the Silver Jubilee of 1977 - and viewed new Platinum Jubilee pieces which are dark blue and painted with platinum flowers of the realm.\n\nShe also watched a demonstration of traditional enamelling and gilding by hand by master artisans before examining several pieces in closer detail.\n\nShe viewed a selection of hand-decorated archive enamelware and fine bone china in closer detail\n\nThe monarch was reported to have particularly enjoyed the Castle of Mey tea range. Its pastel floral decoration was inspired by her late mother, the Queen Mother's, favourite flowers including primulas, pansies and Albertine roses.\n\nShe also looked at a rectangular enamelled trinket box, edged in lavender, featuring three colour portraits of the Queen Mother as a young woman.\n\nIt was released in 2005 and is adorned with Samuel Warburton's 1923 triptych painting of the Queen Mother in the year she married the Queen's father.\n\nThe Queen Mother admired the firm's pieces and first commissioned an enamel box in 1970 of her London home Clarence House. She issued the company's first royal warrant two years later.\n\nHalcyon Days was founded in 1950, two years before the start of the Queen's reign, and marked its own Platinum Jubilee in 2020\n\nHalycon Days has an enamel factory in Wolverhampton and a fine bone china and jewellery factory in Stoke.\n\nThe only supplier of objets d'art to the royal household, it is among just 14 firms globally to hold all three Royal Warrants, by appointment to the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales.\n\nThe Queen was forced to cancel a number of events towards the end of February after testing positive for Covid and experiencing mild, \"cold-like\" symptoms.", "Mariia, who was volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross, tried to help those injured in the attack but her kit was inside the theatre\n\nAs the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and - within seconds - the building had been split in two and left in ruins. We still do not know how many died, but the BBC has spoken to survivors who described for the first time what happened when the bomb fell.\n\nAll morning, Russian planes had been circling the skies above the city.\n\nMariia Rodionova, a 27-year-old teacher, had been living in the theatre for 10 days, having fled her ninth-floor apartment with her two dogs. They camped next to the stage in an auditorium near the back of the building.\n\nThat morning she had got some fish scraps from an outdoor field kitchen to feed her dogs, but then realised they had not drunk any water. So at about 10:00, she tied her dogs to her luggage and made her way towards the main entrance where a queue was forming for hot water.\n\nThere was the sound of a clap, thunderous and loud. Then the sound of broken glass. A man came from behind and pushed her to a wall, protecting her with his own body. The blast was so loud that she felt intense pain in one of her ears, so intense she thought her eardrum must have split. She only realised it had not because she could hear the screams of people. The screams were everywhere.\n\nThe force of the blast threw another man against a window. He fell on the ground, his face covered with broken glass. A woman, who also had a wound on her head, tried to help him. Mariia, who had been volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross in Mariupol, gathered her senses enough to shout over, telling her to stop.\n\n\"I said 'Wait, don't touch him. I'll bring my first aid kit and I'll help you both',\" she recalled. But her kit was inside the theatre, and that part of the building had collapsed.\n\n\"There was only rubble,\" she said. It was impossible for her to get in.\n\n\"For two hours, I couldn't do anything,\" she said. \"I just stayed there. I was in shock.\"\n\nVladyslav, a 27-year-old locksmith who does not want to use his full name, had also wandered into the building that morning. He had some friends there and went to look for them. He was near the main entrance when the explosion hit. He ran with others into a basement and, 10 minutes later, heard the building was on fire and emerged to a scene of chaos.\n\n\"Terrible things were happening,\" he said.\n\nHe saw plenty of people bleeding. Some had open fracture wounds. \"One mother was trying to find her kids under the rubble. A five-year-old kid was screaming: 'I don't want to die'. It was heartbreaking.\"\n\nIt is likely to have been just one bomb that fell on the theatre that morning, bringing all that destruction with it, analysis by McKenzie Intelligence Services for the BBC has concluded.\n\n\"Due to the missile appearing to accurately hit the centre of the building, we believe it is a laser-guided bomb, likely the KAB-500L or similar variant, launched from an aircraft,\" the London-based group said.\n\n\"The nature of the explosion indicates it was armed with an instantaneous fuse, so was unable to penetrate the ground floors.\"\n\nFrom the accuracy of the strike it is very likely that the theatre was the chosen target.\n\nSatellite imagery released by the US company Maxar, from the days before the attack, show the word \"children\" in Russian was clearly painted on the lawn in front of the theatre, visible to any passing bomber.\n\nRussia denies attacking the theatre. It has also denied hitting civilian sites in Ukraine, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country and nowhere more brutally than in Mariupol.\n\nAndrei Marusov, an investigative journalist from Mariupol, had visited the theatre two days before the attack. \"Everybody knew that it was a focal point for many women and children,\" Marusov, who is a former chairman of the advocacy group Transparency International Ukraine, said. \"There were only civilians there.\"\n\nThat Wednesday, the day of the bombing, he had gone up to the top of his building at 06:00 to survey the city. The planes were still buzzing through the air. He said Russian planes had been shelling and bombarding the area where the theatre was, that Sea of Azov waterfront all morning.\n\n\"I saw that the city centre was covered by fire and constant explosions,\" he said.\n\nMariia also remembers military planes \"making circles\" near the theatre that morning, and \"throwing bombs somewhere else\". But it was not unusual for her to spot military planes flying in the area. She had got used to their sound.\n\nThere are still many details that remain unclear about the attack. It is thought that up to 1,000 people were sheltering in the drama theatre. Some appeared to have based themselves in its underground bunker or bomb shelter, according to others who hid in the building and city authorities. Mariia saw others living in crowded corridors on overground floors.\n\nOne thing which is clear from the accounts of the people the BBC spoke to, is that people would wander around the complex, its corridors and grounds, and others would come and go.\n\nThe destroyed theatre that Mariia walked away from\n\nThe day after the attack, the city council said 130 people had been rescued. A further update said it was possible that many had survived. But there has been no news since then. The city is in such a desperate state that there may never be a clear picture of how many were there and how many survived.\n\nMariia's home inside the theatre for the days she was there was in an auditorium hall with a chandelier, and she nestled right next to the stage because her dogs had drawn some complaints. She said there were about 30 people in that hall and it is her belief that they must have all perished when the bomb hit. It was sheer luck that she had stepped outside at that moment.\n\nAfter the blasts she was unable to find her dogs and it was a moment of desperation: \"For me,\" she said, \"my dogs were more important than anything.\"\n\nVladyslav said he saw many people coming out of the building, something that Mariia saw as well.\n\n\"Some were with their luggage,\" she said. \"No-one knew what to do, and the area was still being shelled.\"\n\nStanding outside the theatre, she too looked at the damage. She realised it made no sense to look for another shelter. It had been a few stunned hours and she eventually left.\n\nShe tried to stop any car leaving the city. \"People were in panic,\" she said, \"no-one took me in their car.\" She started to walk along the coast.\n\n\"I needed to get out of the city.\"\n\nFirst, she got to the village of Pishchanka. \"I met a woman,\" she said, \"who asked if I was OK. I started to cry.\" She was offered tea and food, and invited to spend the night. The next morning, she kept walking, until she reached Melekyne. A curfew meant she had to stop at 20:00. A day later, she walked to Yalta. The following one, to Berdyansk. \"I walked all that time,\" she said.\n\nMariupol has seen the worst horrors of Russia's aggression on Ukraine. The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it relentlessly for almost a month, from the air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea. About 100,000 people remain trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege. No electricity, no gas, no running water.\n\nWhen Mariia left her flat for the theatre, her grandmother, who lived with her, refused to go. \"She just said: 'It's my apartment, my home. I'm going to die here'.\"\n\nMariia is still waiting to hear whether she is alive.", "Two men and a 17-year-old girl have been jailed for life for the homophobic murder of a doctor in a city centre park.\n\nPsychiatrist Dr Gary Jenkins, 54, was attacked in Cardiff's Bute Park on 20 July 2021, and died 16 days later.\n\nJason Edwards, 25 and Lee William Strickland, 36, will both serve a minimum of 32 years.\n\nDionne Timms-Williams, who was 16 at the time of the crime, will serve a minimum of 17 years.\n\nThe consultant psychiatrist, who was described as \"kind\" and \"compassionate\", was kicked and punched to death in the park by the trio.\n\nHe suffered multiple severe brain injuries and died at University Hospital of Wales.\n\nSentencing the three, Judge Daniel Williams said they had chosen to target gay men in Bute Park because they believed their victim would be \"less likely to report the crime\" and also \"sheer homophobia\".\n\nIn his sentencing remarks Judge Williams described the trio as a \"toxic mix\"\n\nAll three admitted to manslaughter, but were found guilty of murder after a trial at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.\n\nJudge Williams said Dr Jenkins was a \"kind and compassionate man,\" adding \"the world is the drabber for his passing, it's less kind and less colourful\".\n\nHe added: \"Why the three of you formed such a toxic mix will never be known, but you wanted to show how little you valued human life\".\n\nThe sound of the attack was captured on CCTV, lasting possibly as long as 28 minutes. The judge said there were \"no words to describe the audio recording\".\n\nJudge Williams said: \"Each of you punched, kicked and stamped on him and encouraged each other to do so.\n\n\"You ignored his desperate pleas to stop even after his pleas turned to groans as his life ebbed away,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV footage shows the moment the three defendants met, with Timms-Williams offered a can of cider by Edwards\n\nIn CCTV footage of the attack, shown to the jury during the trial, Dr Jenkins can be heard repeatedly shouting \"leave me alone\" and \"get off me\".\n\nA female voice, identified as Timms-Williams, shouts \"money\" and \"now\", then says: \"Hit him again.\"\n\nAt the end of the attack, the girl is heard saying: \"Yeah, I needed that.\"\n\nIn a statement the wife of Dr Jenkins said his death had hit the family hard, adding: \"He was such a kind soul who would never hurt anyone\".\n\n\"When the family learnt what happened our world fell apart. Gary was much loved by all who knew him.\"\n\nShe said their two daughters had been \"massively affected\" and were now \"struggling in areas where they previously were thriving.\"\n\n\"We cannot bring Gary back, there are no winners, only losers. But as a family we are relieved that justice is done and through this harrowing process we hope to restore our faith in humanity,\" she added.\n\nDr Jenkins was attacked near the Summerhouse cafe in Bute Park\n\nNathan Williams, who had been friends with Dr Jenkins since school, described him as a \"caring, sensitive and compassionate person\", and a \"whirlwind, who made life interesting\".\n\nHe said his death represented a \"deeply painful loss felt each day by colleagues, patients and friends\" with some colleagues saying that \"life has lost its vibrancy\" since the attack.\n\nHe added he had not been able to enter the park since his friend's death.\n\n\"That beautiful park will now always be the place he was taken from us,\" he said.\n\nDr Jenkins' employer, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said he would \"remain prominently\" in the memory of all staff and patients who knew him.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Cardiff & Vale UHB This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFollowing the sentencing, senior investigating officer for South Wales Police, Det Insp Stuart Wales, said the attack was \"cowardly and senseless in the extreme\".\n\n\"The degree and duration of unnecessary violence inflicted upon him, together with homophobic abuse - all captured on audio, was both sickening and staggering,\" he added.\n\n\"He did nothing whatsoever to warrant this.\n\n\"Nothing will fill the void in the lives of those who loved Gary and have suffered the heartbreak of losing him in the most devastating circumstances.\"\n\nJudge Williams said aggravating factors in the case were that the murder had been for gain, that it happened during the course of a robbery and that the attack was homophobic.\n\nHe sentenced Edwards and Strickland to serve a minimum term of 32 years and 123 days, and Timms-Williams to a minimum of 17 years.\n\nAll three were also sentenced for offences of robbery and assault, to run concurrently with their life sentences.\n\nWhen released they will spend the rest of their lives on licence, Cardiff Crown Court heard.", "The wife of a US Supreme Court judge repeatedly pressed Trump White House staff to overturn the 2020 presidential election, US media has reported.\n\nVirginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly sent 29 text messages to former adviser Mark Meadows, urging him not to concede.\n\nMs Thomas called Joe Biden's victory \"the greatest heist of our history\".\n\nThe texts are among 2,320 messages Mr Meadows provided to a committee investigating the US Capitol riot.\n\nIn the text messages, seen by CBS News and The Washington Post, she urged Mr Meadows, who was Donald Trump's chief of staff, to \"make a plan\" in a bid to save his presidency.\n\n\"Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back\", she wrote on 6 November. It is unclear if Mr Meadows responded.\n\nMs Thomas also appeared to push QAnon conspiracy theories and urged Mr Meadows to appoint Sidney Powell, a conspiracy theorist and lawyer, to head up Mr Trump's legal team.\n\n\"Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud,\" Ms Thomas wrote. \"Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.\"\n\nMr Meadows told Ms Thomas that he intended to \"stand firm\" and said that he \"will fight until there is no fight left\".\n\nThe Trump campaign later distanced itself from Ms Powell, after she made dramatic claims of voter fraud, without providing any evidence, at several media events.\n\nVirginia Thomas - who goes by Ginni - is a prominent Republican fundraiser. She was formerly associated with the Tea Party wing of the party, a hard-line conservative movement to which Mr Meadows was also affiliated during his time in the House of Representatives.\n\nShe has been married to conservative-leaning Justice Clarence Thomas for 35 years, and has insisted her activist work has no influence on her husband's work with the Supreme Court.\n\nIn 2010, she made headlines for asking Anita Hill to apologise for accusing Mr Thomas of harassment during his confirmation hearings in 1991.\n\nClarence Thomas, who was released from hospital on Friday after suffering from flu-like symptoms, is the longest-serving member of the US Supreme Court, having served since 1991.\n\nHe is considered extremely influential in American law, but for much of his career rarely spoke or asked questions in court until 2016 when he broke a 10-year silence.\n\nSince the Covid pandemic began, however, Mr Thomas has become more vocal and participates in most oral arguments.\n\nIn February 2021 the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump's challenges to the elections result, however Mr Thomas dissented from the decision, calling it \"baffling\".\n\nThe revelation of Ginni Thomas's conspiracy-minded text messages have prompted critics on the left to call for Clarence Thomas to be impeached and removed from his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.\n\nThey point to his lone dissent from the Supreme Court decision ordering the release of White House documents to the congressional committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack as evidence that he was secretly protecting his wife, who was closely involved in efforts to overturn Donald Trump's election defeat.\n\nMr Thomas's defenders counter that he should not be held responsible for the activities of his spouse and, in any regard, there are no ethical rules that apply to high court justices.\n\nThe impeachment process for Supreme Court justices is the same as those for US presidents - a majority vote in the House of Representatives and two-thirds to convict and remove in the US Senate. That's an unreachable bar given the current partisan divide of the latter chamber.\n\nIn fact, only one US Supreme Court justice has been impeached by the House in US history. Samuel Chase was accused of political bias and misdeeds in 1804. He was acquitted in the Senate by a comfortable margin.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How the US marked the Capitol riot anniversary", "Ukraine is \"not alone\" in its fight against Russia's invasion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.\n\nHe said the UK would not stand by while Vladimir Putin \"vents his fury on Ukraine\" and would work to ramp up defensive weaponry for the country.\n\nSpeaking in Brussels, he warned that, if the Russian president used chemical weapons, the consequences would be \"catastrophic for him\".\n\nEarlier, the UK announced sanctions on 65 more Russian groups and individuals.\n\nMr Johnson later told BBC Newsnight that Russia did not want peace, and instead wanted to intensify its attack on Ukraine.\n\nLeaders from Nato, the EU and the G7 have been holding emergency meetings in Brussels to discuss the conflict.\n\nSpeaking at a news conference following the Nato summit, Mr Johnson defended the level of the UK's support for Ukraine, saying the government planned to send 6,000 more missiles to the country as well as an extra £25m in aid to help Ukraine pay the salaries of its armed forces.\n\nThe PM said kit would be provided to Ukraine to defend against \"its bullying neighbour\".\n\nMr Johnson also promised a new deployment of UK troops to Bulgaria, on top of doubling troops both in Poland and in Estonia.\n\nIt follows Nato's earlier announcement that new battle groups would be created in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.\n\n\"The message Putin can take is: Ukraine is not alone. We stand with the people of Kyiv, Mariupol, Lviv and Donetsk,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"As President Zelensky himself has said, the people of Ukraine must prevail and Putin must fail - and he will.\"\n\nMr Johnson added that Western nations were looking to \"steadily ratchet up\" the amount of military gear they are sending Ukraine, but that it was proving \"difficult\" to meet the country's request for warplanes and tanks.\n\nIn a virtual appearance at the summit earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's asked Nato for \"1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks\".\n\nMr Johnson said: \"What President Zelensky wants is to try to relieve Mariupol and to help the thousands of Ukrainian fighters in the city. To that end he does need armour, as he sees it.\"\n\n\"We are looking at what we can do to help. But logistically it looks very difficult both with armour and with jets.\"\n\nMr Johnson added that no Western power was looking to put \"boots on the ground\" or impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.\n\nHe acknowledged that the Ukrainian president wanted more from Nato, saying allies felt \"agony\" about their \"inability to do more given the constraints we face\".\n\nIn a statement reported by Russia's Ria news agency, Russia's foreign ministry said Nato's decision to continue supporting Ukraine showed the military alliance wanted the conflict to continue.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Zelensky calls on people to 'support freedom' one month after Russia invaded Ukraine\n\nThe UK government has already given £400m in humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine and its neighbouring nations since Russia's invasion last month.\n\nThe PM said ministers had sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities so far in the toughest sanctions the UK had ever imposed.\n\nThe Wagner Group, a private military firm thought to function as an arms-length unit of the Russian military, was among the 65 entities hit by the latest sanctions announced by the UK earlier.\n\nAlso targeted were Gazprombank, the country's third-largest bank and one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.\n\nThe stepdaughter of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Polina Kovaleva, who is thought to own a London property worth an estimated £4m, was also targeted by the measures.\n\nEarlier, Mr Johnson called on the West to consider measures to prevent Russia using its gold reserves to prop up its currency, the rouble.\n\nHe told the news conference the Kremlin was \"trying to get around the sanctions on their gold\" and the UK and others were trying to ensure there was \"no leakage or no sale of bullion into markets around the world\".\n\nThe prime minister said he was not \"remotely anti-Russian\" after the Kremlin labelled him the \"most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian\".\n\nHe said that, while one could be sympathetic to ordinary Russians, the way Mr Putin was leading Russia was \"utterly catastrophic\" and his invasion of Ukraine was \"inhuman and barbaric\".\n\nMr Johnson dismissed talk about the use of nuclear weapons as a \"distraction\" from what was happening in Ukraine - where he said Russia's use of conventional weapons against \"innocent people\" had been \"absolutely barbaric\".\n\nHe warned that any use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be \"disastrous for Putin\".\n\n\"There is a visceral horror of the use of these weapons of mass destruction. I think that if Putin were to engage in anything like that the consequences would be very, very severe.\n\n\"You have to have a bit of ambiguity about your response but I think it would be catastrophic for him if he were to do that. And I think that he understands that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch what Boris Johnson says about the prospect of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine\n\nIn an interview with the BBC's Newsnight Mr Johnson said Ukraine can win the war with Russia - not necessarily on the battlefield, but by making an occupation impossible.\n\n\"There's a sense in which Putin has already failed, or lost, because I think that he had literally no idea that the Ukrainians were going to mount the resistance that they are and he totally misunderstood what Ukraine is - and, far from extinguishing Ukraine as a nation, he's solidified it... He can't subjugate Ukraine.\"\n\nThe prime minister added that he was \"not optimistic\" the Russian president truly wanted peace, and that he had instead decided to \"double down\" in his assault on Ukraine which he said was a \"tragic mistake.\"\n\nMr Johnson sparked anger at the weekend after appearing to make a comparison between Britons voting to leave the European Union and Ukrainians fighting for the freedom from Russia.\n\nBut when asked about this the prime minister said that had not been the analogy he was making and his words had been \"wildly misconstrued\".\n\nElsewhere, US President Joe Biden warned any use of chemical weapons by Mr Putin would be met with a \"response in kind\", the nature of which \"would depend on the nature of the use\".\n\nMr Biden said the Russian President had \"miscalculated\" in his decision to invade Ukraine, and had banked on \"Nato being split\".\n\n\"Nato has never, never been more united. Putin is getting exactly the opposite of (what) he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine.\"", "Sir Philip Pullman said he had been \"pressed by people both in and out of the Society\" to retract his comments\n\nAuthor Sir Philip Pullman has resigned as president of the Society of Authors in the wake of a controversy over his support for an author who was accused of racial and ableist stereotyping.\n\nLast year, the His Dark Materials writer backed Kate Clanchy after her memoir attracted criticism.\n\nThe society, a trade union for authors, distanced itself from his comments.\n\nHe has now said he \"would not be free to express my personal opinions as long as I remained president\".\n\nSir Philip took up the post in 2013 but divisions arose last August when he described Clanchy's Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me as \"humane, warm, decent, generous, and welcoming\".\n\nAnd in response to a tweet he wrongly thought to be about Clanchy, he said people who don't read a book before they condemn it would \"find a comfortable home in Isis or the Taliban\".\n\nThe society said his comments were \"not in the name of the Society of Authors\" and asked its members to \"be mindful of privilege and of the impact of what they create, do and say\".\n\nSir Philip later tweeted an apology, saying criticism of Clanchy was \"reasonable and balanced\" and the \"experiences and imaginations\" of people of colour \"deserve every kind of respect\".\n\nIn his resignation letter, which has just been published, he said: \"Recent events have made it apparent that when a difference of opinion arises, there is no easy way to resolve it within the constitution or the established practices of the Society.\n\n\"When it became clear that statements of mine were being regarded as if they represented the views of the Society as a whole (although they did nothing of the sort, and weren't intended to), and that I was being pressed by people both in and out of the Society to retract them and apologise, I realised that I would not be free to express my personal opinions as long as I remained President.\n\n\"That being the case, with great regret and after long consideration I chose to stand down.\"\n\nThe society's chief executive Nicola Solomon said: \"We were very sorry when Philip told us in February that he intended to resign, and regret that his personal views have come under so much scrutiny because of his presidency of the SoA.\n\n\"Social media has changed the way we all communicate, organisations as well as individuals.\n\n\"We are in the process of reviewing the constitution to reflect the times in which we live, including the roles of the management committee, chair and president.\"\n\nIn January, Pan Macmillan and Clanchy parted company \"by mutual consent\", with the publisher saying it would not publish Clanchy's new titles nor any updated editions from her, and would revert the rights and cease distribution, following criticism of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps: \"It's breathtakingly arrogant what they have done\"\n\nThe prime minister has backed calls for the boss of P&O Ferries to resign over the no-notice sackings of 800 staff.\n\nBoris Johnson supported Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in urging Peter Hebblethwaite to step down after his \"brazen\" law breaking, No 10 said.\n\nHe admitted to MPs that he broke the law by not consulting workers but said he would do the same again if he had to.\n\nA government spokesperson said it has asked for a review of P&O's actions.\n\nP&O Ferries replaced staff with agency workers paid less than the minimum wage.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite prompted further anger when he told the transport committee P&O \"did choose not to consult\" on the move and \"did not believe there was any other way to do this\".\n\nP&O's owner DP World had warned Mr Shapps that Irish Ferries was a new \"low-cost competitor\" that would pose a challenge to the business, minutes from a meeting in November revealed.\n\nMr Shapps had replied to DP World boss DP Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem: \"I'm aware of the issues relating to P&O. I recognise you will need to make commercial decisions, but please do keep us informed.\"\n\nBut the transport secretary told BBC Breakfast the first he knew of the P&O sackings was when he was \"stood at the despatch box\" in the Commons last Thursday delivering a statement on another issue.\n\nHe added that even if he had known in advance, \"it wouldn't have made any difference\", because P&O Ferries had already hired agency staff, security, and recorded the video \"behind everybody's backs\".\n\nThe BBC has seen a letter Mr Hebblethwaite sent to P&O colleagues on Friday telling them \"this type of dismissal could not and would not happen again\".\n\nHe called it a \"unique situation\" and said no criminal offence had been committed.\n\nHe wrote that there had been \"a failure to comply with the obligation to consult\".\n\nP&O Ferries had made redundancies due to pandemic pressures before the mass sackings, but had previously consulted unions.\n\nFriday's talks between union officials and P&O ended after 20 minutes without any agreement, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said.\n\nGeneral secretary Mick Lynch said: \"P&O were not prepared to listen to any scenario or develop any idea that would provide a means to create a solution to the current disastrous situation.\"\n\nIt has called for the immediate disqualification of Mr Hebblethwaite as a director. It also wants the government to reinstate sacked workers in their jobs.\n\nThe Institute of Directors has said Mr Hebblethwaite could face court proceedings under the Company Directors Disqualification Act (1986).\n\nDr Roger Barker, director of policy and governance, said this was due to Mr Hebblethwaite's suggestion that P&O knowingly broke the law by not consulting staff.\n\n\"[Mr Hebblethwaite] leaves himself and the rest of the board vulnerable to court proceedings for unfit conduct and the potential for disqualification as a director, not just of P&O but any UK company.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. ‘P&O Ferries weren’t just jobs they were our homes’\n\nLabour's shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, also called on the government to disqualify Mr Hebblethwaite as a company director.\n\nShe told BBC News: \"The government can do more than just wait for the chief executive to go. The government should be investigating action against him to disqualify him as a company director now and in the future as well.\"\n\nMr Shapps told BBC Breakfast the government would bring in measures next week to force P&O Ferries into a U-turn to re-employ staff on at least minimum wage.\n\nThese changes would also affect the operator Irish Ferries, who he said have used \"the same model\".\n\nAsked about the action government could take against P&O, Mr Shapps admitted it \"can't directly\" revoke P&O's licence but said \"we do have some mechanisms\".\n\n\"There are a whole load of other things happening including letters going out to the ports from which they sail, then, as I mentioned, different types of legislation will be forthcoming, so we are going to make sure P&O have to U-turn on this.\"\n\nHowever, Beth Hale, partner at employment law firm CM Murray, questioned the government's capacity to force through a change.\n\n\"It's not clear what mechanisms the government is proposing to rely on to force a U-turn in this matter. The dismissals of the employees have already taken effect - and some may already have signed up to settlement agreements and accepted termination payments.\n\n\"There is no mechanism in the law as it currently stands which would allow the government or unions to force an employer to re-engage employees in those circumstances,\" she said, adding that pressure could be applied in different ways such as the Insolvency Service disqualifying individual P&O Ferries directors.\n\nA government spokesperson said that it has asked the Insolvency Service to review P&O Ferries' actions.\n\n\"This will include any scope to take legal action against the company's directors. We will not hesitate to take further action if we find evidence of wrongdoing,\" they added.\n\nP&O Ferries has said its 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nMr Shapps also told Radio 4's Today programme: \"What they've done is try to pay off, or attempt to pay off, their staff with higher redundancy payments...and therefore buy their silence and we cannot have a situation where laws are being creatively used and abused in this case.\"\n\nHe said: \"The idea that you come to parliament and you admit that you deliberately set out to break the laws in order to sack your staff and bring in below minimum wage people and that you'll buy off the staff to do that is quite simply unacceptable.\n\n\"They've exploited loopholes, they've been completely disgraceful and I'm clear that is no way to behave and not the right individual to have at the top of a British business.\"", "Mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess died after coming into contact with the Russian nerve agent Novichok\n\nThe chairman of a public inquiry has promised a \"rigorous investigation\" of potential Russian involvement in the death of Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess.\n\nMs Sturgess, 44, died in July 2018 in Amesbury, Wiltshire, after coming into contact with the nerve agent in what she thought was a bottle of perfume.\n\nLord Hughes, who will head the inquiry, said recent world events highlighted the importance of \"clear conclusions\".\n\nA preliminary hearing was held earlier at the Royal Courts of Justice.\n\nThe deadly solution was smeared on the door handle of Sergei and Yulia Skripal's home in Salisbury\n\nThe public inquiry itself is scheduled to begin next year.\n\nMs Sturgess died in hospital on 8 July 2018 after she was exposed to Novichok that had been stored in a discarded perfume bottle found by her boyfriend Charlie Rowley and given to her as a gift.\n\nThe previous inquest into her death was converted into a public inquiry to allow it to have access to top secret intelligence which will be considered in private.\n\nLord Hughes told the preliminary hearing that the inquiry would deal with \"wide-ranging matters including international politics and complex science\" and offered sympathy to Ms Sturgess's family.\n\n\"We must not lose sight of the fact that at its heart is the death of a woman who had no international or security life,\" he said.\n\n\"She was dearly loved and must, I am sure, be much missed by her family and friends.\"\n\nMs Sturgess's family and her partner Mr Rowley will be represented by barristers at the inquiry, along with Sergei and Yulia Skripal, the original targets of what police believe was a Russian hit squad in Salisbury.\n\nThe substance was smeared on Mr Skripal's door handle on 4 March 2018, at his home in Salisbury, eight miles from Amesbury.\n\nMr Skripal, his daughter Yulia and Mr Rowley survived their exposure to the solution.\n\nOperation Verbasco, a combined investigation involving both the Metropolitan and Thames Valley police forces, has produced much of the evidence in the case.\n\nThis investigation led to two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, being named as prime suspects in the poisoning, alongside a third man Denis Sergeev, who is believed to have helped them.\n\nThe men were offered the opportunity to be represented at the previous inquest but have not responded.\n\nAn inquiry barrister has been asked to ensure that the evidence against them is \"fully tested\" to ensure the proceedings are fair.\n\nLord Hughes said: \"The accusations have been made very publicly.\n\n\"An inquiry like this does not conduct a trial. It can't convict anybody of anything but it will be necessary, as I see it, to decide whether the facts alleged are proved or not.\"\n\nGovernment barrister Cathryn McGahey told the inquiry that intelligence staff are under considerable pressure and \"cannot afford to make mistakes\".\n\nAs a result, the government said it would not be able to deliver the first stage of evidence disclosure by April, as requested by the inquiry.\n\nIt hoped to deliver it by June, which could delay the first hearings due to take place next year.\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "US President Joe Biden met with G7 leaders in Brussels on Thursday, including Germany's Olaf Scholz and the UK's Boris Johnson\n\nAfter the disinterested, often EU-antagonistic Trump-years, the US is back with bells on when it comes to involvement in European security.\n\nThat's more or less been the message of President Joe Biden during his late-week dash to G7, EU and Nato summits in Brussels on Thursday, with a fly-by to Poland on Friday.\n\nThe president's visit was borne out of the shadows of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And its aim was two-fold:\n\nBiden says he's offering the EU access to US natural gas and hydrogen supplies, as the bloc tries to wean itself off a heavy reliance on Russian energy. This will take time to organise.\n\nThe US president also made headlines during his European trip, announcing any chemical attack launched by Russia in Ukraine would be met \"in kind\" by Nato. Though he declined to go into detail.\n\nWashington had so far shown huge reluctance to get too involved in Ukraine for fear of provoking a wider war with nuclear power Russia.\n\nEastern Europeans have expressed frustration in past weeks at the point-blank refusal by the White House to contemplate imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, for instance.\n\nThose same countries now welcome what they view as a change in Biden's tone. Though what he means in practice about a \"proportionate\" response should the Kremlin use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine, has been left - possibly intentionally - vague.\n\nBut while this new US interest and intervention has been welcomed by Europe's leaders, Brussels still suffers from an acute case of post-Trump wariness.\n\nIt's too simplistic to suggest the EU is now resolutely pivoting away from reliance on Russian energy and business ties, towards Washington instead.\n\nFrance demands the EU avoid becoming dependent on any one country outside the bloc, including the US.\n\nDonald Trump being re-elected president in 2024 is seen here as a very real possibility.\n\nFrance's Emmanuel Macron (right) does not want the EU to be dependent on any outside country, including the US\n\nInstead, President Emmanuel Macron favours what he calls strategic sovereignty for the EU: where the bloc boosts its own energy and food production, technological advances and defence capabilities. The latter would be designed, Mr Macron is at pains to emphasise, to complement rather than rival Nato.\n\nFrankly, even if the EU wanted to trump the alliance in terms of defence, it's beyond the realms of the realistic.\n\nAs is the idea that, five weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, intra-EU unity would still be 100% watertight.\n\nCentral and Eastern European countries that now fear for their own security have been nicknamed the \"sanctionistas\". They favour far tougher, swifter sanctions against Moscow. Penalties introduced so far by the West have failed miserably to force Russia's Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and secure a realistic ceasefire in Ukraine, they argue.\n\nGermany Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) has rejected Eastern European demands for tougher measures on Russia\n\nGermany leads the more cautious EU members. Sanctions against Russia should have minimal repercussions in the countries imposing them, its Chancellor Olaf Scholz said this week. He's ruled out an Eastern European demand for an immediate ban on Russian oil, for instance. The EU relies on Russia for a third of its crude oil supplies. Losing that would send Germany and the rest of the EU plummeting into a recession, says Chancellor Scholz.\n\nYou probably remember Berlin trumpeting a new era at the start of Russia's onslaught in Ukraine. With promises to build up the German army and to end the country's decades-long dependence on Russian energy and close business ties.\n\nBut many in Brussels are now questioning Germany's resolve.\n\nThe more brutal the Kremlin's assault becomes in Ukraine, the tougher the choices facing western leaders as to how far they're willing to intervene. And the harder it will be for President Biden to maintain the united front he came to Europe to emphasise.\n\nA big test for EU and transatlantic unity comes next week when Brussels hosts the EU-China summit. Coached by the US President, his counter-part in the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, promises to make it \"absolutely clear\" to Beijing that it will face \"severe consequences\" if China helps Russia get round economic sanctions or sends military support.\n\nWill Germany drags it heels as to what form \"severe consequences\" might take? Berlin had pledged unwavering solidarity with Ukraine. That said, China is Germany's third most important trading partner.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nP&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite has admitted to MPs that a decision to sack 800 workers last week without notice broke the law.\n\nHe said there was \"absolutely no doubt\" that under UK employment law the firm was required to consult unions before making the mass cuts.\n\nHowever, he said no union would have accepted the plan and it was easier to compensate workers \"in full\" instead.\n\nThe P&O boss also said he would make the same decision again if he had to.\n\nHuw Merriman, the Conservative chair of the Transport Committee urged him to resign.\n\n\"It's untenable to come to parliament and say you decided to break the law, you have no regrets,\" Mr Merriman told BBC Radio 4's World at One.\n\n\"We can't have companies run by people like that. So he needs to hand his card in.\"\n\nThe sackings of P&O staff sparked outrage after it emerged they will be replaced by foreign agency workers paid less than the minimum wage.\n\nAddressing a committee of MPs on Thursday, Mr Hebblethwaite apologised for the distress caused by the cuts, but said they were necessary to save the business which has been loss-making.\n\nHe said workers would receive \"extremely generous\" compensation, although as part of these settlements they would forgo their right to pursue further legal action against P&O.\n\nAsked whether P&O broke the law by not consulting the unions, Mr Hebblethwaite said: \"It was our assessment that the change [to staffing] was of such a magnitude that no union could possibly accept our proposal.\n\n\"So as I say, I completely throw our hands up, my hands up, that we did choose not to consult.\"\n\nHe added: \"We did not believe there was any other way to do this and we are compensating people in full.\"\n\nAsked if he would change anything about the decision made last Thursday, he responded: \"That's a really, really difficult question.\n\n\"The business would close, the business was not viable. This is the only way for us to save this business and we have moved to a model that is internationally recognised and widely used across the globe and by our competitors.\n\n\"I would make this decision again I'm afraid.\"\n\nPeter Hebblethwaite apologised to workers. But he remained adamant there had been no other option and gave no indication that he would change course.\n\nMPs were aghast at his open admission that the business had chosen not to comply with the requirement to consult unions over planned redundancies.\n\nA representative of DP World, which owns P&O, said Mr Hebblethwaite would not be sacked.\n\nBut after this morning's appearance, the calls for him to resign are growing.\n\nNo P&O worker will get less than £15,000 in compensation, he said, and a small number will receive more than £100,000.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite, who earns £325,000 a year as a base salary, said he could not say whether he would get a performance-related bonus after the sackings.\n\nIn 2020, the directors of P&O were paid £1.9m in total, and the highest paid director got £452,000.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite told MPs that the average hourly rate of pay for new P&O crewmembers would be £5.50 per hour, which is below the UK minimum wage. However, it is in line with international maritime standards.\n\nFrom 1 April, the UK minimum wage for people aged 23 and over will be £9.50.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite said that the firm's new operating model was consistent with \"models throughout the globe and our competitors\".\n\nFormer P&O worker John said he was 'sickened and shocked' by the hearing\n\nBy sacking its crews and taking on agency staff instead, he said the business would cut its wage bill in half.\n\nFollowing the hearing MP Darren Jones, who chairs the business committee, said he was \"amazed\" by Mr Hebblethwaite's evidence.\n\nThe Labour MP added: \"He should be fined, struck off and prosecuted.\"\n\nJohn, a former P&O seafarer, who started working in the ferry business when he was 16, also said the P&O boss should go.\n\n\"I am sickened and shocked by this man's arrogant explanation,\" he said. \"I don't even know if I've got the right words for how I'm feeling inside.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The government will stop a similar firing of P&O Ferries staff after the firm “exploited a loophole”, says Grant Shapps.\n\nMeanwhile, transport secretary Grant Shapps said he would take action to prevent similar mass sackings without notice.\n\nHe said the government would \"have a package of measures\" to remove a \"loophole in the law\" it believed had been \"exploited\" by P&O.\n\nMPs on the committee also raised questions about the way P&O notified foreign governments that it was going to make the redundancies, which is a legal requirement.\n\nThe company informed authorities in Barbados, Bermuda and Cyprus on 17 March - but MPs said it should have done this sooner.\n\nOn Wednesday, Boris Johnson told the Commons that \"it looks like\" P&O breached a similar rule in the UK, but some employment lawyers have cast doubt on that claim.\n\nThe company denies it breached any rules in this regard.", "One month into this invasion and so far, Ukraine has defied the odds. Outnumbered on almost every metric - in tanks, in troops, in aircraft - Ukraine's forces, reinforced by citizen volunteers, have in many places fought the Russian army to a standstill.\n\nThey have lost territory, especially in the south around Crimea, which was already occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014. But Moscow's original aim of quickly seizing the capital Kyiv and other major cities, forcing the government to resign, has manifestly failed.\n\nThe tide could still turn against Ukraine. Its forces are running dangerously low on the vital western-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles needed to fend off the advancing Russians.\n\nMany of Ukraine's most battle-hardened regular forces in the east of the country are at risk of being surrounded, cut off and annihilated. And with a quarter of the nation's population having fled their homes, those that stay put risk seeing their cities turned into a dystopian wasteland by relentless Russian artillery and rocket fire.\n\nYet despite these factors, Ukraine's forces are outperforming Russia's in this war, on several levels. This week the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised them as defending parts of their country \"very smartly, very nimbly, very creatively\". So what exactly have been the secrets of their success?\n\nUkrainians' willingness to do what they can to defend their nation has freed up professional soldiers to go to the front line\n\nThere is a wealth of difference between the morale of the two armies. Ukrainians are fighting for the very survival of their country as a sovereign nation, appalled at President Putin's eve-of-war speech in which he said Ukraine was basically just an artificial Russian creation.\n\nUkrainians have rallied behind their government and their president. This has resulted in citizens with no prior military experience readily taking up arms to defend their towns and cities despite the overwhelming Russian firepower facing them.\n\n\"This is how people fight for their very existence,\" says Brigadier Tom Foulkes, who spent 35 years as a British Army officer in Germany during the Cold War. \"This is how they defend their homeland and their families. Their courage is both shocking and splendid.\"\n\nIn practice this has freed up Ukrainian soldiers to go and fight on the front line, knowing their cities have defence in depth.\n\nBy contrast, many of the Russian soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine are conscripts just out of school, bewildered and confused at finding themselves in a war zone when they thought they were just going on an exercise.\n\nMost had little or no battle preparation for the ferocity of the fighting they have encountered. There have been reports of desertions, food shortages and looting.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his senior colleagues have shown clear leadership\n\nEarly expectations of a devastating Russian cyber attack, knocking out Ukraine's communications, did not materialise. Instead, Ukraine has somehow managed to maintain effective co-ordination over several battlefronts, even where it has lost ground.\n\nIts government has stayed put in Kyiv and remained highly visible, with even the deputy prime minister dressed in a utilitarian khaki T-shirt as she addresses the nation against a backdrop of government insignia.\n\nThe Russian army, by contrast, does not appear to have any kind of unified leadership, with little co-ordination between its separate battlefronts.\n\nThis is likely to have had a negative effect on Russian military morale. It has been suggested the reported deaths of at least five Russian generals is partly a result of their having to get close to the fighting to dislodge their troops from getting bogged down.\n\nAt the level of Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), ie the corporals and the sergeants, Russian military doctrine allows for almost no initiative, with these junior ranks always waiting for orders from above.\n\nProf Michael Clarke, a military expert at King's College London, says Russian NCOs are beset with corruption and inefficiency and are deeply unpopular with those they command.\n\nUkraine has had access to tools of modern warfare such as the Javelin missile\n\nUkraine's forces are heavily outnumbered and yet they have made much better use of the ground and their weapons than the invading Russians.\n\nWhereas the Russians have tended to concentrate their forces in slow, heavy armoured columns, often with vehicles bunched up close together, the Ukrainians have successfully conducted finely-tuned hit-and-run raids, sneaking up and firing off an anti-tank missile, then vanishing before the Russians can return fire.\n\nPrior to the invasion, Nato trainers from the US, UK and Canada spent long periods in Ukraine, bringing its forces up to speed in defensive warfare and instructing them on how to make best use of state-of-the-art missile systems such as the Javelin or the Swedish-designed NLAW anti-tank weapon or the latest version of the Stinger anti-aircraft missile.\n\n\"The Ukrainians have been much cleverer than the Russians\", says Prof Clarke, \"because they've fought something much closer to a combined arms operation which the Russians haven't\". By this he means they have made full use of all the military tools at their disposal, such as drones, artillery, infantry, tanks and electronic warfare.\n\nWhen combined together, the sum of all these different aspects of warfare can create an exponential effect greater than the sum of its parts.\n\nAnother military strategist, Justin Crump, who runs the intelligence consultancy Sibylline, says Ukrainians have been particularly adept at seeking out the vulnerable points in Russian formations and hitting them hard. \"Ukraine has made use of highly effective tactics\", he says, including targeting Russian weak points such as supply convoys, using Nato-supplied weapon systems to good effect against precision targets and improvising where required.\n\nWhile it is hard to get an accurate picture of casualty figures, even the more conservative estimates made by the Pentagon put Russian combat deaths at more than 7,000. That is nearly half as many men as the Soviets lost in 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan and we are only a month into this war.\n\nBrig Tom Foulkes also has an explanation as to why so many Russian generals are getting killed on the front line: \"This sounds to me like a deliberate and highly successful sniper campaign which could degrade the Russian command structures.\"\n\nPresident Zelensky has spoken via video to a series of international meetings and foreign parliaments\n\nAnd then there is the information war. Ukraine is winning this hands-down in most of the world - although not in Russia where the Kremlin still controls access to most of the media.\n\n\"Ukraine has mobilised the information sphere to tremendous domestic and international advantage\", says Justin Crump. \"This has come from the top down, aided by (President) Zelensky's formidable media savvy.\"\n\nIt's a view echoed by Dr Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer in post-Soviet security at Kings College London. \"Clearly the Ukrainian government has been very successful in controlling the narrative about the war, certainly for the wider world,\" she says. \"What the conflict has done for Ukraine's international reputation is absolutely remarkable.\"\n\nBut right now, one month into this desperate life-and-death struggle on Europe's eastern borders, that may still not be enough to salvage Ukraine.\n\nThe numerical might of the Russian army, for all its shortcomings, is not in Ukraine's favour. If somehow the supply of defensive weapons systems from the West dries up then there could only be so much longer this beleaguered nation can hold out.", "A record number of people in Scotland had Covid last week, according to official estimates - with one in 11 returning a positive result.\n\nThe latest weekly sampling by the Office for National Statistics suggest 473,800 people in Scotland had the virus in the week ending 20 March.\n\nIt came in the same week Covid patients in hospitals reached a record high.\n\nAnd NHS Lanarkshire warned its three acute hospitals - Hairmyres, Wishaw and Monklands - were beyond full.\n\nMedics said they were regularly running with capacity over 100% and they urged people to attend its accident and emergency departments only if their condition was urgent or life-threatening.\n\nThe surge in case numbers has been attributed to a more infectious Omicron sub-variant, BA.2.\n\nThe one in 11 rate was the UK's highest, with England and Wales reporting one in 16 and one in 17 in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe number of cases in Scotland has risen from 376,300 last week - when one in 14 had the virus - to 473,800 people in this week's data.\n\nMeanwhile, there were 2,326 hospital patients with the virus on Friday - the fifth day in a row that Covid patient numbers hit a record high.\n\nStaff at hospitals in NHS Lanarkshire are facing capacity issues\n\nThere were 10,100 new cases reported, with 41 new reported deaths of people who have tested positive.\n\nOfficial figures also showed there 28 people in intensive care with recently-confirmed Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.\n\nA total of 4,341,965 people have received their first dose of a vaccine, 4,089,894 have had their second dose, and 3,446,630 have received a third dose or booster.\n\nDespite the sharp rise in patients in hospital with Covid, fewer of them are requiring intensive care treatment than in the past.\n\nThis is partly because Omicron is believed to be milder than previous strains such as Delta, most people have been vaccinated and doctors have better treatments for the disease.\n\nHowever, people with Covid still need to be kept separate from other patients to limit the spread of infection - something that puts pressure on ward capacity. It is also leading to increased staff absences.\n\nNHS Lanarkshire said the number of Covid patients was putting pressure on services at University Hospital Wishaw, University Hospital Hairmyres in East Kilbride and at University Hospital Monklands in Airdrie.\n\nDr Jane Burns, executive medical director, said many were patients waiting several hours to be seen in emergency departments, and urged people to consider whether A&E is the best place for them to seek healthcare.\n\n\"Our three acute hospital sites are beyond full with capacity regularly over 100%,\" she added.\n\n\"This has been the case for a number of weeks and the situation is not easing. In fact, this week hospitals across Scotland including Lanarkshire have seen a record number of Covid patients.\n\n\"Unfortunately, this is resulting in many patients in our emergency departments waiting well in excess of our target of four hours for a condition that could have been treated by another healthcare service. It is also putting pressure on how quickly we can admit patients who require emergency care.\n\n\"The rising Covid number is also having a severe knock-on effect to our staff. We have high staff absences due to Covid and self-isolation which is resulting in challenges across all our health services and our staff are struggling to cope.\"\n\nCovid patients in hospital have reached the highest level since the start of the pandemic\n\nShe urged people to think of alternatives to the emergency department if their condition is not critical or life-threatening.\n\nOther services include minor injuries units, their local GP or pharmacy or a call to NHS 24 on 111, day or night.\n\nShe added: \"If someone does have to come to one of our emergency departments, they need to be prepared to face long waits to be seen, in some instances several hours.\"\n\nIt comes after NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde this week urged people not to attend accident and emergency departments unless their condition is \"urgent or life-threatening\" amid significant pressures.\n\nHaving visited a number of hospitals recently, the national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme that the NHS was under the most pressure he had ever seen.\n\nHe said people should \"do what we can as a population\" to reduce the pressure on the NHS - but urged them to use emergency services if needed.\n\nHe added: \"We don't want people not to come if they need it - what Glasgow and Lanarkshire are asking is just use it wisely.\n\n\"Use NHS24, your GP, your dentist, your optician - don't just use A&E as your one stop shop. But if you have an emergency, 999 is available to you and you should use it if you need it.\"\n\nLatest official figures this week showed that the number of people waiting more than four, eight and 12 hours at Scotland's emergency departments has hit its highest recorded level.\n\nCommenting on the figures, the Scottish government said: \"Unfortunately, the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has now reached the highest level since the start of the pandemic and this rise in recent weeks has inevitably had an impact on services like A&E.\"\n• None Covid pressure on hospitals 'as serious as it gets'", "A P&O Ferries ship is being held in Northern Ireland because it is \"unfit to sail\", nine days after the company sacked 800 workers without notice.\n\nThe European Causeway had been held in Larne over \"failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training\", the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said.\n\nP&O Ferries said it would make changes to return the ship to service.\n\nProtests at UK ports are calling on customers to boycott the company.\n\nThey gathered in Dover, Hull and Liverpool, chanting slogans such as \"don't go P&O\" and \"seize the ship\".\n\nProtestors from the RMT Union are attempting to block access to the Pride of Rotterdam in Hull docks.\n\nMeanwhile, the Trades Union Congress tweeted a video it said showed P&O dockers in Rotterdam refusing to load freight onto a ferry set for Hull in solidarity with sacked workers.\n\nUnions have raised fears over a lack of training of new crew, after the firm replaced their members with workers whose average hourly rate of pay would be £5.50, less than the UK minimum wage.\n\nAs the company's ships operate internationally and are registered overseas, the UK minimum hourly rate of £8.91 does not apply.\n\nAt the Dover protest, RMT union national secretary Darren Procter said: \"Bringing a crew on board a vessel they're not familiar with to sail across the busiest shipping lane in the world, carrying passengers, is going to be a dangerous act.\"\n\nHe said the MCA should detain every other P&O Ferries vessel around the UK on the basis they are not fit to sail.\n\nRMT union members have been protesting at Dover, calling on customers to boycott the ferry company\n\nThe European Causeway sails between Larne and Cairnryan in Scotland. P&O Ferries told customers on Twitter that its services on this route were suspended, adding: \"It is no longer possible for us to arrange travel via an alternative operator on this route.\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves.\"\n\nThere were no passengers or freight aboard the European Causeway when it was impounded in Larne, the MCA confirmed.\n\nIt said the vessel would remain under detention until all issues were resolved by P&O Ferries.\n\nSeamus Leheny, of freight industry body Logistics UK, said rival ferry operator Stena had increased capacity through Belfast by 50% but the situation was still causing difficulties for businesses.\n\n\"It's not sustainable to have so much freight coming through Belfast... we want that Larne service back up and running as soon as possible,\" he added.\n\nOn Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson backed Transport Secretary Grant Shapps's calls for the boss of P&O Ferries to resign.\n\nPeter Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs that he broke the law by not consulting workers ahead of the job cuts - but said he would do the same again if he had to.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. ‘P&O Ferries weren’t just jobs they were our homes’\n\nMr Shapps wrote on social media that the European Causeway's detention followed an instruction from him to the MCA to inspect \"all P&O vessels\" before they entered back into service.\n\n\"I will not compromise the safety of these vessels, and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training,\" he added.\n\nLabour's Louise Haigh called for the sacked workers to be reinstated and for Mr Hebblethwaite to be \"barred\" as a director.\n\n\"The shameful misconduct of P&O Ferries has ruined livelihoods, and is harming the UK's key shipping routes,\" the shadow transport secretary wrote on Twitter.\n\nP&O Ferries said in a statement that an MCA inspection had deemed the European Causeway \"not sufficiently ready for entry into operation\".\n\n\"We shall review the findings, make any changes required and continue to work closely with the MCA to return the ship to service.\"\n\nMeanwhile P&O Ferries services between Dover and Calais remain cancelled. The firm said it would organise an alternative carrier for passengers.\n\nSaturday evening's service from Rotterdam to Hull is also suspended, the firm said - but the evening service from Hull to Rotterdam is expected to sail on time.", "Smoke as heavy as a winter fog hung over the last mile or so of the road into Irpin, just a 20-minute drive north-west of Kyiv. Trees and undergrowth in the pine forest on either side were burning, set alight by shelling. The road was almost empty.\n\nWhen our BBC team was last able to come here, about three weeks ago, the city was badly damaged. Now it is in ruins.\n\nIrpin sits in an arc of towns that also includes Bucha and Hostomel, where the most important fighting for the future of Kyiv is taking place. If it is important for Kyiv, it is important for the rest of the country. The capital remains the biggest prize.\n\nIt seems clear now that a central part of Russia's strategy when President Putin ordered the invasion was a decisive thrust into Kyiv, to replace the troublesome Zelensky government with one that would do as it was told.\n\nThe failure of that strategy is, without a doubt, a victory for Ukraine. President Zelensky's presence in the capital is as well. While the government is here, and functioning, and while Kyiv remains accessible, President Putin has a constant reminder that the start of his \"special military operation\" - it is not called a war by the Kremlin - was badly bungled.\n\nUkraine is winning another battle decisively - the war of the Twittersphere. From skilfully crafted video messages delivered by President Zelensky and world-famous Ukrainians, such as the boxing Klitschko brothers, to local journalists who suddenly have hundreds of thousands of followers, they dominate social media.\n\nIt is a clever strategy, partly managed and partly spontaneous. The information battlefield is a vital part of modern war.\n\nBut getting to the truth of what is happening in a war means being very cautious about declarations of victory or defeat by anyone.\n\nFor journalists, that requires using your own eyes and ears, which is why our BBC team - and many other colleagues - have made trips to front line areas to try to base our reporting on first-hand knowledge.\n\nA month into the war, it's harder to get to the crucial front line at Irpin. In the first days, journalists were able to drive in that direction. They were waved through roadblocks, and images went round the world of thousands of displaced civilians crossing the ruins of a road bridge blown by Ukrainian engineers to slow the Russians down if they made it to the Irpin River.\n\nPeople cross the destroyed bridge as they evacuate Irpin during heavy shelling and bombing on March 5, 2022\n\nBut as governments and military commands organise themselves in wars after the confusion of the first few days, it is always more difficult to move around. So, when the opportunity came to revisit the area it was important to take it. It is never an easy decision to go into harm's way.\n\nCommander Oleg, the leader of the unit that was going to take us in, delivered a stern briefing at their base in Kyiv. His pistol was on the desk in front of him and his Kalashnikov assault rifle was propped up against a chair. The unit was part of the volunteer territorial defence.\n\nOleg, a thick-set man in his 40s, said he had been a factory manager before the invasion. He said that shelling north west of Kyiv was constant. If we were lucky there might be a lull. If we were not whatever happened was our responsibility, and there were basements and cellars we would have to reach in a hurry.\n\nWhen displaced people were leaving Irpin, the road into the city was crowded with buses and ambulances picking them up and taking them into Kyiv. Many went straight to the railway station to head west, further from the Russians or to cross the border to become refugees in Poland, Romania and beyond.\n\nIn Irpin I could see clearly that the last few weeks of bombardment had damaged almost every building. The ruined bridge was now the route into the battlefield for groups of Ukrainian troops, heavily laden with weapons and ammunition, who were pushing forward on foot.\n\nA few civilians were still emerging from the rubble of their town, people who had tried to hang on. A man called Pavlo, who walked painfully slowly with a stick, said he was getting out because a shell had destroyed his house. A soldier was helping him, carrying a few of things Pavlo had salvaged packed into a plastic supermarket shopping bag. I asked the old man how he was.\n\n\"I'm bad,\" he said. \"Children are dying, everyone is dying. I didn't think I would make it to the bridge.\"\n\nA man and a woman were leaving with nine dogs. The animals were terrified, and Slava was dragging them on a lead. She said they had been cut off, but now had to move.\n\nThey were the exceptions. Otherwise, it was a military area, swept up by the fighting. Vehicles picked up the Ukrainian soldiers to ferry them deeper into the battleground. The sound of Russian heavy artillery rumbled constantly around the flat, boggy terrain.\n\nIrpin, Bucha and Hostomel, all now in ruins, used to be desirable places to live, an easy drive into the city, criss-crossed by waterways, with plenty of forest to walk dogs. It turns out that what was good for the residents is also good for Ukrainian defenders.\n\nAs one of the generals commanding the defence of Kyiv told me early in the war, the topography helps them. Spring is in the air, ice and snow have melted; mud and water are a nightmare for tanks. Forests are good places to conceal guns and build defensive positions.\n\nIn a cellar Commander Oleg, who had delivered the stern warning in Kyiv, was more relaxed closer to the fight.\n\nThe underground space, chosen because it had a thick concrete roof, was in a half-built house. It still had power. The lights on racks of battery chargers for walkie-talkies glowed in the gloom. Weapons were stacked in corners.\n\nAmmunition comes in metal containers painted army green, which are opened like giant cans of corn beef.\n\nLike his men, Oleg said the Russians had been pushed back. He explained that they were hitting Russian supply lines. Putin's men still had a toehold on the ground in Irpin, but the way they made their presence felt was with heavy artillery.\n\nFormer British soldier Shane Matthews is fighting with Oleg's unit\n\nShane Matthews, a former British soldier who travelled here from the UK with a Ukrainian friend, was part of Oleg's unit. Shane did not believe Nato should intervene, unlike every Ukrainian from the president down, because of the risks of a wider war. He had seen many civilians, including a family of four whose car was hit by an artillery shell. So little was left of them, he said, that their remains would barely have filled a bin bag.\n\nFirst-hand reporting helps, but it is still hard to penetrate the fog of war, especially in a place that is being shelled more or less constantly. As far as I could see, the claims made by the Ukrainian military that it is holding territory and even taking some of it back are true.\n\nWhat is also true is that Russia is using its formidable firepower and could still direct it at Kyiv. Even if most of their artillery is kept too far back to hit the city centre - a key Ukrainian objective - the Russians have destructive long range conventional missiles.\n\nSo far, apart from isolated but deadly attacks, nothing nearly as bad has happened in Kyiv. Everyone in the city knows that could change very fast.\n\nIn the city this week, more volunteers were being redeployed from quieter sectors to the battered north-western suburbs. It was quiet, a bit tense, as they waited for buses that would take them to the front line.\n\nKatrine, one of the few women in uniform, cuddled her 18-month-old son Nikita. It was going to be a brief reunion as she too was off to Irpin. Katrine said she had been a sniper since 2015 in the long war against Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Now she was back.\n\n\"I'm ready to kill,\" she said, kissing her boy, \"to protect his future\".\n\nKatrine the sniper cuddles her son before heading off to fight\n\nThe war has changed everything for Ukraine, and for Russia. The world now feels more dangerous. Whatever happens on the battlefields of Ukraine, it is clear after a month that the Russian invasion is the biggest threat to international peace and security since the end of the Cold War.\n\nIts consequences are already being felt beyond the borders of Ukraine, in the shape of European security, the politics of the Nato alliance and the growing pressure on economies and food supplies. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this week that disruption to Ukraine and Russia's agricultural exports could increase world hunger.\n\nOutside their headquarters, the younger volunteers were checking their phones as they waited for the buses. They were born when Europe was hopeful, in the 1990s.\n\nPlenty of older men, some in their 60s were there too. Two of them said they were fishing buddies. They grew up when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.\n\nNow the old drumbeat of the Cold War, the risk of confrontation between the big powers that was so familiar when Europe was divided by an iron curtain, is back for a new generation.", "The Hwasong-17 is North Korea's largest missile yet\n\nNorth Korea has announced that it successfully launched its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a test on Thursday.\n\nThe Hwasong-17 was first unveiled in 2020 at a parade where its colossal size surprised even seasoned analysts.\n\nThursday's launch marked the first time the country tested a ICBM since 2017.\n\nICBMs are long-range missiles, capable of reaching the US. N Korea is banned from testing them and has been heavily sanctioned for doing so before.\n\nState media said leader Kim Jong-un directly guided Thursday's test and the weapon was key to deterring nuclear war.\n\nAnkit Panda from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called the launch a \"significant milestone\" for North Korea's nuclear arsenal.\n\n\"This test was long telegraphed and continues North Korea's efforts to improve its nuclear deterrent,\" he told the BBC.\n\nThursday's missile launch was tracked by militaries in Japan and South Korea - Japanese officials said it flew to an altitude of 6,000 km (3,728 miles) and fell in Japanese waters after flying for more than an hour.\n\nIts altitude surpasses that of a previous missile - the Hwasong-15 - which reached an altitude of 4,500km (2,800 miles) in a series of tests carried out by North Korea in 2017.\n\nExperts estimated the Hwasong-15, if it had been fired on a standard trajectory, could have travelled more than 13,000km (8,080 miles), placing any part of the continental United States within reach.\n\nThe new missile would be able to travel higher and further than this.\n\nAs one analyst described it: \"A monster missile\".\n\nIt is believed to be the largest mobile ICBM designed to carry multiple warheads.\n\nThe international community had been warned this was coming.\n\nKim Jong-un first showed off this missile at a military parade in October 2020 and state media had mentioned several times that the pause in long range missile tests was over.\n\nThe next steps also feel familiar. The United States and its allies will issue condemnation, there will be further sanctions placed on North Korea, there will be discussions about diplomacy and perhaps co-co-ordinating with China in the hope that Beijing can influence neighbouring Pyongyang.\n\nAnd yet Kim Jong-un, while under strict international sanctions and a self-imposed blockade at the border to prevent the spread of the pandemic, has managed to build weapons that go further and faster.\n\nAs state media said - this ICBM is seen as a \"necessary deterrent\". The regime has made it a priority even as it tackles a \"grave\" economic crisis.\n\nPyongyang is determined to be seen as a nuclear power, as part of the elite nuclear club and most analysts believe more tests are coming.\n\nSomething the international community is unlikely to ever accept.\n\nThe Biden administration has understandably been busy. North Korea has not been a priority.\n\nThe real headache, if Washington chooses to take on this challenge, is what more can they do that hasn't already been done.\n\nThe latest test comes after a flurry of missile tests in recent weeks, some of which the US and South Korea said were in fact parts of an ICBM system. Pyongyang claimed these were satellite launches at the time.\n\nThe ICBM test is being seen as a major escalation by the North and has been condemned by the UN, its neighbours and the US.\n\nThe United States called it a \"brazen violation\" of UN Security Council resolutions.\n\nThe missile reached an altitude of 6,000km - higher than any previous intercontinental ballistic missile tested by North Korea\n\n\"The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilising actions,\" White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.\n\nUN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the launch \"a significant escalation of tensions in the region\", while South Korean president Moon Jae-in said it was a \"breach of the suspension of intercontinental ballistic missile launches promised by Chairman Kim Jong-un to the international community\".\n\nAfter the launch, state media quoted Mr Kim as saying that the country was preparing for a long confrontation with US imperialism.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why does North Korea keep launching missiles?", "The project will help put modern floods and droughts in their proper context\n\nThousands of weather enthusiasts are celebrating the rescue of a unique trove of UK rainfall data.\n\nThe volunteer army stepped up during the first Covid lockdown to transfer handwritten rain gauge totals on to computers.\n\nThis digitisation effort has given the UK Met Office a much clearer idea of when our islands were sodden or parched going back almost 200 years.\n\nAnd that's extremely useful for understanding climate change.\n\n\"What our 16,000 volunteers did in the first weeks of lockdown will really help us recognise long-term trends,\" said the Rainfall Rescue project scientist and Reading University professor Ed Hawkins, who's now analysed the new dataset.\n\n\"But almost more important is what we learn about extremes. We want to know about the big floods, the big droughts - how likely they are, how frequently they might happen. This will allow us to put modern extremes in their proper context,\" he told BBC News.\n\nThe Rainfall Rescue project was launched in those first few days after the government issued its pandemic stay-at-home order in March 2020.\n\nPeople were asked to while away their time by helping to recover a series of pre-1960 weather records known as the \"10 Year Rainfall Sheets\".\n\nThese were 65,000 scanned pieces of paper in the UK Met Office archives that contained the scribbled monthly and decadal rainfall totals at thousands of weather stations across the country.\n\nDr Ross says the digitisation project was a herculean task\n\nConverting all the data into a modern electronic form, able to be analysed by computer, was expected to take a long time, especially since the ornate handwriting on many sheets demanded human eyes do the job rather than an automated character-recognition system.\n\nBut the British public raced through the information in just 16 days.\n\n\"Across those 66,000 sheets, we had 5.4 million individual rainfall observations. They were keyed into the computer four times for quality control purposes. So that actually makes over 20 million individual observations being keyed,\" explained Met Office archivist Dr Catherine Ross.\n\n\"Add in other data, such as the names of the places where the rainfall was recorded and who the observers were - we're up to 100 million keystrokes.\"\n\nThe British public love nothing better than to talk about the weather\n\nA vast effort, but one that will now pay big dividends.\n\nConsider the task of planning for the consequences of too little or too much water.\n\nHow do we satisfy our need for water resources, for domestic supply and industrial use, and also ensure we have the necessary infrastructure to protect our homes from flooding?\n\nThe \"weather memory\" recovered from the decadal sheets will underpin future decision-making.\n\nSome nuggets of information to emerge from the project include:\n\nObservations being taken at a rain gauge at Seathwaite in the Lake District on 14 July 1899\n\nMuch of the rescued data comes from a period prior to the Met Office's foundation in 1854 - a lot of it gathered by keen amateurs.\n\nThese were individuals working in schools, in hospitals, at reservoirs and iron & steelworks, in lighthouses and at a chocolate factory.\n\nThere's even royal data from Sandringham House. Its 10-year sheet from 1900-1909 has written on it: \"For His Majesty the King.\"\n\nSocial gatherings in London didn't keep Lady Bayning from her weather observations\n\nConsider one Lady Bayning. She recorded rainfall in Norfolk between 1835 and 1887, and would take her rain gauge with her to London for the social season.\n\nA good number of sheets had incomplete information, perhaps a missing location for the rain gauge.\n\n\"We had to track down a Reverend Iliff from Sunderland,\" recalled Jacqui Huntley, one of eight dedicated Rainfall Rescue volunteers (known as \"The Collective\") who set themselves the task of validating the recovered data.\n\n\"The poor man had so much bad luck. First, his rain gauge was stolen. He then had his arm broken and could only take readings for a few months, and then they put a road through his garden. We had to find his precise street to know where exactly he had his rain gauge.\"\n\nDr Mark McCarthy is head of the Met Office's National Climate Information Centre. He said: \"I'm always humbled to think about these individuals who were collecting weather records long before the Met Office existed or indeed any sort of systematic observing of our climate was under way.\n\n\"They saw fit to collect their records for whatever reason, and 150, 200 years later they've produced real gems for science.\"\n\nThe Rainfall Rescue project was carried out on the Zooniverse citizen science platform. The analysis of its data is published in an open access paper in Geoscience Data Journal.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Hear Ed Hawkins describe the purpose and benefits of the rainfall project", "The Harry Potter author criticised Russia's invasion of Ukraine after President Putin defended her\n\nJK Rowling has hit back at Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president cited her in a wide-ranging speech that saw him criticise \"cancel culture\".\n\nAt a televised meeting on Friday, Mr Putin compared recent criticism of the Harry Potter author to that faced by pro-war Russian composers and writers.\n\nIn response, Ms Rowling denounced the invasion of Ukraine in which she said Russia was \"slaughtering civilians\".\n\nRowling has been criticised for her views on transgender issues.\n\n\"Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics,\" the Harry Potter author wrote on Twitter.\n\nIn the lengthy speech, which was given to the winners of various cultural prizes, President Putin claimed Russian composers and writers were being discriminated against.\n\n\"They are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country,\" he said.\n\nSome events featuring pro-war Russians have been cancelled since Moscow invaded Ukraine last month.\n\nA much smaller number of events have been cancelled due to their use of music by dead Russian composers.\n\nBut Mr Putin also alleged - without providing evidence - that there was a \"gradual discrimination against everything linked to Russia... in a number of Western countries\".\n\n\"They are banning Russian writers and books,\" he said.\"The proverbial 'cancel culture' has become a cancellation of culture.\"\n\nMr Putin then defended Ms Rowling, who has faced criticism for her comments on transgender issues. She denies accusations of transphobia.\n\n\"JK Rowling was cancelled because she, a writer of books that have sold millions of copies around the world, didn't please fans of so-called gender freedoms,\" Mr Putin claimed.\n\nThe writer has said her interest in trans issues stems from being a survivor of abuse and having concerns around single-sex spaces.\n\nCritics have said her views have diminished the identity of trans people.\n\nConductor Valery Gergiev, who attended Friday's meeting with the president, has been dropped by festivals, concert halls and management after he failed to condemn Russia's invasion of its neighbour.\n\nAnd earlier this month, a Welsh orchestra dropped music by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky from a concert because of the war.\n\n\"There were two military-themed pieces... that we felt were particularly inappropriate at this time,\" the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra said in a statement.\n\n\"When the humanitarian crisis is over the discussion about 'woke' and 'cancel culture' can have its place,\" it added.\n\nRussia's invasion, which is entering its second month, has sparked a major humanitarian crisis with more than 10m people displaced.", "The couple pictured together at Royal Ascot in 2011 - Sheikh Mohammed is a major figure in the horse racing world\n\nThe ex-wife of Dubai's ruler will have sole responsibility for schooling and medical care of their children after the High Court ruled he abused her.\n\nThe ruling is expected to be the final major decision in the case between Sheikh Mohammed, 72, and his sixth wife Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, 47.\n\nShe fled the United Arab Emirates in 2019 and now lives in the UK.\n\nIn the judgement published on Thursday, judge Sir Andrew McFarlane - the most senior family court judge in England and Wales - limited Sheikh Mohammed's parental responsibility for his daughter and son, Al Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 10, who the judge ruled could be named, despite their young ages.\n\nAfter fleeing to the UK nearly three years ago, Princess Haya, daughter of Jordan's former King Hussein, applied for the children to be made wards of court and asked the High Court to make a series of findings about Sheikh Mohammed.\n\nThe sheikh - the multi-billionaire ruler of Dubai, prime minister of the UAE and an influential horse-racing owner - applied for the return of the two children to Dubai but later accepted they would live in England, and recently opted not to pursue direct contact with the two children.\n\nThe court heard this means he has no face-to-face contact with the children, but can instead contact them indirectly, such as through telephone calls.\n\nWhen she fled the UAE for the UK in April 2019, the princess said she was in fear for her life, after discovering Sheikh Mohammed had previously abducted two of his other daughters - Sheikha Latifa and Sheikha Shamsa - and rendered them back to Dubai against their will.\n\nIn the judgement, Sir Andrew said Sheikh Mohammed \"consistently displayed coercive and controlling behaviour with respect to those members of his family who he regards as behaving contrary to his will\".\n\nSir Andrew said a co-parenting relationship between the estranged couple was \"entirely bankrupt\".\n\n\"The decision to afford the mother sole responsibility for these important matters is justified by the need to reduce the potential for continuing harm to the children,\" he ruled.\n\nPrincess Haya described her children as \"the two bravest souls of all\"\n\nThe judge said he accepted Sheikh Mohammed loved the two children, who loved him back.\n\nBut he said there was an \"absence of any acceptance of responsibility, expression of remorse or understanding of the impact\" of his behaviour on his former wife.\n\nSir Andrew found Sheikh Mohammed's behaviour towards his ex-wife was domestic abuse \"conducted on a scale which is entirely outside the ordinary circumstances of cases heard in the family court in this jurisdiction\".\n\nHe added: \"Given his immense power and wealth, the potential for the father, and those in Dubai who do his bidding, to act remorselessly against the interests of the mother has been proved during these proceedings.\"\n\nThe judge said the \"sustained\" abuse towards Princess Haya likely had \"a profound impact upon every aspect of her day-to-day life and her emotional wellbeing\".\n\nIn December the High Court awarded Princess Haya, the youngest of Sheikh Mohammed's six wives, a lump sum settlement of £251.5m to cover the cost of running two multi-million pound properties in London and Surrey, a security budget, holidays, salaries and accommodation for a nurse and a nanny, armoured vehicles for the family, and the cost of maintaining various ponies and pets.\n\nPrincess Haya said in a statement after the latest ruling that she and her children \"are not pawns to be used for division\".\n\nShe said: \"There are no words, no words at all, to describe the love, respect, admiration, and pride I have for the two bravest souls of all, Jalila and Zayed.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the ruler maintained his denial of the allegations made against him and wished to make clear that: \"He loves his children and cherishes their love for him. He has always cared and provided for them, and always will.\"", "The US president has previously stressed that the US and allies will not send troops to Ukraine\n\nUS President Joe Biden has said Nato \"would respond\" if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine.\n\nThe president - who is in Europe for talks with allies - did not spell out what that might mean.\n\nHis comments came on an unprecedented day of emergency summits in Brussels, where Western leaders showed a united front against Russia's invasion.\n\nMr Biden is travelling to Poland on Friday where more than two million Ukrainians have fled from the fighting.\n\nAsked whether the use of chemical weapons by Russia's Vladimir Putin would prompt a military response from Nato, Mr Biden replied that it \"would trigger a response in kind\".\n\n\"We would respond if he uses it. The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use,\" he said.\n\nWestern nations have warned Russia could be preparing to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, as its invasion of the country enters its fifth week.\n\nUK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said it would be \"catastrophic\" if Mr Putin used chemical weapons, while Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has made it clear it would result in severe consequences.\n\nThe White House has set up a national security team to look at how the US and allies should react if Russia launched a chemical attack. But there is no suggestion Nato would respond by using chemical weapons, says BBC US Editor Sarah Smith.\n\nMr Biden has previously stressed the US and Nato would not send troops to Ukraine over fears of a direct military confrontation with Russia.\n\nThe president was speaking after an emergency meeting of Nato leaders to debate how to respond to the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, as well as military aid for Ukraine and tougher sanctions on Moscow.\n\n\"The single most important thing is for us to stay united,\" the president said after the summit.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch what Boris Johnson says about the prospect of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine\n\nMr Biden is expected to announce a major deal with the EU on liquified natural gas, in an attempt to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian energy.\n\nThe agreement would see Washington provide the EU with at least 15 billion additional cubic metres of the fuel by the end of the year.\n\nFour new Nato battlegroups are being deployed to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.\n\nThe president also said he would support calls for Russia's expulsion from the G20 group of wealthy nations. But he said that would depend on the views of other members.\n\nAfter a meeting with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Friday morning, Mr Biden will head to Poland. The president will travel to the city of Rzeszow, close to the border with Ukraine, where he will meet Ukrainian refugees.\n\nMr Biden has announced the US would take in up to 100,000 Ukrainians and provide an additional $1bn (£756m) in food, medicine, water and other supplies.\n\nMore than 3.6 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the invasion began, including more than 2.1 million to Poland.\n\nMr Biden will also visit US troops who have recently been deployed there.", "Quite how defeat was plucked from the jaws of victory in Trench Town, Kingston, may one day become the stuff of public relations legend.\n\nPalace staff must be wondering how the defining image of the Cambridges' trip to the Caribbean was not the explosion of joy and pleasure that greeted the couple in downtown Kingston.\n\nBut instead, what looked to many as some sort of white-saviour parody, with Kate and William fleetingly making contact with the outstretched fingers of Jamaican children, pushing through a wire fence.\n\nIt was a bad misstep for a couple who are surprisingly media-savvy. And it was not the only one on this curiously disorganised trip.\n\nThe first engagement in Belize was hurriedly cancelled following a protest by some residents. Another protest - albeit a small one - popped up on the day they arrived in Jamaica.\n\nThe Jamaican prime minister declared, as the couple stood mutely beside him, that he would rather not have the Queen as head of state any more.\n\nAnd the Land Rover ride out of the military commissioning parade may have been intended as a charming homage to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who rode in the same vehicle back in the 60s.\n\nBut to some it just felt like a clunky reminder of a more deferential time.\n\nIt is worth noting that lots of things went really quite well. Prince William's speeches were thoughtful and well received.\n\nThe Land Rover was a nod to the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh but may have felt like a reminder of more colonial days\n\nEngland footballer Raheem Sterling also greeted fans who had come to see him and Prince William play football\n\nIn Jamaica he went further than any member of the Royal Family, speaking of his sorrow at and abhorrence of slavery.\n\nAnd he went out of his way to celebrate the contribution that Jamaicans have made to Britain in the years since World War Two.\n\nIt was a reminder of the depth and complexity of the relationship between two very different nations.\n\nDuring event after event, the couple did that royal thing of sprinkling a little magic and a little joy into people's lives.\n\nThey thanked those who so often go un-thanked and unrewarded for their efforts, drawing attention to stubbornly unfashionable causes and issues.\n\nAnd they got a warm reception pretty much wherever they went.\n\nWhile in Trench Town the royals joined in with reggae musicians as they visited the neighbourhood where Bob Marley grew up\n\nCrowds came out to greet the Cambridges on their visit to Trench Town\n\nNo more so than in Trench Town in Kingston where wild cheers accompanied their every step and a walkabout at one point threatened to go out of control with excited people pressing them on every side.\n\nSo how did Trench Town end up as a PR disaster? Bad planning and bad execution are part of it.\n\nIt's been more than two years since the last tour and the Cambridges' team sorely lacks experience in setting up a long and complex trip.\n\nIt only takes one thing, one moment, to overshadow days of good works.\n\nThere have been a fair few of those things.\n\nThe whole fingers-through-the wire moment was avoidable.\n\n\"It's really unfair,\" complained one senior British diplomat of the critical coverage. But since when was life - or social media - fair?\n\nAnd the world has changed, very fast, since the last tour.\n\nBlack Lives Matter has changed many perceptions. And the declaration by Barbados of a republic late last year has changed things too.\n\nThere is no longer the forgiveness there once was for the slightly tone-deaf moment.\n\nThe Cambridges were met with an explosion of joy in downtown Kingston\n\nThe Land Rover might have seemed like a good idea at the time. But on the day it felt like one more reminder of colonial days.\n\nTimes have changed. The Royal Family have in the past been pretty good at changing with them. But not on this tour.\n\nAnd second chances are these days few and far between.", "Rebel forces fighting in northern Ethiopia have agreed to a government offer of a truce to allow aid deliveries to reach millions of people in urgent need of assistance.\n\nNo aid has been delivered to the Tigray region since mid-December, with the government accused of imposing a blockade. It blames rebel forces.\n\nThe TPLF rebels said they would respect the ceasefire as long as aid deliveries resume \"within reasonable time\".\n\nMore than two million people have been forced to flee their homes.\n\nThe head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is from Tigray, has described the situation there as \"catastrophic\".\n\nIn January, the World Food Programme said that almost 40% of Tigrayans were suffering from what it called \"an extreme lack of food\". It also found that half of all pregnant and breastfeeding women were malnourished.\n\nSome nine million people need aid in Tigray and neighbouring regions, which have also been affected by the fighting.\n\nTigray has also been hit by a communications blackout with the internet and phone services cut.\n\nAn unknown number of people have died from hunger or the lack of medical supplies. Conditions have been so bad, even doctors have been forced to beg for food.\n\nThe United Nations says at least 100 humanitarian lorries are needed to transport aid every day to the region.\n\nThe US, UN and European Union have all welcomed the truce, which follows a visit to Ethiopia by US Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa David Satterfield.\n\nIn its statement on Thursday, the government said that the truce was \"indefinite\" and \"effective immediately\", but added that it would only improve the lives of people in the north of the country if the move was reciprocated.\n\nIt called on the Tigrayan forces to \"stop further aggression and withdraw from areas they have occupied in neighbouring regions\".\n\nIn response, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) said it \"will do everything it can do to make sure this cessation of hostilities is a success\".\n\nFighting broke out in November 2020 following months of tension between the federal authorities and the TPLF, which governed Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost region.\n\nWithin weeks, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the conflict was over when federal forces took the regional capital Mekelle. But the TPLF later fought back and regained control of much of Tigray.\n\nWhen the rebels retook Mekelle last June, Mr Abiy declared a unilateral ceasefire. But the TPLF said it would not observe this unless it was recognised as the legitimate authority in Tigray.\n\nNews of the truce announced by the federal authorities in Ethiopia and the subsequent commitment to cessation of hostilities by the TPLF is being welcomed with a measure of scepticism. The situation on the ground is complex - rivalries run deep and the civil war has attracted other actors that include regional forces and militia.\n\nPrevious ceasefire announcements failed to translate into better conditions for people and humanitarian access.\n\n\"We will believe it when we see the trucks with life-saving humanitarian aid reach Tigray,\" said one commentator on Twitter.\n\nBeyond the announcements and getting aid to those who need it, it would appear expectations vary. The TPLF says it wants the political and humanitarian issues de-linked. However, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said: \"It should also serve as an essential foundation of an inclusive political process.\"\n\nThe starting point, however, would be to see the movement of aid supplies by road get to the people who desperately need them in Tigray.", "Rishi Sunak married Akshata Murty in 2009 and they have two children\n\nRishi Sunak has denied any connection with a multinational firm part-owned by his wife that has continued to operate in Russia during the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe chancellor said he had \"nothing to do\" with Infosys, in which his wife Akshata Murty holds shares.\n\nHe has urged UK firms to pull out of Russia to inflict \"economic pain\" on President Vladimir Putin.\n\nMr Sunak's spokesperson said Ms Murty had no role in Infosys's operational decisions.\n\nThe software giant was co-founded by Ms Murty's father Narayana, an Indian billionaire who retired from the company in 2014.\n\nFounded in 1981, the firm has since expanded into a number of countries and operates an office in Moscow.\n\nIts most recent annual report lists Ms Murty as holding 0.9% of the company's shares - reportedly worth hundreds of millions of pounds.\n\nIndia has not followed Western countries, including the UK, in restricting trade with Russia via sanctions in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nEarlier this month, Mr Sunak said the government would \"fully support\" UK firms that pull out of Russia voluntarily.\n\nAfter meeting a group of leading British companies, the chancellor said he welcomed the \"consensus on the need to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his regime\".\n\n\"While I recognise that it may be challenging to wind down existing investments, I believe there is no argument for new investment in the Russian economy,\" he added.\n\n\"I am urging asset owners and managers to think very carefully about any investments that would in any sense support Putin and his regime.\"\n\nPressed on Infosys's presence in Russia on Thursday, Mr Sunak told Sky News: \"I'm an elected politician, and I'm here to talk to you about what I'm responsible for. My wife is not.\"\n\nHe added that companies' operations were \"up to them\".\n\n\"We've put in place significant sanctions and all the companies we're responsible for are following those, as they rightly should,\" said the chancellor.\n\nNarayana Murthy co-founded Infosys, often seen as the poster child of India's technology boom.\n\nA spokesperson for the chancellor said Ms Murty was \"one of thousands of minority shareholders in the company\".\n\n\"It is a public company and neither her nor any member of her family have any involvement in the operational decisions of the company,\" they added.\n\nInfosys said it had a \"small team of employees based out of Russia\" that \"services some of our global clients, locally\".\n\n\"We do not have any active business relationships with local Russian enterprises,\" it added.\n\n\"Infosys supports and advocates for peace between Russia and Ukraine\".\n\nInfosys has had connections in the past to Alfa Bank, one of Russia's biggest financial institutions, which was added to the UK's sanctions list on Thursday, having already been sanctioned by the US and EU.\n\nIn 2004, Mr Putin visited Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore, where he was given a guided tour by Narayana Murthy.\n\nMr Sunak met his future spouse while studying for an MBA at Stanford University in California. They married in 2009 and have two children.", "The royal couple met privately with Ms Murphy's parents Kathleen and Ray, sister Amy, brother Cathal and boyfriend Ryan Casey\n\nThe name of murdered Irish school teacher Ashling Murphy will not be forgotten, the Prince of Wales has said.\n\nPrince Charles expressed sympathy with the 23-year-old's family, after meeting them alongside the Duchess of Cornwall in County Tipperary.\n\nThe royal couple are on their last day of a visit to the island of Ireland.\n\nMs Murphy was attacked while jogging along a canal in County Offaly, in January.\n\nThe royals met privately with Ms Murphy's parents Kathleen and Ray, sister Amy, brother Cathal and boyfriend Ryan Casey at Brú Ború Cultural Centre in Cashel.\n\nMs Murphy, a talented folk musician, had previously performed at the centre in County Tipperary.\n\nMs Murphy's death caused shockwaves and sparked vigils across the island of Ireland and beyond, as calls were made for a change in attempts to tackle gender-based violence.\n\nThe Duchess of Cornwall has long been a campaigner on the issue of violence against women, and at an event in London last year she paid tribute to all the \"precious lives that have been brutally ended\".\n\nIn a speech at the end of the couple's latest tour, Prince Charles told those gathered that the \"responsibility to make a difference rests on us all\".\n\nFlowers and candles were laid at a Belfast City Hall vigil for Ashling Murphy\n\n\"Last year, my wife called on the entire community, male and female, to dismantle the lies, words and actions that enable so much violence against women,\" he said.\n\n\"In your country and mine, in the intervening year, we've continued to witness appalling attacks.\n\n\"Therefore, with profound sorrow and sympathy, perhaps I might be permitted to pay tribute to Ashling Murphy, whose name will not be forgotten, who was taken from us far too soon, and who I know was a friend to many here, where she performed.\n\n\"My wife and I were so enormously touched to have been able to meet her family, who I know are with us here today. And our most special, heartfelt thoughts are with them.\"\n\nIt is the final day of The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall's visit to the island of Ireland\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall are on their final day of their trip to the island of Ireland as part of the Queen's platinum jubilee celebrations.\n\nThe royal couple also visited the Rock of Cashel, once the seat of the High Kings of Munster, during their latest visit.\n\nPrince Charles and Camilla posed in front of the stone cathedral ruins before being given a short history of the site.\n\nOn Thursday Charles and Camilla visited Waterford on the first day in the Republic of Ireland after they completed a two-day visit to Northern Ireland.", "UK officials say they have found a confirmed case of a viral illness called Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in England.\n\nThe woman, who is being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London, had recently travelled to Central Asia, where this tick bite infection is endemic.\n\nThe disease does not spread easily between people, meaning the risk to the public is very low, say experts.\n\nIt is not carried by ticks in the UK.\n\nIt is the third known case of the fever in the UK, with prior cases reported in 2012 and 2014.\n\nThe disease can be caught from contact with infected blood or tissues from a person or animal.\n\nSymptoms then develop quite quickly - after a few days - and include fever, aches, nausea and vomiting, and a rash caused by bleeding into the skin.\n\nPatients can become severely ill with organ damage, which can be fatal.\n\nChief Medical Advisor at the UK Health Security Agency, Dr Susan Hopkins, said robust infection control measures were being followed at the hospital that is caring for the patient.\n\n\"We are working to contact the individuals who have had close contact with the case prior to confirmation of their infection, to assess them as necessary and provide advice,\" she added.\n\nThe woman was diagnosed at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation before being transferred to The Royal Free Hospital.\n\nDr Sir Michael Jacobs, consultant in infectious diseases at the Royal Free London, said: \"The Royal Free Hospital is a specialist centre for treating patients with viral infections such as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever.\n\n\"Our high-level isolation unit is run by an expert team of doctors, nurses, therapists and laboratory staff, and is designed to ensure we can safely treat patients with these kind of infections.\"\n\nPeople living in or visiting endemic areas should use personal protective measures to avoid contact with ticks, including:\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Covid cases have climbed by a million in a week in the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals.\n\nSwab tests suggest about one in every 16 people is infected, as the contagious Omicron variant BA.2 continues to spread.\n\nThat's just under 4.3 million people, up from 3.3 million the week before.\n\nThe figures for the week ending 19 March, are thought to give the most accurate reflection of what's happening with the virus in the community.\n\nRates were up in England and Wales, and Scotland reached a new high.\n\nInfections have started decreasing in Northern Ireland, however.\n\nThe rates across the nations were:\n\nA high number of infections means the UK can expect Covid hospitalisations to rise too, although vaccines are still helping to stop many severe cases, say experts.\n\nAccording to the latest figures, there were 17,440 patients in hospital with the virus on 24 March. About half will have been admitted for something else, rather than Covid, but tested positive.\n\nJust over 300 of them needed an intensive care bed with a ventilator to help them breathe.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Prof Sir Chris Whitty said earlier this week that while the virus was causing pressure in the NHS, the high rates of transmission were fortunately not translating into lots of intensive care cases and deaths.\n\nStaff absences at NHS hospitals in England due to Covid have risen by 31% on the week to 13 March.\n\nAbout of 23,127 staff at hospital trusts in England - 2% of the total workforce - were absent, either because they were sick with the virus or were self-isolating.\n\nPeople aged 75 and over and those who are immunosuppressed can book a spring booster jab to top up their protection against Covid.\n\nMeanwhile, from 1 April in England, most people wanting to take a lateral flow test to check if they have Covid will have to buy one.\n\nIt is part of the government's 'living with Covid' plan.\n• None New record as one in 11 Scots had Covid last week\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jurors were shown bodycam footage of plain-clothed police officers tackling Ali Harbi Ali to the ground\n\nJurors have been shown footage of the moment two police officers tackled a knife-wielding terror suspect accused of murdering Sir David Amess MP.\n\nSir David, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nOfficers were heard to shout \"drop the knife\" as they entered Belfairs Methodist Church after the attack.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nThe trial at the Old Bailey also heard how Mr Ali told police officers he had committed a \"terror-related crime.\"\n\nSir David died at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea during a constituency surgery last October\n\nAli Harbi Ali was detained by two plain-clothed police officers\n\nPCs Scott James and Ryan Curtis entered Belfairs Methodist Church armed only with a baton and incapacitant spray, the court was told, despite being warned the suspect had a knife.\n\nPC Curtis told the jury they found Mr Ali standing in the aisle of the church with a blood-stained knife in his hand.\n\nBody-worn footage from PC James was played to the court and showed the officer deciding against waiting for backup from a team with a Taser.\n\nAli Harbi Ali told a booking officer at Southend police station his motive was \"terror and religious-based\"\n\nThe footage showed them shout \"drop the knife!\" on entering the church. After a short stand-off, the suspect dropped the weapon and officers handcuffed him.\n\nIn the aftermath of the arrest, Mr Ali, who was believed to be on the phone to his sister at the time said \"My phone's rung, it's the family.\"\n\nShouting, he added: \"Don't worry. The police got me. They're not gonna shoot.\"\n\nMr Ali was on the video saying \"I was prepared to die\", the court heard.\n\nHe was taken to Southend police station and asked if the crime might be domestic or hate-related.\n\nSir David died from multiple stab wounds to the chest, some 15cm (5.9in) deep, and was pronounced dead inside the church.\n\nSir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nPreviously, jurors were played a 999 call from the aftermath of the attack where a witness said Mr Ali was threatening to kill four other people.\n\nThey were also shown CCTV images earlier in the trial showing how Mr Ali travelled form his Kentish Town, north London, home to Leigh-on-Sea on the day of the killing.\n\nThe trial previously heard how Mr Ali allegedly spent years researching a number of potential high-profile political targets including Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Sir Keir Starmer.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The scene in Melitopol. \"We have not stopped protesting,\" one resident said\n\nIn the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.\n\nHe told his followers that the Russian forces occupying the city had now taken control of the city's communications network, so they needed to be wary of what they heard on TV and the radio.\n\nHow many people would see his warning, he didn't know. Melitopol's internet connection had also all but disappeared, making it nearly impossible to reach people inside by WhatsApp or Telegram call, or stay connected for more than a few minutes.\n\nThe ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. \"We cannot use,\" he said. \"Too easy for the Russians to listen in.\"\n\nWhen the invading forces took control of Melitopol a week ago they ransacked the mayor's offices, Federov said, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Federov said emphatically. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is liberating historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.\n\nRussian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine\n\n\"There are protests in Melitopol every day,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, 33, who before the invasion helped run her family business of electronics stores.\n\n\"At some point the Russian army started shooting at us and one man got shot but we have not stopped protesting,\" Kovaliova said. \"We are not afraid to protest because we are together. We are afraid to walk alone at night, but we are not afraid to protest.\"\n\nAbout 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.\n\n\"I don't know how to count the number of people protesting, I thought it was 2,000 at least,\" said Yunona, a 29-year-old IT worker in the southern city of Kherson. \"One of our friends was beaten and taken by the Russian soldiers and people got so angry they chased the occupiers down the street and took him back.\"\n\nThe Russian troops in Kherson looked young and uncertain, said Olha, a 63-year-old English teacher. \"We go to the protests every day and they are close to us but they look afraid,\" she said. \"We are all just waiting for the Ukrainian army to kick them out.\"\n\nBerdyansk in the south-east has also seen protestors take to the streets\n\nReports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.\n\n\"Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,\" said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. \"I have asked them - please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.\"\n\nVadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors - non-fatally - and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.\n\nNovopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.\n\n\"A new 'administration' has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose\n\nGaev and his team left town when Russia seized Novopskov, in order to keep his administration running - a move he said had divided residents, some of whom accused him of a betrayal while others said they were grateful he was still able to work.\n\nTwo residents of Kherson told the BBC they thought the mayor there had betrayed the city by co-operating with Russian forces - an accusation circulating in Telegram chat groups. Two others said he was simply doing what he could to ensure the city kept running.\n\nThe mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, told the BBC: \"If I had betrayed the city would I still be here? I am in the office every day, working with my team to keep things running.\"\n\nThe priority was to restart food production and get people back to work, Kolykhayev said.\n\n\"We are running out of food and there is no aid coming in, it's just not happening,\" he said. \"So we are telling everyone in the city: make any food you can make, manufacture anything you can manufacture.\"\n\nMost residents who spoke to the BBC from the occupied cities said food was fast running out.\n\n\"Shops are almost empty. You can buy the things that are left but very few things are left,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, the electronics shop owner from Melitopol. \"Pharmacies are empty and my mother can't buy her heart medicine.\"\n\nKovaliova said that two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said.\n\n\"Later we saw on it on TV. Russia has taken over the TV towers here so we only have one Russian channel being shown now and it was showing people taking the food and saying how thankful they are to the Russian humanitarian convoy.\"\n\nMaxim, a 22-year-old piano teacher in the city, also described the supposed humanitarian convoy. \"They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,\" he said. Yunona, the IT worker in Kherson, said she saw the same thing there, and Ukrainian media reported on the phenomenon in Berdyansk.\n\nIvan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these 'humanitarian convoys' too. But there were \"no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,\" he said.\n\n\"They could open humanitarian corridors at any time to allow food and medicine in, but they do not want to. We know, we have tried.\"\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, as usual, Federov put out his daily Facebook update, appealing to anyone in the city who could afford it to pay their utility bills and congratulating Ukraine's women on International Women's Day. \"I'm sure the war will end soon and we will celebrate all our holidays in a peaceful, Ukrainian Melitopol,\" he said.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A simple blood test can help spot pre-eclampsia, a potentially dangerous condition in pregnancy, and should be offered to women on the NHS, new draft guidelines for England say.\n\nEarly diagnosis of this disorder, which affects up to 6% of pregnancies, can save lives, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) says.\n\nThe test checks the health of the placenta, which provides nutrients and oxygen to the baby in the womb.\n\nAnd it can warn early of any problem.\n\nMany hospitals have already started using the placental growth factor (PLGF) test.\n\nPLGF is a protein that helps the development of new blood vessels in the placenta.\n\nAbnormally low levels could be an indicator the placenta is not developing properly.\n\nThe new guidelines say midwives caring for pregnant women can use it, alongside other checks, to quickly identify pre-eclampsia.\n\nIt can give a result the same day, providing fast reassurance and allowing closer monitoring and extra care to swiftly begin for those who need it.\n\nIf the test is normal, pre-eclampsia is unlikely to develop over the next week or so.\n\nJeanette Kusel, from NICE, said: \"These tests represent a step change in the management and treatment of pre-eclampsia.\n\n\"This is extremely valuable to doctors and expectant mothers as now they can have increased confidence in their treatment plans and preparing for a safe birth.\"\n\nTina Prendeville from Tommy's, a charity funding research into miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth, said: \"Tens of thousands of women have already been helped as this testing has been used across the country. With three quarters of maternity units now using it, NICE's consultation is very welcome.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said the country is in the process of documenting thousands of incidents believed to contravene its criminal code on the rules of war.\n\nAs of 24 March, there have been 2,472 cases documented by her office. On Wednesday, Ms Venediktova outlined to the media how the country is handling these cases.\n\n\"Where we see that we will be successful in Ukrainian jurisdiction, and where the perpetrator of a crime will physically be in Ukraine, we will follow one strategy,\" she said.\n\n\"If we understand that we are not able to have success in Ukraine, we will put our resources towards the International Criminal Court, so that a specific person, an individual, suffers the punishment.\"\n\nThe following is an account gathered by the BBC of just one of the incidents that have been logged as a suspected war crime.\n\nIt was just over a week into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A group of volunteers - neighbours and friends - from the small village of Yasnohorodka, 40km west of Kyiv, had taken up their positions at a checkpoint guarding the entrance to the community.\n\nFighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was already brutally fierce. Across the country, checkpoints were springing up at the entrance to towns and villages - mostly manned by local volunteers without any formal military training.\n\nOn the afternoon of 5 March, Rostyslav Dudarenko, the village priest, was at the Yasnohorodka checkpoint. His role was to check approaching vehicles. But like all military chaplains he was also there to offer the group spiritual support. He was dressed in civilian clothes.\n\nIt is not possible to establish exactly what happened, but one survivor of the attack, Yukhym (not his real name), told the BBC he had been manning the checkpoint with Dudarenko and around a dozen others when they learned three Russian tanks had driven through the village. He says the group decided to hide in the woods, ready to confront them if necessary.\n\nAs they approached the checkpoint, the Russian troops started \"firing in all directions\", Yukhym told the BBC. \"When they realised we were hiding in the grass, they went off road to run us over with tanks.\"\n\nHe says the tanks had driven back to the road when Dudarenko decided to break cover.\n\n\"I saw Rostyslav raise the cross above his head, get up from his hideaway, screaming something and walking towards them. Perhaps he wanted to stop them. I tried to call him.\"\n\nHe says shots were then fired in the direction of the priest, and from his viewpoint at the time, they appeared to be aimed directly at Dudarenko. \"And that was it. He made just a couple of steps and fell.\"\n\nYukhym, who himself was shot and injured in the attack, believes they would all have been killed if Ukraine's armed forces had not at that moment arrived to push the Russian forces back.\n\nThe voluntary group Dudarenko, 45, had joined had no military status. A couple had some military training - having previous experience in the long-running conflict with Russia in the Donbas in the east, according to another volunteer called Eduard (not his real name). Some were simply amateur hunters. Most were over the age of 50, he told the BBC.\n\nEduard, who was stationed at a different checkpoint, arrived just as the Russian tanks were driving away to find bodies scattered on the road. He said these included Dudarenko and his assistant - who had also been unarmed - two other defence volunteers and another person he did not know.\n\nDudarenko's mother Nadiia says her only son was determined to play his part.\n\n\"He wanted to be able to protect everyone,\" Nadiia told the BBC. \"I tried to talk him out of it but I couldn't argue with him.\"\n\nDudarenko and his congregation hold a memorial service for villagers killed by Nazis in 1941\n\nThe group were armed with hunting rifles plus a small number of Russian army Kalashnikovs that had come into their possession, and had just three bulletproof vests between them. But as a priest, Dudarenko refused to bear arms, his friend and fellow priest Serhii Tsoma told the BBC.\n\nThis made him particularly vulnerable when he decided to confront the tanks, but such an action was in his nature, according to eyewitness Yukhym.\n\n\"Rostyslav was a kind and optimistic person. I think that's why he went to try and stop the Russians.\"\n\nHe was well known in Yasnohorodka as someone always ready to help others, driving round the village to collect older congregation members before Sunday mass, says his friend Tsoma.\n\nHis services themselves were also self-sacrificing, says one of his regular congregation, Tetyana Pylypchuk.\n\nDudarenko belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was finally granted independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019, in a move never recognised by Russia.\n\nBefore the formal split, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was divided between two branches, one loyal to Moscow, and one loyal to Kyiv. Although Dudarenko served in a church aligned with Kyiv, when pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych took power in Ukraine in 2010 the Moscow Patriarchate began to take over Kyiv Patriarchate churches, including the one Dudarenko served in.\n\nSo rather than betray his principles, his friends say, he left the church and conducted his services out in the open - even in the rain. He later built a makeshift church in his trailer, with the help of donations.\n\n\"Our church is orphaned without you, Father,\" wrote Tetyana in a tribute on her Facebook page.\n\nAs has been the case with thousands of such incidents across the country over the past few weeks, the killings were swiftly logged by both the police and local and national public prosecutor's offices, with details published on their respective Facebook pages.\n\nThe cases - suspected contraventions of Ukraine's article 438: Violation of the rules of warfare - have also been uploaded on to a centralised website used by Ukraine's state institutions.\n\nMs Venediktova told the BBC in an interview recorded last week in English that such documentation of evidence was critical.\n\n\"In the office of prosecutor general we have a special department of war… all law enforcement agencies help us… to investigate war crimes. It's our main priority.\n\n\"Of course, we don't have enough investigators, that's why we created a common website - warcrimes.gov.ua.\" The website is used not just by the prosecutor general's office but by other state institutions such as Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice, to document all evidence.\n\n\"It's very important for us,\" she explained. \"[The evidence] should be acceptable in our Ukrainian courts, they should be acceptable in the ICC, and in other jurisdictions.\"\n\nAs for the 5 March incident in Yasnohorodka, once the investigation into the shooting has been concluded, a court indictment will be issued, says the Kyiv Oblast district prosecutor's office.\n\n\"The prosecution is doing everything to establish the circumstances of each and every war crime, and each and every perpetrator: from a soldier, to a general, to the high military and political leadership of the aggressor state,\" it said in a statement.\n\nIt added that in some cases Russian soldiers were already facing the first stage of Ukrainian prosecutions, \"so we are not just talking about prospects of sentences in absentia. In each specific case war criminals will be punished in accordance with the law of Ukraine\".", "The government is considering plans to lower people's energy bills based on how close they are to onshore wind turbines, the BBC has been told.\n\nIt's an idea the energy company Octopus offers some customers in Yorkshire and Caerphilly.\n\nBut the government is considering expanding this across the country.\n\nThere are currently strict planning rules about where onshore wind farms can be built in England, which inhibit the development of wind farms.\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is in favour of loosening regulations to make it easier to approve plans for more onshore wind.\n\nIt's expected the government will outline its energy supply strategy next week - which will include plans for accelerating renewable energy in the UK.\n\nOne plan under consideration is reviewing planning laws in England, that were tightened in 2015, to make it easier to approve more onshore wind farms.\n\nThe business secretary supports the idea, and Downing Street sources have said the government has \"got to be open\" to more onshore wind.\n\nIt is understood Michael Gove - who is in charge of planning in England - is also supportive.\n\nBut the BBC has been told other cabinet ministers strongly oppose the plans, and onshore wind farms have been controversial with Conservative activists in the past.\n\nA government source said that - if the idea is approved - \"as with any development, local consent is absolutely critical. We would always want to bring the public with us.\"\n\nElectricity and gas bills for a typical household will go up by £693 a year in April, a 54% increase.\n\nIn October, customers in England, Scotland and Wales will receive a £200 rebate on their energy bills. They will have to repay this at £40 a year for five years, starting in April 2023.\n\nBut the OBR on Wednesday forecast that energy bills will rise by 40% again in October, if wholesale gas prices remain at the same level they are now.\n\nIn his Spring Statement, Mr Sunak said that VAT would be cut from 5% to 0% on energy efficiency products such as solar panels, insulation and heat pumps.\n\nThe BBC understands one option under consideration is introducing a scheme to make energy bills cheaper depending on how close people live to an onshore wind farm.\n\nIt's understood this would apply to new developments.\n\nCurrently, a similar scheme is run by the energy company Octopus. Their customers get 20% off electricity bills when their local turbine is spinning, and 50% off when it's picking up speed.\n\nThere are two local wind turbines using this model so far - one in Market Weighton in Yorkshire and one in Caerphilly in Wales.\n\nThe BBC has been told that the government is \"very interested\" in this model and are considering expanding it across the country to provide an incentive for onshore wind farms to be approved in people's local areas.\n\nA government source said: \"Ministers would want to ensure communities are able to directly benefit from hosting renewable energy infrastructure. There are a range of different options under discussion.\"\n\nThe energy strategy expected next week is likely to focus on plans to accelerate the rollout of more renewable and nuclear energy in the UK - as well as the government's ambitions to loosen regulations around extracting North Sea oil and gas while the government moves away from Russian gas and transitions towards more renewable energy.\n\nLabour MP Darren Jones, who is chair of the Commons select committee which focuses on business and energy, called on the government for more action on energy.\n\n\"For colleagues in Parliament who have concerns about onshore wind turbines, which is a much better option than fracking, maybe they can demand that government brings forward the delayed updates to the energy efficiency voucher scheme to help families insulate their homes and reduce energy demand in the first place.\"", "Rishi Sunak has been accused of not doing enough to help the poorest as the cost of food and energy increases at its fastest rate for 30 years.\n\nThe Resolution Foundation and Institute for Fiscal Studies think tanks said he could have done more to protect those hit hardest by rising costs.\n\nPlanned increases in benefits will be much smaller than the rise in the cost of living this year.\n\nMr Sunak said tax cuts this year would help those on low wages the most.\n\nHe said his plans to raise the point at which workers start paying National Insurance would particularly help people on low and middle incomes.\n\nAnd he said it was impossible for him to \"fully compensate\" people for spiralling energy costs, a challenge the UK was \"not alone\" in facing.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson also hinted more help for people struggling was on its way in the coming months.\n\n\"The cost of living is the single biggest thing we're having to fix, and we will fix it,\" the prime minister told LBC Radio, adding: \"As we go forward, we need to do more\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Sunak sought to address the rising cost of living in his Spring Statement on Wednesday, cutting 5p from fuel duty and taking some of the sting out of April's National Insurance (NI) rise by raising the point at which workers have to start paying it from £9,600 to £12,570 from July.\n\nBut he has faced calls from opposition MPs to do more to help people now, as inflation is predicted to hit more than 8% by end of the year and UK living standards are predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility to fall faster than at any time since the 1950s.\n\nHis tweaks to National Insurance fell short of the demands from Labour and some Tory MPs, who had called on him to scrap April's rise completely.\n\nOne of the Conservatives who had called on him to scrap the increase, Richard Drax, said the chancellor's approach was \"tinkering around the edge\" and he had not gone far enough to ease the tax burden.\n\nAnother Conservative backbencher, Peter Aldous, said the chancellor's tweaks would \"offset\" the effect of the NI rise - but added the below-inflation increase to benefits meant claimants would still see a \"significant fall\" in spending power.\n\nPrivately, there is angst among some Conservatives, including ministers, that the changes announced by Rishi Sunak amounted to \"fiddling,\" as one put it.\n\nAnother was scathing about what they perceived to be the political calculation made by a chancellor desperate to be seen as a tax-cutter at a time when taxing and government spending is higher than it's been for decades.\n\nOne described Mr Sunak's promise to cut income tax - but possibly not for two years - as \"ridiculous,\" seeing it as a gesture to burnish his credentials and image as a future prime minister rather than sensible policy making.\n\nA photo opportunity where Mr Sunak filled up someone else's car with petrol is also being privately mocked among some of his colleagues.\n\nBut there's a deeper concern from many here: that at what one minister described as a \"genuinely difficult time for people,\" the capacity for any government to make a substantial difference is limited.\n\nAnd plenty fret this government has not yet grasped the true scale of the problems coming down the track.\n\nThe Institute for Fiscal Studies' director Paul Johnson said that overall the measures set out by Mr Sunak - including council tax and energy bill rebates announced last year - amounted to a \"relatively modest giveaway\" of around £5bn.\n\nHe acknowledged that the chancellor had been \"caught in a bind\", dealing with the effects of the pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut he said that the new policies would \"not be enough to protect poorer households from a significant hit to their living standards\".\n\nAnd, despite the chancellor's rhetoric about cutting taxes, they were set to rise their highest level as a share of national income since the 1940s, when Britain was emerging from World War Two.\n\nAnother think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, criticised Mr Sunak's decision to go ahead with April's National Insurance rise, but said his tweaks to the starting point for paying the tax were a good way to \"soften the blow\".\n\n\"This has long been a good idea which help ensure that work pays, and leave money in the pockets of lower earners beyond the current crisis,\" it added, saying boosting growth in the long term was the only way out of the current economic issues.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How the Ford family is coping with the cost of living\n\nNew analysis from the Resolution Foundation, which focuses on people on low incomes, also suggests that 1.3 million more people would be pushed into \"absolute poverty\" from April - defined as having an income below £14,000 for a childless couple and £8,000 for a single person.\n\nBut the chancellor said this needed to been seen in the context of the \"biggest economic shock in over 300 years\" due to Covid.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, he said borrowing had spiralled to its biggest level since World War Two as a result of spending to support the economy during pandemic.\n\n\"It's unsurprising that dealing with the aftermath of that is also pretty exceptional,\" he added.\n\nPowder is being kept dry, while the energy cap suppresses further rises in bills.\n\nThe extent of any further support can be determined in the summer, when it will be clear if the new cap implies average bills of an incredible £200 per month or even a truly terrifying £300 per month.\n\nThat in turn depends on the war in Ukraine and supplies of energy from Russia.\n\nNot even the Office for Budget Responsibility knows where this is going to land. But there is space for a support package of several billion, if required.\n\nMr Sunak also used Wednesday's statement to promise to cut the basic rate of income tax from 20p to 19p in the pound by the next general election in 2024, when he said the UK economy would be in better shape than it is now.\n\nStevie (left) says she is \"just trying to get by\"\n\nStevie Hall in Halifax says rising food, fuel and energy bills have nudged her into debt already.\n\nShe told the BBC she has been batch cooking to save money and is only driving when there is a real need.\n\n\"We're just trying to get by, I'm trying to stay upbeat about it,\" she said.\n\nLouise in Leicester told BBC 5 Live that her electricity bill \"has gone up £120 a month so that's money off something else\".\n\n\"I'm having to buy bulk more to make stuff last. You dare not put your electric on… you can't put that on for 300-odd quid a month.\"\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak had failed to understand the scale of the cost of living crisis.\n\n\"I think most people are looking at their pay packets now and looking at their taxes, and saying these promises in the future are not going to help me pay these bills this year,\" she said in an interview.\n\n\"I was incredibly surprised that the chancellor didn't do anything yesterday with rising gas and electricity bills, when the profits being made by North Sea oil and gas companies are at near-record highs.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Labour says Sunak is a tax raising chancellor, following the Spring Statement\n\nHow is the cost of living crisis affecting you? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The father of an autistic girl locked in a hospital \"cell\" for nearly two years says more needs to be done to prevent it happening to others.\n\nIt comes after a damning report revealed none of the recommendations made by the health regulator in 2020 to improve care had been fully achieved.\n\nCharity Mencap said the lack of \"meaningful progress\" was \"shocking\".\n\nThe government said it was working hard to ensure those with autism and mental health issues were given better care.\n\nBethany - whose surname cannot be published - was locked in a hospital room in Northampton as a teenager. Her only access to the outside world was through a tiny hatch in the door.\n\nHer father Jeremy said he could only see his daughter through a plastic screen or through the six-inch hatch.\n\n\"I could hold her hand and that was it. That was our physical contact,\" he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\n\"It was cruel. It was torture for my daughter,\" he said.\n\n\"It broke her human rights, her right to family life, her right to freedom from degrading treatment.\"\n\nAfter the BBC's File on 4 programme highlighted the young woman's case in 2018, Health Secretary Matt Hancock apologised and the health regulator launched an urgent investigation into the use of seclusion and restraint of people with autism, learning disabilities and mental health issues.\n\nBut despite making a series of recommendations, the latest progress report by the health regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said not enough had been done to protect people from what Mencap branded a shocking \"human rights scandal\".\n\nThe CQC report said: \"The Out of Sight report [published in 2020] was intended to stop unacceptable practice, but also challenge the status quo to lever the change that must happen to improve the lives of people with mental ill health, autistic people, and people with a learning disability.\n\n\"This has not happened and there are still too many people in mental health inpatient services. They often stay too long, do not experience therapeutic care and are still subject to too many restrictive interventions, which cause trauma.\"\n\nJeremy said he was devastated to hear more progress had not been made and urged the government to take more radical action to force change.\n\n\"There is a perfect storm which is keeping people in institutions who shouldn't be there,\" he said.\n\n\"It's a cycle of identifying failings, and nothing gets put in place. We need this to be statutory rather than recommendations that simply are not enforced.\"\n\nBethany is now getting support to live a more independent life\n\nDan Scorer, head of policy at learning disability charity Mencap, said: \"It's shocking that in CQC's assessment these agencies have failed to make meaningful progress in tackling use of restrictive practices - including horrifying levels of physical restraint, over-medication and solitary confinement, against people with a learning disability and autistic people within modern-day asylums.\n\n\"The government has missed repeated targets to close inpatient beds and develop the right community support.\"\n\n\"There can be no more excuses,\" he added. \"This is a human rights scandal, and the forthcoming cross-government action plan must set out clear actions and accountability to deliver the long overdue changes promised.\"\n\nSince her case was highlighted by the BBC, Bethany, now aged 21, has moved out of secure inpatient care and lives with round-the-clock carers in her own flat.\n\nHer father Jeremy, who now helps other families in a similar situation, said she was getting support to live a more independent life but it would take time.\n\n\"She was so damaged by what happened, the effects are long-lasting,\" he added.\n\nA Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \"We are transforming mental health services in England with an extra £2.3bn a year by 2023/24 and £500m this year to support those most impacted by the pandemic, including people with learning disabilities and autistic people.\n\n\"We have already committed to taking forward the recommendations put forward by the CQC and are introducing once-in-a-generation Mental Health Act reforms to help improve support for people with a learning disability and autistic people; end inappropriate detentions; and eradicate disparities in healthcare.\"", "Protests against the sackings have been held at ports around the UK\n\nP&O Ferries has said 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe firm has also denied that it broke the law when it sacked the workers without warning last week.\n\nHowever, unions said the compensation package being offered was \"pure blackmail and threats\".\n\nMinisters had questioned whether the move was legal - but P&O said those affected were employed outside the UK.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nThe video message in which the company sacked workers last Thursday prompted widespread outrage, with unions claiming some staff would be replaced by Indian seafarers on £1.81 an hour.\n\nMinisters had threatened the firm with \"unlimited fines\" but in a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, its chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite said the 786 sacked workers were employed by three Jersey-based arms of P&O Ferries.\n\nThe eight ships they worked on, which service routes including Dover-Calais and Larne-Ciarnryan, are all registered in Cyprus, the Bahamas or Bermuda.\n\nSacked staff had told the BBC about their experience of being \"treated like criminals\" - but in the letter Mr Hebblethwaite denied \"rumours\" that security staff who boarded vessels to manage the situation wore balaclavas or were directed to use handcuffs or force.\n\n\"The teams accompanying the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task,\" he said.\n\nThe company said its settlement with its workers is believed to be \"the largest compensation package in the British marine sector,\" and more than 40 staff would get severance packages of more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe transport and freight company said 575 seafarers affected were in discussions to progress with the severance offers.\n\nHowever, the RMT union, which has been organising protests over the redundancies said \"the pay in lieu of notice is not compensation\".\n\n\"If staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them,\" general secretary Mick Lynch said.\n\nP&O Ferries had until Tuesday at 17:00 to respond to the letter from Mr Kwarteng - in which he said that P&O Ferries \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, by not consulting with unions and notifying the government in time.\n\nMr Kwarteng pointed out that failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nSeparately, Business Minister Paul Scully said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O ferries and its owner DP World, including a £25 million subsidy to DP World to help develop London Gateway as a freeport.", "Joe Biden with US paratroopers deployed to Poland\n\nPresident Joe Biden hailed American military deployments to Europe as part of a struggle for democracy against autocracy during a visit to US troops in Poland.\n\nHis remarks come as the US and others have reinforced Nato's eastern flank amid the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe stop at an airbase in Rzeszow, near the Ukrainian border, was part of Mr Biden's trip to Europe to rally allies.\n\nHowever, back home Mr Biden faces scepticism over his Ukraine response.\n\nIn his remarks to the troops on Friday, the president sought to portray their deployments as part of a wider \"fight between democracies and oligarchs\".\n\n\"You are the finest fighting force in the history of the world,\" he said. \"What you're doing is consequential.\"\n\n\"What's at stake is what your kids and grandkids are going to look like in terms of their freedom,\" he said. \"What you're engaging in is much more than whether or not you can alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by President Biden This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSince February, the US has sent about 12,000 troops to Europe, many of them to Poland to help deter Russia from threatening Nato allies and to assist with humanitarian efforts. Thousands more have been redeployed east from existing US bases in Europe.\n\nThe deployments bring the total number of US troops in Europe - including both those on temporary missions and stationed there permanently - to 100,000 for the first time since 2005.\n\nMr Biden has repeatedly made clear, however, that the troops are in Europe to defend Nato allies and not to fight Russian forces. Earlier in March, he said that a \"direct confrontation\" between Nato and Russian forces would lead to \"World War III\" - a scenario he said must be prevented.\n\nEarlier this week, Mr Biden met with Nato, EU and G7 leaders in Brussels to shore up a message of unity against Moscow's invasion of its neighbour.\n\nHe is due to hold a bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday, and deliver a major address after meeting with Ukrainian refugees.\n\nThe trip comes as polls show that a majority of US voters are worried about his handling of the crisis in Ukraine.\n\nOnly about a quarter said they had confidence in his ability to handle a crisis or effectively manage the US military, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, while 56% of Americans believe that Mr Biden's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has \"not been tough enough\".\n\nAnother poll, from NPR/Ipsos, found that 45% of Americans believe Mr Biden is being too cautious. Over 60% said they want the US to give Ukraine the support it wants, while still wanting to avoid a larger conflict with Russia.\n\nWhile no additional US troop deployments have been announced, earlier this week National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that troops levels in Europe are \"a matter of constant reassessment\" in the White House.", "Will Ferrell starred in the hugely popular Christmas film Elf in 2003\n\nScreenwriter and director Richard Curtis has said it is a \"real issue that comedy isn't respected as much\" at key awards ceremonies like the Oscars.\n\nThe Love Actually director said awards voters often overlook the genre, \"particularly the actors\".\n\n\"I always get very antsy about the fact that Will Ferrell didn't get nominated for Elf,\" Curtis said at the Oscar Wilde Awards in Los Angeles.\n\n\"Or that Peter Sellers didn't get nominated for Inspector Clouseau.\"\n\nHe added: \"But it's the price you pay, as it were. Comedies tend to make a bit of money, and then you don't get the prizes.\"\n\nCurtis, who is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said he would have voted for Ferrell's performance in the hugely popular 2003 Christmas film, but \"wasn't given the chance\" because the actor was not nominated.\n\nEach category's nominees at the Oscars are decided by their own peers - which means actors can only be nominated by other actors. Then once nominations are announced, all Academy members can vote in every category.\n\nRichard Curtis and wife Emma Freud attended the Oscar Wilde Awards on Thursday\n\nCurtis added: \"I think it's a real issue that comedy isn't respected as much... but I do try and push for comedy performances whenever I can.\"\n\nThe 65-year-old, who also wrote Notting Hill and co-wrote the adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, has only received one Academy Award nomination - for Four Weddings and Funeral's screenplay in 1994.\n\nThis year, the satirical Don't Look Up is the only comedy among the 10 best picture nominees.\n\nThe film uses a deadly comet headed for Earth as a metaphor for climate change and the dangers of ignoring it, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence.\n\nIts director Adam McKay told BBC News the comedic treatment was part of the reason so many A-list stars joined the film's cast.\n\n\"I think everyone was just excited to deal with these dark times with a sense of humour,\" he said. \"So everyone just jumped on board right away. It was one of those crazy movies.\"\n\nDon't Look Up is one of the most widely-seen film in a mixed best picture race this year.\n\nHaving bypassed cinemas, the movie found a sizeable audience on Netflix over Christmas and New Year. Netflix previously said it was the service's second most successful film to date, behind Red Notice.\n\nAdam McKay directed the Netflix satire Don't Look Up\n\n\"It's hard to tell from their numbers but it seems like a lot of people saw it,\" McKay said. \"Conservatively, definitely in the hundreds of millions watched it. And from reactions around the world from Pakistan, Nigeria, Vietnam, Brazil, Ukraine, it's been really remarkable to see the world reaction to the movie.\"\n\nCurtis and McKay were speaking at the Oscar Wilde Awards, an annual event that takes place just before the Academy Awards and aims to strengthen ties between Ireland and the US.\n\nThis is a particularly strong year for Irish talent and Irish-themed films, with Sir Kenneth Branagh's autobiographical Belfast nominated for six Oscars.\n\nBut it's uncertain how many of the cast will make it to the ceremony in LA, after several people behind the film caught Covid.\n\nReflecting on awards season, Belfast star Jamie Dornan said: \"It's just mad, there's a lot of commitments, a lot happening, people are excited.\n\n\"There are still all kinds of Covid protocols to jump through. No-one in the world is more Covid-tested than me in the last few months, it's been wild.\"\n\nJamie Dornan says he has taken a \"wild\" number of Covid tests in recent months\n\nAsked if best director nominee Sir Kenneth and best supporting actor nominee Ciarán Hinds would attend the ceremony, Dornan replied: \"We're hoping so, I don't know, it's all going to be very last minute.\n\n\"[Getting Covid] is the risk that you take from travelling around talking about this movie, going to the awards, going to the Baftas. The Baftas seem to be a wee bit of an event where a few people picked it up.\n\n\"I've just been texting with Ciarán Hinds saying, 'Please tell me you're going to be OK for Sunday', because imagine the career he's had, and everything he's put in, and he's nominated for his first Oscar and can't go. That would be awful.\"\n\nThe big acting winner at Sunday's Academy Awards is expected to be Will Smith, who is likely to win his first Oscar for his performance in King Richard for playing the father of Venus and Serena Williams.\n\nThe film's director Reinaldo Marcus Green said \"it would mean a lot\" for Smith to win the film industry's top acting honour at this stage in his career.\n\n\"I'm a fan first, I grew up watching Will like everybody else, and to see him, I'm just rooting for him. To work with him, see his dedication, see how motivated he is, to put on the performance he did, he did the work.\"\n\nReinaldo Marcus Green has directed Will Smith to potentially his first Oscar win\n\n\"I've always thought it was Will's time [to win an Oscar]. I thought it was Will's time from the moment I met him and we sat down for this role.\"\n\nThe Power of the Dog director Jane Campion was criticised recently when she said that Venus and Serena Williams don't have to compete against men in tennis matches in the same way she has to for film awards.\n\nShe later apologised, saying it was \"a thoughtless comment equating what I do in the film world with all that Serena Williams and Venus Williams have achieved\".\n\nAsked about the controversy, Green said: \"I haven't spoken to anybody about it, and I think, like everybody, Jane is a master. I'm sure she meant no harm by that, and she apologised for it, so I think we've all moved on like everybody else and we're rooting for Jane too, Jane is a special film-maker.\"\n\nBut Campion's The Power of the Dog is still a strong best picture candidate, along with Apple TV's Coda. Either way, it means a streaming service could take home the best picture trophy for the first time.\n\nMcKay, whose film Don't Look Up is also a Netflix release, said: \"I love seeing a movie in a theatre I will never back off that as an experience.\n\n\"But I also think we're learning there are a lot of diverse ways to see movies and especially with the pandemic, this could be the year for it, it definitely could, and I think it's valid, I think given what we've been through this would be a good year for it to happen.\"\n\nThe Oscars take place on Sunday 27 March.", "Shane Farrington, who was convicted of manslaughter, absconded from HMP Thorn Cross on Thursday\n\nA second inmate has absconded from a prison within two days.\n\nShane Farrington, who was convicted of manslaughter, was last seen at HMP Thorn Cross in Warrington at about 18:45 GMT on Thursday, police said.\n\nAnother inmate, Jonathan Simpson, was later arrested after he absconded from the Category D prison on Wednesday.\n\nOfficers have warned the public not to approach Farrington, last seen wearing a dark-coloured top, blue jeans, black shoes, a dark-coloured coat.\n\nThe 39-year-old is known to have links within the Peterborough area.\n\nA Cheshire Police spokesman said multiple searches are being carried out to locate him.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nWest Indies edged into the ascendency in the third Test against England by opening a slim first-innings lead in Grenada.\n\nLower-order resistance saw West Indies end on 232-8, leading by 28, despite being 128-7 at one stage.\n\nSimilar to day one when a last-wicket stand of 90 rescued England, wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva frustrated the bowlers late in the day with 54 not out, putting on 49 for the eighth wicket with Alzarri Joseph and 55 unbeaten with number 10 Kemar Roach.\n\nEngland made a disappointing start with the new ball but took 6-45 in an impressive recovery either side of lunch.\n\nAfter West Indies reached 50-0, Ben Stokes had Kraigg Brathwaite lbw with a ball that kept low while Chris Woakes took 3-48 - his best figures in an overseas Test since December 2017.\n\nThat put the tourists on course for a lead of their own but as batting became easier in the final session, wicket-taking again looked difficult.\n\nHowever, on a pitch showing signs of uneven bounce against the harder ball, both sides will still believe they can win what is likely to be a low-scoring game.\n\nA victory for either team would see them take the series with the score currently 0-0 after two drawn Tests.\n\nAny advantage West Indies gain from further building their first-innings lead is countered by the fact they will almost certainly have to bat last on a pitch on which it will be tough to chase.\n\nBut the work by Da Silva late on - he even survived six overs against the new ball with Roach and now has the highest score of the Test - nudged the day into the hosts' favour.\n\nOverall, it had an uncanny resemblance to the one previous. Like Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood did 24 hours earlier, Da Silva capitalised on a surface which seems to die once the ball goes soft.\n\nEngland must cling to the difficulty West Indies' top order had earlier in the day.\n\nTheir seamers, once they finally found their line, utilised uneven bounce rather than the lavish seam movement which resulted in the tourists' batting collapse on day one.\n\nWest Indies also helped with some poor shots - Jason Holder was caught top-edging his third ball to deep square leg and Kyle Mayers chipped Ben Stokes tamely to extra cover for 28.\n\nThe pitch and both sides' batting shortcomings mean a series which has largely been drab may end with an exciting finale.\n\nEngland's bowling effort swung from below-par to encouraging before ultimately ending with nagging disappointment.\n\nTheir inability to remove the lower order, albeit on a slow pitch, again laid bare the lack of cutting edge of this attack.\n\nGiven England had only made 204 with the bat, the start was also particularly underwhelming. Early wickets were needed but instead new-ball pair Chris Woakes and Overton bowled too many deliveries that could be left alone.\n\nNot for the first time, Stokes was the bowler to create an opening - although Brathwaite could do little with his delivery.\n\nFrom there England turned to the ploy of bowling a heavy, mid-pitch length and they improved significantly.\n\nOverton does not have express pace but he twice hit opener John Campbell on the helmet before having him caught down the leg side.\n\nWest Indies' top order found the short balls difficult to play given the uneven bounce, Nkrumah Bonner also gloving a Woakes short ball behind for four when trying to duck.\n\nHowever, when England stuck with the short-ball plan late on, tiredness in the bowlers' legs and life leaving the pitch allowed Da Silva to lap the ball into the leg side with relative ease.\n\nSaqib Mahmood was arguably England's best bowler in his second Test but his only reward in a probing 18 overs was the wicket of Shamarh Brooks, lbw at the start of the West Indies collapse.\n\nWoakes' performance was almost England's as a whole in a microcosm.\n\nHe was particularly culpable in the opening overs when 12 of his first 18 balls were left alone. The new-ball spell with Overton was one of the most innocuous from an England attack in recent memory.\n\nHowever, a three-wicket spell after lunch put England on top in the game. The wickets of Bonner and Holder were followed by Jermaine Blackwood being trapped lbw by a ball that nipped back in what felt like an important spell for Woakes' Test career.\n\nHis struggles overseas have been much talked about - he had 33 wickets at 54.42 before this Test - but his figures are now his best overseas since the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia.\n\nBut the shine was taken from Woakes' day by England's inability to take the final two wickets.\n\nThe 33-year-old was wayward in three overs with the second new ball when England needed him to wrap up the tail.\n\nEngland all-rounder Chris Woakes: \"We'd have liked to have bowled a little bit better this morning. In the first hour we'd have liked to have got the ball a little bit fuller. But when the wicket has shown there are little bits in it, we've bowled well and to get them eight down I think is a decent effort.\"\n\nWest Indies wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva: \"It is pretty flat right now so we are just trying to get as much as we can. There is the odd one that stays low. It is definitely a new-ball wicket. The old ball is a lot easier to play.\"\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Jurors were shown footage from a police interview where the suspect said 'I killed an MP'.\n\nSir David Amess MP suspected his alleged killer was there for a sting in the moments before he was stabbed, a court has heard.\n\nSir David, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nMr Ali told police \"he knew straight away something was up\", the trial heard.\n\nSir David died at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea during a constituency surgery last October\n\nHis police interviews, seven in total, were played to the jury.\n\nIn one he told officers: \"Sat down with him. He was quick, but I think he knew straight away something was up.\n\n\"Well, it looked awkward 'cos I was holding my phone, ready to send off, like, a bunch of messages to let my family know what was up.\n\n\"Then he must've thought that it was a sting from the Labour Party, because he said to me, 'Oh, you must be very politically inclined. You're from the Labour Party, you're not recording me are you?'\n\n\"Because... Brass Eye, they did a thing on him, like, 14 years ago.\"\n\nHe claimed it was \"one of the strangest days...of my life\".\n\nIn his first interview, hours after the attack he was asked if the stabbing was a terror attack.\n\nTo which he replied: \"I mean, I guess yeah I killed an MP and I done it yeah.\"\n\nHe then laughed and said he had worded the answer \"like a Little Britain episode\", the video showed.\n\nMr Ali, who is thought to have been on the phone to his sister when he was arrested, said he was mostly worrying about his own family that day.\n\n\"The only reason I dropped the knife in front of the police officer was because my sister was on the phone crying her eyes out,\" he said.\n\nThroughout his interviews Mr Ali repeated that he was motivated by targeting MPs who had voted to carry out airstrikes in Syria, the court heard.\n\nSir David Amess was the MP for Southend West\n\nMr Ali also told police he had \"bottled\" previously planned attacks.\n\nThe court heard that he said he \"settled\" on Sir David after searching for 'MPs surgeries' on Twitter and seeing a post about a recent surgery by Sir David with contact information.\n\n\"He was the easiest. I settled on him\", he told police.\n\nMr Ali said he first thought of attacking cabinet minister Michael Gove but decided against it when the secretary of state for communities and levelling up had split up with his wife Sarah Vine.\n\nHe said he had also gone to London MP Mike Freer's surgery in Finchley.\n\nMr Ali was thought to have been on the phone to his sister when he was arrested\n\nTalking about the attack on Sir David, he said: \"It's hard. You see a man alive, and then he's dead.\"\n\nBut a few moments later he told police: \"Obviously I killed someone yesterday, there's no doubt about that, but it still doesn't really feel like it.\"\n\nMr Ali said he felt he had an allegiance to the so-called Islamic State and wanted to be seen as an \"Islamic State militant\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMore than a fortnight after falling under Russian occupation, the residents of Kherson are wrestling with acute shortages of medicine and holding daily protests against the Kremlin's forces. They are also worried that increased shelling on the outskirts might signal the start of a Ukrainian push to recapture their southern city, which is a key port.\n\nA series of loud explosions rattled the windows of Yuri Stelmashenko's office in a government building in the centre of Kherson on Tuesday afternoon, as the city's deputy mayor was on a phone call, busy explaining they had less than a week's supply of food and medicine left.\n\n\"Can you hear the shelling outside? Not far off. Unfortunately, we're having to get used to this terrifying reality,\" said Stelmashenko calmly.\n\n\"We're looking at a real humanitarian catastrophe here,\" he said.\n\n\"We've been left here alone - there's no other legitimate authority apart from the mayor. Russian officials came to our office and we agreed that we would continue working. But it's not clear how long that will continue.\"\n\nThere have been reports that Russia might stage a referendum in Kherson on independence from Ukraine - as they previously did in Crimea after it was annexed in 2014, as well in the Russian-backed separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nResidents of Kherson have held repeated protests against the Russian occupation\n\nBut Stelmashenko rejected the idea of this happening in his city, saying it was clear there was no support for Moscow's actions among the largely Russian-speaking population.\n\nVideo footage showing a small pro-Russian demonstration in Kherson has been dismissed as a Kremlin propaganda stunt by locals.\n\nOn the streets nearby, there were queues for milk, and frustration in local pharmacies which have reportedly run out of most essential drugs.\n\n\"There's no medicine left for people with heart conditions, or asthma. The hospitals are working but there's just no medicine,\" said a medic, speaking by telephone. She asked that we only use her first name, Galina.\n\n\"No-one is starving here,\" said a local university lecturer, Lada Danik, who praised the mayor's office for focusing on trying to support residents of the city without appearing to endorse the Russian occupation.\n\n\"The situation is quite stable. We have electricity, water, and there is central heating and transport.\"\n\nBut Danik condemned officials in other occupied cities who have submitted to Russian rule. \"If they want to make our city Russian, then it's treason,\" she said.\n\nIn Melitopol, to the east, the Ukrainian mayor was reportedly abducted by Russian forces last week and has not been seen since.\n\nA local pro-Russian official, Galina Danilchenko, has now claimed that she is Melitopol's new mayor and recorded a video message urging residents \"to adapt… to the new realities, so we can begin to live in a new way\".\n\nBut in Kherson, thousands of residents, including Danik, have continued to take part in peaceful daily protests outside government offices in the city centre.\n\nVideo footage shows large crowds screaming \"fascists… have you no shame?\" and \"go home\" at Russian troops.\n\n\"The quantity of soldiers is getting bigger. But they're not military now. They wear different, grey uniform. Like a kind of police,\" said Danik.\n\n\"There were so many people at today's protests that the Russian troops started shooting into the air. It seemed to me they were afraid. I was crying to them: 'Go home, go to your mother.' Two of [the Russian soldiers] were laughing. I was really furious, so I just cried out some curse words.\n\n\"I'm not an activist, but I want people to understand what's happening here. I'm in my homeland, not doing anything wrong. I'm trying to protect my daughter.\"\n\nTo the east, another key city, Mykolaiv, has so far managed to hold off a Russian advance.\n\nMykolaiv's governor, Vitaliy Kim, hinted that Ukrainian forces near Mykolaiv were now looking to recapture Kherson, too.\n\n\"Fighting is taking place, clearing out several villages [of Russian forces]…The occupiers are fleeing, and people all say that the troops are running away. It's true. They run,\" he said in a post on social media.\n\n\"Kherson residents, we are with you. Wait! Together we'll be victorious.\"", "Spotify is pulling out of Russia citing a new law that threatens jail for spreading \"fake news\" about the country's armed forces.\n\nThe music streaming company said safety concerns about staff and \"possibly even our listeners\" had pushed it to fully suspend its free service.\n\nSpotify shut its office in Russia earlier in March.\n\nBut it said it had wanted to keep its service operational to provide \"independent news\" to the country.\n\n\"Spotify has continued to believe that it's critically important to try to keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information from the region,\" Spotify said in a statement.\n\n\"Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify's employees and the possibility of even our listeners at risk.\"\n\nNew rules on what media companies can broadcast or post online mean publishing material deemed to be \"fake news\" about Russia's invasion of Ukraine can lead to lengthy prison sentences.\n\nFollowing passage of the legislation, Bloomberg, the New York Times and CNN were among the outlets that announced plans earlier this month to suspend reporting from the country.\n\nTikTok also suspended live streaming and new content from its platform following its introduction.\n\nThe BBC suspended reporting in Russia, though it has since resumed. Access to BBC websites has been restricted in Russia, and the Kremlin took BBC World News off the air earlier this month.\n\nSpotify, which launched in Russia in 2020, is best known as a music streaming platform. But it has aggressively moved into podcasting as part of its business model, with its library including many news and current affairs shows.\n\nSince the war in Ukraine, it has not been able to sell its premium subscriptions in the country because of restrictions put in place by payment providers amid international sanctions.\n\nThis latest move adds it to a list of hundreds of global firms that have exited or scaled back operations in the country, including BP, McDonald's and Netflix.", "Ben Wallace, shown here at the Conservative spring conference, revealed he was targeted last week\n\nTwo prominent Russian hoaxers have published footage from a call they made to the UK defence secretary.\n\nIn a recording posted online, Ben Wallace can be heard speaking to a man in a video call, made while Mr Wallace was visiting Poland on Friday.\n\nMr Wallace revealed the hoax last week, saying he had been targeted by an \"imposter\" posing as the Ukrainian PM.\n\nThe UK government has blamed Russia for targeting British ministers with fake calls about the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel revealed she had received a hoax call last week, whilst No 10 said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has also been targeted.\n\nThe recording of the video call to Mr Wallace was posted online by Vladimir \"Vovan\" Kuznetsov and Alexei \"Lexus\" Stolyarov.\n\nThe pair have targeted a number of politicians and public figures in the past. They were credited with a hoax call to then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson in 2018, in which he was targeted by a caller pretending to be the prime minister of Armenia.\n\nPrevious recordings of their alleged conversations have been aired on Russian TV.\n\nIn the published footage, which lasts around a minute, Mr Wallace, shown in a car, is asked questions about an alleged nuclear weapons programme for Ukraine.\n\nA defence source told the BBC the clip had been \"doctored\".\n\nAfter the video was published, Mr Wallace said: \"Things must be going so badly for the Kremlin that they are now resorting to pranks and video fakes.\"\n\nEarlier, Boris Johnson's spokesman told reporters that \"the Russian state was responsible for the hoax telephone calls made to UK ministers last week\".\n\nThe spokesman did not give further details, but added: \"This is standard practice for Russian information operations.\n\n\"Disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try to distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there.\"\n\nIt is understood that Mr Wallace was put through to a Microsoft Teams video call which lasted about 10 minutes.\n\nThe video call was set up after an email, purportedly from an aide at the Ukrainian embassy in London, was sent to a UK government department and then forwarded to the Ministry of Defence.\n\nA cross-department government inquiry into how the call happened is ongoing.\n\nAsked whether defences against hoax calls were strong enough, the No 10 spokesman said there was guidance on how such calls should be handled.\n\nThe Russian duo have also claimed to have interviewed politicians including Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and US Senator John McCain.", "It was one of the most decisive battles of the war so far - a ferocious two-day struggle for control of the farming town of Voznesensk and its strategically important bridge.\n\nVictory would have enabled Russian forces to sweep further west along the Black Sea coast towards the huge port of Odesa and a major nuclear power plant.\n\nInstead, Ukrainian troops, supported by an eclectic army of local volunteers, delivered a crushing blow to Russian plans, first by blowing up the bridge and then by driving the invading army back, up to 100km, to the east.\n\n\"It's hard to explain how we did it. It's thanks to the fighting spirit of our local people and to the Ukrainian army,\" said Voznesensk's 32-year-old mayor, Yevheni Velichko, standing in body armour with his guards outside the town hall.\n\nBut almost three weeks after that battle, the mayor warned that another attack by Russian forces was probably imminent and that the town's defenders lacked the weapons to hold them off a second time.\n\n\"This is such a strategic location. We're not only defending the town, but all the territory behind it. And we don't have the heavy weapons our enemy has,\" he said.\n\nVoznesensk's strategically important bridge was blown up to stop the Russians using it\n\nAs on so many frontlines in Ukraine, British-supplied anti-tank missiles proved crucial in turning the tide against Russian armour in Voznesensk, leaving the town littered with up to 30 tanks, armoured cars and even a helicopter.\n\n\"It's only thanks to these weapons that we were able to beat our enemy here. And we say thank you to our partners for their support. But we need more. The enemy's convoys will keep coming,\" said Mr Velichko.\n\nVoznesensk's strategic significance became clear soon after Russian forces failed to capture an even larger bridge, further to the south, across Ukraine's second-largest river, the Southern Buh.\n\nToday, Voznesensk is not quite a ghost town, haunted by regular air raid sirens. But thousands have left in recent weeks, by train or on pot-holed country roads that wind through vast, rolling fields of wheat.\n\nMany of those who have chosen to stay behind still seem eager to talk about their remarkable victory.\n\nVoznesensk's mayor, Yevheni Velichko, praised the defenders of his town\n\n\"It was a colossal effort by the whole town,\" said Alexander, a local shopkeeper who filmed himself on the frontlines with an AK47, screaming \"Come on my little beauties!\" as another volunteer fired a rocket-propelled grenade towards Russian positions.\n\n\"We used hunting rifles, people threw bricks and jars. Old women loaded heavy sandbags.\n\n\"The Russians didn't know where to look or where the next attack would come from. I've never seen the community come together like that,\" he said, standing by the twisted wreckage of the bridge, which Ukrainian forces destroyed within hours of the first Russian attack.\n\nThe matted swirl of Russian tank tracks still mark Svetlana Nikolaevna's garden, in the village of Rakove, on the southern edge of Voznesensk, where some of the heaviest fighting took place.\n\nBloody bandages and Russian ration packs litter the hedge rows. The 59-year-old pointed to her husband's tool shed, explaining that two captured Ukrainian soldiers had been held there by the Russians and were only saved from execution by a surge in fighting.\n\n\"Look at the blood stains on my door,\" she said, inviting visitors inside her ramshackle cottage. While she and her family took shelter in a nearby cellar, the Russians converted her entire home into a makeshift field hospital.\n\n\"I came back to get some clothes on the second day. There were wounded people lying everywhere. Ten of them, I think. I've cleared up most of the blood,\" she said.\n\n\"They left in a hurry, one night. They left everything behind - boots, socks, body armour, helmets - and just loaded up their dead and their wounded and ran away.\"\n\nIt fell to the local funeral director, Mykhailo Sokurenko, to hunt in the fields for more Russian bodies and then load them into a train wagon.\n\n\"I don't consider them human beings [after what they did here]. But it would wrong just leave them out in the field, still frightening people even after their deaths,\" he said.\n\n\"These Russians are sick in the head, so we'll have to stay on guard. But victory will come, and we'll push the Russians out of all our lands.\"", "Boris Johnson's cabinet is split over proposals to ease planning rules in England to enable more onshore wind farms, sources have told the BBC.\n\nMinisters are next week due to set out plans to produce more energy in the UK to tackle spiralling household bills.\n\nBusiness secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is in favour of loosening planning regulations to make it easier to approve plans for more onshore wind.\n\nBut the BBC has been told other cabinet ministers strongly oppose the plans.\n\nIn 2015, planning laws were changed to give local councils tougher powers over whether onshore wind turbines were built in their areas. Labour have described this as an effective \"moratorium\" on onshore wind - and have called on the government to end it.\n\nThe government wants the UK to become more \"energy independent\", as the West tries to wean itself off Russian gas and oil.\n\nIts \"energy supply strategy\" will focus on:\n\nThis week, Kwasi Kwarteng told the i newspaper \"the prime minister has been very clear that onshore wind has got to be part of the mix and we've got to look at planning\".\n\nSpeaking ahead of Wednesday's cabinet meeting - the last before the energy strategy is due to be unveiled - he said: \"We are not saying we are going to scrap all planning rules and all of these things have got to be in line with community support.\"\n\nKwasi Kwarteng wants onshore wind to be part of the UK's energy mix\n\nHe described 2015 arguments against more onshore wind as \"historic\", as the government had not then committed to achieving \"net zero\" emissions by 2050.\n\n\"The circumstances today with Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, all of those things, mean that we've got to have more energy independence and I think onshore renewables are absolutely part of that,\" he added.\n\nDowning Street sources told the BBC the government has \"got to be open\" to more onshore wind where it works, but that the \"big wins are offshore\".\n\nBoris Johnson is thought to be particularly keen on offshore wind and nuclear power, telling nuclear industry leaders on Monday that he was \"insanely frustrated\" that the UK has \"so little\" nuclear capacity and was \"moving so slowly\" on building new reactors.\n\nBut multiple cabinet sources have told the BBC they are against relaxing planning laws for onshore wind, with one saying there was \"very, very little\" support for the idea.\n\nAnother cabinet source said ministers were generally united on the need for more offshore wind and nuclear power, but onshore wind would cause a \"bigger problem\" and needed more discussion.\n\nAmong the cabinet ministers opposed to more onshore wind turbines is Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, but the BBC understands he backs offshore developments.\n\nThe Westminster government has no say over planning laws in Scotland, where the majority of the UK's large scale wind farms are located.\n\nOnshore wind is Scotland's main source of renewable energy, with about 70% of electricity generated in Scotland coming from onshore wind in 2020.\n\nOnshore wind farms have been controversial among Tory MPs in the past, with David Cameron saying in 2014 that people were \"fed up\" with onshore wind farms being built, and Conservative activists criticising the visual impact of them on the landscape.\n\nBut in recent years government surveys have shown public support for onshore wind, albeit not always in the areas where turbines are built.\n\nSome cabinet ministers we spoke to were \"sceptical\", rather than strongly against, more onshore wind.\n\nSeparately, the BBC has been told that Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg would back whatever would bring \"cheap and reliable\" energy to the UK, but has long been frustrated by what he views as its unreliability as an energy source.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Clips from the 999 call made by a constituent of Sir David Amess MP after he was fatally stabbed\n\nA murder trial jury has been played the desperate call for help made by a constituent after Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed.\n\nThe MP for Southend West died during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism and is on trial at the Old Bailey.\n\nThe court heard Mr Ali booked an appointment with Sir David and had travelled from London to see him.\n\nAfter fatally attacking the MP, the defendant then threatened to kill four other people, the court was told.\n\nAli Harbi Ali was seen on CCTV walking between Leigh-on-Sea railway station and Belfair's Methodist Church on the day Sir David Amess was killed\n\nThe jury heard a 999 call from Yvonne Eaves who, with her partner Darren King, was due to have the next appointment.\n\nShe told the operator that the attacker had killed Sir David and was threatening to kill them and two of the MP's female staff at the church.\n\nIn the call, she said: \"Please, please, quick. Now the man is wielding a knife, he's threatened me... He's killed David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church.\"\n\nMs Eaves appeared to call out to her partner to \"come away\", adding: \"It's horrible, it's horrible.\"\n\nShe described the weapon as a \"big kitchen carving knife\" about 12in (30cm) long.\n\n\"We tried to get it off him. He won't. He's threatened myself, he's threatened four people here.\n\nShe said Mr Ali had said he \"wants to get shot\".\n\nSir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nThe court was told how before Sir David's death, Mr Ali exchanged a series of emails with the MP's office in which he claimed to be moving to the area.\n\nTom Little QC, prosecuting, told how Mr Ali had feigned an interest in churches and healthcare to get a meeting with the Southend MP.\n\nOn Tuesday, Mr Little took the jury through a timeline of events leading up to the 69-year-old's death.\n\nCCTV footage was shown to the jury of Ali Harbi Ali making a journey by rail from Gospel Oak tube station to Leigh-on-Sea\n\nHe said Mr Ali searched for information about Sir David on 22 July last year and three hours later he was near the Houses of Parliament.\n\nMr Ali had also researched cabinet minister Michael Gove, MP for Finchley and Golders Green in London, Mike Freer and Labour Leader Kier Starmer in September, jurors heard.\n\nMr Little said Mr Ali emailed Sir David's office on 27 September asking for an appointment claiming to be interested in Christianity.\n\nThe defendant, Mr Little said, wrote: \"I will be moving to the area from a Labour-held constituency and wanted to get to know my future MP.\n\n\"Since I work in healthcare, I would like to know his plans, if any, for the hospital and workers.\n\n\"Also, as someone interested in Christianity, I have seen many churches in my area losing attendances and struggle with upkeep, eventually becoming at risk of being demolished or repurposed.\n\n\"I wanted to know if the situation in Southend is similar and, if so, what are the solutions.\"\n\nHe added: \"Looking forward to seeing you soon. If all appointments are taken, let me know if there's a cancellation. I'll be in the local area and will be able to drop by.\"\n\nAn aide replied and asked him to confirm his full name and address to check he was a constituent.\n\nThe defendant provided a postcode in Southend and was told all appointments had been taken and was offered one on 15 October.\n\nSir David was pronounced dead at the scene in Leigh-on-Sea in his Southend West constituency in Essex\n\nMr Ali replied to say his \"schedule is rather hectic for the next couple of weeks so I'm not sure I'll be available\", the court heard.\n\nHowever, on 30 September, he replied to say he was \"able to clear up my schedule\" and asked for an appointment at noon.\n\nHe told aide Rebecca Hayton: \"I don't really know how long the appointments are but I don't think I'll take too long. Thanks for all the help so far.\"\n\nThe jury was shown CCTV footage of Mr Ali travelling from his home in Kentish Town to Leigh on Sea. He was wearing a long khaki jacket with a black backpack over his right shoulder, blue trainers and black trousers.\n\nAround the time of the attack on Sir David, Mr Ali sent a message to family and friends which appeared to have been drafted days before, the court was told.\n\nIn it, he said the attack was \"for the sake of Allah\", jurors heard.\n\nHe allegedly wrote: \"I apologise to my family for deceiving them for so long. I would have preferred Hijrah so as not to harm you but I could not.\n\n\"The obligations upon me to take revenge for the blood of Muslims were too great.\n\n\"The shame of abiding in the very lands that carry out these horrendous acts against my brothers and sisters was too much.\"\n\nThe court heard he spent 14 minutes on the phone to his sister, aborting the call when he was confronted and arrested.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Russia's leader Vladimir Putin is trapped in a closed world of his own making, Western spies believe. And that worries them.\n\nFor years they have sought to get inside Mr Putin's mind, to better understand his intentions.\n\nWith Russian troops seemingly bogged down in Ukraine, the need to do so has become all the more necessary as they try to work out how he will react under pressure.\n\nUnderstanding his state of mind will be vital to avoid escalating the crisis into even more dangerous territory.\n\nThere has been speculation that Russia's leader was ill, but many analysts believe he has actually become isolated and closed off to any alternative views.\n\nHis isolation has been evident in pictures of his meetings, such as when he met President Emmanuel Macron, the pair at far ends of a long table. It was also evident in Mr Putin's meeting with his own national security team on the eve of war.\n\nMr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.\n\nIt had been created, they say, by a tight \"conspiratorial cabal\" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing.\n\nWestern spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.\n\n\"The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow,\" explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. And even though his views are often made clear through public statements, knowing how he will act on them is difficult intelligence challenge.\n\n\"It is extremely hard in a system as well protected as Russia to have good intelligence on what's happening inside the head of the leader especially when so many of his own people do not know what is going on,\" Sir John Sawers, a former head of Britain's MI6, told the BBC.\n\nMr Putin, intelligence officials say, is isolated in a bubble of his own making, which very little outside information penetrates, particularly any which might challenge what he thinks.\n\n\"He is a victim of his own propaganda in the sense that he only listens to a certain number of people and blocks out everything else. This gives him a strange view of the world,\" says Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology and co-author of a forthcoming book The Psychology of Spies and Spying. The risk is what is called \"group think\" in which everyone reinforces his view. \"If he's a victim of group think we need to know who the group is,\" says Prof Furnham.\n\nThe circle of those Mr Putin talks to has never been large but when it came to the decision to invade Ukraine, it had narrowed to just a handful of people, Western intelligence officials believe, all of those \"true believers\" who share Mr Putin's mindset and obsessions.\n\nThe sense of how small his inner circle has become was emphasised when he publicly dressed down the head of his own Foreign Intelligence Service at the national security meeting just before the invasion - a move which seemed to humiliate the official. His speech hours later also revealed a man angry and obsessed with Ukraine and the West.\n\nThose who have observed him say the Russian leader is driven by a desire to overcome the perceived humiliation of Russia in the 1990s along with a conviction that the West is determined to keep Russia down and drive him from power. One person who met Mr Putin remembers his obsession with watching videos of Libya's Col Gaddafi being killed after he was driven from power in 2011.\n\nWhen the director of the CIA, William Burns, was asked to assess Mr Putin's mental state, he said he had \"been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years\" and described his views as having \"hardened\" and that he was \"far more insulated\" from other points of view.\n\nIs the Russian president crazy? That is a question many in the West have asked. But few experts consider it helpful. One psychologist with expertise in the area said a mistake was to assume because we cannot understand a decision like invading Ukraine we frame the person who made it as \"mad\".\n\nThe CIA has a team which carries out \"leadership analysis\" on foreign decision makers, drawing on a tradition dating back to attempts to understand Hitler. They study background, relationships and health, drawing on secret intelligence.\n\nAnother source are read-outs from the those who have had direct contact, such as other leaders. In 2014, Angela Merkel reportedly told President Obama that Mr Putin was living \"in another world\". President Macron meanwhile when he sat down with Mr Putin recently, was reported to have found the Russian leader \"more rigid, more isolated\" compared with previous encounters.\n\nDid something change? Some speculate, without much evidence, about possible ill-health or the impact of medication. Others point to psychological factors such as a sense of his own time running out for him to fulfil what he sees as his destiny in protecting Russia or restoring its greatness. The Russian leader has visibly isolated himself from others during the Covid pandemic and this also may have had a psychological impact.\n\n\"Putin is likely not mentally ill, nor he has changed, although he is in more of a hurry, and likely more isolated in recent years,\" says Ken Dekleva, a former US government physician and diplomat, and currently a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.\n\nBut a concern now is that reliable information is still not finding its way into Mr Putin's closed loop. His intelligence services may have been reluctant before the invasion to tell him anything he did not want to hear, offering rosy estimates of how an invasion would go and how Russian troops would be received before the war. And this week one Western official said Mr Putin may still not have the insight into how badly things are going for his own troops that Western intelligence has. That leads to concern about how he might react when confronted with a worsening situation for Russia.\n\nMr Putin himself tells the story of chasing a rat when he was a boy. When he had driven it into a corner, the rat reacted by attacking him, forcing a young Vladimir to become the one who fled. The question Western policymakers are asking is what if Mr Putin feels cornered now?\n\n\"The question really is whether or not he doubles down with greater brutality and escalates in terms of the weapon systems that he's prepared to use,\" said one western official. There have been concerns he could use chemical weapons or even a tactical nuclear weapon.\n\n\"The worry is that he does something unbelievably rash in a vicious press-the button way,\" says Adrian Furnham.\n\nMr Putin himself may play up the sense that he is dangerous or even irrational - this is a well-known tactic (often called the \"madman\" theory) in which someone with access to nuclear weapons tries to get his adversary to back down by convincing them that he may well be crazy enough to use them despite the potential for everyone to perish.\n\nFor Western spies and policymakers understanding Mr Putin's intentions and mindset today could not be more important. Predicting his response is pivotal in working out how far they can push him without triggering a dangerous reaction.\n\n\"Putin's self concept does not allow for failure or weakness. He despises such things\" says Ken Dekleva. \"A cornered, weakened Putin is a more dangerous Putin. It's sometimes better to let the bear run out of the cage and back to the forest.\"", "A Chinese passenger plane with 132 people on board has crashed in a forested hillside in southern China.\n\nThe China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it plunged to earth in Guangxi province and caught fire.\n\nThe number of casualties and reason for the crash are not yet known. Rescuers have seen no signs of survivors.\n\nChinese airlines generally have a good safety record - the last major accident took place 12 years ago.\n\nThe crash has caused shock in China, where President Xi Jinping has ordered an immediate investigation to determine the cause. China Eastern Airlines has grounded all its 737-800s.\n\nFlight tracking data suggested the plane lost height rapidly from its cruising altitude before plummeting to the ground.\n\nMore than 600 emergency responders are said to be at the crash site. Firefighters reached the scene first and managed to extinguish a blaze in the hills caused by the crash.\n\nFootage taken by local villagers and shared on Chinese social media - and by state broadcasters - showed fire and smoke from the crash, with plane debris on the ground.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by CGTN This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAir safety and aviation standards in China have improved vastly in recent decades, following a series of accidents in the 1990s, and crashes such as this are now very rare.\n\nThe country's last major plane accident was in August 2010, when a flight from Harbin crashed in north-east Yichun during foggy weather, killing 42 people.\n\nChina Eastern has set up a hotline for people seeking information about those on board. It expressed \"its deep condolences for the passengers and crew members who died\".\n\nEarlier, it greyed out its logo on its Weibo account and also changed its website to black and white in an apparent sign of mourning.\n\nAs a precaution, China Eastern's entire fleet of Boeing 737-800 jets has been grounded.\n\nIt took just two and a half minutes for an apparently normal flight to turn into a tragedy.\n\nThe aircraft was a 737-800, a well-proven design first produced in the late 1990s. It is a workhorse of the aviation world, with thousands still in service.\n\nIt has a strong safety record. Fatigue cracks have been found in some older planes, but this one was not quite seven years old.\n\nThere is no connection here with the 737 MAX, a newer version of the 737, which was grounded for more than a year and a half after a design flaw triggered two major accidents.\n\nInvestigators will be looking at many possible causes - among them deliberate action, such as terrorism, technical issues such as structural failure, or a mid-air collision.\n\nThey will look at communications from the pilots, examine the state of the wreckage - and search for the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.\n\nThose recorders should contain the information needed to confirm exactly what happened during those minutes and why.\n\nStaff at Guangzhou airport are directing worried relatives to a separate zone set up to receive them.\n\nOne woman waiting for news there told local media she had booked a seat on the flight, but ended up switching to an earlier plane.\n\n\"I feel very sad,\" she said. Her sister and four friends were on the crashed plane, AFP news agency reports.\n\nState-owned China Eastern is one of China's big three airlines, along with China Southern and Air China.\n\nFlight MU5735 left Kunming at 13:11 local time (05:11 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive in Guangzhou at 15:05.\n\nA file photo from 2015 of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 which crashed\n\nFlight tracking sites report the plane was in the air for just over an hour and was nearing its destination when it went down in Wuzhou, a verdant, hilly area prone to mixed weather at this time of year as China enters its annual flood season.\n\nThe weather was cloudy, but visibility was reported to have been good at the time of the crash.\n\nFootage said to be of Flight MU5735 plummeting vertically from the sky has been circulating on social media.\n\nThe plane dropped thousands of metres in three minutes, flight tracker data showed.\n\nAccording to FlightRadar24 data, the plane was cruising at 29,100ft, but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075ft. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.\n\n\"Usually the plane is on autopilot during cruise stage. So it is very hard to fathom what happened,\" Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert, told Reuters news agency.\n\nAnother expert, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge, told China's Global Times newspaper: \"It is very likely that the aircraft lost power at cruising altitude, resulting in the pilot losing control of the aircraft.\n\n\"This is a very serious technical failure in which the plane inevitably enters a high-speed descent.\"\n\nThe Boeing 737-800 plane was nearly seven years old, according to tracker websites. It is the predecessor model to the Boeing 737 Max line, which were the planes involved in deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.\n\nChina banned that model after those crashes.\n\nBoeing issued a statement on the crash of MU5735, saying: \"We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information.\"\n\nChina's Civil Aviation Administration said it had dispatched its investigators to the scene.", "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce on Thursday that the UK will provide Ukraine with about 6,000 extra missiles.\n\nAt the Nato and G7 leaders' meetings in Brussels, Johnson will also unveil £25m ($33m) of funding to help pay Ukrainian soldiers and pilots.\n\nThe UK government will also provide £4.1m for the BBC World Service to help support its Ukrainian and Russian language services in the region.\n\n\"The United Kingdom will work with our allies to step up military and economic support to Ukraine, strengthening their defences as they turn the tide in this fight,\" Johnson said.\n\n\"One month into this crisis, the international community faces a choice. We can keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine, or risk it being snuffed out across Europe and the world.\"\n\nBritain said the new package will come on top of around 4,000 missiles already provided by the UK to Ukrainian forces.\n\nThe latest funding is in addition to £400m already committed in humanitarian and economic aid, said UK officials.\n\nBoris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\" Image caption: Boris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\"", "The government has faced intense pressure over gatherings held in and around Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. A police investigation into several of the events has now concluded, with more than 100 fines having been issued to attendees. Here is what we know about the gatherings and the restrictions in place at the time:\n\nA photo from May 2020 showed the prime minister and his staff with bottles of wine and a cheeseboard in the Downing Street garden. When asked about it, Boris Johnson said \"those people were at work talking about work\". Boris Johnson was pictured with his wife Carrie as well as Downing Street staff Legal restrictions at the time said you could not leave your house without a reasonable excuse and government guidance was that you could meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor setting while exercising. This event was not investigated by the police. About 100 people were invited by email to \"socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening\". Witnesses told the BBC the PM and his wife were among about 30 people who attended. Boris Johnson apologised to MPs for attending the event, saying he spent 25 minutes thanking staff, before returning to his office. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering took place in the Cabinet Office to mark the departure of a No 10 private secretary. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least one fine has been issued after the government's former head of ethics admitted receiving one and apologised for attending the event. On Boris Johnson’s birthday, up to 30 people gathered in the Cabinet Room at No 10 to present the prime minister with a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday, according to a report by ITV News. No 10 said staff had \"gathered briefly\" to \"wish the prime minister a happy birthday\", adding that he had been there \"for less than 10 minutes\". Restrictions at the time banned most indoor gatherings involving more than two people. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least three attendees have received fines from the police, with the PM, his wife Carrie Symonds and Chancellor Rishi Sunak all confirming they have paid fixed penalty notices. Two gatherings are understood to have taken place in Downing Street on this date: one to mark the departure of a special adviser and one in the Downing Street flat. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the gathering in the flat where Mr Johnson and his wife live was to celebrate the departure of Dominic Cummings, the PM's former senior adviser. A spokesman for Mrs Johnson denies the party took place. Boris Johnson pictured at a party, according to ITV News Eight days earlier Boris Johnson had announced a new lockdown in England. Indoor gatherings with other households were banned, unless they were for work purposes. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. A leaving event was held for No 10 aide, Cleo Watson, where people were drinking, and Mr Johnson made a speech, according to sources. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Education has confirmed it had an office gathering to thank staff for their work during the pandemic. It says drinks and snacks were brought by those who attended and no outside guests or support staff were invited. Eight days earlier, London had been placed in restrictions which banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Conservative Party has admitted that an \"unauthorised gathering\" took place at its HQ in Westminster. It was held by the team of the party's London-mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, who has since stepped down as chair of the London Assembly police and crime committee. In December, police said they would be contacting two people who attended the party. The gathering at the Conservative Party headquarters was described as ‘raucous’ This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. Multiple sources have told the BBC there was a Christmas quiz for No 10 staff last year. A photo - published by the Sunday Mirror - shows Boris Johnson taking part and sitting between two colleagues in No 10. Mr Johnson has denied any wrongdoing. Mr Johnson was pictured in the No 10 library under a portrait of Margaret Thatcher The rules: At this time, the rules in London banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Transport has apologised after confirming reports of a party in its offices, calling it \"inappropriate\" and an \"error of judgment\" by staff. This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. A leaving party was held at the Cabinet Office for the outgoing head of the civil service Covid taskforce - the team responsible for drawing up coronavirus restrictions. Kate Josephs, now chief executive of Sheffield City Council, apologised for the event, saying she was \"truly sorry that I did this and for the anger that people will feel as a result\". A second gathering was held in the Cabinet Office to hold an online Christmas quiz for the Cabinet Secretary’s private office. A third gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of a No 10 official The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or all of the events. Downing Street originally denied a report by the Daily Mirror that a party took place in Downing Street on this date. However, a video obtained by ITV News showed the prime minister's then-press secretary Allegra Stratton joking about reports of the event, saying: \"This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.\" The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of two private secretaries. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. Two parties were held by Downing Street staff at No 10, the night before Prince Philip's funeral. One of the events was a leaving party for the PM's then director of communications James Slack, who has apologised for the event and acknowledged it \"should not have happened at the time that it did\". Boris Johnson was not at either party. The rules had been eased in England on 12 April, but working from home continued to be recommended and socialising indoors with people from other households was not allowed. Meeting others outdoors was limited to groups of six people or two households. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. We know fines have been issued to some people who attended Mr Slack’s leaving party, but we do not know who they were issued to.", "Police believe the victim is 14 years old\n\nA teenage girl riding an e-scooter has died following a crash with a van in east London.\n\nThe rider, who police believe was 14 years old, was in collision with the vehicle on Green Street in Upton Park. She was treated by paramedics but died at the scene, at about 13:30 GMT.\n\nDetectives said the driver of the van was with police but he had not been arrested.\n\nThe girl's next of kin have been informed, the Met added.\n\nPolice have cordoned off a half-mile stretch of the B167 in Newham following the crash.\n\nThe cordon stretches from Selsdon Road to Barking Road, and Met Police officers are diverting traffic at either end.\n\nThe use of privately-owned e-scooters is banned on public roads in the UK, although a rental scheme was introduced in some parts of London in June 2021 as part of government-backed trials across England.\n\nRecent government figures, from January 2021 to June 2021, showed more than half of the 931 e-scooter crashes in the UK last year were in London.\n\nThe Met Police also seized more than 3,600 privately owned e-scooters during 2021.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Russian soldiers in the Ukrainian city of Kherson dispersed a protest against their occupation by firing shots at protesters.\n\nFootage shared on social media, verified by the BBC, also showed explosions which were reported to be stun grenades.\n\nPeople are reported to have been injured in the incident.", "Search and rescue workers trawling the slopes near the crash site are yet to find passengers\n\nRescuers have found no survivors so far from a jet carrying 132 people which crashed in hills in southern China.\n\nCrash investigators also had no information on why China Eastern flight MU5735 plummeted out of the sky on Monday.\n\nRecovery work at the site of the Boeing 737-800 crash in Guangxi province is being hampered by difficult terrain.\n\nThere has been an outpouring of grief in China, where families of passengers and crew are waiting for news.\n\nHundreds of responders have been scouring the steeply forested slopes in Wuzhou where debris from the plane was strewn after it broke apart and set fire to the hillside.\n\nThere had been no official word on casualties until China's Civil Aviation Administration held its news briefing, some 36 hours after the disaster.\n\n\"Up to now, search and rescue work has not found any survivors,\" Zhu Tao, aviation safety office director at the CAA, told reporters. \"Given the information currently available, we still do not have a clear assessment of the cause for the crash.\"\n\nAir controllers had repeatedly called the aircraft during its descent but had received no response, he added.\n\nRescuers have so far found parts of the 737's burnt wreckage. State broadcasters showed images of the charred remains of letters, bags, wallets and identity cards belonging to those on board.\n\nMeanwhile, the families and friends of the 123 passengers and nine crew have gathered at each end of the flight - with relatives visiting China Eastern's offices in Yunnan province and waiting at Guangzhou International Airport.\n\nThe China Eastern Airlines flight from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, had been due to land in Guangzhou on Monday afternoon.\n\nChina Eastern has grounded all its Boeing 737-800s and set up a hotline for people seeking information on those on board.\n\nAuthorities have yet to identify passengers and crew members, but some relatives have spoken to local media or shared their grief online.\n\nOne woman reported the loss of her newly-wed husband on her WeChat account. Her earlier posts included videos of the couple's holiday trips.\n\nOther passengers included a group of six people, one of them a teenager, who were on their way to Guangzhou to attend a funeral, a local newspaper reported.\n\nFamilies waiting for news at Guangzhou International Airport on Monday night\n\nAnother woman interviewed said her sister and close friends were part of that group, adding that she had also been booked on the flight, but ended up switching to an earlier plane.\n\nReuters quoted a man at the airport who said he was the colleague of a passenger named Mr Tan.\n\nAfter confirming that Mr Tan was on board, he had to break the news to Mr Tan's family. \"They were sobbing. His mother couldn't believe this had happened,\" he told the news agency. \"Her boy was only 29 years old.\"\n\nHe added that arrangements were being made by the airline to bring families to the crash site in Wuzhou.\n\nPictures show distraught families waiting in a cordoned-off area at Guangzhou airport, being assisted by airline staff.\n\nOne unverified clip circulating widely on Chinese social media shows a man slumped in his seat crying and lamenting the loss of his three children who were on the flight.\n\nThis accident took place in China and involved a Chinese airline. As such, the investigation will be led by the country's civil aviation administration.\n\nBut under international standards, the US will also be entitled to appoint an accredited representative because the Boeing 737 was designed and built in the US. The National Transportation Safety Board has already appointed a senior air safety investigator to fulfil this role.\n\nRepresentatives from Boeing itself, the engine maker CFM International and the US aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, will serve as technical advisers.\n\nThe priority now will be to gather evidence from the crash site and search for the \"black boxes\", the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.\n\nIf they can be found, and the data they contain is readable, then the immediate cause of the crash could become apparent quite quickly. But the investigation as a whole will take time.\n\nFlight MU5735 had been in the air for more than an hour and was nearing its destination when it suddenly plummeted from its cruising height.\n\nChinese state TV outlets have broadcast footage which appears to show a jet in a near nosedive to the ground. The footage was captured by a car's dashcam. The BBC has not yet been able to verify the clip.\n\nFlight tracker data showed the Boeing 737-800 jet dropped thousands of metres in under three minutes.\n\nAccording to FlightRadar24, the plane was cruising at 29,100ft (about 9,000m), but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075ft. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.\n\nAviation experts say the Boeing 737-800 model has a strong safety record, with thousands in service around the world. The aircraft that crashed was less than seven years old.\n\nInvestigators are expected to look at several possible causes - including deliberate action, pilot error, or technical issues such as a structural failure or mid-air collision.", "Jakub and Gosia Golata are in Poland helping vulnerable woman and children fleeing Ukraine\n\nA couple has rented out an entire hotel to house Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.\n\nJakub and Gosia Golata, from Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire, emigrated to the UK in 2004 but have returned to Poland to aid humanitarian efforts.\n\nMr Golata started by driving refugees in a minibus to and from the Ukrainian border, but said he wanted to do more.\n\nHe has taken over the 180-bed hotel near Bydgoszcz, in northern Poland, for those waiting to be rehomed.\n\nAt first, Mr Golata picked up refugees on eight-hour minibus treks to the border and found friends and family happy to host them, but wanted to do more.\n\n\"I came up with this idea that if I would be able to rent an entire hotel and place these vulnerable mothers and children in a hotel, and then allow them to settle, feel safe, looked after and be able to come to terms with what's happening, then that would be the best thing,\" he said.\n\n\"And that would also allow me to find the local community volunteers so they can be taken care of a bit more.\"\n\nThe hotel has 180 beds, and is acting as a hub for Ukrainian refugees in Poland\n\nHe has been focusing on those from eastern parts of Ukraine where much of the worst of the violence has occurred.\n\n\"It was mentally very challenging because the mothers were crying - they were uncertain about what's going to happen,\" he said.\n\nMr Golata said the purpose of the converted hotel would be to act as a \"refugee hub\" to provide support for those fleeing invasion and the Polish families offering to take them in.\n\n\"It's a risk reduction and also a support for both, so much as we are worrying about the refugees we are also worrying about the adopting families, because they also need support,\" he said.\n\nThey have hired the whole of the Park Hotel to act as a hub for refugees\n\nMrs Golata, a serving officer with Lincolnshire Police, was in Poland on sabbatical caring for her mother when the invasion began. Her husband travelled over to be with her and help in the humanitarian effort soon after.\n\n\"We cannot carry on keep drinking tea and thinking about the crisis - now we've got hundreds of thousands of people exposed to potential abuse and sleeping rough,\" Mr Golata said.\n\nMr Golata, who works on the HS2 rail project as a logistics manager, received backing from his bosses at Skanska, who contributed funds as well as giving him time to work on the project.\n\nHe has rented the hotel - which closed due to the Covid pandemic - with his own money and also linked up with the Polish arm of Sue Ryder to help with fundraising.\n\nHe hopes the hub will be taken over by government and the model replicated in towns all over Poland.\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The UK's Covid lockdown appears to have had a massive impact on stomach bugs, slashing outbreaks by more than half in England during the first six months of the pandemic.\n\nFar fewer people suffered vomiting and diarrhoea than usual, data show.\n\nPeople staying at home, mixing less and washing their hands will have had an impact, say public health experts in a new article published by BMJ Open.\n\nThis perk may continue if we all carry on being more germ-aware, they say.\n\nRoutine surveillance in England shows the number of outbreaks caused by the winter vomiting bug norovirus has increased in recent weeks, although they are still below the five-year-average or usual level for this time of year.\n\nNorovirus is easily transmitted through contact with people who have it, or contaminated surfaces.\n\nProf Saheer Gharbia, from the UK Health Security Agency and one of the authors of the BMJ study, said: \"Norovirus, commonly known as the winter vomiting bug, has been at lower levels than normal throughout the pandemic but, as people have begun to mix more, the numbers of outbreaks have started to increase again.\"\n\nSymptoms include sudden onset of nausea, projectile vomiting and diarrhoea. Although it can be very unpleasant, it usually goes away in a couple of days.\n\nThe advice is to stay at home if you are experiencing norovirus symptoms and do not return to work or send children to school or nursery until 48 hours after symptoms have cleared.\n\nProf Gharbia said: \"Please avoid visiting elderly relatives if you are unwell - particularly if they are in a care home or hospital.\n\n\"As with Covid and other infectious illnesses, handwashing is really important to help stop the spread of this bug, but remember, unlike for Covid, alcohol gels do not kill off norovirus, so soap and water is best.\"\n\nFor their study, Prof Gharbia and colleagues looked at information on outbreaks, laboratory notifications, calls to the NHS 111 health advice service, GP appointments, and attendance at emergency care for gastrointestinal infections during the first half of 2020 in England.\n\nThat included illness from bacteria like salmonella and listeria, as well as the winter vomiting virus.\n\nJust over 1,500 suspected and lab-confirmed gastrointestinal infection outbreaks were reported in England, representing a 52% fall on the five-year average for the period.\n\nGoogle Trends data showed internet searches for key phrases, such as \"food poisoning\", \"gastroenteritis\" and \"sickness bug\" plunged, while ones for \"handwashing\" and \"disinfection\" rose substantially during the UK's first Covid wave.\n\nEach year in England there are typically more than 17 million cases of gastrointestinal infections, resulting in more than one million calls or visits for medical advice or care.\n\nTo help reduce the spread:\n\nProf Martin Marshall, from the Royal College of GPs, said: \"This study makes clear that as we've seen with other contagious diseases, such as colds and flu, prevalence of gastro-intestinal infection was lower during the pandemic. This is likely to be in a large part due to restrictions that were implemented to stop the spread of Covid, and greater adherence to public health measures.\n\n\"As we move to the next stages of the pandemic, severe restrictions have been, and continue to be, lifted to allow a more normal way of life, but practising good hygiene measures is something that can and should continue, and really can help people keep well.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Daniel Morgan was murdered in south-east London in 1987\n\nThe Metropolitan Police's approach to tackling corruption within its ranks is \"fundamentally flawed\", an inspection by the police watchdog has concluded.\n\nThe watchdog found the force had recruited people with criminal connections in the last two years, and more than 100 staff had broken the law.\n\nThe Met welcomed the report and said it was committed to tackling corruption.\n\nIt follows the failed investigation into the 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.\n\nThe 37-year-old was attacked with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London.\n\nThe inquiry into his death was hampered by poor policing and potentially corrupt links between detectives, suspects and journalists.\n\nDespite six investigations and inquiries into the murder no one has ever been convicted.\n\nThe latest report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) looked at the Met's counter-corruption arrangements and the findings of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report, which was published in June last year.\n\nLast week the Met rejected the findings of the panel report that it suffered from a form of \"institutional corruption\".\n\nThe HMICFRS report said \"it would not describe the Met as institutionally corrupt\" based on this inspection but it did say the force's approach to tackling corruption was \"not fit for purpose\".\n\nAccording to the findings:\n\nPublishing the HMICFRS report, Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary Matt Parr said: \"It is unacceptable that 35 years after Daniel Morgan's murder, the Metropolitan Police has not done enough to ensure its failings from that investigation cannot be repeated.\n\n\"In fact, we found no evidence that someone, somewhere, had adopted the view that this must never happen again.\"\n\nMr Parr said the Met's \"apparent tolerance of these shortcomings suggests a degree of indifference to the risk of corruption\" and it had \"sometimes behaved in ways that make it appear arrogant, secretive and lethargic\".\n\nPolice warrant cards, which act as proof of identification, can be used to access police buildings and obtain free travel on London transport.\n\nMr Parr said the fact more than 2,000 warrant cards had gone missing also had obvious \"sinister implications\".\n\nWayne Couzens, who had a valid warrant card as a serving Met Police officer, used it to coerce 33-year-old Sarah Everard before murdering her in March last year.\n\nThe watchdog did recognise the force's ability to investigate the most serious corruption allegations was \"particularly impressive\" and it praised its confidential reporting line and support provided to whistleblowers.\n\nIt said the Met had also significantly reduced the number of personnel who were not security vetted.\n\nAlastair Morgan has spent 34 years campaigning for justice for his brother\n\nIn response to the findings, Mr Morgan's family - who are suing the force - called for \"the culture of corruption and cover up that remains rife in the Met\" to be confronted.\n\nUnless and until there are \"root-and-branch changes\" in the Met's leadership team, \"we consider we are unlikely to see any meaningful progress within the Met in relation to police corruption\", they said in a statement.\n\nMr Morgan's family also called on the Mayor's office, Home Office and Independent Office for Police Conduct to \"stop turning a blind eye to those within the Met\" who sought to \"manage the fallout from that corruption\" instead of confronting it.\n\nIn response to the report, the Met reiterated its apology to the family of Mr Morgan and insisted it had not given up on the case.\n\nIn a statement, it said: \"There is clearly much more work to do when it comes to tackling corruption in its widest sense. We are absolutely committed to this.\"\n\nThe force added that it was \"deeply concerned\" at the report's criticisms and it was \"urgently reviewing\" its systems and processes.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said that \"whilst the report found some examples of impressive work, I am very disappointed that serious issues still persist\".\n\n\"Standards must be immediately improved. I expect the mayor of London and the new commissioner to reverse these deficiencies as a matter of urgency,\" she added.\n\nShadow home secretary Yvette Cooper also said the new commissioner should \"make instituting these changes a top priority\". But Ms Cooper added that \"we also need to see a stronger response from the Home Office\", to ensure policing standards rise and to boost people's confidence in the force.\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan said the report was \"deeply worrying\" and the failure to tackle corruption was another reason confidence in the police was \"almost at an all-time low\".\n\nHe added that action needed to be taken \"at the highest levels of the Met in order to regain the trust and confidence of Londoners\".", "Alisher Usmanov (right) with President Putin at the Kremlin in November 2018\n\nThe UK has announced sanctions on two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Usmanov's company USM previously had sponsorship ties with Arsenal and - until this week - Everton.\n\nMr Shuvalov was formerly Russian President Vladimir Putin's deputy prime minister and is currently chairman of the management board of a Russian bank.\n\nThe BBC has contacted the two men for their response.\n\nUnder the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.\n\nBritish citizens and businesses will not be allowed to deal with them.\n\nBoris Johnson said: \"For as long as Putin continues his barbaric attack on innocent Ukrainians we will continue to exert every power we have to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his war machine.\"\n\nAnd his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We won't stop here - our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin's war machine.\"\n\nThe government said the two men had \"significant interests in the UK and close links to the Kremlin\".\n\nMr Usmanov founded USM Holding company, an investment group that owns iron, steel and copper suppliers and the Megafon telecommunications company.\n\nThe company, in which Mr Usmanov holds a 49% stake, sponsored Everton's training ground and had a naming-rights option for Everton's new stadium, due to open in 2024.\n\nHowever, on Wednesday, Everton suspended the company's sponsorship arrangements, saying the club was \"shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine\".\n\nMr Usmanov's business partner Farhad Moshiri - the owner and main investor at Everton - has since stepped down from his role as chairman of USM and announced that he had severed all business links with the Russian.\n\nAs part of the deal, the Megafon branding was added to two of the towers of the stadium, one of which can be seen here\n\nThe Megafon branding was quickly removed from the stadium in the run-up to Thursday's televised FA Cup match\n\nAt the club's FA cup match against Boreham Wood on Thursday evening, Everton's players walked out draped in Ukrainian flags, behind 22-year-old Ukrainian defender Vitaliy Mykolenko who has been made captain on just his fourth appearance for his new club.\n\nMr Usmanov's previous ties with Arsenal ended in 2018 when he sold his 30% stake. At the time he was the second largest shareholder in the north London club.\n\nIn addition to connections with Premier League clubs, the government said Mr Usmanov owned Beechwood House in Highgate, worth an estimated £48m, and the 16th century Sutton Place estate in Surrey.\n\nMr Shuvalov is less well-known in the UK but the Foreign Office said he owned \"two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11m\".\n\nThe Foreign Office also said it had established an Oligarch Taskforce to co-ordinate work to sanction further oligarchs.\n\nEarlier this week, the EU froze the assets of the Mr Usmanov, saying he was \"a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin\".\n\nAt the time, Mr Usmanov issued a statement calling the EU's decision \"unfair\" and adding that he would \"use all legal means to protect my honour and reputation\".\n\nMr Shuvalov, the other man to be sanctioned, has worked in the Russian government as first deputy minister and government chief of staff, as well as acting as an aide to President Putin.\n\nIgor Shuvalov, seen here with President Putin, is one of 13 oligarchs to be sanctioned by the UK since the invasion of Ukraine\n\nSince 2018 he has been the chairman of the management board of VEB, one of the Russian banks recently sanctioned by the government.\n\nOn Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had urged the prime minister to take action against Mr Shuvalov and accused the prime minister of being slow to target other individuals connected with the Putin government.\n\nGovernment sources have told the BBC it could take weeks to put together sanctions against such people.\n\nLabour, and some senior Conservative figures have said the UK should seize oligarchs' UK assets.\n\nConservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: \"We should be looking immediately to seize those assets linked to those who are profiting from Putin's war machine, holding it in trust and returning it to the Russian people as soon as possible.\"\n\nElsewhere, the US has announced fresh sanctions on Russian oligarchs including Mr Usmanov, Mr Shuvalov and Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nAuthorities in France and Germany have seized yachts owned by Mr Usmanov.\n\nMeanwhile, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab says the government will look at ways to stop lawsuits being used by wealthy individuals to intimidate journalists and organisations covering their wealth and financial interests.\n\nThe government is expected to set out a number of options to alter the system, including procedural changes in courts and potential legislation.\n\nMr Raab told the Telegraph: \"We will not have people close to Putin coming here to try and bankrupt people who shine a light on his excesses.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said it should never have taken the government so long to secure her release from prison in Iran.\n\nShe told a news conference she had been overwhelmed with emotion to be reunited with her husband and daughter, describing the reunion as precious.\n\nBut she said \"what's happened now should have happened six years ago\".\n\nThe British-Iranian was speaking for the first time since her dramatic return to the UK last week.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested on spying charges while visiting her parents in Iran, with her then two-year-old daughter Gabriella, in April 2016. Last week, she was freed after spending six years in detention.\n\nHer release came after the UK government paid a £400m debt to Iran dating back to the 1970s, although both governments have said the two issues should not be linked.\n\nSpeaking to the media in Westminster, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe thanked all those who had worked to get her released, paying tribute to her \"amazing, wonderful\" husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who she said had campaigned tirelessly. She also thanked her daughter \"for being very, very patient with mummy\".\n\nBut she took issue with the credit her husband had granted Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for her release, saying: \"I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years. How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home?\"\n\nShe added: \"We all know… how I came home. It should have happened exactly six years ago.\"\n\nDescribing her arrival back in the UK, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe recalled the \"precious\" and \"glorious\" feeling of stepping off the plane and seeing her daughter again.\n\n\"I had been waiting for that moment for such a long time,\" she said.\n\n\"It was lovely to get to hold her, to braid her hair and to brush her hair. That was a moment that I really, really missed.\"\n\nShe said she was looking forward to getting to know Gabriella better again and doing everyday things like taking her to school.\n\nAlso speaking at the news conference, Mr Ratcliffe joked that it was \"nice to be retiring\" from his role as a campaigner, and thanked everyone for \"making us whole again\".\n\n\"I'm so pleased she's back home, that she came home to us. We're still negotiating whether daddy's allowed in the same bed as Gabriella and Nazanin. We'll get there.\"\n\nMr Ratcliffe continued: \"I think we'll do this and then we will disappear off and heal a bit.\"\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe declined to speak about her ordeal, saying it would always haunt her.\n\nBut she added: \"I always felt like I was holding this black hole in my heart all these years... I am going to leave that black hole on the plane.\"\n\nWhile in Iran in September 2016, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and was given a five-year sentence.\n\nThen, in April 2021, she was sentenced for another year on charges of propaganda against the government.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always denied those allegations and said that she was only in Iran to visit her family.\n\nSpeaking on Monday, she said she had been told by Iranian authorities shortly after her arrest that they wanted \"something off the Brits\", and that they would not let her go until they had got it.\n\n\"And they did keep their promise,\" she said.\n\nEarlier during her visit to Westminster, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe met Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle in his parliamentary rooms.\n\nSir Lindsay gave Gabriella a Speaker Bear fluffy toy, which she decided to call Speechless\n\nThe Speaker told her \"the whole nation rejoiced\" when she returned to the UK.\n\nHe added: \"You have achieved something that many others before you have not - in uniting the House in their efforts and hope to get you home.\"\n\nAnother British-Iranian national, Anoosheh Ashoori, was released at the same time as Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.\n\nBut Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe also used the event to draw attention to the plight of other dual nationals still detained in Iran.\n\nMorad Tahbaz, who has British, Iranian, and American citizenship, remains in detention, and there are numerous people from other countries who are being held on various allegations of working to undermine the Iranian regime.\n\nMr Tahbaz's daughter, Roxanne, also appeared at the conference, and said her family felt her father had been \"abandoned and left behind\" in Iran.\n\nShe said they had been told by the Foreign Office that Mr Tahbaz would be included in any deal to release hostages in Iran, and called on the prime minister and the foreign secretary to continue to work for his release.\n\n\"I believe that the meaning of freedom is never going to be complete until such time that all of us who are unjustly detained in Iran are reunited with our families,\" Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said.\n\n\"There are so many other people - we don't know their names - who have been suffering in prison.\"\n\nTulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, has called on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to investigate why the debt the UK had with Iran took \"so long\" to be paid.\n\nMs Siddiq - who represents Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's constituency and has called herself the \"Nazanin MP\" - said she had written to the chair of the committee, Tom Tugendhat.\n\nMr Ratcliffe welcomed the investigation and said it would be \"really valuable for Parliament to take up that challenge and to talk it through\".", "A few days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one of Russia's largest media companies, Russian Media Group (RMG), released a statement explaining why it would no longer be playing certain artists on its popular radio stations or music TV channel.\n\n\"The reason for this decision was the harsh statements these musicians made towards Russia in the context of the difficult situation between Russia and Ukraine,\" the statement read.\n\nIt explained that respect for its listeners was the company's top priority, and the \"arrogant and contemptuous attitude of the musicians towards Russian listeners\" left it no choice but to terminate its contract with the artists.\n\nThe list included several Ukrainian musicians and three Russian acts, including legendary rock group Aquarium, whose lead singer, Boris Grebenshchikov, had called the war \"madness\" in a post on Instagram. He is no stranger to political pressure.\n\n\"I've spent half my life under some sort of ban\", Mr Grebenshchikov told the BBC. \"There were bans in the 70s, bans in the 80s - there's nothing unusual about it. Then the same people who ban you give you prizes.\"\n\nThe pressure on dissenting voices in the music industry marks a stark contrast to those artists who are loyal to the Kremlin, some of whom performed last week at a glitzy, made-for-TV stadium concert which featured Vladimir Putin as the headline act.\n\nTens of thousands of people waved Russian flags and chanted pro-Russian slogans at the event celebrating the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Many of them told the BBC they had been pressured to be there.\n\nOleg Gazmanov performed at a pro-Kremlin rally to celebrate the annexation of Crimea\n\nOn the first day of the war, Ukrainian singer Ivan Dorn published a video on Instagram calling for Russians to \"end this catastrophe\" and \"not to participate in this murderous war\".\n\nDays later he found himself on the list of acts banned by the Russian Media Group, and his name appeared on another \"black list\" leaked to Russian media, demanding that certain musicians are banned from performing because of their anti-war views. The list was reportedly circulated to music venues and promoters in Russia.\n\nBut Mr Dorn told the BBC that being blacklisted in Russia made no difference to him.\n\n\"Any cooperation with Russia was impossible even before the announcement of any list,\" he said.\n\n\"Does anyone within the organs of the Russian state really think we want to work with the aggressors who are exterminating the Ukrainian nation, murdering thousands of innocent people, building a totalitarian regime and putting their own people in jail for dissent?\"\n\nUkrainian singer Ivan Dorn called on Russians to \"stop this catastrophe\"\n\nIt isn't clear who created the \"black list\" or where it originated, and the BBC cannot confirm its authenticity, but music industry insiders say such documents are not uncommon.\n\n\"It's never indicated where they come from - no name, phone number, email, official stamp. It can look like a fake - just a printed list with the names of musicians, writers or comedians,\" music manager Elena Saveleva told the BBC. Her client, rapper Noize MC, is on the list.\n\nAccording to Ms Saveleva, pressure on promoters usually comes from regional security services, with officials turning up at concert halls and threatening them with closures and fines.\n\nThe art director of Moscow's oldest club, 16 Tons, believes the document could be fake.\n\n\"I haven't seen it and no officials have come to see me, even though usually we are the first club they visit,\" Pavel Kamakin told the BBC.\n\nThe ambiguity surrounding the list's origin makes it difficult for promoters, musicians and venue owners to know how seriously to take it.\n\nWhatever its origins, the list reflects the increasingly unpredictable environment for people in Russia who disagree with the war.\n\nFor some musicians, that means the only option is to perform abroad.\n\nRussian rapper Oxxxymiron, whose name appears on the \"black list\" circulated by Russian media, cancelled his upcoming tour in Russia and has instead organised charity concerts abroad - known as \"Russians Against War\" - to raise money for Ukrainian refugees.\n\nHe raised over $30,000 (£22,760) at a performance in Istanbul, and will appear in London later this week.\n\nAnnouncing the postponement of his Russian tour, Oxxxymiron explained that he could not \"entertain people while Russian rockets fall on Ukraine, while residents of Kyiv are forced to hide in their basements and the metro, and while people are dying\".", "Subpostmasters who helped uncover the Post Office IT scandal but missed out on full compensation are to get payouts under a new government scheme.\n\nThe 555 workers won a landmark civil case against the Post Office in 2019, but saw most of their settlements swallowed up by legal fees.\n\nThey will now get the same level of compensation as other subpostmasters who were wrongly convicted.\n\nThe announcement comes as a public inquiry into the scandal continues.\n\nBetween 2000 and 2014, hundreds of subpostmasters and mistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to faults in the Horizon computer software being used at branches across the UK.\n\nIn 2019, a group of 555 subpostmasters and mistresses successfully challenged the Post Office over the accusations in the High Court.\n\nThat case set a legal precedent and paved the way for a series of cases in which 72 people had criminal convictions overturned.\n\nThe Post Office opened a historic shortfall scheme to compensate more than 700 wrongfully convicted former branch managers who had personally covered shortfalls in branch accounts caused by the Horizon software.\n\nBut the 555 people who won the High Court case could not participate in the scheme, and despite winning nearly £43m in compensation in 2019, the group's funds were swallowed up due to a \"no win, no fee\" agreement with Therium, the company which funded the litigation.\n\nThe group only got a \"small fraction\" of the settlement equating to around £20,000 each, the Treasury said.\n\nTherium has agreed to waive its rights to any claim on the new pot of compensation.\n\nBusiness minister Paul Scully told the BBC's Today programme that the compensation paid to the 555 people would be \"absolutely parallel\" to the other Post Office workers who had been compensated through the historic shortfall scheme.\n\nHe said the group were \"pioneers\" and had \"broken open\" the scandal.\n\n\"I want to make sure they get that full compensation,\" he said. \"It is a massive scandal and it's something I am absolutely determined to put right.\"\n\nAsked if the families of 32 out of the 555 people who have since died would be able to receive the compensation, Mr Scully said he would look into it.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Tracy Felstead was sent to Holloway Prison for a crime she didn't commit\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, Mr Scully said he envisaged the compensation scheme as running alongside the historic shortfall scheme \"on the basis of losses, and looking at ongoing losses as well\".\n\n\"I'd love to say I've got a blank cheque from the Treasury, but that's clearly not going to happen from this place - but the Treasury know that we need to sort it out.\n\n\"I want to make sure that the scheme has the confidence of [subpostmasters],\" he added.\n\nFollowing the government's announcement, the Post Office said it welcomed the move.\n\n\"Since it came to light through media reports that around £46m of the compensation provided to group litigation claimants was directed to the funders of their case, we have continually urged the government to address this unfairness,\" a statement said.\n\nIt's hard to overstate the importance of the legal precedent set by the victory of 555 subpostmasters two and a half years ago. That was the moment that evidence came into the public domain about the flaws with the Post Office's Horizon system, and back-end access to the software.\n\nThe judge did not hold back in his opinion of the Post Office, saying the system was not remotely robust, but that getting that information out of the Post Office had taken subpostmasters years, and many tens of millions of pounds in costs.\n\nIt was the moment where the tables turned against a crown institution which had been wrongly convicting, bankrupting, and sacking its own employees for decades.\n\nTheir David v. Goliath legal battle has proved the ammunition needed for 706 branch managers who were convicted or sent to prison have been able to get those convictions quashed. It also forced the Post Office to agree to refund 2,500 others for huge financial losses they suffered as result, although most still haven't received a penny of that money.\n\nThe 555 original legal trailblazers stood and cheered as their legal victory snowballed, but were left with very little in compensation themselves. This new scheme is promising to set that right. Full details of how to claim have not yet been published, and there's still a lot of nervousness from those who had to fight the Post Office and the government at every turn, but this is the clearest statement yet that a fairer payment is on the way.\n\nThe new compensation scheme comes as High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams leads a public inquiry into the Post Office scandal, which has heard testimonies from Post Office staff, some of which were wrongly accused or convicted of crimes they didn't commit.\n\nA total of 72 have had their names cleared so far.\n\nThe inquiry - which is expected to run for the rest of this year - is examining whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system, Horizon, which was developed by Japanese company Fujitsu.\n\nIt will also ask how and why they were left to shoulder the blame.\n\nThe Post Office has previously said it is \"sincerely sorry for the impact of the Horizon scandal on the lives of victims and their families and we are in no doubt about the human cost\".\n\n\"In addressing the past, our first priority is that full, fair and final compensation is provided and we are making good progress,\" it added.\n\nThe Department for Business has previously said it is \"eager to see all Horizon-related issues resolved fairly and quickly, including for the 555, who played a crucial role in bringing this scandal to light\".", "Boris Becker, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, was using his business account as a \"piggy bank\" to pay for personal expenses, a court has heard.\n\nHe spent money from his business account on his children's school fees, designer clothes and shopping at the luxury store, Harrods, jurors heard.\n\nThe 54-year-old, who commentated for the BBC last year, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court charged with 24 offences under the Insolvency Act.\n\nThe charges relate to his June 2017 bankruptcy over a £3.5m bank loan for a property in Mallorca, Spain.\n\nHe is accused of hiding, or failing to hand over, assets before and after his bankruptcy.\n\nAs the second day of Mr Becker's trial got under way, the jury heard the former world number one spent hundreds of pounds at Harrods, bought online groceries at Ocado and treated himself to Ralph Lauren clothes.\n\nThe German national is alleged to have hidden €1.13 million (£940,000) from the sale of a Mercedes car dealership he owned in Germany, which was paid into his Boris Becker Private Office (BBPOL) account.\n\nProsecutor Rebecca Chalkley said: \"It is the prosecution case that Mr Becker used the BBPOL sterling account as an extension of his own account, effectively as his own piggy bank, for everyday personal expenses such as school fees for the children and such like.\"\n\nShe said payments in 2017 included £643 to Polo Ralph Lauren, £7,600 in school fees, £976 at Harrods and more than £1,000 at Ocado.\n\nMs Chalkley told jurors Mr Becker paid his ex-wife Barbara Becker €23,000 (£19,000), estranged wife Sharell \"Lilly\" Becker €100,000 (£83,000) and transferred £225,000 to a friend.\n\nThe prosecutor added that he also transferred €300,000 (£249,000) to his own account, while other funds went into an account he jointly held with his son.\n\nMr Becker is also accused of failing to hand over assets including trophies he received as a result of his 1985 and 1989 Wimbledon men's singles title, his Australian Open trophies from 1991 and 1996 and his 1992 Olympic gold medal.\n\nHe also allegedly failed to declare two German properties, as well as his interest in a flat in Chelsea, west London, and hid a €825,000 (£686,000) bank loan.\n\nThe prosecution is being brought by the Insolvency Service on behalf of the business secretary.\n\nOn Monday at the start of the trial, Judge Deborah Taylor instructed the jury of 11 men and one woman to ignore Mr Becker's celebrity.\n\n\"You must treat him in exactly the same way you would treat someone you have not heard of and is not in the public eye,\" she said.\n\nThe trial, expected to last up to three weeks, continues.", "Mariia, who was volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross, tried to help those injured in the attack but her kit was inside the theatre\n\nAs the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and - within seconds - the building had been split in two and left in ruins. We still do not know how many died, but the BBC has spoken to survivors who described for the first time what happened when the bomb fell.\n\nAll morning, Russian planes had been circling the skies above the city.\n\nMariia Rodionova, a 27-year-old teacher, had been living in the theatre for 10 days, having fled her ninth-floor apartment with her two dogs. They camped next to the stage in an auditorium near the back of the building.\n\nThat morning she had got some fish scraps from an outdoor field kitchen to feed her dogs, but then realised they had not drunk any water. So at about 10:00, she tied her dogs to her luggage and made her way towards the main entrance where a queue was forming for hot water.\n\nThere was the sound of a clap, thunderous and loud. Then the sound of broken glass. A man came from behind and pushed her to a wall, protecting her with his own body. The blast was so loud that she felt intense pain in one of her ears, so intense she thought her eardrum must have split. She only realised it had not because she could hear the screams of people. The screams were everywhere.\n\nThe force of the blast threw another man against a window. He fell on the ground, his face covered with broken glass. A woman, who also had a wound on her head, tried to help him. Mariia, who had been volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross in Mariupol, gathered her senses enough to shout over, telling her to stop.\n\n\"I said 'Wait, don't touch him. I'll bring my first aid kit and I'll help you both',\" she recalled. But her kit was inside the theatre, and that part of the building had collapsed.\n\n\"There was only rubble,\" she said. It was impossible for her to get in.\n\n\"For two hours, I couldn't do anything,\" she said. \"I just stayed there. I was in shock.\"\n\nVladyslav, a 27-year-old locksmith who does not want to use his full name, had also wandered into the building that morning. He had some friends there and went to look for them. He was near the main entrance when the explosion hit. He ran with others into a basement and, 10 minutes later, heard the building was on fire and emerged to a scene of chaos.\n\n\"Terrible things were happening,\" he said.\n\nHe saw plenty of people bleeding. Some had open fracture wounds. \"One mother was trying to find her kids under the rubble. A five-year-old kid was screaming: 'I don't want to die'. It was heartbreaking.\"\n\nIt is likely to have been just one bomb that fell on the theatre that morning, bringing all that destruction with it, analysis by McKenzie Intelligence Services for the BBC has concluded.\n\n\"Due to the missile appearing to accurately hit the centre of the building, we believe it is a laser-guided bomb, likely the KAB-500L or similar variant, launched from an aircraft,\" the London-based group said.\n\n\"The nature of the explosion indicates it was armed with an instantaneous fuse, so was unable to penetrate the ground floors.\"\n\nFrom the accuracy of the strike it is very likely that the theatre was the chosen target.\n\nSatellite imagery released by the US company Maxar, from the days before the attack, show the word \"children\" in Russian was clearly painted on the lawn in front of the theatre, visible to any passing bomber.\n\nRussia denies attacking the theatre. It has also denied hitting civilian sites in Ukraine, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country and nowhere more brutally than in Mariupol.\n\nAndrei Marusov, an investigative journalist from Mariupol, had visited the theatre two days before the attack. \"Everybody knew that it was a focal point for many women and children,\" Marusov, who is a former chairman of the advocacy group Transparency International Ukraine, said. \"There were only civilians there.\"\n\nThat Wednesday, the day of the bombing, he had gone up to the top of his building at 06:00 to survey the city. The planes were still buzzing through the air. He said Russian planes had been shelling and bombarding the area where the theatre was, that Sea of Azov waterfront all morning.\n\n\"I saw that the city centre was covered by fire and constant explosions,\" he said.\n\nMariia also remembers military planes \"making circles\" near the theatre that morning, and \"throwing bombs somewhere else\". But it was not unusual for her to spot military planes flying in the area. She had got used to their sound.\n\nThere are still many details that remain unclear about the attack. It is thought that up to 1,000 people were sheltering in the drama theatre. Some appeared to have based themselves in its underground bunker or bomb shelter, according to others who hid in the building and city authorities. Mariia saw others living in crowded corridors on overground floors.\n\nOne thing which is clear from the accounts of the people the BBC spoke to, is that people would wander around the complex, its corridors and grounds, and others would come and go.\n\nThe destroyed theatre that Mariia walked away from\n\nThe day after the attack, the city council said 130 people had been rescued. A further update said it was possible that many had survived. But there has been no news since then. The city is in such a desperate state that there may never be a clear picture of how many were there and how many survived.\n\nMariia's home inside the theatre for the days she was there was in an auditorium hall with a chandelier, and she nestled right next to the stage because her dogs had drawn some complaints. She said there were about 30 people in that hall and it is her belief that they must have all perished when the bomb hit. It was sheer luck that she had stepped outside at that moment.\n\nAfter the blasts she was unable to find her dogs and it was a moment of desperation: \"For me,\" she said, \"my dogs were more important than anything.\"\n\nVladyslav said he saw many people coming out of the building, something that Mariia saw as well.\n\n\"Some were with their luggage,\" she said. \"No-one knew what to do, and the area was still being shelled.\"\n\nStanding outside the theatre, she too looked at the damage. She realised it made no sense to look for another shelter. It had been a few stunned hours and she eventually left.\n\nShe tried to stop any car leaving the city. \"People were in panic,\" she said, \"no-one took me in their car.\" She started to walk along the coast.\n\n\"I needed to get out of the city.\"\n\nFirst, she got to the village of Pishchanka. \"I met a woman,\" she said, \"who asked if I was OK. I started to cry.\" She was offered tea and food, and invited to spend the night. The next morning, she kept walking, until she reached Melekyne. A curfew meant she had to stop at 20:00. A day later, she walked to Yalta. The following one, to Berdyansk. \"I walked all that time,\" she said.\n\nMariupol has seen the worst horrors of Russia's aggression on Ukraine. The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it relentlessly for almost a month, from the air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea. About 100,000 people remain trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege. No electricity, no gas, no running water.\n\nWhen Mariia left her flat for the theatre, her grandmother, who lived with her, refused to go. \"She just said: 'It's my apartment, my home. I'm going to die here'.\"\n\nMariia is still waiting to hear whether she is alive.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nUkraine's second city Kharkiv has been the constant target of Russian attacks for three weeks. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway report from the front line where Ukrainian troops continue to repel the enemy advance.\n\nWe enter the house where the back door used to be. Now there is just a blanket flapping in the freezing wind. The owners, long gone, would have had a view across the rich farmland north of Kharkiv, but much of that is unrecognisable, too.\n\nIn the garage, beside an abandoned skateboard, are a dozen or so empty packing cases for some of the world's best anti-tank weapons. A dead Russian soldier lies face down in the front garden.\n\nThe house has become a frontline base, and the spent cases are an indication that the soldiers here have had the fight of their lives - a fight for Ukraine's independence.\n\nWe have gained rare access to the Ukrainian army, who after three weeks of hard fighting, are still holding firm on the outskirts of Kharkiv, preventing Russian forces from capturing Ukraine's second-largest city.\n\n\"Do you want to go further ahead?\" asks Yuri, a commander with the Ukrainian army's 22 Motorized Infantry Battalion, pointing at the ruins of two Russian armoured personnel carriers, and the shattered pieces of two of their tanks. The battalion was reconstituted in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea and backed Donbas separatists.\n\n\"They've used drones, aircraft, attack helicopters, everything,\" says Yuri, as Russian shells thunder overhead, striking nearby roads and apartment blocks.\n\nMoments after Russian Grad rockets - multiple rockets launched in quick succession - fell on a residential neighbourhood\n\nThe Russians have continued to attack again and been repelled many times. In their frustration at being denied entry, they bomb the city, which was once home to 1.4 million people, day and night.\n\nThe ground is churned up and thick mud sucks on your boots. A backward glance shows the ruined shells of the line of houses we just passed through. Suburban gardens have become battlefields from Europe's past.\n\n\"The first three days were the worst. It was raining, we were covered in mud, we looked like pigs,\" says Olexander, 44, who is standing nearby.\n\nBy one of the destroyed armoured personnel carriers, its Z marking already faded, is a large crater, 20ft (6m) across. On the first day of the invasion, 24 February, a Russian strike killed six Ukrainian soldiers at this exact place. Many more died here since, but official figures aren't being released.\n\nA green army boot is perched on the crater's edge, a Russian corpse beyond that. A large black crow sits nearby, untroubled by the roar of shelling and Grad rockets from Russian positions.\n\nThe men here can tell you the precise date and time they came to the front - the implication being that if you weren't here the first three days, you don't know real fighting. \"Jump in the crater if there is more shelling,\" says Uri.\n\nConstantine, 58, was a pilot in the Ukrainian air force until he retired and became a journalist. Now he's back at the front, walking with a limp and using a broken broom handle for support. Russian shrapnel wounded his leg, but he refuses to leave the front.\n\n\"This is the last line of defence for the city, if they get through here, they will enter Kharkiv. This road takes you from Russia to the very heart of the city,\" he says.\n\nOlexander, 44, who fought in Donbas - \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on\"\n\nThere is a boom and whoosh, and a wire-guided missile flies just over our heads. We scramble into the crater. It strikes along the roadside, a gas pipeline bursts into flames.\n\nWhile we shelter, a tall reconnaissance soldier with blue tape across his helmet tells us to stay down. Roman is 34 years old, though he jokes that he was 24 when the war started three weeks ago.\n\nHe says the Russians won't show themselves now. \"They are chickens. We will respond good and proper.\" He stops and asks for a selfie. Later we learn that he transported the dead bodies of his fallen comrades in his own vehicle - which was just a month old - from the front to the city morgue.\n\nAs we leave, Constantine catches something in the air - thin copper wire, which stretches for miles. It was used to guide the Russian missile which just flew over our heads.\n\nWaiting for us is Olexander, 44, from nearby Poltava region. He's been with the unit since its founding and has fought in Donbas. \"This is much worse,\" he says, adding: \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on. We were lost and we couldn't believe it was happening. But after that we got better and we are standing our ground and will hold our positions.\"\n\nI ask him why he is fighting. He gives a laugh and responds, \"For a free Ukraine, for my family, and for you guys as well. For our independence and for peace.\"\n\nYuri, the commander, drives us back to the collection of Soviet-era apartment blocks, still inhabited. Russia says it came to Ukraine to demilitarise the country, but here we see what that means for civilians. A 20-storey block is still smoking from a Russian strike - it was two days ago, according to Yuri.\n\nThe official number of civilian deaths in Kharkiv stood at 234, including 14 children, on 16 March. The past few days have been punishing - as we were reminded in an instant.\n\nA volley of Russian Grad rockets rained down on the neighbourhood, striking just metres away. The soldiers around us had taken cover and were unharmed.\n\nSvitlana. 72, and her husband sleep two hours a night in their bomb-damaged flat\n\nIn the same housing complex lives husband and wife Svitlana and Sasha. Svitlana is 72, and welcomes us into her home, saying they haven't spoken to anyone in weeks. \"We're glad you came,\" she says.\n\nTheir building has already been hit, the back windows are gone, and they sleep in a central room on sofas. They manage two hours of sleep a night, the shelling is relentless. \"When it stops, it is like a thaw in spring,\" she says.\n\nI ask if she has a message for Vladimir Putin. \"No,\" she replies, firmly. \"No, it seems to me that this man has already lost his sanity and he does not think clearly. Because a sane human can not do something like this - bomb old people, kids, kindergartens, schools, hospitals. He wouldn't understand what I say.\"\n\nBut then, when I ask about the men not far from her home who are defending the city, she cries. She says, \"Yes, I'm very grateful to them for protecting their homeland. Hold on guys. We will always support you. They are so brave, both boys and girls.\"\n\nThere are still hundreds of thousands of people living in Kharkiv, despite the shelling. If Russia and Ukraine are brothers, as the Kremlin professes, then this is fratricide.\n\nAs we leave the neighbourhood, much of it is alight. Russia's fury with this city is both seen and heard. By evening, all of Kharkiv is covered in a cloud of smoke, the relentless pounding of guns continues, but the defenders of Kharkiv still keep the enemy from the city gates.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Mariupol has become the most heavily bombed and damaged city in Ukraine's war with Russia - having suffered the brunt of sustained Russian attacks. It is key to Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine. But why?\n\nThere are four main reasons why taking the port city would be such a strategic win for Russia - and a major blow for Ukraine.\n\nGeographically, the city of Mariupol occupies only a tiny area on the map but it now stands obstinately in the way of Russian forces who have burst out of the Crimean peninsula.\n\nThey are pushing north-east to try to link up with their comrades and Ukrainian-separatist allies in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.\n\nGeneral Sir Richard Barrons - former commander of UK Joint Forces Command - says capturing Mariupol is vital to Russia's war effort.\n\n\"When the Russians feel they have successfully concluded that battle, they will have completed a land bridge from Russia to Crimea and they will see this as a major strategic success.\"\n\nIf Mariupol was seized, Russia would also end up with full control of more than 80% of Ukraine's Black Sea coastline - cutting-off its maritime trade and further isolating it from the world.\n\nBy holding out against advancing forces for the past three weeks, the defending Ukrainians have managed to preoccupy a large number of Russian troops. But that failure by Russia to secure a rapid capture of the city, has prompted Russian commanders to resort to a 21st Century version of mediaeval siege tactics.\n\nThey have pummelled Mariupol with artillery, rockets and missiles - damaging or destroying over 90% of the city. They have also cut off access to electricity, heating, fresh water, food and medical supplies - creating a man-made humanitarian catastrophe which Moscow now blames on Ukraine for refusing to surrender by an 05:00 deadline on Monday. A Ukrainian MP has accused Russia of \"trying to starve Mariupol into surrender\".\n\nUkraine has vowed to defend the city down to the last soldier. It may well come to that. Russian troops are slowly pushing into the centre and, in the absence of any kind of workable peace deal, Russia is now likely to intensify its bombardment - drawing little if any distinction between its armed defenders and the beleaguered civilian population which still numbers over 200,000.\n\nIf, and when, Russia takes full control of Mariupol this will free up close to 6,000 of its troops - organised into 1,000-strong battalion tactical groups - to then go and reinforce other Russian fronts around Ukraine.\n\nThere are a number of possibilities as to where they could be redeployed:\n\nMariupol has long-been a strategically important port on the Sea of Azov, part of the Black Sea.\n\nWith its deep berths, it is the biggest port in the Azov Sea region and home to a major iron and steel works. In normal times, Mariupol is a key export hub for Ukraine's steel, coal and corn going to customers in the Middle East and beyond.\n\nFor eight years now, since Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the city has been sandwiched uncomfortably between Russian forces on that peninsula and the pro-Kremlin separatists in the breakaway self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nLosing Mariupol would be a major blow to what is left of Ukraine's economy.\n\nMariupol is home to a Ukrainian militia unit called the Azov Brigade, named after the Sea of Azov which links Mariupol to the rest of the Black Sea. The Azov Brigade contains far-right extremists, historically including neo-Nazis.\n\nAlthough they form only the tiniest fraction of Ukraine's fighting forces, this has been a useful propaganda tool for Moscow, giving it a pretext for telling Russia's population that the young men it has sent to fight in Ukraine are there to rid their neighbour of neo-Nazis.\n\nAzov Battalion training camp at a former holiday resort near Mariupol, February 2019\n\nIf Russia manages to capture alive significant numbers of Azov Brigade fighters it is likely they will be paraded on Russian state-controlled media as part of the ongoing information war to discredit Ukraine and its government.\n\nThe capture of Mariupol by Russia, if it happens, will be psychologically significant for both sides in this war.\n\nA Russian victory in Mariupol would enable the Kremlin to show its population - through state-controlled media - that Russia was achieving its aims and making progress.\n\nFor President Putin, for whom this war appears to be personal, there is a historical significance to all this. He sees Ukraine's Black Sea coastline as belonging to something called Novorossiya (New Russia) - Russian lands that date back to the 18th Century empire.\n\nPutin wants to revive that concept, \"rescuing Russians from the tyranny of a pro-western government in Kyiv\" as he sees it. Mariupol currently stands in the way of him achieving that aim.\n\nBut to Ukrainians, the loss of Mariupol would be a major blow - not just militarily and economically - but also to the minds of the men and women fighting on the ground, defending their country. Mariupol would be the first major city to fall to the Russians after Kherson, a strategically much less important city that was barely defended.\n\nThere is another morale aspect here and that is of deterrence.\n\nDigging graves by the roadside in Mariupol, 20 March\n\nMariupol has put up fierce resistance - but look at the cost. The city is decimated, it lies largely in ruins. It will go down in history alongside Grozny and Aleppo, places that Russia eventually bombed and shelled into submission, reducing them to rubble. The message to other Ukrainian cities is stark - if you choose to resist like Mariupol did then you can expect the same fate.\n\n\"The Russians couldn't walk into Mariupol,\" says Gen Sir Richard Barrons, \"they couldn't drive in with their tanks, so they've pounded it to rubble. And that's what we should expect to see anywhere else that really matters to them.\"\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "In the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent the week with the Ukrainian forces as they fight to stop a further Russian advance.\n\nThis report contains material some viewers will find disturbing\n\nThe first casualty of war is time. Ask the young soldier at the front when the attack happened, or the old lady in the hospital bed when her home was shelled, and they look at you confused. Was it 24 hours ago, or 48? The days have become one, they tell you.\n\nIn Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, time is elastic. It's close to the border with Russia and the nightly shelling from Russian artillery and warplanes gives no rest. The past two weeks have seemed like an eternity, yet peace can be remembered as if it were yesterday.\n\nIn a frozen landscape on the city's north-eastern edge, 21-year-old Lieutenant Yevgen Gromadsky stands with hands outstretched. There are trenches dug in nearby. \"Outgoing,\" he says, lifting his right hand to accompany the thump of fire from his positions. \"Incoming,\" he says, and his left hand ticks up. With a crump, Russian shells are fired from their positions 900m away across snow-covered fields.\n\nThe shelling continues like clockwork at the edge of this bombed-out village - \"Incoming, outgoing, incoming, outgoing,\" Lt Gromadsky flicks his hands with each report.\n\nWe met only this afternoon, but already I know that just last week, his father Oleg was killed defending the city, and Lt Gromadsky is the seventh generation of military in his family. He plans for an eighth, in a free Ukraine.\n\nHe describes the fight so far, \"Sabotage groups are probing our lines out, we have direct tank battles. They shoot with mortar shells at first, and then tanks fire at our positions.\"\n\nWe move along the front lines from position to position. Inside his armoured vehicle, a Russian army hat - a trophy from their first capture - hanging from the ceiling, he continues, \"We are shooting back with anti-tank guided missiles and also the usual small arms. They dismount, they scatter, there's always a lot of people.\"\n\nInside the truck there are Mexican Day of the Dead air fresheners. Grinning skulls hanging from every corner as we bounce along rutted dirt road. On the floor, rocket-propelled grenade launchers roll around.\n\nFrom the front passenger seat Lt Gromadsky says, \"Sometimes they use this tactic - first, they raise a white flag above their equipment, then come closer to our positions. When we come up and kind of take them as prisoners of war, they start to open fire on our troops.\"\n\nThe position was attacked on Monday (or was it the day before, he wonders), two Russian tanks and an armoured vehicle. \"Don't worry, we are well defended,\" he says as he gestures to a pile of American-made Javelin guided anti-tank missiles. \"Lockheed Martin, Texas,\" is written on their casing. Nearby, is a pile of British next-generation light anti-tank weapon (NLAW) missiles. \"Eliminates even the most advanced tanks,\" its manufacturer Saab promises on its website.\n\nIt is bitterly cold and two puppies are playing around Lt Gromadsky's feet. His shoes are a pair of white Puma trainers - \"You need to be fast out here,\" he says.\n\nThe Ukrainians are improvising in this war. Their government has been criticised for being ill-prepared, and now there is a rush to bring men forward to the front. The regular army is being merged with civilian defence forces. At a marshalling point on the city's eastern edge, I watch as buses arrive with hundreds of freshly equipped soldiers. \"Where's my body armour?\" asks one. \"You'll get it at the front,\" yells an officer, and moments later they are gone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Our correspondent on the front line, with Ukraine’s troops - this report contains graphic images of casualties\n\nSome will be joining Lt Gromadsky's unit and working alongside a medic who goes by the name of Reaper. \"You've heard of the grim reaper, right?\" he asks. He's also in command of this defence line at the edge of a village. Many of the homes there have been destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling.\n\nHow are the Russians fighting, I ask. \"They fight like stupid animals,\" says Reaper. \"They fight like it's 1941 - they have no manoeuvrability, they just come to the front and that's all. They have a lot of people, a lot of tanks, a lot of vehicles, but we are fighting for our land, and we are protecting our families. it doesn't matter how they fight because we fight like lions and they won't win.\"\n\nBack in the rear, the field kitchen is in a coffee shop. The army cook is reassuringly large with a knitted hat atop his head. He offers bowls of steaming hot borscht - \"Have sour cream with it,\" he insists. There are piles of cakes and biscuits, made by local factories for the troops.\n\nI sit beside a 30-year-old battalion commander, Sergey. \"We see the enemy, we kill the enemy, there's no conversation, that's it,\" he says. He wants to know where I'm from. I tell him and he asks if it's true that British volunteers have come to fight for Ukraine. \"What aircraft have you given us,\" he says as he finishes his borscht.\n\nBut across the east and south of Ukraine, Russia has been advancing. The Russian army has met more determined resistance than it expected, but cities continue to fall. And for all their front-line courage, there is a recognition that their abilities on the ground will not be enough. Soldier after soldier says they need air defence, a no-fly zone.\n\nI get inside another armoured vehicle, which two weeks ago was doing cash pickups at the city's banks. It, too, has now been put into the war effort. As we drive through the city, with its wide boulevards, and fine buildings, we reach a Soviet-Era apartment complex. And there I meet Eugene, a great Viking of a man, heavily tattooed with an orange beard.\n\n\"If Kharkiv falls, then all of Ukraine falls,\" Eugene, 36, tells me. He's a part of a reconnaissance team working near apartment blocks. Some of the flats have taken direct hits and in the car park, a car lies ripped apart from another grad missile strike.\n\nWhat there isn't here in Kharkiv, is any surprise at the Russian attack. \"Since 2014 we knew they would come, maybe in a year, 10 years, or 1,000 years, but we knew they would come\".\n\nAt 04:55 on 24 February, Eugene received a call from a friend saying the attack was about to begin. \"Then I heard the rockets attack our city,\" he says. Like everyone else he hasn't been home since.\n\nLeaving the front to return to the centre of the city is almost like entering another world. The relentless Russian shelling has meant that most of the 1.5m population has fled. Few neighbourhoods have escaped some kind of damage. Early in the mornings, queues can still be seen at pharmacies, banks, supermarkets and petrol stations, as those who stayed behind stock up on supplies. A huge logistical and humanitarian effort is going on behind the scenes to keep Kharkiv running.\n\nBefore curfew I make my way to the city's Hospital Number 4 to meet Dr Alexander Dukhovskyi, head of paediatrics. Underneath his hospital whites, he's wearing a Miami Beach 2015 T-shirt, with the American flag. He hasn't gone home in weeks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How Russia is using tactics refined over a decade in Syria\n\nHe laughs when I say that Russia says it isn't targeting civilians. Then, silently, he takes me down corridor after corridor of victims of Russian attacks. They are in the hallways because Russian shells have landed nearby, so the patients aren't safe in the wards with large windows. Most here were injured while at home.\n\nThe children's intensive care unit is on the ground floor. Its narrow windows catch the brilliant light from the snow outside and glint over the golden icons of saints above the nurses' station.\n\nIn a bed nearby is eight-year-old Dmitry. His toes poke out from under the blanket and a hand, bruised and bloodied peeks out too. His face is scraped and scarred with hundreds of marks, his right eye is not quite closed. A few days ago, the doctors removed a bullet from under his skull and vertebrae.\n\nIt is hoped he'll make a full recovery, but for the moment he's in a sorry state, with tubes taking out fluids from his small body in plastic bottles hanging beneath his bed. The thin blanket with tiny roses on it, rises and falls with his mechanical breathing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Doctors removed a bullet from between Dmitriy's skull and vertebrae\n\nVladimir Putin said he wanted to demilitarise Ukraine, instead he's creating a no-man's land. At night the city is in near total blackout. A steady beat of Russian strikes fall through the night.\n\nKharkiv was once Ukraine's capital - it has the parks, cathedrals, museums and theatres you would expect, as well as the Antonov aircraft factory and tank and turbine manufacturers.\n\nAll of the city is now a front line.\n\nAnd this, too, should come as no surprise. The Russian war-playbook has been perfected in Syria over the past 10 years. Surround, besiege, and terrorise the population. In Ukraine, as in Syria, the population is being bussed out of their home cities as Russian forces continue their advance.\n\nI meet an intelligence team, who drive with anti-tank missiles ready to use in the back of their vehicles. Again, I head to the city's edge, and pass through the front lines into a wasteland. Two petrol stations just outside the city that have been destroyed by shelling and gunfire.\n\nLying in the snow, are a dozen or so frozen Russian corpses. The men lie like wax figures, some with hands reaching out, their matted beards frozen stiff in the cold.\n\nThe guts of one are spilled across the forecourt. There are blood-red footprints around his corpse. Their weapons have been taken, and I ask Uta, one of the officers, what will happen to the bodies.\n\n\"What do you think will happen, we will leave them for the dogs,\" he says with a shrug.\n\nAnd at this miserable spot on Kharkiv's edge, unremarkable for its ordinariness two weeks ago, surrounded by frozen corpses, it's as if time is standing still.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Kaden Reddick was fatally injured at Topshop in Reading's Oracle shopping centre\n\nTopshop and its former owners have been found guilty of health and safety breaches after a 10-year-old boy died when a queue barrier toppled on him.\n\nKaden Reddick suffered a fatal head injury at the Reading store during a family shopping trip in 2017.\n\nFollowing a two-month trial, Arcadia Group and Topshop/Topman were convicted of failing to discharge a health and safety duty.\n\nA jury found barrier manufacturer Realm Projects not guilty of the same charge.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV video showed the barrier at the Reading store \"wobble\" as people leaned on it\n\nStoneforce Ltd, which was contracted to fit the barriers, had earlier pleaded guilty to failing to discharge a health and safety duty.\n\nDuring the trial, Reading Crown Court heard the barrier was installed between 2013 and 2014, during a major store refit.\n\nThe plinth supporting the barrier at the store in Reading's Oracle shopping centre had only been fixed to the floor with two narrow screws and the \"wobbly\" barrier fell on Kaden, prosecutors said.\n\nArcadia, Topshop/Topman and Stoneforce Ltd will be sentenced at a later date.\n\nThe jury was shown a picture of the barrier around the time it was installed\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Unite workers are on strike in a dispute over pay\n\nThe Unite union refused requests to exempt special school services from strike action, the Education Authority has claimed.\n\nThe authority said the union declined requests it made on Wednesday 16 March and Monday 21 March.\n\nThe Unite union has been contacted by BBC News NI for a response.\n\nMembers of Unite are taking action over a local government pay offer of 1.75%, which the union has called a \"real terms pay cut\".\n\nUnite is one of the largest public sector unions.\n\nThe union said its members in councils, the Education Authority and the Housing Executive expressed overwhelming support for the industrial action in ballots.\n\nGareth Scott, from Unite, told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster the offer was \"totally inadequate\".\n\n\"These local authority workers have seen their pay cut in real terms by 22% in last 12 years,\" he added.\n\n\"Over the last two years, during the pandemic, they have been essential workers and now we have the cost of living crisis - the response from employers was to offer a meagre 1.75% increase.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. We're not being offered a living wage'\n\nWhen asked if the union had considered making an exception for special schools, he said the problem lay with the employers.\n\n\"This could have been avoided by the employers making a fair and reasonable pay offer - something that goes a lot closer to meeting the cost of living,\" he said.\n\n\"Our members do not want to be on strike. But they have got to the point where they feel they have no alternative.\"\n\nSome school transport, meals, council bin collections, leisure services and Housing Executive maintenance will be disrupted by the week-long action by over 2,000 Unite members.\n\nSome special schools are expected to be particularly affected by the unavailability of Education Authority transport as they rely heavily on the so-called yellow buses.\n\nSome classroom assistants in special schools who are members of Unite may also be on strike.\n\nBut only one of 39 special schools - Glenveagh in Belfast - has said it cannot offer pupils face-to-face teaching \"due to lack of staffing\".\n\nThe Education Authority, though, said it had asked on Wednesday 16 March for classroom assistants at Glenveagh to be exempt from the strike.\n\nIt had also asked for yellow bus drivers in greater Belfast who transport wheelchair-using pupils to be allowed to continue to work.\n\nThe strikes may cause some disruption to school meals\n\nThe authority said that on Monday it had gone further and asked Unite to exempt all special school staff and bus drivers from the strike action.\n\nThe Education Authority's director of human resources Clare Duffield told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra that Unite had been asked to \"protect\" special schools.\n\n\"It is very disappointing that children with special educational needs are having their normal routine disrupted,\" she said.\n\n\"And it's really disappointing that those requests have been rejected at this stage.\"\n\n\"We have made the requests on a number of occasions and will continue to escalate those requests so that we can attempt to minimise the disruption throughout the week.\"\n\n\"We absolutely respect the right of a trade union and their members to take lawful industrial action but it's very disappointing when that impact son the most vulnerable children and young people.\"\n\nMs Duffield said that around 100 out of over 2,000 EA bus routes had been affected by strike action on Monday but that pupils from special schools has been most affected.", "Video released by Ukraine's State Emergency Service captured the moment when a shopping centre in Kyiv was hit by a Russian missile.\n\nAuthorities say at least eight people were killed when the Podilskyi district of Kyiv was struck.\n\nFirefighters were seen trying to rescue people stranded beneath the rubble.", "Corrie Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was based at RAF Honington which is about 10 miles (16km) north of Bury St Edmunds\n\nThe missing RAF gunner Corrie Mckeague who vanished on a night out in 2016 died after climbing into a commercial waste bin, an inquest concluded.\n\nThe airman, from Dunfermline, Fife, was 23 when he disappeared in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September 2016.\n\nHe was last seen on CCTV going into a bin loading area but his body has never been found despite extensive searches.\n\nInquest jurors in Ipswich concluded he died after climbing into the bin which was then tipped into a waste lorry.\n\nIn a narrative conclusion they said Mr Mckeague died at about 04:20 BST in Bury St Edmunds as a result of \"compression asphyxia in association with multiple injuries\".\n\nThey said Mr Mckeague's \"death was contributed to by impaired judgment due to alcohol consumption\".\n\nMr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV on his own walking past The Grapes public house in Bury St Edmunds town centre\n\nHe was captured heading towards a bin loading area behind some shops, including Greggs, in Bury St Edmunds town centre\n\nThe jurors, who had heard two weeks of evidence at Suffolk Coroner's Court, said there were \"ineffective bin locks\" and an \"ineffective search of the bin\" before it was tipped.\n\nDuring the inquest, it was heard Mr Mckeague, who was stationed at RAF Honington, had slept in a bin before.\n\nHe had also slept under bin bags on a previous night out, using them \"like a blanket\", and was a \"heavy sleeper\" when drunk, the hearing was told.\n\nMr Mckeague was described as being \"significantly under the influence of alcohol\" on the night he went missing.\n\nHe was seen asleep in a shop doorway earlier on 24 September before he awoke and walked to the bin loading area, known as \"the horseshoe\", where he was last seen.\n\nMr Mckeague's father Martin said he hoped the conclusion would enable his son to \"rest in peace\"\n\nWaste firm Biffa initially told police the weight of the bin was 11kg (1st 10lbs), and therefore not heavy enough to contain a person, but it was later recorded as 116kg (18st 3lbs).\n\nThe force said the movement of Mr Mckeague's mobile phone mirrored the movement of the waste lorry that collected the bin from the service area where he was last seen.\n\nMr Mckeague was not seen on CCTV leaving the area on foot.\n\nHis mother Nicola Urquhart said the \"most obvious thing\" was her son got into a bin that was later tipped into a waste lorry.\n\nBut she said before the inquest she had \"other questions, though, and until they could be answered we couldn't get to that conclusion either\".\n\n\"However, we've heard information in the inquest [so] that we now completely believe in the verdict that the jury have given today, 100%,\" she said,\n\nStanding next to Mr Mckeague's brothers, Daroch and Makayen, she said: \"As a family, we've now all walked out of there with a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.\"\n\nNicola Urquhart, Corrie Mckeague's mother, said his legacy was his five-year-old daughter\n\nHis father, Martin Mckeague, said after the ruling that he hoped his son could \"finally be left to rest in peace\", with the inquest shining \"a new light on the truth for everyone\".\n\nHe did, however, criticise \"conspiracy theorists\" who he said had misled people.\n\n\"They've suggested Corrie may have gone AWOL or got lost on his way home to his RAF base,\" he said in a statement.\n\n\"We knew the facts and evidence could unfortunately only mean one horrible conclusion - Corrie climbed into the bin in the horseshoe area and tragically died in the waste disposal process.\"\n\nMr Mckeague described his son as a \"loveable rogue who loved to socialise and party\", and said he was \"very much missed by all\".\n\nCorrie Mckeague, who was based at RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds, was last seen wearing light-coloured trousers and a pink shirt\n\nSuffolk's senior coroner Nigel Parsley said he could not imagine the \"distress and anguish\" Mr Mckeague's family had felt since he disappeared.\n\nMr Parsley expressed concerns about viewing panels, used to see inside the back of bin lorries, and said he would write to the British Standards Institute, bin lorry manufacturer Dennis Eagle and waste firm Biffa about these concerns.\n\nHe said he would also order a prevention of future deaths report in respect of \"ineffective locks on bins\".\n\nA Biffa spokesperson said: \"Our deepest sympathies are with Corrie's family and friends in this tragic case.\n\n\"This incident highlights the important, waste industry-wide issue, of people sleeping in waste containers, an issue which we have been actively campaigning on for the last 10 years.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to the UK last week\n\nIt took too long to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori from prison in Iran, former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.\n\nMr Hunt told the BBC the British-Iranian pair's return to the UK last week was an \"extraordinary achievement\" but it should have happened faster.\n\nHe called for an independent inquiry into the issue.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe spent six years in detention on spying charges.\n\nShe was visiting her parents in Iran when she was arrested and has always denied the allegations.\n\nMr Ashoori, who was released at the same time, spent almost five years in detention on spying charges, which he also denied.\n\nMr Hunt, who was foreign secretary between July 2018 and July 2019, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he did \"everything I could\" in his role to secure their release but \"it took too long\".\n\nWhile he said the \"primary responsibility\" for their detention lay with Iran, the Conservative MP added: \"I think we all have to say 'could we have done it faster?' And I think the answer is we could have.\"\n\nHowever, he praised Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and the Foreign Office for negotiating the pair's release, describing it as \"an extraordinary achievement\".\n\nOn Monday, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe took issue with ministers being given credit for her release, saying: \"I have seen five foreign secretaries change over the course of six years. How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home?\"\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe faced criticism from some commentators on social media, who suggested she should be more grateful to the British government for securing her freedom.\n\nHowever, Mr Hunt defended her comments, writing on Twitter: \"Those criticising Nazanin have got it so wrong. She doesn't owe us gratitude: we owe her an explanation.\"\n\nDowning Street also said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe should not face any abuse. The prime minister's official spokesman said: \"As a UK citizen, someone in a free and democratic country, she is rightly able to voice her opinion on any topic she wishes.\"\n\nMr Hunt said Prime Minister Boris Johnson \"deserves some credit\" for authorising the payment of a £400m debt to Iran over a failed arms deal dating back to the 1970s.\n\nBoth the UK and Iranian governments have said the two issues should not be linked but Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she had been told by her captors that her imprisonment was connected to the unpaid debt.\n\nMr Hunt said there was initially \"a lot of reluctance\" over paying the debt when he started as foreign secretary because of fears it might be seen as a \"ransom\" and encourage more hostage taking.\n\n\"But this is not a ransom, it's a debt, and I think that decision that we should pay it in principle was taken when I was foreign secretary,\" he said.\n\nHe added that because Iran was under economic sanctions the practicalities of paying the debt \"still took a long time to sort out\".\n\nMorad Tahbaz and fellow conservationists were using cameras to track endangered species when they were arrested\n\nMeanwhile, Morad Tahbaz, who has British, Iranian, and American citizenship, remains in detention in Iran.\n\nMr Tahbaz, who was born in the UK, was doing conservation work when he was held in Iran in January 2018.\n\nHe and seven other conservationists were accused of collecting classified information about Iran's strategic areas under the pretext of carrying out environmental and scientific projects. All eight deny the charges.\n\nHis family say they had been told by the Foreign Office that Mr Tahbaz would be included in any deal to release hostages in Iran.\n\nMr Tahbaz, 66, was returned to custody last week after briefly being allowed out on furlough on the day Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori were released.\n\nHis daughter Roxanne told BBC Breakfast her father, who has cancer, had been on hunger strike for three days.\n\nMs Tahbaz said it was \"devastating\" that she had not been able to see her parents for four years. Her mother is also unable to leave Iran because she is under a travel ban.\n\nShe added that the family hoped the UK government would \"keep their promise\" and \"at the very least\" secure an unrestricted furlough for her father and the lifting of her mother's travel ban.\n\nMr Hunt said Mr Tahbaz's continued detention was \"absolutely disgraceful\" and he accused Iran of \"using an innocent person as a pawn in a diplomatic game\".\n\nHe added that he suspected that because Mr Tahbaz was also an American citizen \"the Iranians want something from the Americans before they're prepared to release him\".\n\nThe Foreign Office said it was urgently raising Mr Tahbaz's case with Iran and that he must be allowed to return to his home in Tehran, \"as the Iranian government committed to doing\".", "A superyacht linked to sanctioned billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has been met by a protest as it arrived at port in Bodrum, Turkey.\n\nMembers of the Optimist Sailing Team Ukraine confronted the vessel in a small boat, chanting \"no war in Ukraine\" and waving their country's flag.\n\nThey were part of a junior sailing team that was in Turkey to compete in an annual competition, having left Ukraine before the Russian invasion.", "Dmytro Kotenko died near the southern city of Kherson and was buried in Lviv, safe for now from falling bombs\n\nThere was no family around Dmytro Kotenko when they put him in the ground. His parents did not hear the gunshots that rang out over his grave. They did not hear the sound of the ribbon tied to the wooden cross above him as it fluttered in the wind. They did not see the rough earth that first landed on his coffin and they did not lay a flower over him when he was completely covered by the earth.\n\nMost likely, Kotenko's parents did not know their son was being buried that day in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. They were 600 miles away, with his two younger brothers, near the eastern city of Sumy, which was being so heavily shelled by Russian forces that it was cut off from the outside world.\n\nKotenko's parents did know that their son was dead. He died on 26 February, the third day of the Russian invasion, near to the southern city of Kherson. It was his first military operation. He was 21. Two days after his death, his parents received a call from his childhood friend Vadym Yarovenko, an artillery soldier, who broke the news.\n\nDmytro Kotenko died on the third day of the Russian invasion. He was 21.\n\nIt had taken Yarovenko all night to work up the courage to make the call — a long and restless night on his army bunk in Lviv, alone with the knowledge that Kotenko was gone. They were just boys when they met, all of 15 years old, with fresh haircuts and new uniforms for their first day at military school. When they discovered they were from adjacent villages, it was the beginning of a friendship that might have lasted for a lifetime.\n\nKotenko's father was a truck driver. His mother worked on a local farm. \"To join the army meant to come up in the world,\" Yarovenko said, \"I think this was part of the reason Dmytro signed up.\" The Kotenkos were a poor family, two parents and three sons, with a modest house in a small village on the Russian border in eastern Ukraine — the very people the Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed he was rescuing from the yoke of Ukrainian oppression.\n\nRussia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the grinding war that followed in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, was another reason the boys signed up, Yarovenko said. \"We knew that something like this could happen,\" he said, \"and we would have to go and defend our land.\" When people from the village asked them why they wanted to join the army in wartime, Kotenko would say, \"If not me, then who?\"\n\nKotenko's coffin is carried into the military church in Lviv. Three men were buried that day\n\nYarovenko's father also drove a truck, and at the military school in Sumy the boys bonded over their love of cars. Yarovenko, an only child, had found something like a brother in Kotenko. \"Neither of us liked the city-like entertainment, clubs etc,\" Yarovenko said. \"We loved spending time in nature — fishing, hunting, picnics. We loved to go to the river with friends.\"\n\nThey worked together on an old car — a Red Zhyguli — that Kotenko was fixing up on his family plot. They repaired motorbikes and drove them on the rural roads around home. They got to know each other's families.\n\n\"Dmytro's parents loved him and he loved them,\" Yarovenko said, wiping tears from his eyes. \"Dmytro would always help them with repairs, he was good at that. Even at school or at the academy he would always help. He was very good to his parents. I never heard them argue.\"\n\nYarovenko wanted to join an artillery unit but Kotenko's dream was to be a paratrooper. After two years at the academy they were separated — Yarovenko to the western city of Lviv to train for artillery and Kotenko to the southern city of Odesa to train to be a paratrooper.\n\n\"We messaged each other every day,\" Yarovenko said. \"We talked about everything. Regular things — how are you? What is happening where you are? We were close friends, we just talked.\"\n\nDmytro Kotenko's coffin at the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, Lviv. The church now holds funerals every day.\n\nFor a while last year, from July to October, the boys were reunited when Kotenko was stationed in Lviv. They went running together on the weekends and trained together. It was a happy time. On 31 December, their families got together in the village to ring in the new year, and a month or so later Kotenko came to Lviv to visit Yarovenko, before he was due to deploy south on an operation. They stayed up late talking. Along Ukraine's borders, Russia's forces were massed, waiting for orders to invade, but in Lviv life was normal and that night the war felt like a distant thing.\n\nThe next morning, Kotenko and Yarovenko said their goodbyes and Kotenko went south. They continued messaging every day. On 24 February, the long-awaited invasion came. On 26 February, Kotenko stopped responding to messages, and Yarovenko feared the worst. Eventually he reached the commander of Kotenko's unit, who told him over the phone that his friend had been killed by a mortar shell.\n\n\"I don't have all the details yet,\" Yarovenko said. \"There was shelling, there was an explosion, Dmytro died.\"\n\nKotenko was buried alongside Kyrylo Moroz, who also could not be taken home\n\nWhen Yarovenko dialled the number for Kotenko's parents, there was still a phone connection, and in a short conversation he told them that their son was gone. When he tried to call later about the funeral, the aerial bombardment of Sumy had worsened and the line would not connect. He kept trying but the line stayed dead. So Kotenko's body was brought to Lviv to be buried there without them, because the city was safe from falling shells.\n\nAt the heart of Lviv lies the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, which has a long affiliation with Ukraine's armed forces. Along the sides of the church's nave, there are boards mounted with pictures of Ukraine's war dead. The first pictures were put up by the chaplains in 2014, to honour the fallen soldiers who had been members of the church. Then, bereaved parents from around Lviv saw the pictures and wanted their sons and daughters to be there, and gradually the collection of portraits grew.\n\n\"They bring us photographs because they know we pray every day for those who died in war,\" said Father Vsevolod, one of the chaplains. \"We are part of this city's mission to bury army men and women with honours, so their acts of bravery are never forgotten.\"\n\nFather Vsevolod stands in front of the portraits of the dead. \"We will be honouring the fallen all our lives,\" he said\n\nBefore the invasion, the church held a funeral for a soldier once or twice a month, Father Vsevolod said. Now it was burying two or three men a day. None of the recent dead had yet been added to the wall of portraits. Kotenko was not there. But the pictures would be put up, Father Vsevolod said, and if a family was cut off and did not know their son was being buried in Lviv, the church would add it for them, he said.\n\nOn the day of Kotenko's funeral, Yarovenko travelled alone from his base to the church and he stood alone on one side of the nave, next to the portraits of the dead, under the vaulted ceiling painted with saints, as smoke from burning incense drifted over the priests and the mourners.\n\nThere were three coffins in the church that day. One of the men was from a village near Lviv, and the church was filled with his family and friends. After the service, they took him home. The two other coffins went quietly to the Lychakiv Cemetery, with a small group of soldiers from a local unit who help to commemorate the dead.\n\nThe gravediggers at the Lychakiv Cemetery cover Kotenko's coffin with earth\n\nKotenko was buried alongside Kyrylo Moroz, 25, a paratrooper from his unit, who could also not be taken home. They were laid to rest in a far corner of the cemetery, among the dead from the first and second world wars and the war with Russian-backed forces in Donbas.\n\nKotenko and Moroz were the fourth and fifth men killed in this invasion to be buried at the Lychakiv. Their graves were almost bare, but for a bunch of roses and a bunch of asters laid by the church and marked with the designation of their unit. The three other graves, for soldiers from Lviv, were festooned with flowers and lanterns.\n\nThe following day, the gravediggers at the Lychakiv buried two more men. The day after, three. Eventually, the wooden crosses bearing their names will be replaced by headstones that will hold their memory here for good.\n\n\"Thank God we do not have fighting yet here in Lviv,\" said the groundsman, \"so we can bury the soldiers who are defending our home.\"\n\nVadym Yarovenko travelled alone to see his friend buried. He is waiting for his turn to be called up\n\nYarovenko is still trying to reach Kotenko's parents, but the line is dead. They are likely still trapped in Sumy. The invasion has robbed them first of their son, and then of one of the few things that might have ameliorated their grief — the right to be by his side when he went into the ground.\n\nAs Kotenko's coffin was lowered, Yarovenko stood to one side, behind the honour guard that fired the guns. It was the saddest thing he had ever experienced. \"I watched my friend being buried far from his home,\" he said. Afterwards, he stood silently, looking at the grave, the sole mourner left, alone with the gravediggers as they cleared away their tools.\n\n\"We never got the chance to meet at the front,\" he said. All that was left was the hope of speaking to Kotenko's parents soon, and the memory of their son, which he will carry with him as he waits for his turn to fight and carry with him to the frontline when he goes.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nStena Line will put on two extra ferry services from Scotland to Northern Ireland from tomorrow, the UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said.\n\nHe told the Commons it would be of help to some retailers including Asda and Marks and Spencers.\n\nHe said the company had already \"stepped up\" following the suspension of P&O routes last week.\n\nUp to 50 staff from Northern Ireland will be directly impacted by P&O's move to fire 800 workers last week.\n\nMr Shapps said if it was confirmed that relative notice periods and consultations were not conducted before P&O staff were fired, then it would be a \"a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines\".\n\nThe Economy Minister Gordon Lyons has accused the firm of \"ripping up the employment rule book\".\n\nMr Lyons said he did not believe P&O had acted within either the \"spirit or letter\" of employment law, a matter devolved to Northern Ireland.\n\nOfficials are investigating potential remedies for breaches of the law.\n\nOn Thursday, the company fired about 800 of its workers, with about a quarter of the staff hearing the news via a pre-recorded video message.\n\nA private security firm was sent on board the vessel in Larne, County Antrim, which remains docked at the port, to remove staff.\n\nOn Monday, P&O said its services, including the crossing from Larne to Cairnryan in Scotland, would be \"unable to run for the next few days\".\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves,\" the firm continued.\n\nIt had been suggested at the time of the workforce announcement that it could be a week before the ferry service could resume.\n\nA protest was held against P&O's decision at the Port of Larne on Friday\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy said he raised the P&O situation during discussions with his counterparts in Scotland and Wales and the chief secretary to the treasury on Monday.\n\nHe said there should be support for the workers who needed to be treated \"fairly\".\n\n\"We can't just be subject to the whim of company who decide to cut their costs and behave in an appalling manner to do that,\" Mr Murphy added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"P&O might want to hide behind the small print of maritime law... but the court of public opinion will not be so sympathetic,\" Mr Lyons told assembly members (MLAs) on Monday.\n\n\"We must send a strong message to all companies that might think of getting involved in a practice in this way.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said P&O's move had been \"awful\" and \"wrong\" and the government would examine the legality of its actions.\n\nSome of the dismissed workers and trade unions held a protest at Larne port on Friday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nP&O has said its decision to fire workers was to secure the future viability of the business.\n\nIt explained that required \"swift and significant changes now\".\n\nThe company said it would update its Twitter account regularly to inform people of the operational situation.\n\nOn Monday, Northern Ireland's Consumer Council said that following talks with P&O, travellers affected by the disruption could re-book their crossing with Stena Line and claim expenses from P&O.\n\nThe council's head of transport, Richard Williams, said people could also claim for additional expenditure, such as some hotel or mileage costs.\n\n\"Originally that wasn't going to be the case but they've accepted that because they can't provide the re-rerouting they normally would that people really have to book with Stena,\" he said.\n\nMr Williams said it was common for mechanical issues to cause delays to ferry services but the P&O situation was one that was \"going on and on\".\n\n\"It is certainly an unusual situation which is causing real problems for passengers,\" he added.\n\nMr Williams said the biggest issue was the employee situation but he warned the company faced \"financial repercussions\" to resolve customer issues also.\n\nGeraldine Sinclair, who was due to travel with P&O on Thursday to a family event in Scotland said she would never use the company again because of how they treated customers and staff,\n\nShe told BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster she needed to re-arrange transport and was told she would receive a refund.\n\n\"I don't think much of them but to be honest, it's the staff I feel sorry for. We've all been there with redundancies but certainly not like that,\" she said.\n\nGeraldine's husband Jim said he would avoid the company unless there was \"no viable alternative\".\n\nP&O has said its decision to fire workers was to secure the future viability of the business.\n\nIt explained that required \"swift and significant changes now\".", "Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nAn \"Islamist terrorist\" accused of murdering Sir David Amess MP carried out reconnaissance on other potential targets including cabinet minister Michael Gove, his trial heard.\n\nSir David, MP for Southend West, was stabbed during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali stabbed Sir David repeatedly in an \"assassination for terrorist purposes\", the jury heard.\n\nThe 26-year-old from London denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nOpening the trial at the Old Bailey in London, prosecutor Tom Little QC described the defendant as a \"radicalised Islamist terrorist\" and called it a \"murder carried out because of a warped and twisted and violent ideology\".\n\n\"This was nothing less than an assassination for terrorist purposes,\" he said.\n\n\"It is a crime to which, we say, he has no defence.\"\n\nMoments before the stabbing the defendant's phone made a sound and he said \"sorry\" before repeatedly stabbing the MP, the prosecution said.\n\nA post-mortem examination showed Sir David suffered 21 stab wounds to his face, arms, legs and torso, as well as injuries to both hands that were consistent with defending himself.\n\nAli Harbi Ali \"had for a number of years been determined to carry out an act of domestic terrorism\", the Old Bailey heard\n\nThe court heard Mr Ali had requested an appointment with Sir David under the pretence he was moving to the area and he provided a postcode to verify this.\n\nMr Little told jurors that Mr Ali appeared \"relaxed and chatty\" as he walked over to Sir David just before he \"brutally\" stabbed him in a \"vicious and frenzied attack\" shortly after midday on 15 October.\n\nTwo people arriving for the next appointment heard cries for help from the MP's aides while Mr Ali continued to wave a bloody knife shouting \"I killed him, I killed him\", the court was told.\n\nMr Little said the defendant then shouted to those in the church: \"I want him dead. I want every Parliament Minister [sic] who signed up for the bombing of Syria who agreed to the Iraqi war to die.\"\n\nAli Harbi Ali sat impassively in the dock of Court Two at the Old Bailey as the jury heard how he had given a clear account at the scene of the attack, why he had allegedly done it and how he would then wait for armed police to arrive and shoot him dead.\n\nBut this wasn't central London, but quiet suburban Leigh-on-Sea.\n\nSo instead, the first responders were two local officers - PCs Scott James and Ryan Curtis - and the jury watched transfixed by the body-worn video of what happened next.\n\nWitnesses warned the officers they would be attacked if they entered. But with a Taser team still minutes away and firearms even further behind, PCs James and Curtis decide to risk their own lives in the hope of saving Sir David's.\n\nCarrying just their batons and incapacitating spray, they enter the church, see the assailant - and then scream at him, with some choice expletives, to drop the knife.\n\nThe attacker suddenly does so and a split second later he is rushed to the ground and pinned down, cuffed and his rights are read.\n\nThere was nothing the officers could do to save Sir David.\n\nThe defendant was then heard on the phone saying: \"I've done it because of Syria. I've done it because of the innocent people. I've done it because of the bombing. He deserved to die.\"\n\nDuring a confrontation he refused to drop his knife and said he wanted to be shot and \"I want to die; I want to be a hero\".\n\nMr Little said that around the time of the attack, the defendant sent a long message to friends and family with a video relating to Raqqa in Syria.\n\nInstead of firearms officers Mr Ali was initially confronted by two plain clothes Essex Police officers, the court heard.\n\nMr Little said the pair \"bravely decided\" to enter the building armed only with a baton and incapacitant spray.\n\nHe added: \"The defendant hoped that he would be shot, killed, a martyr for the terrorist cause.\n\n\"However, this was not outside the Houses of Parliament, central London, but Leigh-on-Sea and the first police attenders were not firearms officers but PC Scott James and PC Ryan Curtis.\"\n\nIn his police interview Mr Ali allegedly told officers how he remembered stabbing Sir David \"a few times in the places where I stabbed him\" adding: \"You don't send off a bunch of messages saying that you're committing a terror attack if you don't actually commit a terrorist attack.\"\n\nSir David was pronounced dead at the scene in Leigh-on-Sea in his Southend West constituency in Essex\n\nSir David, first elected as a Conservative MP in Basildon in Essex in 1983, was pronounced dead at the scene, where Mr Ali was arrested by police.\n\nMr Little said: \"This is a case involving a cold and calculated murder, a murder carried out in a place of worship.\n\n\"It was a murder carried out by that young man [Mr Ali] who for many years had been planning just such an attack and who was, and is, a committed, fanatical, radicalised Islamist terrorist.\"\n\nMr Little said the attack was \"no spur-of-the-moment decision\", and said Mr Ali bought the knife used to attack Sir David five years earlier.\n\nHe said: \"He had for a number of years been determined to carry out an act of domestic terrorism.\"\n\nMr Little said the defendant had researched a list of \"523 MPs who carried out a vote to carry out airstrikes in Syria\", using the website theyworkforus.com.\n\nHe carried out reconnaissance trips including six different visits to Michael Gove's address in west London in 2021.\n\nEvidence recovered from his phone suggested he had been on the road where the secretary of state for communities and levelling up lived, the prosecution said.\n\nA note entitled \"plans\" from 2019, examined possible ways to attack Mr Gove including bumping into him while the MP for Surrey Heath was out jogging.\n\nData from the defendant's mobile phone also placed him in the proximity of the Houses of Parliament seven times between July and September 2021, the court was told.\n\nMr Little told the jury: \"Being blunt about it, he's not a tourist... looking at Big Ben and taking some photographs.\n\nTrips to a constituency surgery of the Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green in London, Mike Freer, had also been carried out by Mr Ali a month before Sir David was stabbed, the court heard.\n\nMr Ali had also researched Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and Labour leader Keir Starmer QC in September 2021, said Mr Little.\n\nThe jury heard he then researched Southend-on-Sea and Sir David Amess in September before looking for train companies for a journey from Barking to Leigh-on-Sea on 14 October, the day before Sir David was stabbed.\n\nThe preparing acts of terrorism charge relates to activity alleged to have been carried out between 1 May 2019 and 28 September 2021.\n\nMr Ali, of Kentish Town, north London, appeared in the dock wearing a black robe and black-rimmed glasses.\n\nThe jury were told by the prosecution that Mr Ali's mental health did not form any part of his defence.\n\nThe trial was adjourned until Tuesday.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Satellites can be used to pick out images of individual vehicles and even road markings\n\nKyle Glen, a project manager in Wales in the UK, has an unusual hobby - tracking Russian troop movements.\n\nMr Glen is co-founder of Conflict News, an account on social media platform, Twitter, with more than 400,000 followers. It collates and shares publicly-available photos and videos of conflict, gathered from a variety of online sources.\n\nSince early last year, he and others among what's known as the \"open source intelligence community\" have been closely watching Russian military activity in and around Ukraine.\n\nHe bought and shared from the account satellite images from online service SkyWatch, which reportedly showed the massing of vehicles along the Russia-Ukraine border over many months - and then, the moment when the invasion began.\n\n\"We watched it go from nothing, to quite significant build-up and then it was empty again the day before the invasion,\" he recalls, referring to images from one apparent camp on the border.\n\n\"I don't get any money from this at all,\" says Mr Glen. \"It's completely a hobby, voluntary, whatever you want to call it.\"\n\nMedia coverage of the war in Ukraine, which started almost a month ago, has included, arguably to an unprecedented extent, content shared via social media. This has included satellite photos that document troop movements and shocking damage to cities.\n\nIn recent days, pictures snapped by satellites in orbit have captured images which appear to show destroyed Russian helicopters, extensive damage to a shopping centre and residential districts in Mariupol, and a civilian tanker vessel on fire in the Black Sea.\n\nMaxar satellite images appear to show a long Russian convoy of military vehicles approaching Kyiv, Ukraine's capital\n\nPrivately-owned companies that launch and operate their own satellites - such as Planet and Maxar - have distributed many satellite images of the conflict zone.\n\nThe proliferation of these images means members of the public and military analysts alike can try to gauge the situation on the ground in Ukraine and the progress of Russia's invading armed forces from thousands of miles away.\n\nMr Glen says that while satellite imagery has been available online during previous conflicts, including the war in Syria, the volume of this material was \"a drop in the bucket\", compared to what has come out of Ukraine in little more than a fortnight.\n\nSo, what's changed? While government and intelligence agency satellites gather classified, secret information, commercial firms have long been able to sell their own, unclassified, imagery. And now, this material is being made easily accessible online.\n\nA variety of businesses and other organisations rely on satellite images to track everything from wildfires to crops and the movement of ships. This means there has been a big rise in the number of commercial satellites in orbit which has significantly increased data sharing possibilities says Chris Quilty, partner at Quilty Analytics.\n\n\"There are more eyes in the sky,\" as he puts it.\n\nThere has been a big rise in satellite launches over the last 20 years\n\nMembers of the public can purchase high-quality pictures gathered by satellite for as little as $10 (£7.60) per sq km.\n\nThe resolution of these images is sometimes very high, capturing tiny details measuring down to 30cm by 30cm at ground level. This granularity makes it possible to identify vehicles and road markings.\n\nOperators can also program satellites to monitor specific locations multiple times every 24 hours, picking up even small changes almost as soon as they happen.\n\nAs the technology has advanced, the public's willingness to engage with satellite images has really taken off, Mr Quilty adds: \"The fundamental capability hasn't changed dramatically, it's the willingness and manner in which users are ingesting and using the data that has changed.\"\n\nThis even extends to sophisticated, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery, which is often more difficult to interpret than a picture taken with an optical lens.\n\nSatellites can even capture SAR images through cloud cover. The resulting black-and-white pictures might show vehicles, including tanks, for instance, as rows of bright dots.\n\nMr Glen says these types of image have helped him, and people like him, to track the beginning of the Ukraine invasion.\n\nRita Konaev says widespread access to satellite images has helped combat disinformation about the Ukraine conflict.\n\nRita Konaev, associate director of analysis at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, says satellite imagery \"has been an aspect of modern conflict for 10 to 15 years now, but the scale [this time] is different and the accessibility is different,\" she adds, suggesting satellite imagery has helped to challenge disinformation about the invasion.\n\n\"The architecture of European cities like Kyiv is very familiar in the Western world,\" adds Dr Konaev. This familiarity, she suggests, may have influenced the response in the West to the invasion - in contrast with wars in the Middle East and further afield.\n\nMr Glen says followers of Conflict News and similar social media accounts, can verify satellite imagery by checking online sources themselves. \"You can present the evidence to a wider audience in as unbiased a way as possible and let people to come to their own conclusions,\" he says.\n\nHowever, he also acknowledges that he and others like him in the so-called \"open source intelligence community\" make judgements about what to share and when.\n\nFor example, he identifies more closely with the Ukrainians than the Russians in this conflict, he says, and therefore would not intentionally publish any information about Ukrainian military movements, to avoid accidentally compromising their safety.\n\nSome private companies are also sharing sophisticated images captured from orbit - in near real-time - directly with the Ukrainian military. Canadian firm MDA is one such example.\n\nDr Konaev argues that satellite images offer a unique overview - literally - of events unfolding thousands of miles away, unlike any other media, which may she says explain some of the heightened interest in these pictures.\n\n\"In some ways, I think the imagery from a distance, gives even more of a perspective of the scale of the destruction and the devastation,\" she adds. \"It's more than just people's individual lives, it's [whole] communities.\"\n\nBut there could be some significant consequences of making such detailed imagery so widely available.\n\nAlthough militaries have vast intelligence resources that they rely on beyond social media, there is no knowing how satellite images of troop movements shared on Twitter, or Facebook, could influence operational decisions on the ground.\n\n\"There are real, potential life or death consequences,\" says Dr Konaev.\n\nMr Glen has thought about this possibility but will likely never know whether an image he shares ultimately leads to a fatal attack or confrontation on a frontline.\n\n\"I wouldn't say it makes me hesitate, as such, but it's something I'm aware is a possibility,\" he says. \"And I've come to terms with it.\"", "Boris Johnson carries official documents in a briefcase known as a red box\n\nBoris Johnson gets details of vital government business sent to him via WhatsApp, court papers have revealed.\n\nThe material, from the PM's ministerial \"red box\", is sent to his phone for \"administrative ease\", officials say, and does not break the rules.\n\nBut campaigners challenging \"government by WhatsApp\" in the High Court say it is a security risk.\n\nThey claim the use of insecure apps and message deletion by ministers and officials is \"rampant\".\n\nCampaigning law groups the Good Law Project and Foxglove are challenging the government's use of such services in the High Court, saying that it breaks the law on keeping public records.\n\nThe government says it has secure channels for exchanging sensitive information, and ministers are obliged to record important decision-making discussions with officials.\n\nDocuments released on the first of a three-day judicial review reveal:\n\nThe screenshot messages, published by Mr Cummings on his blog, include discussions with the PM on the procurement of ventilators, testing in care homes, and Mr Johnson's description of then health secretary Matt Hancock as \"hopeless\".\n\nNo official record has been kept of these messages\n\nIt also emerged that all messages on Boris Johnson's phone were wiped in April 2021, after it emerged his number had been freely available on the internet for 15 years.\n\nIn a witness statement, the Cabinet Office's chief operating officer Sarah Harrison said: \"In light of a well-publicised security breach, the prime minister implemented security advice relating to a mobile device. The effect was that historic messages were no longer available to search and the phone is not active.\"\n\nLegal campaigners say records of vital decision-making have been lost to the public record, which could undermine next year's inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic.\n\nCori Crider, director of Foxglove, said: \"Our democracy can only work if the decisions of those who represent us are open to scrutiny.\n\n\"That can't happen if officials govern by secret WhatsApp chats that vanish into thin air.\"\n\nFoxglove is bringing the case on behalf of non-profit media group The Citizens.\n\nThey say the government is potentially in breach of its own data security guidelines and the Public Records Act of 1958, which requires legal checks to be made on messages in case they need to be kept for the public interest.\n\nThe government argues that a record is kept of all substantive discussions and only ephemeral messages are deleted.\n\nIn her witness statement, Ms Harrison said: \"In my view, it is not realistic to suggest that those working in government should refrain from interacting with one another online in the same way everyone else does, subject always to the compliance with government policy on the use of such tools and in line with information records management policy.\n\n\"This is particularly the case where teams are now much more dispersed - between home and the office as well as geographically.\"\n\nThe Foxglove and Good Law Project law suits started out as separate cases but the High Court decided to hear both of them together.\n\nThe government is expected to challenge the standing of the Good Law Project in court, after the High Court found against the organisation in a separate case in February.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEngland's deputy chief medical officer has been granted the freedom of Boston.\n\nIn a ceremony held at the ground of Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam's beloved Boston United, he was made a freeman of the borough in recognition of his role during the Covid-19 pandemic response.\n\nThe 58-year-old came to public prominence during the daily government coronavirus briefings where he won fans with his frequent football analogies.\n\nHe said it was a \"tremendous honour\" and he was \"very humbled by it all\".\n\nProf Van-Tam described the honour as 'unbelievable' and spoke fondly of picking vegetables in local fields while growing up\n\nProf Van-Tam was knighted in the New Year Honours list along with England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty, who attended a Boston United fixture with him on Saturday.\n\nIn mid-January, it was announced he would be leaving his role at the end of this month and will become pro-vice chancellor at the University of Nottingham's faculty of medicine and health sciences.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by BBC Radio Lincolnshire This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSpeaking at the ceremony organised by Boston Borough Council, which now allows him to drive sheep over the Town Bridge and into the Market Place, Prof Van-Tam said: \"What a superb accolade to be recognised by your home town and by the people you grew up with.\n\n\"I connect to my home town these days through my really happy memories, through people I still know in the town and of course through the football club.\"\n\nSpeaking about growing up, Prof Van-Tam said his childhood memories \"live with you for a lifetime\" and reminisced about growing up in the outskirts of Boston and picking vegetables.\n\nDeputy chief medical officer for England since 2017, he often appeared alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson at televised news briefings, where he caught the public's attention by the way he described coronavirus.\n\nHe said his formative years in the town had aided him in giving the briefings, saying: \"It's really helped me think about my audience. When I get deeply complex scientific questions, I think back to my audience and think: 'Well, what would they want to know?'.\"\n\nHe told BBC Radio Lincolnshire the pandemic had been \"really difficult\" for people, and in addressing his high profile during the response, he said: \"It's something you have to face if you're in a national role, but I'd rather be Mr Ordinary.\"\n\nProf Van-Tam, who previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry and for the UK Health Protection Agency, also volunteered as a vaccinator to help distribute Covid-19 jabs.\n\nOn receiving his honour, he wanted to stress the team effort of the last two years, saying: \"There are thousands upon thousands of people in this country who have done every bit as much as I have in their own roles either locally or regionally, and they all to deserve recognition and thanks.\"\n\nThe ceremonial plaque confirming Prof Van-Tam is now an honorary freeman\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.", "The last attempted dissident attack was in April 2021 in Dungiven\n\nThe threat posed by dissident republican terrorism in Northern Ireland has been lowered for the first time in 12 years.\n\nNI Secretary Brandon Lewis announced the move, which is based on analysis of intelligence by MI5.\n\nSince 2010 it had been severe, meaning an attack, or attacks, were highly likely. It is now substantial, meaning attacks are likely.\n\nThere are five threat level classifications, ranging from low to critical.\n\nThe last attempted attack by dissidents was in April 2021, when the New IRA targeted an off-duty police officer in Dungiven, County Londonderry.\n\nA bomb was discovered beside the officer's car outside her home.\n\nThe organisation was dealt a major blow in August 2020 when its alleged leadership was arrested following a MI5 bugging operation.\n\nTen people were arrested and are awaiting trial on about 40 offences.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said it was not a time for complacency\n\nPolice Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Simon Byrne said the announcement was \"significant\".\n\n\"The successes that we have achieved over recent years, in preventing attacks, investigating and pursuing groups including the New IRA has brought us to where we are today,\" Mr Byrne said.\n\n\"Unfortunately, there is still a small group of people within our society who are intent on causing harm and dragging Northern Ireland back to the past.\n\n\"We will continue to pursue those individuals and bring them before the courts.\"\n\nYou are not going to have one single officer stop checking under their car because of this announcement - in practical terms very little has changed.\n\nIt is more of a symbolic step than anything changing in real, practical terms.\n\nThese organisations continue to exist, still have the capability to kill and a desire to cause bombings and shootings.\n\nBut it does reflect the direction of travel in the past number of years. There have been very few successful attacks by dissidents - many more could have been disrupted behind the scenes.\n\nToday's recategorisation says something of what the capabilities of these organisations currently are in continuing a sustainable campaign.\n\nThat is what is being communicated today.\n\nMr Lewis made the announcement in a written statement to Parliament.\n\n\"This is the first time the threat level in Northern Ireland has changed since 2010 and shows the significant progress that Northern Ireland has made, and continues to make, towards a more peaceful, more prosperous and safer society,\" he said.\n\n\"It is a testament to the ongoing commitment to protecting the peace process and tackling Northern Ireland-related terrorism, and the tremendous efforts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and MI5 for their hard won gains over the past decade.\n\nHowever, Mr Lewis said it was \"not a time for complacency\".\n\n\"There is still a minority who wish to cause harm in Northern Ireland,\" he continued.\n\n\"As ever, the public should remain vigilant and report any concerns they may have to the police.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Everton\n\nThe Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial ties to Everton, has had his assets frozen by the European Union as it announced further sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nRestrictions include a \"prohibition from making funds available\" and an EU travel ban.\n\nUsmanov also has an exclusive naming-rights option on Everton's new stadium.\n\nEverton owner Farhad Moshiri is the chairman of USM Holdings.\n\nIt is not yet clear what, if any, effect the move might have on Everton. The club have been contacted for comment.\n• None Live updates from BBC correspondents in Ukraine and the region\n• None Ukraine's Zinchenko set to play for Man City in cup\n\nIn its reasoning, the EU Council said: \"Alisher Usmanov is a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin\".\n\nIt added that he \"actively supported materially or financially Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of Ukraine\".\n\nOn Tuesday, Usmanov made a statement on the website of the International Fencing Federation, an organisation of which he is president, calling the EU's decision to impose restrictions on him \"unfair\".\n\nHe said he would \"use all legal means to protect my honour and reputation\".\n• None Our coverage of Everton is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Everton - go straight to all the best content", "Sabita Thanwani, 19, was studying psychology at City, University of London\n\nA man has appeared in court charged with the murder of 19-year-old Sabita Thanwani at her central London student accommodation.\n\nMaher Maaroufe, 22, who is also accused of attacking a police officer, appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court.\n\nMr Maaroufe spoke only to confirm his name, age and that he had no fixed address.\n\nMagistrate Greville Waterman remanded him into custody until 24 March, when he is due at the Old Bailey.\n\nMr Maaroufe, who is a Tunisian national, was asked by the magistrate if he understood proceedings. Mr Maaroufe shook his head.\n\nMohammed Zeb, defending, told the court he would explain it to his client after they left the courtroom and that at future hearings \"there should be an interpreter for the Tunisian Arabic dialect\".\n\nPolice and medics were called to Arbour House in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell, at about 05:10 GMT on Saturday where Ms Thanwani was found seriously injured.\n\nShe died at the scene and a post-mortem examination gave cause of death as sharp force trauma to the neck.\n\nMs Thanwani was studying psychology at City, University of London, which is near to the student accommodation where she died.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "BTS were the biggest-selling act in the world last year\n\nGlobal music revenues grew at the fastest rate in more than two decades last year, with help from artists like BTS, Taylor Swift and Adele.\n\nRevenues surged by 18.5% to $25.9bn (£19.5bn) in 2021, the highest level since records began in the 1990s.\n\nThe growth was driven by streaming, with 523 million paid subscribers, up from 443 million in 2020.\n\nStreaming now accounts for 65% of total revenues, with CDs, vinyl and cassettes making up 19% and downloads 4%.\n\nThe remaining 11% comes from a mixture of royalty payments and licensing music to films, TV shows and adverts.\n\nThe figures mean the industry has enjoyed a seventh consecutive year of growth, according to trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).\n\n\"It's hugely encouraging,\" chief executive Frances Moore told the BBC. \"We lived through that dire period after 1999 where the industry declined by 40%.\n\n\"We didn't envisage we'd be in a situation [this year] where we report on 60 or 70 countries and every single one is in growth.\"\n\nAlthough streaming is the engine of the industry's recovery, revenues were up in every format except digital downloads last year.\n\nSales of CDs increased for the first time this millennium, and vinyl revenues were up by 51%.\n\nTotal streaming - including both paid subscriptions and advertising-supported listening - grew and is now worth $16.9bn (£12.75bn)\n\nBut while the figures are good news for record labels, the independent sector warned that profits were not being shared equally.\n\n\"It is good to see continued growth across the global music market... but it serves as an important reminder that not everyone is feeling the benefit,\" said Paul Pacifico of the Association of Independent Music.\n\nWithout \"clear support\" for up-and-coming musicians, he added, \"it will remain very difficult to reconcile the positive numbers in the market as a whole with the hard reality of making a life in music at an individual, human level\".\n\nAdele (pictured at the Brit Awards) had the biggest-selling album of 2021\n\nAll of the record labels represented by the IFPI have suspended operations in Russia, the fifth biggest music market in Europe, since the invasion began last month.\n\nAlthough significant, Russia only accounts for 1.3% of global revenues (about $336m), Moore said, meaning the move would have little impact on the global industry.\n\n\"We just want to get back to a situation where people in Russia and Ukraine can enjoy music in a peaceful, non-violent environment,\" she added.\n\nThe UK music industry grew at a slightly slower rate than the global average, with revenues up 12.8% to £1.3bn, according to the BPI - but it remains the third biggest music market in the world, behind the US and Japan.\n\nRevenues in the US outpaced the rest of the world, rising by 22%; while lockdown-bound Australia was the world's slowest-growing market, on 3.4%.\n\nThe IFPI report highlighted the increasingly global nature of music consumption, with artists from Latin America, Africa and Asia featuring among the year's top 100 artists.\n\nSouth Korean band BTS were the biggest-selling act for the second year running after topping the US Billboard chart three times and earning a Grammy nomination for their Michael Jackson-inspired single Butter.\n\n\"Who could have imagined that 20 years ago?\" Moore asked. \"It's a phenomenon.\"\n\nUS songwriter Taylor Swift was the year's second best-seller, the same position she held last year, while Adele came third.\n\nAdele's fourth album, 30, was the most popular record overall, selling 4.7 million copies; while The Weeknd's Save Your Tears was the year's biggest single.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by TheWeekndVEVO This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nAfrican artists like Wizkid, Ckay and Burna Boy also had a successful year, encouraged in the UK by the recently-launched Afrobeats chart.\n\n\"It's an exciting moment for artists from the continent,\" said Temi Adeniji, managing director of Warner Music South Africa. \"I really do deeply believe that this is a transformative moment for the continent.\"\n\nHowever, she said more needs to be done to reflect the diversity of Africa's musicians.\n\n\"The continent is... much more than Afrobeats,\" she said. \"There are so many different genres that we can take a look at that have the potential to do exactly what Afrobeats has done.\"\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by CKay This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nAdeniji cited the global success of Ckay's Love Nwantiti as an example of how other countries are embracing African music.\n\n\"We really did break this track in non-English-speaking markets,\" she explained. \"France was the first country in which the song went number one and that was definitely a first for us.\n\n\"It's also been a top three hit in the UK, we've gone platinum in the US as well and it's gone, I think, three times platinum in India. We're hoping to replicate that [with other artists] going forward.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Many English councils have already said they intend to end their deals with the Russian energy giant\n\nThe UK arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom could be placed into administration in the coming days, the BBC understands.\n\nBloomberg reported the government is preparing to step in and temporarily run Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail Ltd, which supplies thousands of organisations across the UK.\n\nIt is understood the government is looking at all options and monitoring the situation closely.\n\nOne possibility could be to put the company into special administration, where it is temporarily run on behalf of the government.\n\nLast November, the UK energy company Bulb was placed into special administration, with £1.7bn in government funds set aside to keep it trading.\n\nThe company's UK retail operation does not sell gas from its parent company in Russia, but a number of companies and councils are thought to be trying to end their contracts with the company in protest at Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGazprom itself has also been sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nEarlier this month, a number of councils in England told the BBC they were looking to end their Gazprom contracts as soon as possible.\n\nAccording to the public services data firm Tussell, UK public sector contracts amounted to £107m in total between 2016 and 2021.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid also urged NHS trusts to stop using energy supplied by Gazprom.\n\nA government spokesperson would not be drawn on its plans for Gazprom's UK unit but said the UK \"was in no way\" dependent on Russian gas.\n\n\"Our highly diverse sources of gas supply and a diverse electricity mix ensures that households, businesses, and heavy industry get the energy they need,\" they said.\n\n\"We are aware that Gazprom Energy has a large presence in the non-domestic energy retail market.\n\n\"Gazprom's retail business continues to trade in the UK and customers should exercise their own commercial judgement with regards to energy supply contracts they have in place at the moment.\"\n\nGazprom has been approached for comment.\n\nA spokesperson for McDonald's said it was trying to exit its deal \"at the earliest opportunity\" while Siemens UK said it was looking at the terms of cancelling supply contracts with Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail.\n\n\"We support the severe and broad sanctions applied by western governments and are ensuring that we act in compliance with them,\" it said.", "The RMT union has not offered proof of the hourly rate and P&O will not comment on agency workers' pay\n\nIndian agency workers hired to replace P&O Ferries crews in Dover are being paid £1.81 an hour, a union claims.\n\nThe Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said the low pay was a \"shocking exploitation\" and \"a betrayal of those who have been sacked\".\n\nP&O said the figure was inaccurate but said it could not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.\n\nSome of P&O's ferries are registered in Cyprus, meaning they do not have to pay the minimum wage required by UK law.\n\nFirms using UK ports often register ships in other countries, allowing them to pay lower wages.\n\nThe minimum wage in the UK for people aged 23 and above is £8.91 per hour.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told Parliament: \"Maritime employees have not, in this country, indeed throughout much of the world, received some of the same benefits and protections that exist otherwise for workers and this is simply not good enough and it's a practice we have been seeking to end.\"\n\nHe said ships in UK waters operated under international law governed by treaties, so UK law did not always apply.\n\n\"These complications allow for employers to take advantage in a way that we've seen I think with P&O Ferries,\" Mr Shapps added.\n\nMr Shapps told MPs that he first found out about the prospect of P&O redundancies at 20:30 GMT the evening before the workers were being sacked, but he said it wasn't until he was at the despatch box the next day that he was made fully aware of the scale.\n\nPreviously, officials at the Department of Transport had told the BBC that Mr Shapps and the maritime minister Robert Courts had not been informed until Thursday.\n\nShadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said government ministers had \"completely failed to act\" and the reported rates of pay were \"nothing short of a betrayal of the workers who protected this country's supply chain during the pandemic\".\n\nA spokesman for P&O said safety was the utmost priority and the new crewing management model was used by many competitors.\n\n\"They have recruited high-quality experienced seafarers, who will now familiarise themselves with the ships, going through all mandatory training requirements set out by our regulators,\" he said.\n\nMr Shapps said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O Ferries.\n\nHe had asked the insolvency service whether P&O had followed rules for redundancies - and if they had not, \"that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines\".\n\nMr Shapps also told MPs P&O Ferries should remove British references from their ships if they replace sacked workers with non-UK staff.\n\nThe Spirit of Britain, Pride of Canterbury and Pride of Hull are among the names used for the operator's ferries.\n\nThe Transport Secretary told MPs it would be \"completely inappropriate\" for the company to \"attach themselves to this country\" without having British workers.\n\nProtests took place close to Parliament and also outside the London offices of P&O owners, DP World on Monday.\n\nJohn, a former seafarer with P&O Ferries based in Dover said the redundancies were \"a catastrophe\" for all crew involved and he wants the company's chief executive to resign.\n\n\"A company who had built up its reputation over 180 years just to be trashed in one single morning of madness by those responsible.\n\n\"It's not just a job, it's a home and to be kicked off the ship in the most unceremonious way...it's a catastrophe for all our lives,\" John, who did not want to give his surname, added.\n\nHe expects to lose his severance pay for speaking out to media, but said he \"knew the difference between right and wrong\".\n\nRMT general secretary Mick Lynch said P&O staff were \"being replaced by exploited workers, vulnerable workers from overseas\".\n\n\"We have no beef with those people. We want those people to be paid the wages that we've negotiated for in this country,\" he said.\n\nThe union has called for a boycott of P&O services and is urging the government to look at legal options to reinstate the sacked workers.\n\nFerries between Liverpool and Dublin have restarted and other routes are expected to follow by the end of the week.\n\nProtests have taken place over the sackings\n\nServices were stopped on Thursday after P&O announced in a video call that 800 staff were being sacked with immediate effect.\n\nThe M20 in Kent will close between junctions 8 and 9 from 20:00 GMT while a barrier system is put in place to manage any disruption caused by P&O freight, National Highways said.\n\nThe motorway is expected to reopen at 06:00 GMT on Tuesday when lorries heading for the Port of Dover or the Eurotunnel will use the coastbound carriageway on the M20, where they will be queued if necessary.\n\nAll other traffic - including local freight and car drivers headed for the continent - should follow the signs and cross over to enter the contraflow on the M20 London bound carriageway, National Highways said.", "The Treasury shared pictures of Chancellor Rishi Sunak preparing his statement\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak will unveil his Spring Statement later, against a backdrop of rising energy, fuel and food costs.\n\nHe is expected to announce measures to help people with the cost of living, including a cut to fuel tax.\n\nHe has come under increasing pressure to act, with prices rising by 6.2% in the 12 months to February - the fastest for 30 years.\n\nLabour wants him to go further and scrap a planned tax hike next month.\n\nNational Insurance is set to rise by 1.25p in the pound to pay for healthcare - but the party has said the increase is the wrong way to fund investment.\n\nMr Sunak has ruled out scrapping the increase to NI, but there is speculation he could allow people to earn more before they have to start paying it.\n\nHowever, the full details of Mr Sunak's speech will not be known until he takes to the dispatch box at 12:30 GMT.\n\nThe Spring Statement, one of two financial statements the chancellor makes every year, does not normally see big tax and spending decisions announced.\n\nHowever, this year Mr Sunak is facing pressure to act on living standards amid soaring energy costs and rising household bills due to increasing inflation.\n\nMillions of households are facing sharp rises in energy bills from next month, when the government's price cap to contain recent rises is set to go up.\n\nPetrol prices have also soared in recent weeks, while inflation is also pushing up the price of household food items.\n\nOn Monday, Environment Secretary George Eustice said surging oil and gas prices would lead to \"inevitable\" rises in food prices this year, with the increasing price of wheat also feeding through into higher prices for products such as chicken.\n\nThe chancellor is expected to say the war in Ukraine will make these price pressures worse - but add that a stronger British economy is vital in responding to the \"challenge to our values\" presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nHis statement is also expected to set out government plans \"to create a new culture of enterprise\", including more training and investment.\n\nExpectation has been more muted than normal - given the horror of events in Ukraine - but the Spring Statement is still a significant event that matters for all of us.\n\nThe decisions he announces at the dispatch box will affect the prices we pay; the pound in our pocket.\n\nBefore the conflict, there was already a squeeze on everyone's wallet coming. Since the outbreak, day by day, the uncertainty around the economy, and the impact of what's unfolding, has only become more acute.\n\nAlthough every day brings new calls for more help with rocketing energy bills, the Treasury has been reluctant to move from the extra support they promised already, which was only announced last month.\n\nThat's in part because the Treasury is instinctively cautious with cash.\n\nBut also because price rises are so hard to predict and may go on for many, many months.\n\nLabour has criticised Mr Sunak ahead of his speech, branding him \"the high-tax chancellor\" and saying there is no evidence to believe his frequent claims that he wants to cut taxes in the long term.\n\nThe SNP has also called for the National Insurance rise to be scrapped, dubbing Mr Sunak \"the poverty chancellor\" for removing the £20 uplift for universal credit and breaking his pledge to keep the pension triple lock.\n\nSome Conservative MPs have also called for the NI rise to be cancelled, with the official budget watchdog expected to say the UK's deficit - the difference between the government's income and what it spends - is better than last predicted in the autumn.\n\nPaul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said this would give Mr Sunak room to help households with costs, but he would not be able to help people on \"average sorts of incomes\" with the increases.\n\nA cut to fuel duty has also been a key demand of Tory MPs in recent weeks, with more 50 Tory writing to Mr Sunak last week to make the demand.\n\nTory MP Robert Halfon, who led the charge, said the country was \"heading to a de facto lockdown, where parents can't afford to take their kids to school [and] where workers can't afford to commute by car and have to stay at home\".\n\nBut the Green Party said cutting fuel duty would not fix the cost of living crisis, and would be the wrong policy at the time of a climate emergency.\n\nCo-leader Adrian Ramsay said: \"We absolutely know people need help right now - but cuts to fuel duty aren't targeted to support the poorest and the greatest numbers of people.\"\n\nInstead, the party wants a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies to pay for the restoration and doubling of the universal credit uplift, and to extend emergency fuel payments.\n\nThe Conservative Environment Network of Tory MPs is also making its own request, calling on Mr Sunak to cut VAT for energy-saving products and home installation to 5%.\n\nThe group said the move would cut the cost of installing cavity insulation by £142 and loft insulation by £120 for the average household, helping to lower energy bills by up to £399 and £493 at the current energy price cap - and going even further when the rise kicks in.\n\nTory MP Stephen Crabb said: \"Insulating homes is one of the quickest ways to lower people's energy bills and reduce our reliance on imported energy.\n\n\"With millions of draughty British homes and soaring energy bills, we should cut this tax on energy efficiency.\"", "Boris Romantschenko survived detention in four separate concentration camps between 1942 and 1945\n\nA Ukrainian man who survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two has been killed during a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv.\n\nBoris Romantschenko, 96, died during Russian shelling of his apartment block on Friday, relatives said.\n\nRussian forces have been relentlessly shelling Kharkiv, which lies just 30 miles (50km) from the border, for over three weeks.\n\nAt least 500 civilians have now been killed there, Ukrainian officials say.\n\nPolice said one of the victims has been identified as a nine-year old boy.\n\nThe Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation said it was \"deeply disturbed\" by Romantschenko's death.\n\nThe organisation, of which Romantschenko was vice-president, announced the news after being informed by his family and said he had \"worked intensely on the memory of Nazi crimes\".\n\n\"We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times,\" the foundation's statement added.\n\nRomantschenko's death comes more than three weeks after President Vladimir Putin sought to justify his invasion to the Russian people by telling them his goal is to\"de-Nazify Ukraine\".\n\nWestern leaders have condemned these claims and pointed out that Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish.\n\nRomantschenko was born in the north-eastern city of Bondari on 20 January 1926.\n\nHe was rounded up by Nazi troops at the age of 16 after the invasion of the Soviet Union and deported to Germany in 1942, where he was forced to do hard labour, the foundation said.\n\nAfter a failed escape attempt in 1943, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where some 56,545 people were murdered before its liberation in 1945 by the allies.\n\nHe also spent time in the subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora, as well as the infamous Bergen Belsen and Peenemünde camps.\n\nBoris Romantschenko reading at the memorial in 2012\n\nRomantschenko, who was not Jewish, returned to Buchenwald in 2012 to celebrate the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by US troops, where he recited the pledge made by survivors to create \"a new world where peace and freedom reign\".\n\nThe Nazi regime murdered over six million Jewish people across occupied Europe between 1941 and 1945.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Chris Mullin: 'My actions were in the public interest'\n\nA journalist may keep secret the identity of a man who police say is responsible for the deaths of 21 people in the Birmingham pub bombings.\n\nA court backed Chris Mullin in a fight against West Midlands Police which wanted to force him to reveal a source over the 1974 atrocities.\n\nPolice lawyers maintained Mr Mullin's notes could solve the case, saying they contained the name of the bomb planter.\n\nThe former MP said he was \"grateful\" for the judge's decision.\n\n\"The right of a journalist to protect his or her sources is fundamental to a free press in a democracy,\" he said in a statement after the Old Bailey ruling.\n\n\"My actions in this case were overwhelmingly in the public interest.\"\n\nChris Mullin has been allowed to protect a source over the Birmingham pub bombings\n\nMr Mullin helped expose the innocence of the so-called Birmingham Six, the men freed from prison in 1991 when their convictions over the deaths of the 21 were quashed.\n\nNo others, however, have been brought to justice for the blasts at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs, and the force says its investigation has remained active.\n\nIn 2019, an inquest jury found an \"inadequate\" IRA warning call on the night of the bombings caused or contributed to the deaths.\n\nThe information sought by police - via the courts under the Terrorism Act - pertained to investigations by Mr Mullin in 1985 to 1986.\n\nThe work contributed to the release of the Birmingham Six but Mr Mullin always said he could not reveal the identity of an IRA man who helped prove the miscarriage of justice.\n\nHe said previously he had been guided only by his efforts to \"rescue\" the innocent, and that the process had been contingent on guaranteeing the anonymity of crucial parties he interviewed.\n\nTwenty-one people were killed in two blasts in November 1974\n\nThe police's legal team said the matter centred on the bomb planter, referred to in court as AB - his true identity redacted in Mr Mullin's notes which were handed over \"voluntarily\" to police, save for certain omissions.\n\nPolice barristers said therein AB had made a \"full confession to the murders\".\n\nThe force knows who AB is and his links to the IRA. But, its barristers said, unredacted notes were needed to link the \"confession\" to the individual.\n\nHaving refused to comply, Mr Mullin thanked the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) who had backed his stance, as well as his legal team which called the outcome a \"landmark freedom of expression decision\".\n\nThe blasts ripped apart the Mulberry Bush pub at the base of the Rotunda and the Tavern in the Town on nearby New Street\n\nPolice lawyers had said the benefit of a confession outweighed any promise of anonymity to sources.\n\nAfter the ruling, the force's assistant chief constable Matt Ward said: \"This was a complex issue balancing the need to pursue all significant lines of inquiry related to the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings against the rights of journalists to keep the sources of their information confidential.\n\n\"The court has given its independent judgment which we will now consider carefully.\n\n\"West Midlands Police remains committed to bringing to justice those responsible for the murder of 21 innocent victims.\"\n\nJudge Mark Lucraft QC, the Recorder of London, agreed with police that Mr Mullin's research included material that was likely to be of \"substantial value\" to a terrorism investigation.\n\n\"It is difficult to see how a reliable note of a voluntary confessions is not something of substantial value,\" he said.\n\nHowever, he added that no matter how strong that case was, it did not override the protection of Mr Mullin's material under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.\n\nThat law means journalists are protected from being forced to reveal their sources where their work has been carried out for a genuine public interest.\n\nNUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet described the judgement as a \"hopeful beacon\"\n\nMichelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, welcomed the outcome, saying the judgement was a \"hopeful beacon at a time when we rely more than ever on dependable news, despite journalists facing mounting legal challenges\".\n\nShe said: \"Few reporters have been more courageous and dogged than Chris Mullin, nor have they been so spectacularly vindicated.\n\n\"This case threatened press freedom and amounted to another attempt to criminalise the legitimate actions of journalists. In refusing this production order, the judge has recognised the principle that the NUJ will always defend - that protecting sources underpins every journalist's ability to report.\"\n\nShe added: \"I hope that West Midlands Police now chooses to devote its many powers to amassing sufficient credible evidence to secure a conviction for those terrible bombings.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Shape of You won the Grammy Award for best pop solo performance in 2018\n\nEd Sheeran faces a wait of \"days and weeks\" to learn the outcome of a High Court trial over his hit Shape of You.\n\nThe star has been accused of copying part of the song from another artist.\n\nIn closing arguments, grime artist Sami Chokri's barrister said there was an \"indisputable similarity between the works\". But Mr Sheeran's lawyer said the case against him was \"so strained as to be logically unintelligible\".\n\nMr Justice Zacaroli said he would \"take some time to consider my judgment\".\n\nThe 11-day trial ended on Tuesday. Ian Mill QC, representing Mr Sheeran, said it had been \"deeply traumatising\" for the star and his co-writers, Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac.\n\nHe described the dispute as \"terribly, terribly unfortunate\" and argued that the case \"should never have gone to trial\".\n\nMr Sheeran, who has attended the court throughout, listened attentively to the closing arguments with his hands clasped together. During the trial, the superstar has been described as a \"magpie\" who \"borrows\" ideas from other artists.\n\nThe dispute revolves around similarities between Shape of You and Oh Why by Mr Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch.\n\nThe contentious part is the \"Oh I, oh I, oh I\" hook that follows the chorus in Shape of You. Mr Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue say it is almost identical to the chorus of their song, which was released two years earlier.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Ed Sheeran This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nTheir barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC suggested the chances of the two songs being written independently were \"minutely small\" and accused Mr Sheeran of \"inconsistencies\" and \"evasiveness\" in his testimony.\n\nMr Sutcliffe also claimed \"material documents\" linked to the writing of Shape of You \"have been lost or deleted, with no adequate explanation\".\n\nMr Sheeran and his co-authors said they had disclosed all relevant material at their disposal.\n\nThe court heard how Shape of You was written \"extraordinarily quickly\" in October 2016, with the basic track completed in under an hour.\n\nMr Sutcliffe claimed this meant Mr Sheeran had entered the studio with the melody from Oh Why \"consciously or unconsciously in his head\".\n\n\"Such speed is indicative of copying,\" he said in a written closing statement.\n\nSami Chokri has described the High Court case as \"the worst few weeks of my life\"\n\nMr Sheeran's lawyer disagreed. \"Speed is indicative of the genius of Mr Sheeran and his ability to work at a speed no-one else can,\" he told the court.\n\nHe added that all three writers \"were categorically clear that they went into the writing session\" with \"no preconceived ideas as to whatever it was that they would write that day\".\n\nMr Mill also argued that the similarities between the two songs were too \"generic\" to be protected by copyright.\n\n\"They comprise, in substance, the use of the first four notes of the minor pentatonic scale combined with the use of octaves and harmonies in a vocal chant,\" he argued.\n\nHowever, Mr Sutcliffe argued that Oh Why's chorus was \"extremely memorable\" and an \"earworm\".\n\nIf Mr Sheeran did not consciously copy it, he said, a likely explanation was that it became \"part of the echo chamber of references, songs and ideas that [he] holds in his mind, which re-surfaced in October 2016 without him realising it\".\n\nAt the heart of the trial was the issue of whether Mr Sheeran had ever heard Oh Why. On the witness stand, he and his co-writers all denied prior knowledge of the song, saying they only became aware of it when the legal proceedings began.\n\nThe defendants insisted Mr Sheeran would have had the chance to hear it, describing a \"concerted plan\" to get the track into his hands in the hope of an endorsement.\n\nTo that end, they promoted Oh Why to several people in Mr Sheeran's circle, although not the star himself.\n\nGiving evidence, Mr Chokri said he was certain one of them would have played Oh Why to the musician - but \"I can't tell you exactly which because I don't know\".\n\nSheeran's writing partner Johnny McDaid is also a member of chart-topping band Snow Patrol\n\nMr Sutcliffe said the chance that Mr Sheeran was not aware of Mr Chokri in 2016 was \"vanishingly small\" because they had both appeared on YouTube channel SBTV in 2010, they shared friends, and Mr Chokri had tweeted him and allegedly met him.\n\nMr Mill countered that there was no evidence that anyone had ever played Oh Why to Mr Sheeran.\n\nFurthermore, he noted that no-one who had been sent the track had been specifically asked to pass it on to the star.\n\nHe claimed there were \"hundreds of videos\" on SBTV that Mr Sheeran \"never saw or watched\", and that Oh Why itself had never featured on the channel.\n\nThe implication that the star had \"remembered, followed and sought out Sami Switch on another platform\" six years after they had appeared on SBTV was a \"preposterous jump\", he said, adding: \"It is quite clear from all the evidence that the promotion of Oh Why was an absolute failure\".\n\nShape of You was the biggest hit of 2017 and remains the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify, with more than three billion plays.\n\nIt earns Mr Sheeran, Mr McDaid and Mr Mac about £5m a year, the court heard, despite almost 10% of the payments being frozen due to the ongoing dispute.\n\nThe case dates back to 2018, when the writers asked the High Court to declare they had not infringed Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue's copyright.\n\nIn July 2018, the pair issued their own claim for \"copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement\".\n\nAs the trial ended on Tuesday, Mr Justice Zacaroli told both sides he would deliver his judgment \"as soon as I can\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "A number of Apple services experienced outages on Monday, Apple's support page has confirmed.\n\nThe areas affected included the App Store, iMessage, Maps, Apple Arcade, the iTunes store, podcasts and Apple TV+.\n\nApple's system status page now shows that all of its services are back up and running.\n\nSome of Apple's network was down for three hours.\n\nA number of iCloud services had been affected, including calendar and mail.\n\nApple confirmed to the BBC its systems had faced outages but has not commented on the reason for the issue.\n\nAccording to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, more than 4,000 users had reported issues with accessing Apple Music, while nearly 4,000 reported problems with iCloud.\n\nApple iMessage was also down for a short period.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. David Thompson responds to criticism that he is the NPCC's lead on racism as a white man\n\nThe police have failed to \"bring in enough talent from black communities and ensure they thrive,\" the lead for tackling racism within UK forces says.\n\nSir David Thompson, chief constable of West Midlands Police, told BBC Newsnight racist incidents involving officers had been damaging.\n\nHe added it was a shame the police were not \"an employer of choice for many communities\".\n\nA plan on how best to solve the issue will be published in April.\n\nThe interview follows a series of revelations of racism in policing - including a recent report by the police watchdog disclosing racist WhatsApp messages exchanged between officers.\n\nAnother report released this month found the strip-search of a 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor. The Met Police has since apologised.\n\nThe BBC interviewed Sir David before the Child Q revelations.\n\nIn a report published last year by the Home Affairs Select Committee, MPs said only 4% of officers at or above the rank of chief inspector in England and Wales were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds by 2020.\n\nOfficers from black and minority ethnic backgrounds also represented just 7% of the whole police service across England and Wales by the same year - which MPs said was still \"far below the 14% of the population\" from these backgrounds.\n\nSir David, the lead for race and inclusion at the National Police Chiefs' Council, called the low numbers a \"failure\" on the part of police leaders.\n\nHe said it was his job to make sure the action plan for the NPCC and the College of Policing helped to improve the situation by winning trust.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Newsnight, Sir David explained the plan would focus on four areas, including:\n\nWhen asked about whether a white man should be leading a policy on combating racism, he acknowledged it was a \"legitimate question\".\n\n\"We've got black and ethnic minority staff and chief officers engaged in this work,\" he said.\n\n\"If we're going to succeed in building an anti-racist police force, surely it is the people in the majority - white men - who have to be at the forefront saying this needs to change,\" he continued.\n\nSir David said the programme was being developed with black communities and partners, including the National Black Policing Association.\n\nHe also said the term institutionally racist was \"often too crude a term for policing\".\n\n\"It's not as simple as saying, 'well the policeman is usually racist, so everything is broken'. This plan is about tackling institutional issues in policing, not just individual behaviours.\"", "Fuel prices have stabilised for the first time this month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a surge.\n\nAverage fuel prices slipped from record highs on Monday, with petrol at nearly £1.67 a litre and diesel at £1.79.\n\nCrude oil surged to $139 per barrel in the first week of March, then slid back the following week.\n\nThe RAC said the settling of prices could be an indication that retailers may have \"finished\" passing on their higher wholesale costs to customers.\n\nHowever, it is unclear if and when the cost of fuel will go down.\n\nSimon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC, said Monday's prices had \"steadied with very slight reductions in both petrol and diesel\".\n\nUK fuel prices have increased at the fastest rate on record in recent weeks, with petrol rising 13p since the start of the month and diesel increasing by nearly 21p.\n\nFuel prices, which were already rising as global economies recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, surged after the war in Ukraine pushed up oil prices.\n\nChanges in prices at the pump are mainly determined by crude oil prices and the dollar exchange rate, because crude oil is traded in dollars.\n\nRussia is one of the world's major oil exporters and it is being targeted by economic and trading sanctions.\n\nAfter Brent crude oil - a global benchmark for prices - hit a near 14-year high of $139 a barrel during the early stages of the conflict, prices fell back to around $100, but have since risen again to $115 on Tuesday.\n\nThe most recent increase was driven by the European Union discussing a ban on the purchase of Russian oil, which countries in the bloc rely heavily on.\n\nSome countries, such as the US and Canada, have already banned on Russian oil imports, but the EU has so far stopped short of that action.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK government has vowed to phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of its crude oil from Russia, but is affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nMr Williams said the wholesale price of petrol for retailers currently stands at £1.30 a litre for petrol and £1.48 for diesel.\n\n\"With prices this high before retailer margin and 20% VAT are added it's clear we are in a tough place when it comes to being able to afford to drive,\" he said.\n\n\"This is why it's crucial the chancellor takes decisive and meaningful action in his Spring Statement that helps hard-pressed drivers and businesses.\"\n\nMore than 50 Conservative MPs have called for a cut in fuel duty, which is currently 57.95p per litre, and has VAT of 20% applied on top.\n\nSeveral newspapers have also reported that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering a temporary cut of as much as 5p per litre, but some opposition MPs have questioned whether this would go far enough.\n\nFollowing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there were warnings of potential global oil supply problems.\n\nThe International Energy Agency (IEA) has said high commodity prices and sanctions against Russia were \"threatening to create a global oil supply shock\".\n\nIt estimated three million barrels per day of Russian oil could be taken out of the global market as a result of international sanctions.\n\nThe agency warned only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enough spare production capacity to offset the shortfall in Russian output.", "Prince Andrew will make his first appearance in public since settling the court case\n\nThe Duke of York will attend next week's thanksgiving service for Prince Philip, says his spokesperson.\n\nIt will be Prince Andrew's first public appearance since the settlement of the civil sex assault case brought against him in the US by Virginia Giuffre.\n\nThe service at Westminster Abbey will celebrate the life of his father, Prince Philip, who died last year.\n\nPrince Philip's grandson, Prince Harry, who lives in the US, has already said he will not be attending.\n\nThe Queen would be expected to attend next Tuesday's service honouring the memory of her husband.\n\nBut there have been concerns about her mobility and last week she was unable to go to the Commonwealth Service held in Westminster Abbey.\n\nOther members of the Royal Family will take part in the service remembering Prince Philip's life and legacy - although Prince Harry has already confirmed he will not be travelling from the US.\n\nPrince Harry has been involved in a legal dispute over the provision of security when he visits the UK.\n\nIn the fall out from his high-profile court case, Prince Andrew lost the use of the title His Royal Highness and stepped back from public life, but his representative says he will attend the service commemorating his father.\n\nThis will be the first time he will have been seen at an event in public since agreeing to make payments to Ms Giuffre and her victims' rights charity in a settlement that ended the civil court case.\n\nPrince Andrew rejected any claims of wrongdoing, and the formal closure of the case earlier this month ended the prospect of a trial in New York.\n\nBut there have been questions about the prince's reputational damage and his future role in royal events.", "The chancellor is under pressure to address the rising cost of living\n\nThere is a very big question hanging over tomorrow's Spring Statement: just how much do the public expect the government to give a helping hand at a time of international emergency?\n\nThe instinct of the chancellor, is that he can only do so much.\n\nIn my travels from Ayrshire to Derbyshire over the past week, trying to take the temperature of the economy at the time of a seismic price shock, it's clear that the public expects more than it used to.\n\nWhether it was Milligan's coach company, unable to work out if it can price its trips at a profit because of rising diesel costs; or the farm owner in Ashover, unprotected by energy caps, facing \"open-ended\" price increases from heating oil.\n\nOver the period of the pandemic, the chancellor repeatedly rolled out ever expanding multi-billion pound economic rescues, with mainly borrowed money.\n\nBut Rishi Sunak does not want expanded government spending to define his tenure at Number 11.\n\nThe statement that is coming on Wednesday was originally intended to be no more than an economic update, alongside the new forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.\n\nPlans have changed since then to reflect the acute challenges for household budgets, but it would be wrong to see this as a mini-Budget. Perhaps not even a micro-Budget. There is still not enough for the traditional \"red book\" of measures.\n\nThe big takeaway from the chancellor's words over the weekend was not about a significant rescue package, but that he can not protect the country from all the pressures arising out of the global wave of surging prices.\n\nThe most important text ahead of the chancellor's statement, is his Mais lecture from last month. He used it to push back against the idea that the size of the British state would be left bigger forever.\n\nThis is an area of political judgement as well as economic strategy.\n\nThe main area of household economic stress - domestic gas and electricity bills - will be dealt with at a later date. The official cost of the government package designed to lessen the burden of next month's record rise, will be revealed.\n\nBut whether the further rise will be another few hundred pounds a year or over a thousands pounds a year for an average household can not yet be known with certainty.\n\nThe original £9bn package helped mitigate less than half of the £21bn rise in energy prices until January, and that was mostly through loans. But the total value of price rises is on course to more than double to over £43bn.\n\nThere is scope to cut back fuel duty on petrol and diesel by a few pence - however, pump prices will still feel like they are at a record, with an average diesel tank costing close to £100.\n\nThe really stark fact in here is that amid these global pressures arising from the pandemic bounce-back and the invasion, the government is further squeezing households with significant new tax rises.\n\nIt is remarkable this is all hitting at the same time. It is difficult to think that the government would have devised policy in this way, had the price surge occurred earlier.\n\nThe effect of some of the national insurance rise on low and middle earners could be unpicked by a rise in the threshold over which it is paid. But, to be clear, these are slightly smaller rises in taxes, not tax cuts.\n\nThe problem for the exchequer is that acknowledging the reality of 8% inflation rates for national insurance thresholds, points to doing the same for universal credit and for public sector pay.\n\nIndeed the Bank of England are now projecting that inflation could be at double digit levels at the end of the year.\n\nWhile some increase in the generosity of universal credit could come, public sector pay is being left to the pay review bodies. In April at least there will be immediate real terms pay cuts, as wages fail to match inflation.\n\nSome of this might be undone by the summer, but the government's position so far is that public sector should pay more attention to the 2% inflation target for setting interest rates, than actual rates of inflation.\n\nAnd all the while, the Treasury would rather be talking about long term plans to raise investment, productivity, growth, living standards and tax revenues.\n\nThe current cost of living crisis threatens to turn into an emergency. And although this could be a new normal lasting years, don't expect a pandemic-style rescue, this time.", "Emergency services arrived at the school shortly after 17:00\n\nTwo teachers in their 50s have died after a violent attack at a secondary school in the southern Swedish city of Malmö, police say.\n\nAn 18-year-old student at the school has been arrested on suspicion of murder.\n\nLocal media report that the victims were stabbed, but no firearms were used in the attack.\n\nThe two women, employees of Malmö Latin School, were taken to hospital by ambulance but died of their injuries.\n\nAt a news conference on Tuesday morning, police said the suspect was arrested just 10 minutes after the alarm was raised.\n\nOfficers arrived at an apparently calm school, but found the two injured women and the suspect on the third floor. Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet reports that he was found with an axe and a knife.\n\nThe 18-year-old man had no criminal record or history of suspicious behaviour, police said, but investigations were continuing. Police said they would interview the suspect and many others from the school on Tuesday.\n\nThe motive remains unknown and there is as yet no evidence of an unusual link between the student and two teachers.\n\nMalmö chief of police Petra Stenkula told reporters that the suspect's home was being searched and that police were interviewing other students and looking for any filmed footage that might exist.\n\nShe also said officers were investigating reports in Swedish media that the suspect called the police himself, allegedly admitting to having killed two people. Others also called the emergency services during the incident.\n\nAbout 50 people, both students and teachers, were in the building when the attack took place. Police were notified at 17:12 (16:12 GMT) on Monday, and the suspect was detained by 17:22.\n\nPolice evacuated the school and searched its grounds, but found \"no indication\" of any more perpetrators.\n\nArmed officers searched the school following the incident\n\nTeachers and pupils told local media that police had entered the school with their weapons drawn and ordered them to remain locked in their classrooms for several hours.\n\nThe large secondary school in Sweden's third-largest city is well-known. It was originally founded in 1406 as a church school and moved to its current location in the late 1800s.\n\nAll classes scheduled for Tuesday had been cancelled, the school's website said. Crisis support is also being made available to students.\n\n\"This is absolutely terrible,\" headteacher Fredrik Hemmensjö told the Aftonbladet newspaper, saying there had been \"deadly violence\" at the school.\n\nIt is the third knife attack at a school in the Skåne region in the last year, though police have not established any link between this attack and the earlier non-fatal incidents.\n\nOfficers said they were still trying to work out what was behind the incident.\n\n\"Now a great deal of work awaits to be able to understand what happened and the underlying motive for this terrible event,\" said Malmö North police chief Åsa Nilsson.\n\nSwedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said she had heard the news with \"sadness and dismay\".\n\nWriting on Facebook, she said: \"Now the police and prosecutors must find out what happened, so that the person behind this is held accountable for their actions.\"", "Energy giant Shell is reconsidering its recent decision to pull investment from a large new UK oil field, the BBC understands.\n\nIn December, Shell said the economic case - along with possible regulatory delays - meant it was withdrawing from the Cambo oil field, which is 75 miles off the west coast of Shetland.\n\nAt the time the price of crude oil was under $70 a barrel.\n\nIt has since touched double that price and has consistently been over $100.\n\nOil prices are volatile because of fears that Russian oil will either be shunned, or cut off.\n\nThe desire to reduce European dependence on Russian exports has also made the UK government willing to fast track investment in domestic fossil fuels.\n\nShell has not yet sold its interests in the field. Sources close to the matter said that, while the company's official position had not changed, it did acknowledge that the economic, political and regulatory environment had changed enormously since the decision was announced just three months ago.\n\nShell last week resubmitted an application to develop the Jackdaw North Sea gas field - off the east coast of Scotland - having had it turned down in October by environmental regulators.\n\nThe company said it had modified the chemical processes involved in the gas extraction to meet regulatory requirements.\n\nThe UK government said investment decisions are a commercial matter for the companies involved, but it remains committed to the domestic offshore oil and gas sector as the UK transitions to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.\n\nThe UK's North Sea regulator plans later this year to hold the first oil and gas licensing round for new fields since 2020.\n\nShell's decision last December to pull out of the project was taken two weeks after COP26 - a high profile global climate conference in Glasgow - and was roundly welcomed by environmental campaigners, who described Shell's decision as a hammer blow to the project.\n\nTessa Khan, director of environmental group Uplift, said new oil and gas assets like Cambo would not help bring down prices or secure UK energy security of supply.\n\n\"Contrary to what [Business Secretary] Kwasi Kwarteng has said, this isn't 'our oil',\" she said.\n\n\"It belongs to Shell who will sell it abroad to the highest bidder. According to the government's own figures, 80% of North Sea oil is put in tankers and exported.\n\n\"What it will do is produce carbon emissions equivalent to 18 coal-fired power stations, when we are already experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis. Cambo makes as little sense today as it did last year.\"\n\nThe government is due to unveil its energy supply strategy early next week.", "Yvan Colonna's attack has prompted protests in France and Corsica\n\nA jailed Corsican nationalist, whose prison assault sparked protests on the French Mediterranean island, has died.\n\nYvan Colonna, 61, who was serving a life term for murdering Corsica's top official, was beaten by another inmate, a Cameroonian jihadist, on 2 March.\n\nThe attack left Colonna in a coma and he had been receiving treatment in a hospital in the south of France.\n\nThe assault provoked riots in Corsica, where many see him as a hero in its campaign for independence from France.\n\nColonna was jailed two decades ago for shooting dead Corsica's prefect Claude Erignac in 1998, following a five-year manhunt that eventually found him in the mountains living as a shepherd.\n\nColonna, who was one of France's best-known prisoners, died in a hospital in the southern French city of Marseille. His supporters had long campaigned for his release or his transfer to jail in Corsica.\n\nAccording to prosecutors, he was working out in the prison gym in Arles when Franck Elong Abé, 35, a former jihadist serving time for terror offences, allegedly launched his attack.\n\nFor eight minutes, Abé beat Colonna and tried to suffocate him with a bin bag and towels, investigators say. Under questioning, he accused Colonna of \"blaspheming\" and mocking the prophet Muhammad.\n\nThe assault - and the perceived failure of prison authorities to prevent it - stoked anger on the island, prompting its biggest and most violent protests in decades.\n\nThe unrest prompted the French government to suggest it could loosen its grip on the island.\n\nFrench Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Paris could offer Corsica \"autonomy\" and visited the island last week, while President Emmanuel Macron conceded that idea was no longer \"taboo\".\n\nProtesters threw petrol bombs and stones at police officers in Corsica's second-biggest city Bastia\n\nFor more than 10 days, protesters took to the streets, chanting \"Liberta\" (freedom) and \"Statu Francese assassinu\" (French state assassin). Some lobbed stones and petrol bombs at police.\n\nIn a single night of rioting in Corsica's second-biggest city, Bastia, on 13 March, some 67 people were injured, 44 of them police officers.\n\nThe agonising death of Yvan Colonna has put Corsica's troubles at the centre of the political agenda, less than three weeks ahead of France's presidential election.\n\nConvicted assassin he may have been, but the 61-year-old had heroic status among the island's nationalists. Many of them refuse to believe he was actually guilty of killing Claude Erignac in 1998. He always denied it.\n\nBut many more were horrified by the manner of his death, brutally suffocated in a prison gym by a jihadist co-detainee. They blame the French state for failing to protect him, especially after Paris refused for years to have him transferred from the mainland to a jail inside Corsica.\n\nFaced by serious rioting on the island, President Macron's reaction so far has been conciliate, conciliate, conciliate. Two others convicted in the Erignac killing have been told they can now be transferred back to Corsica. And last week's promise of \"autonomy\" talks was a significant concession to nationalists.\n\nThe danger, as Le Monde points out in an editorial, is that it all comes across as a signal of weakness. For years, President Macron has refused to budge on constitutional change for Corsica - and now, suddenly, under the pressure of violence, he gives way.\n\nThe same happened after the \"yellow vests\" protests led to the opening of state coffers. A dangerous precedent, perhaps, especially if, as many predict, the president is re-elected \"by default\" next month: in the shadow of the Ukraine war, with a low turnout and an underperforming opposition.\n\nTalks on autonomy are due to start early next month, but Colonna's death prompted shock across the political spectrum.\n\nCorsica's pro-autonomy regional council president, Gilles Simeoni, said his death was an \"injustice and a tragedy, which will leave its mark on the history of contemporary Corsica and its people\".\n\nThe island - most famous for being the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte - has been a French territory since the 18th Century. But its recent past has been marked by separatist violence.\n\n\"I call on everyone to keep their calm and not add fuel to the fire in Corsica,\" said the Republicans' presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse.\n\nA spokesman for far-right candidate Eric Zemmour said Colonna's jihadist killer should have been deported long ago.", "The UK had hoped for a free trade deal with the US\n\nThe US has agreed to ease Trump-era tariffs on UK steel and aluminium shipments, resolving an issue that had strained relations between the allies.\n\nThe move follows earlier deals with the European Union and Japan over the controversial taxes, which were imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 in the name of national security.\n\nIn exchange, the UK will suspend extra taxes it had put on US products such as bourbon and Levi's jeans.\n\nUnder the agreement, the US will replace the 25% tariffs on steel with a quota system.\n\nThe policy will let UK metal imports into the country duty-free up to a certain level - the quota - before taxes kick in again.\n\nThe deal will come into effect on 1 June.\n\nInternational Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the deal had removed a \"very frustrating irritant\", calling the agreement \"good news for the steel and aluminium sectors, which support the jobs of over 80,000 people across the UK\".\n\n\"It means our manufacturers can now enjoy a high level of tariff-free access to the US market once again,\" she said.\n\n\"Hopefully we can now move forward and focus on deepening our thriving trading relationship with the US.\"\n\nUS officials also welcomed the suspension of the UK retaliatory tariffs, which they said affected about $500m (£377m) worth in annual trade.\n\n\"The historical deal announced today delivers on President Biden's vision to repair relationships with our allies while also helping to ensure the long-term viability of our steel and aluminium industries,\" said Ambassador Katherine Tai.\n\nHowever, in an interview with the BBC, Ms Tai, the top US trade negotiator, refused to be drawn as to when or if discussions for a formal free trade agreement might start.\n\n\"I think the issue is what kind of collaboration is going to be fit for the purpose of addressing the challenges that we have today,\" she said. \"I'm not going to exclude any options.\"\n\nThe Biden administration has prioritised domestic goals ahead of trade, said economist Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.\n\nWhile that could change as the US seeks stronger relations with allies in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said there's no evidence of that happening yet.\n\n\"The US administration has not made any signs that they want to do trade agreements with anybody anytime soon,\" he said. \"That would be a big change.\"\n\nThe Biden administration's low prioritisation of trade matters marks a major shift from former president Donald Trump, who made it a signature area of focus, using tariffs as bargaining chips in diplomacy.\n\nHe set off a firestorm of criticism in the US and abroad when he announced the 25% tax on foreign steel shipments and 15% tax on foreign aluminium, citing a need to preserve America's manufacturing base and rejecting concerns that tariffs raise prices.\n\nAfter allies, including the UK, hit US products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles in retaliation, Mr Trump backed off the duties for certain countries, including Canada, opting for quotas instead.\n\nUS President Joe Biden later reached similar deals with the European Union and Japan.\n\nThe approach has won praise in the US, including from groups like United Steel Workers for responding to the concerns of allies while still providing protection for US manufacturers.\n\nWith many steel plants located in key election states, maintaining support from those workers is important for Mr Biden.\n\nOn Tuesday the union praised the new deal for measures it said would help safeguard against unfairly subsidised steel production, such as mandatory annual audits of British Steel, which has a Chinese parent company.\n\nBusiness lobby UK Steel also praised the deal, saying it would be \"felt by steel companies and their employees right across the UK and is immensely welcome\".\n\nBut with the quotas in place, consumers are unlikely to see benefits like lower prices, said Phil Levy, economist for Flexport.\n\n\"Replacing tariffs with a system of quotas is actually moving away from transparency on these things and it does not get you the benefits of free trade,\" he said.\n\nAmerican spirits exporters toasted the deal, which should make their bourbon whiskeys cheaper for UK shoppers. \"Distillers throughout the United States are cheering the end of this long tariff nightmare,\" Distilled Spirits Council President Chris Swonger said.\n\nThe US and UK traded more than $260bn worth of goods last year, of which the majority were exports from the US such as metals, aircraft parts, oil and gas.\n\nWhile America accounts for nearly one fifth of total UK trade, the UK market represents just 5% of US exports.\n\nMr Bown said the US imports too little British steel for a deal to have significant impact on prices. For UK consumers of American products, the impact on prices is also likely to be marginal, he said.\n\n\"It can't hurt the consumer, so it will make them better off, but by how much is I think unclear,\" he said.\n\nWith America buying £1 in every £6 of British exports, the cooling of tensions over steel has raised hopes of a reheating of the wider transatlantic trade relationship.\n\nLevi's jeans, Harley Davidson motorbikes, steel bars and bourbon whiskey became unlikely weapons in a painful battle that has waged since 2018, with their producers and consumers paying a hefty price. For them this ceasefire will be welcome, if overdue.\n\nAt the heart of the dispute was the protection of American jobs. And if - and it's by no means certain - these developments are the first step towards the resumption of wider free-trade talks, that theme will continue to loom large, even if the man in the White House has changed.\n\nThe Biden administration struck a deal with the EU over steel almost five months ago. There's been speculations that the UK was made to wait due to unease over the way Boris Johnson's government has handled post-Brexit trading arrangements in Ireland.\n\nThe UK is keen to demonstrate its Brexit-era agility by notching up more trade agreements - but the US will be keen to continue showing it's calling the shots .", "Among the foreign fighters heading to Ukraine to fight against Russia are dissidents from Belarus living in exile.\n\nThey see the war as a battle both against Vladimir Putin’s forces but also against the regime of the Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko, which has heavily backed Moscow.\n\nThe BBC met Pavel Kulazhanka, who left his life in New York to join the fight.", "Bills are rising sharply in April for millions of people\n\nMillions of people face the dilemma of cutting spending on food and clothing to pay their energy bill, one supplier's boss has said.\n\nBill Bullen, chief executive of Utilita - which serves prepayment meter customers - said government financial support was not directed sufficiently to those who needed it most.\n\nHe said ministers should spend money on \"insulating the hell out of Britain\".\n\nThere are growing calls for help on bills ahead of the Spring Statement.\n\nOn Wednesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak will deliver the statement - an update on the state of the UK economy, and an opportunity to outline further policies on tackling the rising cost of living.\n\nThe government is also preparing a UK energy strategy in light of the war in Ukraine and the impact it is having on global supply and prices.\n\nMillions of households are facing a 54% rise in the cost of a typical annual gas and electricity bill, to about £2,000, when the regulator's new, higher price cap takes effect on 1 April.\n\nThe price rise for prepayment meter customers, who can include some of the poorest and most vulnerable in society, is slightly higher. The increase for prepayment meter customers is typically £708 a year.\n\nThe war in Ukraine has heightened concern about a similar increase in October, when the next cap is set.\n\nThe government has said it is taking \"decisive action\" in helping people with their bills. This includes a £150 council tax rebate for 80% of households, followed by a £200 discount on bills in October which will need to be repaid.\n\nHowever, Mr Bullen argued that the rise was inadequately focussed, leaving millions of people facing tough choices on their family budgets.\n\n\"They just do not have the money,\" he said.\n\nHe said that the \"path of no regret\" for the government was to find ways to cut energy consumption, and therefore bills, over the long term with a massive home insulation programme. It was relatively easy, he said, to cut consumption by 20%.\n\nSome people who agree with the criticism of a non-targeted approach to the government's financial assistance have chosen to donate their £150 council rebate to charities helping those struggling to pay their fuel bills.\n\nNational Energy Action, which campaigns for warm, dry homes and runs a helpline and hardship funds, said that 40% of its donations in February came from people wishing to donate their rebate.\n\nGrocery prices are also rising adding to the pressure on people's finances\n\nAhead of the Spring Statement, a string of charities have called on the chancellor to step up support for those struggling to pay their bills, given the rising cost of basics such as food and fuel.\n\nThe debt charity Christians Against Poverty said calls to its helpline went up by 47% in January compared with the same month last year. It said requests for emergency fuel vouchers had doubled in the first two months of this year compared with the same period last year.\n\nAs well as a more generous increase in benefit payments, the charity wants the chancellor to announce a full review of the cost of living to ensure everyone has a sufficient income for their basic needs.\n\nCitizens Advice estimated that five million people would be unable to afford the April energy price rise. The prospect of more price rises in October could mean that one in four UK adults would be unable to pay their bills.\n\nThe Joseph Rowntree Foundation argued that the minimum requirement from the chancellor to tackle the cost of living issue was to increase benefits in line with inflation - close to doubling the 3.1% increase set for April.", "Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters Image caption: Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters\n\nPavel Gomzyakov usually photographs the happiest days of people’s lives. He is an award-winning wedding photographer from Mariupol, southern Ukraine.\n\nBut, recently, he has been documenting life in the city as it has come under heavy Russian attack.\n\n“Before the start of the war, Mariupol was a peaceful Ukrainian city, a city in which 95% of people were Russian speaking, like me. My daughter used to study at a Russian school,” he tells BBC Panorama.\n\nAt the end of last week, he escaped, along with his wife and nine-year-old son. His elderly parents stayed behind and he hasn’t been able to contact them for days, as electricity has been cut.\n\nHe is now trying work out how he can unite with his eldest daughter, 17, who is alone in Germany. She was in the north-eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv at ballet school when the war started.\n\nPavel says it is if they have all woken up to a new, terrible reality.\n\nMore on Panorama Ukraine's Resistance: Standing Up to Putin on BBC One at 20:00 GMT", "Protests against the sackings have been held at ports around the UK\n\nP&O Ferries has said 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe firm has also denied that it broke the law when it sacked the workers without warning last week.\n\nHowever, unions said the compensation package being offered was \"pure blackmail and threats\".\n\nMinisters had questioned whether the move was legal - but P&O said those affected were employed outside the UK.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nThe video message in which the company sacked workers last Thursday prompted widespread outrage, with unions claiming some staff would be replaced by Indian seafarers on £1.81 an hour.\n\nMinisters had threatened the firm with \"unlimited fines\" but in a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, its chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite said the 786 sacked workers were employed by three Jersey-based arms of P&O Ferries.\n\nThe eight ships they worked on, which service routes including Dover-Calais and Larne-Ciarnryan, are all registered in Cyprus, the Bahamas or Bermuda.\n\nSacked staff had told the BBC about their experience of being \"treated like criminals\" - but in the letter Mr Hebblethwaite denied \"rumours\" that security staff who boarded vessels to manage the situation wore balaclavas or were directed to use handcuffs or force.\n\n\"The teams accompanying the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task,\" he said.\n\nThe company said its settlement with its workers is believed to be \"the largest compensation package in the British marine sector,\" and more than 40 staff would get severance packages of more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe transport and freight company said 575 seafarers affected were in discussions to progress with the severance offers.\n\nHowever, the RMT union, which has been organising protests over the redundancies said \"the pay in lieu of notice is not compensation\".\n\n\"If staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them,\" general secretary Mick Lynch said.\n\nP&O Ferries had until Tuesday at 17:00 to respond to the letter from Mr Kwarteng - in which he said that P&O Ferries \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, by not consulting with unions and notifying the government in time.\n\nMr Kwarteng pointed out that failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nSeparately, Business Minister Paul Scully said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O ferries and its owner DP World, including a £25 million subsidy to DP World to help develop London Gateway as a freeport.", "Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as \"dismal\".\n\nIts military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, \"the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day\". So what has gone wrong? I have spoken to senior Western military officers and intelligence officials, about the mistakes Russia has made.\n\nRussia's first mistake was to underestimate the strength of resistance and the capabilities of Ukraine's own smaller armed forces. Russia has an annual defence budget of more than $60bn, compared with Ukraine's spending of just over $4bn.\n\nAt the same time, Russia, and many others, appear to have overestimated its own military strengths. President Putin had embarked on an ambitious modernisation programme for his military and he too may have believed his own hype.\n\nA senior British military official said much of Russia's investment had been spent on its vast nuclear arsenal and experimentation, that included developing new weapons such as hypersonic missiles. Russia is supposed to have built the world's most advanced tank - the T-14 Armata. But while it has been seen on Moscow's Victory Day Parade on Red Square, it has been missing in battle. Most of what Russia has fielded are older T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and rocket launchers.\n\nAt the start of the invasion Russia had a clear advantage in the air, with the combat aircraft it had moved near the border outnumbering Ukraine's air force by more than three to one. Most military analysts assumed the invading force would quickly gain superiority in the air, but it has not. Ukraine's air defences are still proving effective, limiting Russia's ability to manoeuvre.\n\nMoscow may have also assumed its special forces would play an important role, helping deliver a quick, decisive blow.\n\nA senior Western intelligence official told the BBC that Russia thought it could deploy lighter, spearhead units like the Spetsnatz and VDV paratroopers, \"to eliminate a small number of defenders and that would be it\". But in the first few days their helicopter assault on Hostomel Airport, just outside Kyiv, was repelled, denying Russia an airbridge to bring in troops, equipment and supplies.\n\nOn the parade ground but not the battleground - Russia's T-14 Armata tank\n\nInstead, Russia has had to transport its supplies mostly by road. This has created traffic jams and choke points which are easy targets for Ukrainian forces to ambush. Some heavy armour has gone off road, only to get stuck in mud, reinforcing an image of an army that has become \"bogged down\".\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's long armoured column from the north that was captured by satellites has still failed to encircle Kyiv. The most significant advances have come from the south, where it has been able to use rail lines to resupply its forces. The UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC that President Putin's forces \"have lost the momentum\".\n\n\"They're stuck and they are slowly but surely taking significant casualties.\"\n\nRussia had amassed a force of around 190,000 troops for this invasion and most of those have already been committed to the battle. But they have already lost about 10% of that force. There are no reliable figures for the scale of either Russian or Ukrainian losses. Ukraine claims to have killed 14,000 Russian troops, though the US estimates it is probably half that number.\n\nWestern officials say there is also evidence of dwindling morale among Russian fighters, with one saying it was \"very, very, low\". Another said the troops were \"cold, tired and hungry\" as they had already been waiting in the snow for weeks in Belarus and Russia before they were given the order to invade.\n\nRussia has already been forced to look for more troops to make up for its losses, including moving in reserve units from as far afield as the east of the country and Armenia. Western officials believe it is also \"highly likely\" that foreign troops from Syria will soon join the fight, along with mercenaries from its secretive Wagner group. A senior Nato military official said this was a sign it was \"scratching the bottom of the barrel\".\n\nRussia has struggled with the basics. There is an old military saying that amateurs talk tactics while professionals study logistics. There is evidence that Russia has not given it enough consideration. Armoured columns have run out of fuel, food and ammunition. Vehicles have broken down and been left abandoned, then towed away by Ukrainian tractors.\n\nWestern officials also believe Russia may be running low on some munitions. It has already fired between 850 and 900 long-range precision munitions, including cruise missiles, which are harder to replace than unguided weapons. US officials have warned Russia has approached China to help address some of its shortages.\n\nDefence support announced by the US is expected to include the Switchblade \"kamikaze\" drone\n\nIn contrast, there has been a steady flow of Western-supplied weapons going into Ukraine, which has been a boost for its morale. The US has just announced it will be providing an additional $800m in defence support. As well as more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, it is expected to include Switchblade, which is a small, US-developed, \"kamikaze\" drone that can be carried in a backpack before being launched to deliver a small explosive at targets on the ground.\n\nWestern officials still warn that President Putin could \"double down with greater brutality\". They say he still has enough firepower to bombard Ukrainian cities for a \"considerable period of time\".\n\nDespite the setbacks, one intelligence official said President Putin was, \"unlikely to be deterred and may instead escalate. He likely remains confident that Russia can militarily defeat Ukraine\". And while the Ukrainian forces have shown fierce resistance, that same official warned that without significant resupplies they too could \"eventually be spent in terms of ammunition and numbers\". The odds may be better than when the war first started, but they still seem stacked against Ukraine.", "On the day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Svetlana found it hard to believe that what she was watching on the news was really happening.\n\nThings were calm in her home town, Bila Tserkva, a historic city on a winding river 80km (50 miles) south of Kyiv.\n\nSvetlana and her husband dragged their mattresses into the corridor of their apartment building and huddled there with their three children. The noise of the sirens was constant and they didn't sleep for days.\n\nThousands of miles away in Australia, Emma Micallif was frantically messaging. The two women are intimately connected because Svetlana is pregnant with Emma's second child. As rockets fell on Bila Tserkva Emma felt angry and helpless.\n\nFor six months the two mums had chatted back and forth using a translation app. They shared pictures of their children, discussed the things they liked to bake with their kids or moaned about the stress of pandemic home-schooling.\n\nNow they were trying to co-ordinate an evacuation.\n\n\"I thought having cancer was stressful or having a baby while having treatment was stressful or having round after round of IVF and it not working was stressful,\" Emma says. \"But it just does not compare.\"\n\nWith the help of the surrogacy agency, Emma got in touch with two other parents who had surrogates in Ukraine. They found a bus that would take the three women and their 10 children on an 18-hour trip to the Moldovan border.\n\nWhen they finally got to the Moldovan capital they were crammed into a small apartment. Emma was horrified when she heard that there weren't enough beds. \"Our lovely, pregnant Svetlana was sleeping on the floor,\" she says.\n\nBut Svetlana was too devastated to care. She had left her husband behind in Ukraine and her mother had fled to Germany. When her mother calls she just cries down the phone.\n\n\"It hurts so much that this war is tearing families apart,\" she told me. \"I feel safe in Moldova but my heart is in Ukraine.\"\n\nMore than 2,000 children are born through surrogacy every year in Ukraine, the majority to foreign couples. The country has around 50 reproductive clinics and many agencies and middle-men who match couples - known as \"intended parents\" - to surrogates.\n\nUkraine is a popular choice because of the way its laws on surrogacy are written. In many European countries, including the UK, when a surrogate gives birth she is listed as the mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be listed as the father. In Ukraine the intended parents are listed as mother and father. That means getting the baby a passport and bringing them home is much simpler.\n\nThe agency that Emma and Svetlana are using is small - it is currently managing nine surrogacies - but Ukraine's biggest agency currently has 500 surrogates at different stages of pregnancy.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Surrogate babies waiting for parents in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine\n\nForty-one babies in its care are stranded in Kyiv, because their intended parents, from all over the world, have been prevented from collecting them by the war. Many of these children are being cared for in a basement nursery in Kyiv as Russian forces sit outside the city and shell it.\n\nEvery day more children are born, but since the invasion only nine sets of parents have risked the journey to Kyiv to pick up their babies. Another five have arranged remote pick-ups. \"If nothing changes in the near future, we may have 100 babies under our care,\" says Denys Herman, the agency's legal adviser.\n\nThe company has been grappling with whether to move the babies out of Kyiv to a safer location in western Ukraine, but transporting them in a war zone also carries risks.\n\nIt's not just Denys Herman who has a problem with stranded babies.\n\nNastya was saving up to buy a house in Kharkiv, where she lives with her two young boys, and coming to the end of her second surrogate pregnancy. When the war broke out she was only weeks from her due date and went into labour to give birth to twins a few days later.\n\n\"We spent the entire time in the hospital in a bomb shelter,\" she says. Kharkiv was under heavy bombardment and the hospital's basement was packed from wall to wall with mattresses and baby cribs. She camped out in a storage room with her two children, sleeping on sofa cushions on the floor, underneath shelves piled high with files and paperwork.\n\n\"But the doctors were wonderful, I am very grateful to them,\" she says. She gave birth to two healthy boys.\n\nA week later she left the hospital. Kharkiv was still under attack and the foreign parents couldn't get there to collect the twins.\n\nSo, together with some staff from her agency, Nastya, her two sons and the new-born twins travelled across Ukraine. She cared for the babies while delivering them to their parents at the border. That was more than a week ago, and she hasn't heard from them since.\n\nWhen Emma envisages the family she wants, she thinks of the drive from her home in Canberra to her parent's place in Sydney. She imagines looking into the back seat and seeing a gaggle of children. Instead, she has one. \"It just feels like a hole in my life,\" she says.\n\nFive years ago while she was pregnant with her son, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The tumour was growing at an alarming rate, helped along by the hormones she produced in pregnancy. It was a rare medical event and when her son was born doctors crowded into the delivery room to observe.\n\n\"He came out perfect, he didn't have to go into the neonatal ICU, so I felt very lucky,\" she says. When her son was only five weeks old, she started intense radiation and chemotherapy which damaged her reproductive organs.\n\n\"I went into early menopause at 29. So that was delightful,\" she says wryly.\n\nIn the five years since her cancer diagnosis, Emma's every waking moment has been consumed by thoughts of how to conceive her second child. She and her husband went through 13 cycles of IVF which were traumatic and expensive, but none of the embryos would ultimately take. \"Surrogacy is never anyone's first pick but it comes as a result of a deep loss beforehand,\" she says.\n\nEmma and her husband, Alex, struggled to find a surrogate in Australia where only altruistic surrogacy is allowed. When they first heard about the option of Ukraine they were hesitant but they were reassured by other Australians who'd had a good experience.\n\nWith their first surrogate, two attempts at pregnancy didn't take, causing further heartbreak. When they were matched with Svetlana and she got pregnant right away it felt like the battle was finally over.\n\n\"It was such a relief that we could stop fighting. We'd been in a state of fight or flight, as husband and wife, for so long.\"\n\nBefore the war, the whole family had planned to travel to Ukraine. Emma had hoped to spend time with Svetlana so that she could tell her new child about her birth mother. With the baby due in a month that's unlikely to happen now.\n\nBut for some intended parents the war is making the relationship with their surrogates even closer.\n\nChristine (not her real name) woke up on the day of the invasion and felt sick. Her surrogate was in Zaporizhzhia, in the south-east of Ukraine, which would make headlines a few days later when its nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, was attacked by Russian forces.\n\nHer surrogate, Tatiana (also not her real name) left for Poland that day with her six-year-old son. Christine marvels at her strength.\n\nWhen she asked Tatiana if she was interested in coming to England Christine wasn't sure how she would react. But she was delighted. \"We can come next week,\" she said. She is one of only four or five women applying for a bespoke visa created by the Home Office for surrogate mothers.\n\n\"The past few days have been unbearably traumatic in what's already been a traumatic year,\" Christine says.\n\nLast January she and her husband lost a child, a daughter who was born prematurely and died at five weeks old. At one point during the delivery her husband was told he might have to choose between Christine and the baby. She was advised not to try again but she did and miscarried again. \"Because I was impatient and grieving and wanting it now, we looked abroad.\"\n\nThey found out Tatiana was pregnant in January this year. \"It was kind of too good to be true,\" she says.\n\nOn Sunday Christine flew to Poland to meet Tatiana for the first time. Both were nervous, but relaxed when a Polish doctor said the results of the first scan were good.\n\nNow they are working hard to get to know each other, using Google translate. \"Yesterday, we had a discussion about our spiritual beliefs, whether we believe in clairvoyance and all those things. It's not just all about pregnancy,\" she says.\n\nThe visa will last three years and Christine and her husband have invited Tatiana to stay with them for as long as she wants to, beyond the birth of their child.\n\nSurrogacy is legal in the UK, but under English law the surrogate's name will be on the birth certificate, along with Christine's husband's. Legal parenthood will then have to be transferred from Tatiana to Christine.\n\nIf the baby is born in a third country there are even more legal complications. And that's left Svetlana, Emma and Alex with a dilemma.\n\nSurrogacy is not permitted in Moldova. If the baby is born there, Svetlana will be its legal guardian. She could place it for adoption but then it could be years before Emma and Alex are allowed to take their child home.\n\nSo together they have come up with a plan for Svetlana to deliver the baby in a city close to the border.\n\nSvetlana has mixed feelings about going back to Ukraine. \"There's shooting everywhere, homes are being reduced to rubble and the Russians are shelling maternity hospitals, kindergartens and schools,\" she says.\n\nOn the other hand, she is desperate to see her husband, who can't leave the country under the terms of Ukraine's martial law.\n\nA mother waits to give birth in a hospital basement in Mykolaiv\n\nFor Emma, the idea of Svetlana returning to a war zone is hard to take. \"If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd say 'No, I wouldn't do that.' Because it's just not what we should be doing. It's not what should be happening,\" she says.\n\nOne possible snag is that it could take weeks for the baby's birth certificate to be issued. If that happens Emma and Alex are not sure what they will do.\n\nThe war has left thousands of surrogates and intended parents in equally terrible positions.\n\nCyrille, who is French, struggled to get in touch with his surrogate in Kharkiv for two weeks after the invasion. When eventually he did, he helped her to come to Paris where he hopes she will stay until she gives birth in August. But she has left her children in western Ukraine with their father, who didn't want them to leave.\n\nNatasha, a surrogate in Cherkasy is 10 weeks pregnant with the baby of a couple in the US. She is tormented by sirens, shelling and morning sickness. \"This is not life, it's a nightmare,\" she says.\n\nJust a few days before the war, I spoke to another surrogate who is pregnant with a baby girl for a couple in Spain. Maryna lived close to Svetlana in the town of Uzyn. When we spoke she was getting ready to move to Kyiv for the last two months of her pregnancy.\n\n\"Kyiv is always going to be a safe place because it's so far from the Donbas,\" she said.\n\nEven after Russia invaded she struggled to imagine how bad things could get. \"I really hope that a brain will appear in Putin's head and he will start to withdraw his troops. Because Ukrainian and Russian mothers didn't give birth to children so that they would fight.\"\n\nJust after Svetlana arrived safely in Moldova, Emma felt a moment of bittersweet relief.\n\n\"She sent me a photo of her youngest daughter with a soft-serve ice cream from McDonalds and a balloon and the biggest smile on her face. And I just completely broke down,\" Emma says.\n\nIt reminded her of what every child should be doing, enjoying her life safely, with her family.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nRafael Nadal has been ruled out for between four and six weeks with a stress fracture of the rib.\n\nThe injury occurred on Saturday during the Spaniard's win against Carlos Alcaraz in the Indian Wells semi-final.\n\nThe 21-time Grand Slam champion found breathing painful and said he was dizzy as he lost the final to Taylor Fritz.\n\nNadal, 35, is expected to miss both of next month's clay court events in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, while the French Open begins in Paris on 22 May.\n\nNadal has won the title at Roland Garros a record 13 times.\n\nIn a post on social media, he said when he returned to Spain he \"immediately went to visit my medical team to do tests after I played with discomfort in the final\".\n\nHe added: \"As it turns out, I have a stress crack in one of my ribs. This is not good news and I did not expect this.\"\n\nNadal has been the form player in the world this year, headlined by his victory in the Australian Open when he beat Daniil Medvedev in an epic final.\n\nHis defeat against Fritz in California was his first of the year, bringing a 20-match winning run to an end.\n\nNadal is not expected to be able to start practising again for four weeks and his next tournament is set to be the Madrid Open in six weeks.\n• None Who was the greatest ever number 10?\n• None If Fergie had quit Man United in 2002... Exploring the greatest 'What If' moments in the English Football history", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she's been spending time catching up with her daughter, in her first media appearance after being held in Iran for six years.\n\nShe said it has been \"lovely\" to catch up with seven-year-old Gabriella, and added she's missed holding her, and braiding her hair.\n\nAsked about a return to Iran, she said she would be \"cautious\".", "Coastal safety warnings have been renewed after a woman who was stranded 10ft (3m) up a cliff face in Cornwall had to be rescued.\n\nThe woman, who was on holiday at the time, was winched to safety by a coastguard helicopter at the weekend in Newquay.\n\nHigh tide was just two hours away and waves were crashing against the rocks when she called 999.", "Amanda Bynes, pictured in 2011, said she had \"been working hard to improve my health\"\n\nFormer actress Amanda Bynes has been released from her nine-year conservatorship by a judge in California.\n\nThe one-time child star was placed under the legal guardianship - similar to that of Britney Spears - in 2013, while undergoing psychiatric care.\n\nBynes, now 35, was known for The Amanda Show and films like What a Girl Wants, She's the Man and Easy A, but suffered drug and mental health problems.\n\nOn Tuesday, Judge Roger L Lund said the conservatorship was no longer required.\n\n\"She's done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,\" he said, according to the New York Times.\n\nA conservatorship is granted by a court for individuals who are unable to make their own decisions. Under the arrangement, Bynes' mother supervised her daughter's financial and personal affairs including her medical decisions.\n\nIn a statement to People, Bynes thanked fans \"for their love and well wishes during this time\".\n\n\"I would also like to thank my lawyer and my parents for their support over the last nine years,\" she said.\n\n\"In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently, and I will continue to prioritize my well-being in this next chapter.\"\n\nBynes' drug use started with marijuana at the age of 16, but her problems deepened when she started taking Adderall, a prescription medicine used to treat people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).\n\nShe retired from acting in 2010, and the conservatorship came about after Bynes was taken to hospital for a mental health assessment, having thought to have started a small fire in the drive of a home in California.\n\nThere had also been erratic behaviour and brushes with the law including charges of drink-driving, hit and run and driving with a suspended licence. She was eventually sentenced to three years probation.\n\nBynes also made headlines for her Twitter rants, which she later said left her \"ashamed and embarrassed\".\n\n\"I can't turn back time but if I could, I would. And I'm so sorry to whoever I hurt and whoever I lied about because it truly eats away at me,\" she told Paper Magazine in 2018.\n\nMore recently she has got herself clean, been living in a \"structured community for women\" and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, as well as getting engaged to her partner, Paul Michael.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, husband Richard and daughter Gabriella shared a hug after she landed at RAF Brize Norton\n\nA relative of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says news of her return to the UK is \"absolutely mind-blowing\" after six years of being detained in Iran.\n\nThe 43-year-old and another detainee, Anoosheh Ashoori, were met at RAF Brize Norton in the early hours.\n\nAlex Loftus, cousin of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, said she did not think it had \"sunk in properly yet\".\n\nMrs Loftus, from Warwickshire, added it had been \"so moving\" seeing the images of her being reunited with family.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori, 67, left Tehran on Wednesday after their release was secured following months of negotiations.\n\nAlex Loftus said she was \"absolutely over the moon\" after years of campaigning over Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release\n\nIt marked the end of an ordeal that saw the British-Iranian national detained, after being accused in 2016 of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.\n\nShe was sentenced to a further year in prison in April last year and a one-year travel ban on charges of propaganda against the government.\n\nBoth Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori have consistently and vigorously denied allegations.\n\nTheir release came after the UK settled a debt to Iran of almost £400m dating from the 1970s.\n\nMrs Loftus, who lives near Southam, said a couple of years ago Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe \"made the very brave decision of sending\" her now seven-year-old daughter, Gabriella, back home.\n\nThe girl rushed to hug her mother after she touched down at Brize Norton.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released after the UK settled a near £400m debt to Iran\n\nMrs Loftus added: \"She could then start having a normal sort of, well the British life that she was meant to have in the first place and go to school, be with her dad.\n\n\"Thankfully we now have Skype... [but] things like... giving Gabriella a kiss goodnight, walking her to school, things like that... she just missed out on.\"\n\nThe cousin said 3.7 million people had signed a Change.org petition and that there had been regular family meetings.\n\n\"We've been there so many times, that there's been hope,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't think any us were ever going to believe it until actually Naz was on that plane out of Iranian airspace.\n\n\"We'll have our time to see them, but at the moment it just needs to be the three of them.\"\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk", "Shelling by Russian forces has prevented civilians from being able to evacuate the besieged port city\n\nThere seems to be no let-up to the horrors facing the southern city of Mariupol.\n\nUkrainian MP Dmytro Gurin has accused Russian forces of trying to starve the besieged port into submission.\n\nAround 300,000 people are believed to be trapped there with supplies running out and aid blocked from entering.\n\nResidents have endured weeks of Russian bombardment with no power or running water.\n\nBut Mr Gurin said there was no question of Mariupol surrendering, and a Monday morning deadline set by the Russians for the city to lay down its arms came and went.\n\nBBC security correspondent Frank Gardner gives four reasons why taking Mariupol is so important for Russia.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the capital Kyiv, eight people were reported dead after a shopping centre and a number of houses were shelled in the Podilskyi district.\n\nWitnesses says the blast at the shopping centre shook the whole city.\n\nFirefighters were seen trying to rescue people stranded beneath the rubble.\n\nThe Retroville mall was opened just before the Covid-19 pandemic and boasted 250 shops, a multiplex cinema and a 3,000-space car park.\n\nKyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko announced a curfew in the city from 2000 local time on Monday to 0700 local time on Wednesday.\n\nThe city of Kherson has been under Russian control since the beginning of March. It is the largest city to be occupied by the invading forces since the offensive began.\n\nBut it has seen daily anti-Russian protests by local residents, and media reports on Monday said several people had been injured after troops opened fire to disperse protesters.\n\nFootage shared on social media, verified by the BBC, also showed explosions which were reported to be stun grenades.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Russian forces open fire on protesters in the city of Kherson\n\nDmytro Kotenko died near the southern city of Kherson and was buried in Lviv, safe for now from falling bombs\n\nThe BBC's Joel Gunter uncovered the story of a young Ukrainian soldier killed in the early days of the invasion.\n\nDmytro Kotenko, 21, was buried hundreds of miles from his family, who are stuck in the northern city of Sumy, cut off from the outside world.\n\nKotenko's childhood friend Vadym Yarovenko was the one who broke the news to Kotenko's parents - it took him all night to work up the courage to make the call to tell them he had died.\n\nWhen he tried to call later about the funeral, the aerial bombardment of Sumy had worsened and the line would not connect. He kept trying but the line stayed dead.\n\nThe sole mourner at his funeral, Yarovenko said it was the saddest thing he had ever experienced.\n\n\"I watched my friend being buried far from his home,\" he said.\n\nHe hopes he can speak to Kotenko's parents again. And he says his will carry the memory of his friend as he waits for his own turn to fight on the frontline.\n\nRussia's stock market has partially resumed trading after a nearly month-long suspension because of the war.\n\nOnly bonds issued by the Russian government can be traded as part of a phased re-opening of the market.\n\nAndrei Braginsky, a spokesman for the Moscow Exchange, said he hoped that trading in stocks would be able to start again soon.\n\nThe invasion and sanctions imposed by Western governments are taking a toll on the Russian economy.\n\nSome supermarkets are rationing sales of basic goods such as salt and cooking oil.\n\nReports from across the country suggest sugar and other staples are being restricted.\n\nHowever, deputy industry and trade minister Viktor Yevtukhov insists \"there is no problem with sugar\".\n\nBoris Romantschenko survived detention in four separate concentration camps between 1942 and 1945\n\nBoris Romantschenko survived the Nazi Holocaust, spending time in Buchenwald and several other camps.\n\nBut at the age of 96 he was killed by Russian shelling of his apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday.\n\nThe Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, of which he was vice-president, announced the death on Monday, saying it was \"deeply disturbed\" by Mr Romantschenko's death.\n\nIt said he had \"worked intensely on the memory of Nazi crimes\".\n\n\"We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times,\" the foundation's statement added.\n\nRussian forces have been relentlessly shelling Kharkiv, which lies just 30 miles (50km) from the border, for over three weeks.", "\"Russia does not start wars, it ends them\" reads a poster of Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, 10 March\n\nVladimir's Putin's invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. We are living in new and more dangerous times - the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\n\nIt is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.\n\nIn November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.\n\nThe peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.\n\nIn Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.\n\nHow many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.\n\nBut that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a \"paradigm shift\". The age of complacency, she said, was over.\n\nQuentin Sommerville, one of the BBC's most experienced war reporters walked through the wreckage in Kharkiv recently and said of the Russian bombardment: \"If these tactics are unfamiliar to you, then you haven't been paying attention.\"\n\nHe should know, he spent enough time under Russian rockets in Syria to be paying very close attention. But the governments of the democratic world - how much attention have they been paying to the nature of the Putin regime?\n\nThe evidence has been building for years.\n\nTwo decades have passed since he sent troops into Georgia claiming he was supporting breakaway regions.\n\nLater, he sent spies into British cities armed with nerve agents to murder exiled Russians.\n\nIn 2014, he invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.\n\nDespite all this, Germany, and much of the EU, were locking themselves into an unhealthy dependence on Russian gas. A year after the annexation of Crimea, they approved the building of a new pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to boost supplies.\n\nThe \"complacency\" Liz Truss refers to also indicts her own country. London has been a safe haven for Russian money since John Major was prime minister. Russian oligarchs have parked billions here, laundered their money, bought up the most prestigious private homes in the capital, socialised with politicians and donated to their campaign funds. Few questions were asked about where their vast wealth, acquired so suddenly, had come from.\n\nSo, no. The Western democracies have not been \"paying attention\" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.\n\nBut Putin, too, has seemed complacent.\n\nReceiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near Lubmin, Germany\n\nFirst, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.\n\nSecond, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.\n\nThird, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this \"special military operation\" to be over in a few days.\n\nRussia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.\n\nIn 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.\n\nA Bosnian special forces soldier and civilians come under fire from Serbian snipers, Sarajevo, 6 April 1992\n\nLike Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.\n\nSo instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?\n\nBut nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt \"liberated\" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.\n\nScrambling for rationed food during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992\n\nIn 1994, while the war in the Balkans was still raging, the rest of Eastern Europe was looking to the future - each nation eager to take what it saw as its natural place in a Europe of independent sovereign states at peace with each other. But it was still far from certain that any of them would be allowed to join Nato.\n\nThere was a debate, back then, about whether a third security block should be formed by the newly-liberated East European nations, to act as a buffer between Nato and Russia. Russia was weak in the 1990s, and the nations that had endured Soviet occupation for 40 years did not trust it to stay weak for long. In the end, they wanted nothing short of Nato membership.\n\nUnder President Bill Clinton, the US pressed ahead with Nato expansion. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who saw himself as a loyal ally of Clinton's, was said to be furious when he found out - at a press conference - that Nato was planning to admit new members without consulting Moscow.\n\nAnd the tearing down of the Iron Curtain had raised a new question in geopolitics - how far east does the Western world extend? I was commissioned by the BBC to take a road trip through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to address the question, \"Where is the eastern edge of the Western world now?\"\n\nI went to the hunting lodge in Belarus where, in late 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, had met his counterparts from Ukraine and Belarus. Here, they agreed to recognise each other's Soviet Republics as independent nation-states. They then rang the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him that the country of which he was head of state - the Soviet Union - no longer existed.\n\nIt was a moment fraught with both danger and opportunity. For Belarus and Ukraine, it was the chance to liberate themselves from Moscow rule - domination by Russian imperialism in both its Tsarist and Soviet forms.\n\nFor Yeltsin, it represented the chance to liberate Russia too - from its historic role as an imperial power. The UK and France had both ceased to be imperial powers after World War Two - as Austria had done after WW1. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk had built a modern European secular republic - a Turkish nation-state - after the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire had been defeated and dismembered in 1918.\n\nUS President George HW Bush with Boris Yeltsin in Maryland, 1992\n\nCould Boris Yeltsin do the same thing - build a modern Russian nation-state, at peace with its sovereign neighbours, on the ruins of the Soviet Empire? In the early 1990s, he began his Westernising experiment, to try to turn an imperial power into a democratic state.\n\nBut the rush - encouraged by the Western democracies eager for investment opportunities - to turn a sclerotic, state-owned command economy into a free-market system was disastrous. It created gangster capitalism. A tiny elite became fabulously rich by plundering the assets of the major industries - especially oil and gas.\n\nThe wheels finally came off the experiment in 1998. The economy collapsed, the rouble lost two-thirds of its value in a month and inflation hit 80%.\n\nI stood with a middle-aged couple in a queue at a Moscow bank. They wanted to take their money out in dollars or pounds - anything other than roubles. The queue was long and slow-moving and, every few minutes, a bank employee changed the displayed exchange rate, as the rouble plunged further. People could see their life savings dropping in value by the minute. The couple got close to the head of the queue when suddenly the shutters came down - there was no cash left.\n\nI went to a former coal-mining region near the Ukraine border, where the mines were barely functioning. I met a graduate mining engineer who had lost his job - a man in his 30s with a young family. He took me to his dacha outside the city, which had about an acre of land. \"About 80% of what my family eat in the year,\" he said. \"I grow on this patch of land. The rest, like coffee and sugar, I barter for. I haven't used or even seen cash in about 18 months.\" Nothing spoke more powerfully about Yeltsin's failure to transform Russia than the sight of this highly educated man digging for his own dinner.\n\n\"Stalin turned a nation of peasants into an industrial superpower in a generation. Yeltsin is doing the same thing in reverse,\" he told me.\n\nOrdinary Russians felt robbed. The great westernising experiment had been a con trick that had enriched a criminalised elite and impoverished everyone else. Many of the reports we filed from Russia at that time boiled down to a single question: \"What are the political consequences of the profound disenchantment that Russians now feel?\"\n\nThe answer was that Russia, eventually, would revert to type - a retreat from democracy and a return to authoritarian rule. A retreat from nation-statehood and return to a more assertive imperial attitude to its \"near abroad\" - the countries that had previously been part of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said that Russia could be a democracy or an empire, but it could not be both. The Russian emblem, the double-headed eagle, looks both east and west. History has pulled Russia in opposing directions - democratic nation statehood in one direction, domineering imperial power in the other.\n\nGo to St Petersburg and you will see another aspect of this dual character. It is the country's beautiful bay window on the Gulf of Finland. It is an 18th Century city, facing west. It is the European Enlightenment in architectural form. Under the Tsars it was the imperial capital.\n\nAfter the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks moved the capital back to Moscow and power retreated behind the high, crenellated walls of the Kremlin. It is the architecture of defensiveness, of suspicion, even fear. When Russian leaders look west from here, they see flat open countryside rolling away to the south and west for hundreds of miles. There are no natural frontiers.\n\nThe crenellated red walls of the Kremlin in Moscow\n\nWhen I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent in the late 1990s, there was a driver who could remember, as a boy, seeing German troops on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1940s. Every time he took us to Sheremetyevo Airport, we would pass a monument designed to look like metal anti-tank defences - so-called Czech hedgehogs - and he would say: \"This is how close they came, the Germans.\"\n\nNapoleon's army had gone further the previous century. That experience - that chronic sense of an insecure western frontier - informs the way Russian leaders have thought about their \"near abroad\".\n\nIn another conversation about the \"near abroad\", a friend recited a rhyming couplet to me. In Russian it rhymes nicely, but in English it goes: \"A chicken's not really a bird; and Poland's not really abroad.\" Russia's sense of what it is entitled to in the lands to its west penetrates popular consciousness, too.\n\nI will borrow an anecdote from another friend in Moscow at the time. The same driver picked her up from the airport and asked her where she had been. \"I've been for a weekend in Prague,\" she said. \"Oh Prague,\" came the reply. \"That's good. That's ours.\"\n\nBut it wasn't. The Berlin Wall had come down nine years earlier and the nations of Eastern Europe had ceased being \"ours\".\n\nExcept Ukraine. Putin regards it not as a neighbouring country, but as the frontier land of Russia itself - and he wants it brought back into the Russian fold.\n\nWhat would it take to do that? How can a nation that has put up so unified a resistance be subdued? Almost certainly he has overreached himself. Several factors must now be alarming him.\n\nThe first is the state of his own armed forces.\n\nThe second is the resilience of the Ukrainian defence. Did Putin really expect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine to welcome his troops as liberators? Did he really believe that the uprising of 2014 - which replaced the pro-Moscow government with one oriented to the West - was all a Western plot? If he did, then it reveals how little the Kremlin understands about its \"near abroad\".\n\nBut his biggest miscalculation has been to underestimate the resolve of the West. And this is what makes 2022 one of those pivotal years - the zeitenwende, in the words of Chancellor Scholz.\n\nAlmost overnight, Germany has transformed its attitude to its role in the world. Traditionally reluctant - for sound historical reasons - to throw its weight around, it had preferred the exercise of soft power to hard. Not now. It has announced a doubling of defence spending, and is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Gone, too, is the ostpolitik - the decades-old German policy of seeking peace through engagement, especially trade.\n\nGermany, along with the rest of the democratic world, will now move to end its dependence on Russian gas. The Nord Stream 2 project is suspended - though not yet scrapped. We are seeing a root-and-branch redrawing of the map of global energy distribution, aimed at cutting Russia out of it.\n\nRussia is highly integrated into the global economy. But now it has been expelled from the system the world uses to exchange payment for goods and services. Its industries, including oil and gas, depend on imported goods and components. Soon production will grind to a halt. Employers will have to lay off their workers. Unemployment will rise.\n\nNo-one expected the West to sanction the Russian Central Bank. Already, the rouble has collapsed and interest rates have doubled. No other major economy has ever been subjected to a package of sanctions this punitive. It amounts to the expulsion of Russia from the global economy. More workers will be laid off. Major industries will find it hard to carry on. Unemployment will rise further. Soaring inflation will erode life savings.\n\nWe will all be affected. Potentially, this is the rolling back of the globalised economy that emerged after the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe US and the EU have, in effect, divided the world up. Those states and companies that continue to trade with Russia will find themselves punished - also frozen out of trade with the rich world.\n\nIt amounts to a new economic iron curtain separating Russia from the West.\n\nMuch will depend on how China negotiates this new landscape. China and Russia are bonded by their shared antipathy to American power, and their conviction that the greatest threat is from a resurgent, more unified democratic world.\n\nChina does not want Putin weakened, or the West strengthened. Yet that is exactly what the effect the war in Ukraine has had.\n\nSome China watchers believe Beijing will try to challenge the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency by carving out a distinct yuan zone as an alternative space in the global economy that can be protected from any future attempt by the US to sanction China. Putin's war, therefore, could redraw the international financial map.\n\nBut above all, this is a war that pits the world's democracies against the world's authoritarian regimes.\n\nIt is also a war between two conflicting conceptions of the rules by which international relations should function.\n\nThe Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash says these two world views can be expressed in short form by two words - Helsinki versus Yalta.\n\nAt Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved post-war Europe into \"spheres of influence\" - most of Eastern Europe to Russia, the West to the trans-Atlantic alliance that would set about rebuilding Europe's democracies.\n\n\"Helsinki\", by contrast, describes a Europe of independent sovereign states, each of which is free to choose its own alliances. This grew out of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and gradually evolved into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.\n\nUkraine's defenders are fighting for Helsinki. Putin has sent his troops in to impose a modern version of Yalta - which would kill off Ukraine's independence and leave it under Russian domination.\n\nGarton Ash argues that the West has been too half-hearted in defending the values of Helsinki - that it has formally acknowledged Ukraine's right to join Nato at some unspecified date in the future without ever intending to make it happen.\n\nBut Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled a readiness to compromise on Helsinki principles, by agreeing to abandon Ukraine's ambition to become a Nato member. With all the risks that entails, it may yet be the price Ukraine pays for the survival of its statehood.\n\nMy generation grew up with the existential terror of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The conflict has brought that fear back to public consciousness. Putin has threatened to use Russia's nuclear arsenal.\n\nThat makes this the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to its ally Cuba. The US assembled a fleet to blockade (or \"quarantine\") Cuba and was considering an attack on the island by air and/or sea.\n\nWhat the Americans did not know is that the Soviets didn't only have long-range strategic missiles. They also had smaller, tactical nuclear missiles - so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. And that Soviet military doctrine delegated first-use decision making to commanders on the ground.\n\nHad the threatened invasion gone ahead, it would have triggered a nuclear exchange.\n\nThe then American Defence Secretary Robert McNamara only found out about this when the Soviet archives opened in 1991. Only then, did he understand how close the world had come to catastrophe.\n\nIn a remarkable film called Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, he explained how the world had avoided destroying itself. Was it skilled diplomacy? Wise leadership? No.\n\n\"Luck,\" he said. \"We lucked out.\"\n\nThat experience, now fading from memory, should focus minds.\n\nCorrection: This article previously referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski as a former US secretary of state, rather than former national security adviser", "Bella-Rae Birch's family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\"\n\nA 17-month-old girl has died after being attacked by a dog in her home.\n\nBella-Rae Birch died in hospital after the attack in St Helens at about 15:50 GMT on Monday, Merseyside Police said.\n\nHer family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\" and thanked the community for its support.\n\nOfficers said her \"absolutely devastated\" family had only bought the dog, which was killed by police, a week ago and tests would be carried out to see if it was an illegal breed.\n\nPolice said they would also try to identify its previous owners as part of the investigation.\n\nSupt Steve Brizell said the toddler's death had \"left a family and a community grieving and in complete shock\".\n\n\"Bella-Rae has lost her life in the most unimaginably terrible circumstances,\" he said.\n\n\"At this stage we understand that the family dog they had bought just a week earlier has attacked Bella-Rae inside the family home.\n\n\"Bella-Rae was taken by ambulance to hospital by paramedics but despite the best efforts of police officers at the scene, paramedics and doctors sadly Bella-Rae died as a result of her injuries.\"\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in St Helens on Monday afternoon\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in Bidston Avenue in the Blackbrook area of St Helens.\n\nOne neighbour, who gave her name as Jordan, said the child's parents were \"hysterical\".\n\n\"We pulled up from school and heard screaming. I just ran over to try to help and started CPR until the paramedics took over,\" she said.\n\n\"I didn't see the dog, I was just focusing on helping the baby.\"\n\nAnother neighbour who helped to give CPR said: \"The parents doted on the children. It's too upsetting to say anything else.\"\n\nJoanne Matthews said she saw an ambulance outside the house and then about 10 police vehicles arrived.\n\n\"I saw them bring the dog out. I couldn't tell what breed it was but from the back it looked like a Staffordshire bull terrier or pit bull,\" she said.\n\nBella-Rae's death has \"left a family and a community grieving and in complete shock\", police said\n\nMs Matthews, 53, said the toddler was \"a beautiful little girl\".\n\n\"I'd see the family in passing, just to say hello, and they were always very pleasant,\" she said.\n\nAnother neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she got home when the area was busy with police.\n\n\"The mum was on the field at the front of the house crying. She was hysterical,\" she said.\n\n\"It is usually very quiet here and safe for children, but when you hear something like this has happened it is so distressing.\"\n\nFloral tributes have been left outside the family's home\n\nTwo police officers remain at the family's home.\n\nThe streets were quiet this morning as people come to terms with the tragedy.\n\nIt is the early stages of the investigation and police were carrying out house-to-house inquiries and looking at CCTV footage.\n\nAs officers conduct tests to see what breed of dog it was, and try to trace its previous owners, they were also reassuring neighbours who are shocked and distressed at the attack.\n\nIn a statement, Bella-Rae's family said they would \"like to thank the community for their support\".\n\n\"We would ask that we are now allowed some space and time to try and come to terms with the tragic loss of our much-loved Bella-Rae,\" they added.\n\nAnyone who witnessed anything in the area at the time, or who has information about the dog, has been asked to contact police.\n\nSupt Brizell said the force was providing the family with support and officers would remain in the area in the coming days to provide \"further reassurance and support\" to the wider community.\n\nMerseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell said she was \"devastated to hear news that a young girl tragically lost her life\".\n\n\"Thoughts are with her family and loved ones,\" she tweeted.\n\nMs Spurrell said the police and St Helens Council were supporting the family and the local community.\n\nSt Helens Labour councillor Jeanie Bell said the girl's death was \"absolutely awful\".\n\nShe tweeted: \"I cannot begin to imagine the heartbreak for their family.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "At least one person has died and 12 were injured in a Russian air strike on a residential building in Ukraine's capital Kyiv.\n\nFirefighters attended the scene in Obolon district in the aftermath of the attack.\n\nFootage shows a woman - and her pet - being brought to the ground from an apartment in the smoking building.", "He wears it well: Sir Rod Stewart was pictured in a high-vis vest, shovelling gravel\n\nA council has urged people not to try to repair potholes themselves after Sir Rod Stewart was filmed doing it.\n\nInstagram videos showed the singer, 77, shovelling gravel near his home near Harlow, Essex, claiming drivers were \"bashing their cars up\" on the road.\n\nHis post was liked more than 75,000 times in a day and prompted comments praising his actions.\n\nAn Essex County Council cabinet member warned anyone attempting to repair a road could become liable for accidents.\n\nLee Scott, who is responsible for highways maintenance at the authority, said: \"You can't take matters into your own hands.\n\n\"People must always report potholes to the council and we will fix anything that's dangerous.\"\n\nThe rural road near Harlow in Essex has many potholes\n\nIn the Instagram post, Sir Rod claimed the road had been in need of repair \"for ages\" but that \"no-one can be bothered to do it\".\n\nDressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest, he explained why he and \"the boys\" decided to fix it themselves.\n\n\"People are bashing their cars up. The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all,\" he said.\n\nMr Scott promised he would \"endeavour to rectify it\" and asked for an officer report as quickly as possible.\n\nHe said: \"All road repairs have to be done to a professional level or the person doing it could become liable for any problems or accidents\".\n\nHe added he would be happy to arrange a meeting with the singer to discuss the issue.\n\nThe BBC has approached Sir Rod for comment.\n\nThe 77-year-old is seen singing and shovelling gravel near Harlow in Essex\n\nDominic Zarian from the area spent about £130 on car repairs after being unable to avoid \"a massive crack\" in the road, which he says he reported to the council four weeks ago.\n\nHe said: \"That road is dark, when it's wet it can be treacherous. Someone's going to get hurt.\"\n\nEssex County Council's pothole webpage said all reports were inspected but \"the timescale for the repair depends on the risk assessment and which type of road the pothole is on\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko addressed the crowd\n\nThe Ukrainian ambassador to the UK has called for Britain to do more to help his country.\n\nVadym Prystaiko, addressing a Downing Street rally, called for more support, weapons and humanitarian assistance as Russia continues its invasion.\n\nHundreds gathered at the rally with chants of \"stop Putin\" being heard and calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.\n\nThe UK has rejected a no-fly zone over fears it would start a Europe-wide war with a nuclear-armed power.\n\n\"We need support, we need weapons, we need humanitarian assistance,\" Mr Prystaiko said.\n\nHe added: \"We will fight. We will bring [Putin] down.\"\n\nDemonstrators shouted \"stand with Ukraine\" and \"shelter our sky\", and held banners with \"stop Putin\" written in mock blood.\n\nSome in the crowd called for a no-fly zone to be established over Ukraine, while others wanted the UK to take in more refugees.\n\nSome protesters were calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine\n\nCampaign group London Euromaidan, set up by Ukrainians living in London, organised the protest. They want the UK to expel Russian companies and oligarchs that support Putin's regime from London.\n\nIt comes as Ukrainian cities face heavy shelling from Russian forces, including at a military training base near Poland.\n\nKatya, a Ukrainian attending the protest, told the BBC more help was needed for Ukrainian refugees, including those who do not have family ties in the UK.\n\nShe said: \"A lot of people just lost their homes, just help them to live in these difficult times...\n\n\"Already more than two million people have left Ukraine. Countries such as Poland take a lot of refugees and it has become a humanitarian catastrophe.\n\n\"I think the UK should allow more people to come and stay here.\"\n\nKatya, originally from Ukraine, said more help was need for refugees\n\nThe protest follows criticism of the government - including from its own MPs - over the speed and scale of its response.\n\nThe government has offered households in the UK £350 a month to open their homes to tens of thousands of people that could come fleeing war in Ukraine.\n\nA separate Ukraine protest also took place outside the BBC's headquarters, near Oxford Circus, and was heading to Parliament Square.\n\nOn Saturday hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Downing Street.", "A leading food industry boss has warned that prices will spike as a result of the war in Ukraine.\n\nRonald Kers, the boss of food firm 2 Sisters, told the BBC that the cost of food could rise by up to 15% this year.\n\nHe added that the price the company pays for chicken from the farm has jumped.\n\nTop UK flour producer GR Wright & Sons' has also warned its prices are \"absolutely certain\" to rise due to the conflict.\n\nRussia and Ukraine are some of the world's biggest suppliers of wheat and exports are expected to be affected by the war.\n\nIn addition, the price of gas - which is used to heat greenhouses and to make fertiliser, which is essential to food production - has soared.\n\nWar in the region is likely to exacerbate prices that were already increasing during what has been described as a cost of living crisis, according to some experts.\n\n2 Sisters employs more than 14,000 people in the UK and specialises in poultry and chilled foods.\n\nIts chief executive told the BBC's Today programme that it had already been forced to pay 50% more for chicken it receives from farms.\n\nHe suggested that if the war continues for months, \"fundamentally it means as a country we may need to start importing less and producing more ourselves\".\n\n\"We need to work together with all supply chain partners to find a solution... it's a very complex issue.\"\n\nMr Kers also suggested that the UK's exit from the European Union had made matters more difficult, due to a bigger administrative burden for farmers and less alignment on rules with food companies on the continent.\n\nMeanwhile, David Wright, managing director of flour milling company GR Wright & Sons', said that cost increases would \"inevitably\" be passed on to consumers.\n\nThe firm, which has over 44% of the market share for the UK's bread mixes, said it was already struggling with soaring inflation before the conflict, with costs jumping by 30% between September and December.\n\n\"Now we have a similar increase [in price due to Ukraine], but instead of it taking four months it has taken two weeks,\" Mr Wright told BBC Breakfast.\n\nEach lorry load of wheat the firm buys costs now costs an extra £2,500, he said. With the company buying around 20 loads per day, it faces paying an extra £1m per month to keep the business running.\n\nThough availability will not be an issue, Mr Wright said, he is \"absolutely certain\" that consumer prices will need to rise.\n\n\"The price is so high so quickly that if you don't put the price of flour up, businesses will go out of business - it's as simple as that,\" he added.\n\nThe comments come shortly after the National Farmers Union (NFU) warned that food production could be hit, affecting the affordability of food in the shops for years.\n\nIn a letter to the government last week, it called for urgent help for farmers.\n\n\"The government must act now, with a clear signal that food security is a priority for the nation,\" the NFU said.\n\nNFU president Minette Batters also told the BBC last week that the rising cost of producing fruit, vegetables and meat could cause farmers to make less at a time when the nation needs more.\n\n\"I think the whole world has got to recognise that this is not something we've faced before, we are going to see wheat price inflation levels that have never happened,\" she said.\n\nIt suggested that farmers have been absorbing costs that have gone up so far.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ros Atkins on why the war in Ukraine is pushing up food prices - and the likely impact on poorer countries\n\nUK feed wheat prices, for example, are already 39% up on March 2021 at £279.40 a tonne, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)\n\nOther organisations have warned that any costs passed on by food producers would hit those on the lowest incomes the hardest.\n\nResearch from the Resolution Foundation think tank published on Monday suggests that the war in Ukraine could see another spike in the cost of living this autumn.\n\nIt said that inflation, which tracks how the cost of living changes over time, could reach 10% for the poorest households, whose energy and food bills make up a bigger proportion of their budgets.\n\nJames Smith, research director at the Resolution Foundation, called on the chancellor to protect poorest households the \"biggest cost of living crisis Britain has faced in generations\" at his upcoming spring statement on 23 March.\n\nThe jump in oil prices since the beginning of the war in Ukraine has pushed up fuel prices, and the price of unleaded petrol hit another record high in the UK at the weekend.\n\nThe RAC said the average price of a litre of unleaded petrol hit 163.46p on Sunday, while diesel rose to 173.44p.\n\nHowever, oil prices have fallen from their highs and the AA said that \"wild\" pump prices should stabilise or fall back this week, unless the price of oil takes off again.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA woman holding an anti-war sign ran on to the set of a Russian evening news programme on the state-controlled Channel 1 on Monday evening.\n\nThe sign, clearly visible behind the presenter, read: \"No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.\"\n\nThe woman has been named as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the channel.\n\nRussian TV news is tightly controlled by the Kremlin and reflects only the Russian version of events in Ukraine.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova is believed to be in police custody.\n\nHer voice could be heard during the broadcast saying, \"No to war! Stop the war!\" before the programme director cut early to a recorded news report.\n\nBefore the protest, which happened live on the nightly news programme, she recorded a video in which she called events in Ukraine a \"crime\" and said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda.\n\n\"I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,\" she explained.\n\nShe called on the Russian people to protest against the war, saying that only they could \"stop the madness\".\n\nFrom the moment Ms Ovsyannikova's identity became known, she has received dozens of comments on her Facebook page in Ukrainian, Russian and English, thanking her for her actions.\n\nRussian television news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all the major channels.\n\nBut new laws introduced since the invasion of Ukraine have made the media landscape even more draconian. Legislation passed earlier this month made it illegal to call the military action an \"invasion\" or to disseminate \"fake\" news about it.\n\nState-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a \"special military operation\" and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, with a government described as neo-Nazi.\n\nSeveral of the remaining independent media outlets have stopped broadcasting or publishing after pressure from the authorities, including the radio station Echo of Moscow and TV Rain - an online TV channel.\n\nOthers, like newspaper Novaya Gazeta, are attempting to report on the situation without falling foul of the new censorship laws.\n\nAccess to the BBC has also been restricted inside Russia, leading the corporation to issue guidance over how to continue using its services.\n\nRussia's media watchdog accused the BBC and other foreign broadcasters of the \"deliberate and systematic circulation of materials containing false information\".\n\nMany social media sites have also been blocked, further restricting the number and diversity of news sources available to people inside Russia.\n\nFacebook and Twitter have been restricted for several days, while Instagram - which is particularly popular in Russia - was blocked on Monday, although many Russians have found ways round the restrictions.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "A pair of twins thought to be the most premature to survive in the UK are both home with their family.\n\nHarley and Harry Crane were born at 22 weeks and five days at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.\n\nHarry was discharged last week after almost five months in the neonatal unit, and his sister Harley is now home too after 140 days in intensive care.\n\nTheir parents Steve and Jade Crane, from Heanor, Derbyshire, said they were \"absolutely ecstatic\".\n\n\"It's been such a long time and although it's been a really, really treacherous journey, 140 days ago we didn't think we'd be here,\" said Mr Crane.\n\n\"It's just so affirmative to see them together and to be walking out that door.\n\n\"The absolutely stunning doctors, nurses and surgeons have all been part of the making of this moment. It's hard to say goodbye to them but I hope I never see them again.\"\n\nTwin brother Harry went back to hospital to collect sister Harley on Monday\n\nWhen they were born, Harry weighed 520g (1.14lb) and Harley 500g (1.10lb). They were described by doctors as the size of Mars bars.\n\nThe babies were put into the bereavement suite for parents because doctors expected only one of them would survive.\n\nHowever their parents said they had been \"little fighters\".\n\n\"Can't wait to get them home where they belong and start our life as a family,\" said Mrs Crane.\n\n\"We've waited 140 days for this. It's really emotional. Sad to leave the team but happy to be going home.\"\n\nThe couple, who have been sharing their journey on Instagram, had tried to have children for 11 years with multiple IVFs, spending £50,000 on fertility treatments.\n\nMother Jade Crane said the twins had been \"little fighters\"\n\nThe twins have had six operations and 25 blood transfusions between them, and suffered sepsis, eye problems, brain and lung bleeds.\n\nDoctors warned they could face developmental challenges in the future and they still need oxygen to help them breathe, which will be monitored at home by their parents.\n\nNeonatologist, Dr Chantelle Tomlinson, said the day was \"huge\" for the family and had \"been coming for a really long time for them\".\n\nShe said while their news was exciting it is never to be taken for granted that all the babies will go home.\n\n\"For any of the families who need our real high-level intensive care, and have spent time on the unit with us, there's nothing to be presumed about the fact that they're going to go home, so we're delighted that they [the Crane twins] are.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The government has launched its Homes for Ukraine site for those wanting to host a refugee, with 100,000 signing up within the first day.\n\nHousing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove said the UK had a history of \"supporting the most vulnerable during their darkest hours\".\n\nHe said there would be no limit to how many Ukrainians could enter the UK under the visa sponsorship scheme.\n\nEach household housing a refugee will be offered £350 a month, tax-free.\n\nThey will not be expected to provide food and living expenses but can choose to offer this.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said it was \"fantastic\" that more than 100,000 people and organisations had expressed interest in supporting Ukrainians.\n\n\"Thank you to everyone across the country who has stepped up to offer their help so far,\" he tweeted.\n\nPeople who wish to offer a rent-free space in their home or a separate residence, for at least six months, can register their interest online.\n\nThey will be able to individually sponsor a Ukrainian national's visa from Friday. Those initial applications will rely on the applicant knowing a named individual from Ukraine they want to help.\n\nBut Ukrainian refugees with no family or other links to the UK can and will be hosted as part of the scheme, Mr Gove said.\n\nHe said the sponsorship scheme was initially only between people who are already known to each other so it gets \"up and running as soon as possible\".\n\nThe scheme will be expanded with the support of charities, community groups and churches who can help with matching refugees to hosts.\n\nNo timescale has been announced for when this will happen but Mr Gove said it would expand \"rapidly\".\n\nThe government has faced criticism - including from its own MPs - over the speed and scale of its response to the refugee crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAlmost three million people have fled Ukraine since Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion nearly three weeks ago.\n\nMr Gove had said the scheme was open to nationals and residents of Ukraine, but his department later clarified that those eligible were Ukrainian nationals and immediate family members who had been resident prior to 1 January.\n\nAs part of the scheme, refugees will have access to the NHS and other public services. Their children will be able to attend local schools.\n\nLocal authorities will also receive £10,500 in extra funding per refugee for support services - with more for children of school age.\n\nMr Gove said everyone in the UK was \"in awe of the bravery of the people of Ukraine\".\n\n\"The victims of savage, indiscriminate, unprovoked aggression, their courage under fire and their determination to resist inspires our total admiration,\" he said.\n\nBoth hosts and refugees taking part in Homes for Ukraine will be vetted.\n\nIn addition, local councils will check that the accommodation offered is suitable, the government said.\n\nA Department for Education source told the BBC the government was planning for a capacity of around 100,000 school-age Ukrainian children to be placed in UK schools and said they were confident the school system could cope.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Michael Gove sets out how British sponsors can take in refuges in the Homes for Ukraine scheme\n\nShadow housing and communities secretary Lisa Nandy said Labour was concerned about \"the lack of urgency\" and added that the visa application process could be simplified.\n\nShe said: \"We could keep essential checks but drop the excessive bureaucracy.\"\n\nOne person putting her name forward is Mandi Arnold, who lives in Shropshire with her partner and three children.\n\nMandi, 35, says life in her house is already hectic and so \"it might as well be even busier\" with an extra couple of people.\n\n\"I would love to welcome someone in my home to give them that security and love,\" she says. \"I've got a lot of love to give and it's the perfect opportunity to give it to someone who's in need.\"\n\nMandi says her two sons are too young to understand what housing a refugee would involve but that she and her husband have chatted to her nine-year-old daughter, Amalia, about it.\n\nHusband and wife team Mandy and Mark Durrell were also among the first to register to offer a room.\n\nThe Methodist ministers from Bangor said watching the news from Ukraine had been heartbreaking.\n\n\"We want to offer space, companionship, comfort and safety,\" said Mark. \"We have this home. There's two of us and the dog - and there's space here to give someone refuge and sanctuary.\"\n\nRefugees at Home, which finds host families for refugees and asylum seekers, said it wanted to see \"as many refugees housed as soon as possible\".\n\nIts executive director Lauren Scott stressed that home visits should take place before a placement is made and called for follow-up support to be offered to hosts and guests alike.\n\nThere should also be plans for what happens \"for the rare situations in which a placement does not work out\", she added.\n\nAll that should be done quickly and also \"in a thoughtful, sensitive and thought-through way\".\n\nIryna Terlecky, a board member of the Associations of Ukrainians in Great Britain and chair of the Association of Ukrainian Women, praised the British public's response to the scheme but she told the Today programme £10,500 per refugee \"may well not be enough\" for local authorities.\n\n\"What we want to see is that local authorities have the right level of funding so that they can continue to support, not only the families coming over but also their sponsors.\n\n\"For a six-month commitment there will be times when for whatever reason it doesn't work out and local authorities and the established charities and the Ukrainian community need to be there to help in those circumstances.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he will open his home to a Ukrainian family\n\nHomes for Ukraine is the second visa scheme the government has set up since the war broke out.\n\nThe first has allowed Ukrainians with an immediate or extended family member in the UK to apply for a family visa to join them.\n\nUkrainian passport holders no longer have to attend in-person appointments at visa application centres to submit their fingerprints and facial recognition, the Home Office said, with applicants now able to fill out forms online before giving their biometrics on arrival in the UK.\n\nSome 4,600 visas have so far been granted through that route, the latest Home Office figures show.\n\nThe Home Office has defended requiring security checks on Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion. It says it must ensure the UK helps those in genuine need as it has seen people falsely claim to be Ukrainian.\n\nHave you signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n• None Homes for Ukraine – Homes for Ukraine – Local Sponsorship Scheme for Ukraine The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nKai Havertz has scored in three consecutive Premier League appearances for the first time, and in all competitions he has had a hand in six goals in his last five games (five goals, one assist) Chelsea snatched a dramatic winner against Newcastle in the first game at Stamford Bridge since Blues' Russian owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government. The game looked to be heading towards a goalless draw before Kai Havertz expertly controlled a ball forward and fired into the net in the 88th minute. It was a tough goal to concede for Newcastle who had wanted Havertz to be sent off in the first half for catching Dan Burn in the face with an elbow when jumping, but the German only received a booking. Before the goal, both sides had struggled to create clear-cut chances, with Chelsea taking 75 minutes to produce an effort on target. Newcastle's Miguel Almiron had earlier forced a fine save from home goalkeeper Edouard Mendy with a well-struck 25-yard volley and Burn headed just wide. Just as had happened in Chelsea's 3-1 away win over Norwich on Thursday, a small section of fans chanted Abramovich's name, for a brief period in the second half. Abramovich has been sanctioned as a part of the government's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, meaning his assets, including Chelsea Football Club, have been frozen.\n• None Prospective owner Candy wants fan on club board if Chelsea takeover successful\n• None Chelsea v Newcastle as it happened, plus reaction and analysis A good end to a tough week for Chelsea and Tuchel Chelsea stay third, but are now only seven points behind second-placed Liverpool and 10 adrift of leaders Manchester City. Meanwhile, Newcastle, beaten for the first time in nine Premier League matches, are 14th, 10 points clear of the relegation zone. The relief and delight shown from Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel, both at the goal and again at the final whistle, showed what this meant to him by screaming at the fans and punching the air. And it was easy to see why he was so emotional with the club's very existence potentially under threat. Abramovich has been the Chelsea owner for nearly 19 years, a period in which they have won 21 trophies, including the Premier League on five occasions and the Champions League twice. But the current sanctions against him have stopped him selling Chelsea, and mean the club are unable to buy or sell players, cannot sell any more tickets for games, have had their credit cards suspended and have had to close the club shop. The government said it would issue a special licence that allowed fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches, although the club's wage bill stands at £28m a month. It seemed fitting that Newcastle, another side with hugely controversial owners following their takeover in October by the Saudi Arabian-backed Public Investment Fund (PIF), were Chelsea's opponents on a day when events off the field were talked about as much as those on it. Newcastle's takeover and the potential huge investment into the club was celebrated by their fans a few months ago, although Amnesty International said \"it represented a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football\". Despite the late defeat, this was another sign of the progress Newcastle are making on the pitch. There was plenty for Newcastle boss Eddie Howe to be positive about given his side were only a few minutes away from securing a point away at the current European and world champions. Arriving at a club without a league win and with only six points from 12 matches, he began with five defeats in his first eight games in all competitions, including a humiliating home loss to third-tier Cambridge United in the FA Cup third round. But, after spending £80m in the January transfer window, the Magpies had been on a run of eight games unbeaten, including six victories, before this narrow loss. The visitors had defended superbly up until Jorginho's excellent ball over the defence found Havertz, who showed his class to control it and then score the winner to delight the packed crowd at Stamford Bridge. Howe said he thought Havertz could have been sent off but was also disappointed his side did not get a second-half penalty when Trevoh Chalobah had a hold of Jacob Murphy's shirt. Newcastle wanted Chelsea's Kai Havertz to be sent off for elbowing Dan Burn, but Havertz only received a yellow card after a check by the video assistant referee\n• None Attempt saved. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Dwight Gayle (Newcastle United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Goal! Chelsea 1, Newcastle United 0. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Jorginho with a through ball.\n• None Offside, Chelsea. Mateo Kovacic tries a through ball, but Romelu Lukaku is caught offside.\n• None Mateo Kovacic (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt saved. Fabian Schär (Newcastle United) header from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Matt Targett with a cross. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "John Rutherford and his wife have previously hosted refugees from Ethiopia and Iran\n\nPeople in the UK are being asked to offer a spare room to Ukrainian refugees. But what is it like sharing your home with someone who has fled war or persecution?\n\nFor the third time in a year, John Rutherford and his wife Sue are considering opening up their south London house to a refugee.\n\n\"We have a big house, my kids have left home,\" says John. \"It's not a great hardship for us to make some space for a refugee.\"\n\nIn 2021, they hosted one person from Ethiopia and one from Iran, each for a couple of weeks while they awaited longer-term accommodation during the asylum application process.\n\nAnd now, he is ready to open his five-bedroom house again.\n\nHe says: \"It was the sheer numbers involved that made me want to help. The fact that this is only down the road... means there is even more obligation for us to be hospitable.\n\n\"There could be four or five million people looking for places to stay, so the UK has to do its bit and the British people have to do their bit.\"\n\nHe says the system for Ukrainian refugees will involve a bigger commitment than his Ethiopian and Iranian guests - the government are asking for people to offer a place to stay for at least six months.\n\nBut John says hosting refugees can be very rewarding.\n\n\"I really enjoy meeting people and talking to people from different cultures,\" he says. \"I just found the experience absolutely fascinating, talking about their country, their experiences, their culture.\"\n\nHe says his refugee guests wanted to be useful. The Ethiopian made a meal for his hosts to introduce them to his country's cuisine, while the Iranian repeatedly offered to use his professional skills to repair things around the house.\n\nBut he advises anyone considering being a host to be \"patient and understanding\" - and to learn as much about their guest as they can, in order to offer them the right kind of environment.\n\n\"A lot of refugees will be severely stressed, maybe they even have PTSD,\" John says.\n\n\"Chances are, refugees have had terrible experiences, and you have to know when to give them some space and some peace and quiet, or when they might want companionship.\"\n\nEfrem, from Ethiopia, shared his country's cuisine with John and Sue when he stayed with them\n\nHe suggests finding out about their interests; whether they want to attend a church or other religious services; whether they have hobbies; or whether they prefer peace and relaxation or keeping busy.\n\nBut with the Homes for Ukraine scheme requiring people in the UK to identify a named refugee they can host, John questions how many people who might want to help - but don't have a personal connection with a Ukrainian - could be matched with someone.\n\nOn previous occasions John hosted refugees, it was arranged by the charity Refugees At Home, which visited him to check on the accommodation being offered and asked about any house rules.\n\nHe then received information about the refugee they hoped to place with him - with details such as their age, country of origin, and whether they spoke English.\n\nJohn says he is concerned about the lack of a similar system for Ukrainians, with the government suggesting people in the UK could make contact with refugees via social media. \"I am concerned about what support mechanism there will be,\" he says.\n\nSince the Ukraine scheme was announced, John has contacted Refugees at Home, and urges anyone considering opening their doors to see it as an opportunity.\n\n\"It might be challenging,\" he says, \"but it can also be very enriching.\"", "Who was Brent Renaud - US journalist killed in Ukraine?\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker and was shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. He had been working in the region at the time of his death. Kyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital. It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine. Renaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High. He often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine. Photographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times. In a statement, the newspaper said it was \"deeply saddened\" to hear of Renaud's death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine.", "Sir Mick Jagger paid an emotional tribute to the band's late drummer on their US tour last year\n\nThe Rolling Stones have announced their first UK shows since the death of their drummer Charlie Watts last year.\n\nThe band will play in Liverpool and London as part of their 60th anniversary tour of Europe this summer.\n\nAs with their US dates last year, Watts will be replaced by Steve Jordan, a session musician who has played with guitarist Keith Richards since the 80s.\n\nWatts, who joined the band in 1963, died of an unspecified illness last August at the age of 80.\n\nWhen the band returned to the stage the following month, singer Mick Jagger dedicated the show to his old friend.\n\n\"We all miss Charlie so much. We miss him as a band, we miss him as friends - on and off the stage,\" he told an audience in Massachusetts.\n\nThe Stones' 60th anniversary tour is billed simply as Sixty, and will feature new staging and production.\n\nLaunching in Madrid on 1 June, it will see the band performing at the home of Liverpool FC, Anfield, for the Stones' first Liverpool show in more than 50 years.\n\nCharlie Watts' last performed with the Stones in Florida in 2019\n\nThey will then head to London for two dates at the BST festival in Hyde Park, with other dates in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Austria and France.\n\n\"Sorry to keep you all hanging around, but the waiting is over,\" said Richards as he announced the tour.\n\n\"I've always said the best place for rock and roll is on being on stage with the Stones and this year is very special. Looking forward to rehearsing with Mick and Ronnie and some friends, the wheels are in motion. See you all very soon.\"\n\nRonnie Wood added: \"When I look out at the sea of people when we play in Europe all I can see is smiles.\n\n\"It's heart-warming and I'm glad we make people happy every time we play live. Can't wait to get on this brand-new stage with the boys and have some fun.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Sami Chokri performs under the name Sami Switch\n\nEd Sheeran \"belittled\" a songwriter who accused him of stealing one of his songs, London's High Court has heard.\n\nSami Chokri says he was hurt by the tone of Sheeran's lawyers' emails after he noticed similarities between his song Oh Why and Sheeran's Shape Of You.\n\n\"I feel like I've been robbed by someone I respect, or respected,\" he told the court.\n\n\"This is years of a cloud over my head. All I heard and read was emails belittling me and my questions.\"\n\nHe continued: \"All I wanted to do was ask for an explanation. If I'd had one we wouldn't have had to go through with this rubbish.\"\n\nHe later called the trial \"the most horrible few weeks of my life\".\n\nMr Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch, says the \"oh I, oh I, oh I,\" hook on Shape Of You is \"strikingly similar\" to the chorus of his song, which was released two years earlier.\n\nIn a witness statement, he said he first became aware of the alleged plagiarism in 2017.\n\n\"I was a passenger in my girlfriend's car and Shape Of You came on the radio,\" he wrote. \"She and I were both shocked to hear the similarities.\n\nMr Chokri later put out a Facebook post saying, \"Anyone else think Ed Sheeran's new song Shape Of You chorus sounds familiar lol?\"\n\n\"I had lots of responses,\" he said, including one from Sheeran's friend Jamal Edwards featuring the \"shifty eyes\" emoji - which was later deleted.\n\n\"I thought maybe he had played a part in showing [my song] to Ed,\" Mr Chokri told the court. \"I had no reason to ever consider it coming to circumstances like these.\"\n\nBefore his death last month, Mr Edwards gave a written statement in which he denied playing Oh Why to Sheeran.\n\n\"Even if I was sent a copy, I did not share it with Ed,\" he wrote.\n\n\"I respect what Jamal says,\" Mr Chokri responded in court, \"but I also believe that Jamal would share music with Ed Sheeran.\"\n\nSheeran and his co-writers Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac have all denied copying Oh Why.\n\nLast week, Sheeran told the court that the contested element of Shape of You was \"very short\", and the relevant parts of both songs were \"entirely commonplace\".\n\nHe added: \"Even so, if I had heard Oh Why at the time and had referenced it, I would have taken steps to clear it.\n\n\"I have been as scrupulous as I possibly can and have even given credits to people who I believe may have been no more than a mere influence for a songwriting element. This is because I want to treat other songwriters fairly.\"\n\nGiving evidence on Monday, Mr Chokri disputed the star's claim, saying: \"I believe Ed Sheeran heard it, that's my truth.\"\n\nAsked if he was accusing the star of lying under oath, he responded: \"I'm not sure if he lied or he doesn't remember.\"\n\nGiving evidence last week, Sheeran said he originally wrote Shape Of You for Little Mix\n\nIn his witness statement, Mr Chokri said he had written Oh Why in June 2014 at a time when he was \"truly in pain\".\n\n\"I remember specifically that I was drinking some wine that day whilst we were writing and recording,\" he wrote. \"I was saying, 'Why do I keep putting myself back in this place?'\n\n\"I recall singing to Ross [O'Donoghue, his co-writer], 'Oh why, Oh why, Oh why?' and Ross saying something along the lines of, 'That's It! Let's work on that'.\n\n\"The song really resonated because it was a little bit different to anything else that I had made.\"\n\nMr Chokri later tried to get Sheeran to listen to the song \"as I was inspired by his success and stardom and his endorsement would be a significant boost\".\n\nTo increase his chances, he sent an EP that included Oh Why to several people in Sheeran's circle, including producer Adam Coltman, musician Jake Roche and Jamal Edwards.\n\nGiving evidence, Mr Chokri said he was certain that one of them would have played it to the star - but \"I can't tell you exactly which because I don't know\".\n\nIan Mill QC, representing Sheeran, suggested that Oh Why was itself inspired by Ed Sheeran's cover of the Johnny Cash song The Wayfaring Stranger.\n\n\"I doubt it,\" replied Mr Chokri. \"That was a life-changing day for me. I wasn't thinking about Ed Sheeran, I was thinking about staying alive.\"\n\nHe acknowledged being a fan of Mr Sheeran's work, and The Wayfaring Stranger in particular.\n\n\"I definitely appreciated his work,\" he said, \"but I've got a bitter taste in my mouth since he stole a part of my song.\"\n\nEd Sheeran gave evidence at the High Court on Monday\n\nMr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue first accused Sheeran and his copying their song in 2018.\n\nThe trio denied the claims and launched legal proceedings in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed any copyright.\n\nSeveral months later, Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue issued their own claim for \"copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement\".\n\nIn court, Sheeran's lawyer noted that Mr Chokri had not registered Oh Why with music rights body the PRS until April 2017 - three months after Shape Of You was released.\n\n\"The fact you weren't registered is indicative of the fact you weren't earning money\" from the song, he said.\n\n\"My main focus... was to get my name out there,\" replied Mr Chokri. \"I didn't think about money at all.\"\n\nMr Mill suggested the real reason for registering the song was so Mr Chokri could pursue his copyright claim.\n\n\"I was advised that would be the next step,\" he told the court, but \"didn't know that signing up to PRS was for that purpose\".\n\nAn estimated £20m in royalty payments has been frozen since that point.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Drone footage taken of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol shows the extent of the damage caused by Russian attacks.\n\nDeputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov, said the city, in south-eastern Ukraine, was under \"constant shelling, bombing and some street battles.\"\n\nThousands of civilians have been trapped there for nearly two weeks, surrounded by Russian troops firing rockets and shells, which have destroyed many buildings.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland's hopes of defending the Women's World Cup are hanging by a thread after an agonising three-wicket defeat by South Africa in Mount Maunganui.\n\nWith three defeats from as many games, England are not yet eliminated, but will need to win all of their remaining four matches and hope other results go their way to reach the semi-finals.\n\nTaken to 235-9 by half-centuries from Tammy Beaumont and Amy Jones, England were once again blighted by a raft of missed chances in the field.\n\nLaura Wolvaardt took advantage of three dropped catches and a missed stumping in making 77.\n\nAfter she fell, Marizanne Kapp, who earlier took 5-45, inched South Africa closer in the face of some magical bowling from Sophie Ecclestone.\n\nKapp was out for 32 in the penultimate over, leaving the Proteas four to get from the final set.\n\nShabnim Ismail swung Nat Sciver over the leg side to give South Africa their first World Cup win over England in 22 years.\n\nEngland play India at the same venue on Wednesday, when another defeat will effectively end their campaign.\n\nIn Monday's other game, tournament debutants Bangladesh earned their first World Cup win in a nine-run defeat of Pakistan.\n\nEngland paid for errors of their own making in tight losses to Australia and West Indies. Given the stakes, the mistakes made at the Bay Oval were more costly, the defeat more painful.\n\nReplacing Lauren Winfield-Hill with Danni Wyatt did not bring an improvement at the top of the order. Wyatt slashed Kapp to point, Heather Knight misjudged to play on off the same bowler and, when Sciver somehow pulled to slip off the back of the bat, England were 42-3.\n\nBeaumont, with 62, and Jones, who made 53, bravely rebuilt but even their dismissals - Beaumont playing across the line and Jones run out by Sophia Dunkley's poor call - were needless.\n\nEngland scrapped to a total they could have defended, only for chance after chance to go begging in the field.\n\nBeaumont dropped Wolvaardt at point on four, Kate Cross reprieved the same batter off her own bowling on 23 and running back at mid-off on 62. In between, Jones missed a simple stumping.\n\nAll the while, England had a trump card in left-arm spinner Ecclestone, who bowled a magnificent spell of 1-23 on the worn pitch.\n\nSouth Africa saw off her final over, the 48th, leaving 11 needed from two. When Anya Shrubsole pinned Kapp lbw in the 49th, there was hope, but Sciver could not hold her line when bowling the final set.\n\nIn becoming the first one-day World Cup holders, women or men, to lose their first three games, England are on the brink of a calamitous exit.\n\nSouth Africa are on track for the semis after their third win from as many games, with this one coming thanks to the all-round display of the brilliant Kapp.\n\nThe seamer bowled an immaculate line with the new ball, then used clever variations at the death for the tournament's first five-wicket haul. She even provided the throw for the run-out of Jones.\n\nThe elegant Wolvaardt took advantage of England's errors to add 56 with Tazmin Brits and 73 with captain Sune Luus.\n\nAfter South Africa lost three wickets for 22 runs, Kapp, who overturned being given lbw on nine, repelled Ecclestone in a partnership of 30 with Chloe Tryon.\n\nThen, after Tryon was run-out backing up, Kapp struck a crucial six off a Katherine Brunt full toss in the 46th over.\n\nThough she could not see the job through, she had done enough for South Africa to pull off their highest successful chase in a World Cup match.\n\n'We have made history today' - what they said\n\nSouth Africa captain Sune Luus: \"Regardless of what happens in the rest of the tournament, we have made history today and nothing is going to change that. I think everyone in South Africa is very proud of us and we can be proud of ourselves too.\"\n\nEngland captain Heather Knight on Sky Sports: \"It puts us in a tough position. I'll be honest, it's painful losing three close games in a row.\n\n\"At times we shot ourselves in the foot with our fielding. You can't give a player like Laura Wolvaardt that many chances, because she will make you pay.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nSeven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton says he will change his name to incorporate his mother Carmen's surname.\n\nThe 37-year-old Briton will include 'Larbalestier' as a middle name rather than adding it to his surname.\n\n\"I am really proud of my family's name. My mum's name is Larbalestier and I'm just about to put that in my name,\" said Hamilton.\n\n\"I really want her name to continue on with the Hamilton name.\"\n• None Why are F1 cars bouncing? And will racing be closer this season?\n• None Mercedes cannot compete for wins, says Hamilton as new F1 season looms\n\nSpeaking before the start of the 2022 season, which begins this weekend, he added: \"I don't really fully understand the whole idea when people get married then the woman loses her name.\"\n\nMercedes driver Hamilton said he is \"working on\" the name change but it will not be official for the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.\n\nHamilton's parents divorced when he was a child.\n\nHe returns for the new season after some doubt over his participation following the controversial end the last campaign.\n\nMax Verstappen overtook Hamilton on the final lap of the last race of the season to take the world title after ex-race director Michael Masi allowed some cars to unlap themselves and others not.\n\nHamilton said: \"I've come back to fight for that eighth (title) - that's what I'm here for.\"\n• None Six films that got their facts wrong: From the Jamaican bobsleigh team to Sylvester Stallone's goalkeeping heroics\n• None A look back to when Michael Vaughan sat down with cricket legend Shane Warne", "Petrol prices are likely to fall back from record levels due to the costs of wholesale fuel and global oil easing, UK motoring groups have said.\n\nThe average price for a litre of petrol hit £1.63 on Sunday after rising above £1.60 for the first time last week.\n\nDiesel remained above £1.73 a litre, but the AA said \"wild\" pump prices should stabilise, unless global oil prices take off again.\n\nBut MPs were told this was a \"lull before the storm\" of more price hikes.\n\nNathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at financial services company Investec, said consumers \"need to get ready for what could be continued increases in fuel prices.\"\n\nMr Piper told the Treasury Committee: \"If more stringent actions are imposed upon Russia, and five million barrels a day is truly taken out of the market, then oil prices would really have no ceiling.\"\n\nHe explained that the UK was roughly self-sufficient in petrol but imported much of its diesel.\n\nTwo thirds of UK consumers use diesel so that it could see the biggest price increases at the pump, he said.\n\nDr Amrita Sen, director of research at Energy Aspects, told the committee that petrol prices could rise to around £2.40 a litre. And that diesel prices of \"£2.50 - even closer to £3\" were \"definitely in the realms of possibility\".\n\nShe said the UK could follow Germany in introducing rationing measures which have already seen BP and Shell reduce diesel wholesales to industry.\n\n\"If we need to rebuild stocks over the summer so that we have a buffer over the winter...it is industry that will need to be curtailed and that's where the first set of rationing will have to come in,\" she said.\n\nMr Piper said the only other option was for the government to release some of its stockpiles of petrol and crude oil.\n\n\"But it'll be industry that takes the brunt of any rationing initially,\" he said.\n\nMeanwhile, the AA said filling up a typical 55-litre car tank now costs £89.90p on average, up from £68.57 a year ago.\n\nOil prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine, with the price of Brent crude oil - the global benchmark for prices - hitting a near 14-year high at one point.\n\nHowever, in the past few days, the price of oil has dropped as fears that the European Union would follow the US and Canada in banning Russian oil have eased.\n\nBrent crude fell as much as 8% to trade at $103.68 per barrel on Monday.\n\nThe RAC said drivers would have to stomach probably more rises this week, but added they \"should soon get some respite from pump prices jumping by several pence a litre every day as oil and wholesale prices appear to have settled\".\n\n\"The price hikes seen over the weekend are still a result of the oil price rise which began at the start of the month and peaked early last week at $137 a barrel,\" said RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams.\n\n\"As the oil price has now fallen back, we should hopefully reach the peak and start to see prices going the other way to reflect the big drop in wholesale costs seen at the end of last week, subject to no further spikes in the barrel price this week.\"\n\nThe reason higher prices at the pumps are likely to remain despite falling commodity prices is due to the way retailers buy the fuel and the time lag between purchasing at a certain price and then selling it on.\n\nYet, there is a concern some retailers might be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out if wholesale costs jump back up again.\n\nLuke Bosdet, the AA's fuel price spokesman, said a 10.6p-a-litre slump in wholesale petrol costs on Wednesday and Thursday last week, followed by oil's fall in value, had produced \"bizarre price anomalies\".\n\n\"In one town this weekend, filling a tank at one forecourt was more than a pound cheaper than directly across the road at another,\" he said.\n\nMr Bosdet said weekends were the busiest time for forecourts and the rush by drivers to beat further potential price increases had pushed up demand, which had actually led to even higher prices at the pumps as stations had to resupply at a faster rate.\n\nOil prices are mainly determined by the price of crude oil and the dollar exchange rate, as agreements are made in dollars.\n\nRussia is the third largest oil exporter and some Western countries, for example the US and Canada, decided to halt imports from the country in response to Russia's actions. It means demand for oil from other producers has increased, leading to increased prices.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, so is not as dependent on Russia for the commodity supply as other European countries are and has said it plans to phase it out.\n\nIt is, however, affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nBut the price of Brent crude dropped in recent days, due to reduced fears of a European ban on Russian oil, and also partly due to speculation that extra supplies could come onto the market from Iran, Venezuela and the UAE.\n\nThe conflict in Ukraine has led to concerns being raised by Western nations about where they get their energy from.\n\nEnergy Minister Greg Hands said the UK's transition to cleaner forms of energy production was \"an issue of national security\" and not just of decarbonisation.\n\nSpeaking at an event in London, he said: \"By switching to cheaper power generated in the UK, for the UK, we will ensure that we're not dependent on any unfriendly foreign country to keep our homes warm and lit.\"\n\nHowever, Mr Hands acknowledged that the transition to cleaner energy sources would take time, and there was still a need to invest in domestic fossil fuel production.", "The new law could allow foreign leased aircraft to keep flying domestic routes in Russia\n\nRussia has implemented a new law making it harder for foreign aircraft leasing companies to repossess their planes in the face of Western sanctions.\n\nThe new law will allow foreign jets to be registered in Russia \"to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of activities in the field of civil aviation\".\n\nRussian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad worth about $10bn (£7.7bn).\n\nForeign owners have until 28 March to get them back from Russian companies before sanctions kick in.\n\nThe move comes after Bermuda and Ireland, where nearly all foreign-leased planes operating in Russia are registered, said they were suspending certificates of airworthiness for those aircraft.\n\nThe measure, signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, could circumvent that by bringing registration and certification of safety within Russia's borders and use the foreign aircraft to fly domestic routes across the vast country.\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, Western companies have been terminating leases and asking for planes to be returned.\n\nThe majority of international air routes out of Russia are not being flown and many countries, including the UK, have banned Russia's national airline Aeroflot from flying in their airspace.\n\nHundreds of foreign-owned aircraft remain in Russia. To comply with sanctions, leasing companies are trying to get them back. But that is looking highly unlikely.\n\nIf Russia does hang onto these aircraft - collectively worth billions of dollars - they will be able to continue flying, in Russia and a handful of former Soviet republics at least.\n\nBut it's one thing to steal aircraft, it's quite another to keep them operating for any length of time.\n\nAirbus and Boeing cannot supply spare parts, so when something needs to be replaced it will have to be taken from another plane, or be manufactured by a third party.\n\nThat has serious safety implications. It will also make it virtually impossible to insure those planes outside Russia. Servicing is also a concern - many aircraft are flown elsewhere for maintenance.\n\nAnd when the crisis is over there will be a huge bill to pay.\n\nIf aircraft are not maintained properly, their value will plummet. So even if lessors get them back, they will demand compensation.\n\nInternational aviation is an international business, and you have to play by the rules.\n\nRussia could decide to thumb its nose at the rest of the world now. But one day it will want to rejoin the club - and the conditions for rejoining could be very harsh.", "Logan was found dead in the River Ogmore last July\n\nA teenager accused of murdering a five-year-old boy has been described as \"a monster\" and spoke of killing people, a court has heard.\n\nThe body of Logan Mwangi was found in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend, last July with 56 injuries.\n\nThe court heard the boy said he wanted to kill Logan shortly before his death.\n\nThe 14-year-old boy, Logan's mother Angharad Williamson, 30, and his step-father John Cole, 40, are on trial at Cardiff Crown Court and deny murder.\n\nIn statements read to the court, the former foster family of the accused said he made their lives \"hell\" during a period that he lived with them, and described him as a \"monster\".\n\nHe also told the family he would kill them, explaining he would do so if the plot of the horror film The Purge - in which all crime, including murder, becomes decriminalised in a 12-hour period- became real.\n\nThe boy's foster father said he had become \"terrified\" of the boy who had told him he wanted to \"punch his lights out\".\n\nThe family also told of the boy's behaviour towards their family dog, who he insisted on pulling up by his hind legs and keep him dangling even though he was aware the dog had an injured pelvis.\n\nThere was also reference to an occasion when he had been witnessed spraying a can of deodorant into the dog's eyes.\n\nAngharad Williamson and John Cole are both charged with Logan Mwangi's murder\n\nThe jury heard how on more than one occasion the teenager, who was 13 at the time, had said he wanted to kill Logan.\n\nAs details of the teen's behaviour was read to the court, Logan's mother Angharad Williamson began crying loudly from the dock.\n\nThe foster family said they had continuously raised concerns about the accused's behaviour and threats with a social worker, Debbie Williams, but these were dismissed as \"nonsense\".\n\n\"She just brushed it off as if it was nothing,\" the foster mother said in her statement.\n\nIn evidence, Ms Williams denied she was ever told about these concerns.\n\nShe told the court how she had visited the accused at a number of addresses - at first virtually, and then in person as Covid restrictions eased.\n\nMs Williams described how the teenager would sometimes \"poke, pinch or kick her\" during meetings but said he never hurt her.\n\nShe also said the teenager used to swear at her regularly, but said she felt it was mainly banter.\n\nShe said she last saw the teenager on 30 July and the teenager was \"his usual cheeky self, swearing at me.\"\n\nMs Williams was also asked about a conversation she had with the teenager around a month after Logan had died.\n\nShe told the court, she'd said to the teenager: \"I don't think you realise the seriousness of the situation you are in.\"\n\nThe accused replied: \"I do know that... we didn't hurt him.\"\n\nA neighbour of Mr Cole in Maesglas, Sarn, Sheryl Lewis, also gave evidence.\n\nShe said she heard Mr Cole crying outside on the phone at about 21:20 BST on 31 July, saying: \"Help me, help me. What should I do? What should I do?\"\n\nAll three defendants deny murder and are also accused of perverting the course of justice, including moving Logan's body to the river near Pandy Park, removing his clothing, washing blood-stained bed linen, and making a false missing person report to police.\n\nMs Williamson and the youth pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice, while Mr Cole admitted the charge.", "US President Joe Biden and Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin held a virtual meeting on St Patrick's Day last year\n\nTwo Stormont ministers will fly to the US this week ahead of the St Patrick's Day celebrations in Washington.\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy and Economy Minister Gordon Lyons are due to take part in a series of trade and investment events before attending the annual ceremony at the White House.\n\nCivil service head Jayne Brady and Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill will join them.\n\nWashington's St Patrick's Day events have been cancelled for the past two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nSome restrictions, including face coverings, remain in place for White House events.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin will also be in Washington.\n\nThe Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said it regretted that its leader Doug Beattie was \"too unwell to travel to Washington\" on this occasion.\n\n\"We wish those attending this week`s events a happy St Patrick`s Day and we look forward to taking up future invitations and opportunities to engage directly with the US administration,\" a UUP spokesperson added.\n\nAfter a two-year absence, the Irish political exodus on St Patrick's Day has returned with 33 Dublin ministers flying around the world.\n\nBut there will be no first or deputy first minister from Northern Ireland.\n\nTheir absence will be noted and used by some to talk up the the crisis at Stormont.\n\nBut any debate will be completely overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and it will be Putin and not the protocol which will dominate discussions.\n\nThe programme in Washington will include the traditional Northern Ireland Bureau breakfast on St Patrick's Day.\n\nAt the same time, US Vice President Kamala Harris will host a breakfast gathering before the annual speakers' luncheon with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives.\n\nThe traditional shamrock handover between the taoiseach and US President Joe Biden will take place in the oval office.\n\nOn Tuesday, politicians will gather at the Irish Embassy for the unveiling of a bust celebrating the life of former SDLP leader John Hume, who died in 2020.\n\nA bust will be unveiled in tribute to the late John Hume (left), pictured with President Clinton on St Patrick's Day in 2000\n\nBefore arriving in Washington, Mr Lyons will meet investors in New York along with representatives from the US travel industry.\n\nHe will also travel to Maryland to meet officials from the US Department of Commerce to talk about a shared project on cyber security.\n\nThe water in the White House north lawn fountain was turned green to mark St Patrick's Day in 2021\n\nAlthough she is no longer deputy first minister, Michelle O'Neill will also be in the US with her Sinn Féin party leader Mary Lou McDonald.\n\nThey will attend an Irish unity event in New York before Ms McDonald addresses the US Council on Foreign Relations.\n\nIt is not yet clear if other party leaders, including the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, plan to travel to Washington this week.", "A group of Ukrainian children have arrived in the UK to undergo life-saving cancer treatment on the NHS, the health secretary has said.\n\nSajid Javid said the 21 children would be offered the best possible care in hospitals around the country.\n\nThe children and their immediate family members arrived on an urgent flight arranged by the government on Sunday after a plea from Polish officials.\n\nThey will be assessed by doctors before being sent to appropriate hospitals.\n\n\"I am proud that the UK is offering life-saving medical care to these Ukrainian children, who have been forced out of their home country by the Russian invasion while undergoing medical treatment,\" Mr Javid said.\n\n\"I know that the incredible staff in the NHS will ensure they get the best possible care.\"\n\nNine medics from Southampton Children's Hospital flew to Poland to fetch the children.\n\n\"The families were so incredibly grateful and the stories they told were horrific,\" the hospital said.\n\nThe government is to set out details of a scheme to allow people in the UK to welcome Ukrainian refugees into their home later - but special provision has been made for the group needing urgent care.\n\nHundreds of Ukrainians have seen their treatment interrupted by the war, as Russian forces lay siege to cities and hospitals' supplies dry up.\n\nMany children have been evacuated to Poland, where the authorities appealed for help in caring for them.\n\nOne paediatric oncologist in Poland told BBC News most of the children arriving at her hospital were in a life-threatening situation.\n\nStaff from Southampton Children's Hospital flew out to the children in Poland on a specially-chartered plane\n\nThose arriving in the UK will undergo an assessment to understand their specific health needs before getting treatment at an appropriate NHS hospital, the Department of Health said.\n\nIt added that the UK has already sent more than 650,000 medical items to Ukraine as part of its humanitarian response to the crisis.\n\nMr Javid told BBC Breakfast seven flights have taken aid from the UK to Ukraine including wound care packs, equipment for intensive care and vital medicines. An eighth took off on Monday morning, he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The children with cancer fleeing war in Ukraine\n\nNHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the NHS would continue to work with ministers to provide both the necessary supplies and the \"crucial treatment\" the children need.\n\n\"Colleagues at paediatric hospitals around the country have gone above and beyond to help these children during their greatest hour of need,\" she added.", "Russian-British businessman Lord Lebedev was made a peer by Boris Johnson in July 2020\n\nMichael Gove has said no-one raised security issues with him about Lord Lebedev after reports security services had long-held concerns about him.\n\nThe Sunday Times claimed the head of MI6 was worried about the Russian-born businessman, and concerns were raised with Boris Johnson in 2020.\n\nBut the PM has denied he intervened to ensure Lord Lebedev's peerage.\n\nHousing Secretary Mr Gove told the BBC the process for appointing peers was \"rigorous\".\n\nHe said he had dinner with Lord Lebedev at Boris Johnson's house before the Brexit referendum, but did not know of any possible security concerns.\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the PM had \"serious questions to answer\" about the appointment, and has asked the House of Lords Appointment Commission to release the vetting advice they gave to Mr Johnson.\n\nAnd speaking at his party's spring conference, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for a full public inquiry into the PM's decision to give Lord Lebedev a peerage.\n\nHe told party members: \"The cosy relationship between Putin's oligarchs and the Conservative political elite has been the dirty secret of the British establishment for far too long.\"\n\nLord Lebedev was given his peerage in July 2020.\n\nHe has denied posing a \"security risk\" to the UK, writing an article in the Evening Standard newspaper - which he owns - saying: \"I am not some agent of Russia.\"\n\nThe son of billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, who moved to the UK as a child, has condemned President's Putin's actions in his newspaper, writing: \"I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.\"\n\nAnd he has warned it is \"crucial we do not descend into Russophobia\" during the war in Ukraine.\n\nAn article in the Sunday Times last week claimed security services withdrew their assessment that giving the honour to Lord Lebedev posed a security risk after the PM got involved.\n\nThe newspaper said that in March 2020, the commission that vets peerage appointments advised the prime minister against granting the newspaper owner a seat in the House of Lords, due to security concerns.\n\nBut Mr Johnson, who ultimately decides who gets a peerage, is said to have responded to the advice by claiming it was \"anti-Russianism\".\n\nThe PM denied the report, saying it would \"obviously be extraordinary\" if he had intervened, \"but that's not the case\".\n\nBut in another Sunday Times article, the newspaper claimed the head of MI6 had held concerns about the businessman for as long as a decade.\n\nBoris Johnson - pictured here with Lord Lebedev in 2009 - denied he intervened over security concerns with the peer\n\nAsked on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme about the reports, Levelling Up Secretary Mr Gove said he was \"not aware of any of the concerns that had been expressed until they appeared in the newspapers\".\n\nHe added: \"Of course there are questions that are going to be asked, but no one has ever said to me that there are any specific security concerns that they have about Lord Lebedev.\"\n\nThe government minister also pointed to the fact Lord Lebedev was a British citizen, adding: \"I think it is important to draw a distinction between Evgeny Lebedev's father, who obviously... worked for the KGB, and Lord Lebedev himself, who is someone who has made his home in this country.\n\n\"There is a distinction to be drawn between the actions of parents and the actions of children.\"\n\nBut Labour leader Sir Keir has written to the chair of House of Lords Appointment Commission, Lord Bew, asking for vetting information to be made public, and for him to \"commit to a review of the propriety of Lord Lebedev's place in the House of Lords\".\n\nSpeaking to Sky News' Sophy Ridge, he said: \"I think the prime minister has got serious questions to answer. What did he know? And did he override security advice?\n\n\"Let's have a process to look into what actually happened, what did the prime minister know and what did he do in response to that. I think that is the least we are entitled to in relation to this appointment.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn day 19 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some civilians were able to leave the city of Mariupol along a pre-agreed route for the first time.\n\nMariupol, a key port city in the south-east of Ukraine, is facing a humanitarian crisis after nearly two weeks of continuous Russian shelling, with food, water, and medicine running out and communication to the outside world all but cut off.\n\nThere have been several previous agreements to allow civilians to leave the city, but they quickly broke down each time.\n\nOn Monday, however, the Mariupol city council said 160 private vehicles had managed to leave and were on their way to the relative safety of Zaporizhzhia - a city to the north-west.\n\nThe level of destruction in Mariupol was made clear in drone footage, which showed bombed out apartment blocks and smoke rising from the rubble.\n\nLast week, Russian bombs hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Powerful images of two pregnant women escaping from the wreckage were shared around the world.\n\nBut on Monday, we learned that one of the women had died along with her baby who was stillborn by Caesarean section.\n\nAfter delivering the baby, who showed no signs of life, medics focused on the mother but were unable to keep her alive, surgeon Timur Marin told the Associated Press.\n\nIn another vivid example of the terrible conditions in Mariupol, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC that several burial sites had been dug to cope with the rising number of civilian deaths.\n\nSerhiy Orlov said the city's street cleaners and road repair teams were collecting dead bodies in the street. More than 2,500 people have been killed in Mariupol since the war began, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser.\n\nThe BBC heard similar stories from local officials elsewhere in Ukraine, for example the town of Bucha near Kyiv, where more than 60 people were buried in a mass grave.\n\nThe aftermath of Russian artillery shelling on a residential area in Mariupol\n\nAway from the dire situation on the ground, the war continues to have far-reaching international consequences.\n\nAfter multiple US news outlets reported that Russia had requested military help from China, the US warned that there would be consequences if Beijing helped Russia to evade sanctions.\n\nThe Chinese foreign ministry accused the US of spreading disinformation, and Russia later denied asking Beijing for military help.\n\nWith tensions between the global superpowers so high, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday that further escalation of the conflict \"threatens all of humanity\", with the prospect of nuclear conflict \"now back within the realm of possibility\".\n\nVladimir Putin was the most prominent world leader to visit the Beijing Winter Olympics\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has shone a spotlight on the expensive homes around the world that belong to billionaire Russians, many of whom are allies of Vladimir Putin.\n\nOn Monday, protesters in London climbed onto the balcony of a mansion in central London thought to belong to the energy tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the UK government over the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe protesters said they were reclaiming the building for Ukrainian refugees who have fled their homes.\n\nThe UK government is examining whether the properties of sanctioned oligarchs could be used to house refugees, according to the prime minister's official spokesperson, although it is thought new legislation would be required.\n\nProtesters have draped Ukrainian flags over the property, which is believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska\n\nIn the city of Kharkiv, in north-east Ukraine, the beloved Old Hem bar - named after the owner's literary hero Ernest Hemmingway - was destroyed by Russian shelling.\n\nAn extraordinary image shared widely on social media showed the building which once housed the pub reduced to rubble.\n\nThe owner - now in western Ukraine - told the BBC that he hopes to return one day to his city and rebuild his bar.\n\n\"We will win and Hem will rise again,\" Kostiantyn Kuts said.\n\nThe pub was destroyed in shelling on Monday\n\nRussia's invasion is taking place on several fronts.\n\nAlthough Ukraine's resistance has been stronger than expected, Russian forces continue to take territory in the south and are slowly moving towards the capital, Kyiv.\n\nYou can see full details of the situation on the ground in our guide to the conflict in maps.", "Campion didn't attend the Baftas as she was at the Directors Guild Awards and the Critics Choice Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend\n\nNetflix's moody Western The Power of the Dog won the top prize at the Bafta Film Awards, picking up best film and best director for Jane Campion.\n\nIts star Benedict Cumberbatch wore a badge to show his support for Ukrainians as he accepted the best director prize on behalf of Campion.\n\nHe also said he hopes to offer a place to stay for a Ukrainian refugee.\n\nCumberbatch was beaten to the best actor award by Will Smith. Joanna Scanlan was named best actress.\n\nScanlan, who was previously best known for British TV comedies like The Thick Of It and Getting On, triumphed for her performance in the independent film After Love. She played a 60-year-old Muslim convert who suffers an identity crisis following the sudden death of her husband.\n\n\"Come on!\" she said on stage in disbelief. \"Some stories have surprise endings don't they?\"\n\nShe beat a field including Lady Gaga, fellow musician-turned-actress Alana Haim, and Emilia Jones, the daughter of Welsh TV presenter Aled.\n\nJoanna Scanlan said backstage that she was \"disbelieving to be perfectly honest\"\n\nJones starred in Coda, a film about the daughter of deaf parents, and her co-star Troy Kotsur made history as the first ever deaf Bafta film winner.\n\nDelivering his best supporting actor acceptance speech via an interpreter, he said: \"I think it's all great you're recognising my work from all the way across the sea, it's truly amazing.\"\n\nAnother US performer, Ariana DeBose, won best supporting actress for playing Anita in Steven Spielberg's new version of the musical West Side Story.\n\n\"This means so much to me, I'm somebody who sings, dances, acts,\" she said. \"I speak dance better than I speak English.\"\n\nBest actress nominee Lady Gaga was on the red carpet\n\nSir Kenneth Branagh's Belfast was named outstanding British film, while sci-fi saga Dune won five awards in total - best score for Hans Zimmer plus best cinematography, production design, sound and special visual effects.\n\nJames Bond's latest outing No Time To Die won two prizes including the EE Rising Star award for Lashana Lynch.\n\nLashana Lynch (centre) with Lady Gaga (left) and last year's Rising Star winner Bukky Bakray\n\n\"I would like to thank the women of this country who taught me what it is to be in this industry as a dark-skinned woman,\" she told the ceremony. \"I thank you for laying the foundation for people like me.\"\n\nThe ceremony was held at the Royal Albert Hall and was hosted by Australian comic actress Rebel Wilson, who largely kept the atmosphere light but did refer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a couple of occasions.\n\nAfter the In Memoriam section, paying tribute to film industry figures who have died over the past 12 months, she said: \"Our thoughts are also at this time with the people afflicted by the conflict in Ukraine.\"\n\nAnd in a segment about sign language, she raised her middle finger, saying it was \"the gesture for Putin\".\n\nAustralian actress Rebel Wilson hosted the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall\n\nThe war was a topic of conversation on the red carpet earlier, when Cumberbatch said he was aware badges like his \"could be dismissed as tokenism\".\n\n\"This [ceremony] is a celebration of an industry that's about imagery, and images speaking as loud as if not louder sometimes than words. So it's a small gesture,\" he told BBC News.\n\n\"But away from this, what we all have to do is continue to put pressure on our politicians as far as the refugee crisis goes, continue to put pressure on the Putin regime, continue to help in any which way we can - whether that's through donations or housing refugees, all of which I'm looking to do and have done.\"\n\nFellow best actor nominee Stephen Graham, who was wearing a blue and yellow bow, said it was \"vital\" to acknowledge the war at the event.\n\n\"I want to show my support and solidarity for what people are going through,\" he said.\n\nBafta chairman Krishnendu Majumdar told the audience before the ceremony: \"We are hugely grateful to the journalists and film-makers covering Ukraine, many of whom are Bafta members, who are bravely reporting and documenting the conflict and humanitarian crisis.\"\n\nBlack Widow and Little Women star Florence Pugh was also among the presenters\n\nDame Shirley Bassey then opened the event with a performance of her classic James Bond theme Diamonds Are Forever.\n\nBig names returned to the Royal Albert Hall after a subdued affair last year, when many nominees appeared via Zoom amid tight Covid-19 restrictions.\n\nNo Bafta Fellowship or other lifetime achievement award was presented on Sunday, after last year's recipient Noel Clarke was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment following his win.\n\nClarke said he was \"deeply sorry\" for some of his actions but \"vehemently\" denied sexual misconduct.", "William Hurt at the premiere of Marvel's Captain America: Civil War in 2016\n\nWilliam Hurt, the Oscar-winning US actor whose roles ranged from acclaimed 1980s dramas to Marvel films, has died at the age of 71, US media say.\n\nHurt won the best actor Oscar in 1986 for playing a prisoner in a Brazilian jail in Kiss of the Spider Woman.\n\nHe was nominated two more times in the next two years, for Children of a Lesser God and Broadcast News.\n\nIn recent years, he has been known as General Thaddeus \"Thunderbolt\" Ross in five Marvel blockbusters.\n\nHurt made his Hollywood breakthrough at the start of the 1980s in films including Body Heat alongside Kathleen Turner\n\nHollywood website Deadline quoted a statement from Hurt's son Will as saying: \"It is with great sadness that the Hurt family mourns the passing of William Hurt, beloved father and Oscar winning actor, on March 13, 2022, one week before his 72nd birthday.\n\n\"He died peacefully, among family, of natural causes. The family requests privacy at this time.\"\n\nVariety said the news was confirmed by Hurt's friend Gerry Byrne.\n\nHe received his third Oscar nomination in three years for Broadcast News in 1988\n\nFellow Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo wrote on Twitter: \"Wow, another Major loss to the acting community. Great actor. Great mind. RIP.\"\n\nMatthew Modine described him as \"a consummate professional\" who was \"continually searching for greater truth and human understanding\".\n\nAntonio Banderas said \"a great actor has left us\", while other tributes came from Russell Crowe, M Night Shyamalan Rebecca Front.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Russell Crowe This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by M. Night Shyamalan ⌛ This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Rebecca Front This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHurt began acting on stage in the 1970s before making his big-screen breakthrough as an obsessed scientist in Altered States, which earned him a best newcomer nomination at the Golden Globes in 1981.\n\nThat year, he also starred as a womanising lawyer in erotic thriller Body Heat, before being cast in The Big Chill and Gorky Park.\n\nWinning an Oscar for playing a gay man who shares a cell with a political prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman was \"very isolating\",he later told the Los Angeles Times.\n\n\"The instant they gave it to me, I thought, God, what do I do now? How am I going to walk into a room and have any other actor trust me?\"\n\nThat did not stop him getting two more consecutive nominations, though, before roles in The Accidental Tourist, Lost in Space, Contagion and AI. Then came a fourth Oscar nomination for David Cronenberg's A History of Violence in 2006.\n\nHe also received Emmy nominations for playing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2011's Too Big to Fail, and for legal TV drama Damages.\n\nHe returned to the theatre in productions including Henry V, A Midsummer Night Dream and Hurlyburly, the latter of which saw him recognised with a nomination at Broadway's Tony Awards.\n\nHurt had been diagnosed with prostate cancer\n\nHe was regarded as a compelling but complex and often confrontational presence, however. Fame was \"a challenge\" and \"not a happy condition for me\", he admitted.\n\n\"It's a privilege and a responsibility, and I'm not sure I carried the responsibility well at times, which is embarrassing,\" he told The Telegraph in 2013. \"And I've had to look and be disappointed in myself occasionally for how I behaved in some circumstances.\"\n\nHe drank heavily for a spell and in a high-profile palimony trial in 1989, former partner Sandra Jennings described his drunken rages.\n\nAnother former girlfriend, Children of a Lesser God co-star Marlee Matlin, later accused him of physical and emotional abuse. He apologised \"for any pain I caused\".\n\nThe actor revealed in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.", "Sir Rod Stewart said his Ferrari could not get through the potholes\n\nThe potholes Sir Rod Stewart was filmed fixing will be temporarily filled in April and the road resurfaced in July, a council said.\n\nVideos on the 77-year-old singer's Instagram account showed him shovelling gravel in Harlow, Essex, claiming \"no-one can be bothered to do it\".\n\nIn one, he said \"people are bashing their cars up\" on the road.\n\nThe leader of Essex County Council, Kevin Bentley, said the road \"wasn't the condition it should be in\".\n\nIn the Instagram post, Sir Rod claimed the road had been in need of repair \"for ages\".\n\nDressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest, he explained why he and \"the boys\" decided to fix it themselves.\n\n\"The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all,\" he said.\n\nThe rural road near Harlow in Essex has many potholes, but will now be repaired by Essex County Council\n\nMr Bentley, a Conservative councillor, said the road had been inspected since the videos were posted and it was agreed it needed repairing.\n\n\"The patching work will be done in April and resurfacing will be done in July,\" he said.\n\n\"We must get to our roads as quickly as we can within the financial constraints what we have.\"\n\nHe encouraged residents to report potholes through the authority's website, so the council \"can get to them as fast as possible\".\n\nEarlier, the council said people should not to try to repair potholes themselves.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A pregnant woman wounded in the Russian bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital has died along with her baby, reports say.\n\nImages showed her on a stretcher following the air strike in Mariupol last Wednesday, in which at least three other people were killed.\n\nAfter the place where she was meant to give birth was attacked, she was taken to another hospital.\n\nHer baby was born by Caesarean section, but showed no signs of life.\n\nThe surgeon, Timur Marin, told the Associated Press news agency that the woman's pelvis had been crushed and her hip detached.\n\nMedics said that as they were trying to save her life, she realised she was losing her baby and shouted, \"Kill me now!\"\n\nWhen it became clear to them that the child was stillborn, they tried to resuscitate the mother, but realised after 30 minutes that it was hopeless.\n\nDoctors said they did not have time to take the woman's name before her husband and father came to retrieve her body.\n\nThat meant she did not end up in one of the mass graves being dug for victims of the Russian shelling of the city, they added.\n\nAfter the bombing of the hospital, Twitter removed two posts by the Russian embassy in London which claimed the attack had been faked.\n\nThe embassy's tweets made unfounded claims that the hospital was not operational at the time and that injured women pictured at the scene were actors.\n\nThe embassy also cast aspersions on another pregnant woman, photographed escaping from the wreckage of the hospital, who gave birth the day after the bombing.\n\nThe image of Mariana Vishegirskaya, her face bloodied, descending rubble-strewn steps was widely shared amid outrage at the attack.\n\nIn response to assertions that she was not actually pregnant, the BBC's disinformation team found evidence that contradicted the allegations.\n\nA Ukrainian presidential adviser has said more than 2,500 residents of Mariupol have been killed in Russian attacks.\n\nPeople who have managed to escape the city, in southern Ukraine, have told the BBC of desperate scenes there after Russian forces intensified a siege.\n\nFather Pavel Komashevsky, a priest, said residential areas had been bombed day and night, with jets roaring overhead and missiles detonating.\n\nOn Sunday, the International Red Cross demanded access for aid deliveries and an agreed plan for their evacuation.", "Fewer people are commuting to work even after work-from-home guidance was lifted\n\nJobs on the railways \"will need to change to become more passenger-centric\", according to the group that represents train operators.\n\nThe Rail Delivery Group (RDG) was responding to reports that hundreds of rail ticket offices could potentially close as part of a plan to modernise the railways.\n\nRDG said it is talking to unions about how to address job changes.\n\nOne union said it will ballot staff if compulsory redundancies are used.\n\nA spokesperson for the RDG, which represents the rail industry, said: \"The pandemic has been an unprecedented financial shock to the railway.\n\n\"While no decisions have been taken over ticket offices, with the acceleration of changing travel patterns and more passengers migrating to digital technology, many jobs will need to change to become more passenger-centric.\n\n\"Train companies are working with unions on how to address those changes, while making sure the industry takes no more than its fair share from the taxpayer,\" they added.\n\nThe bosses of rail operators are in talks with the government about the closures, which may result in redundancies if staff cannot be moved into other roles, the Sunday Times reported.\n\nDuring the pandemic, train passenger numbers collapsed and so did revenues.\n\nPassengers numbers are still recovering, with big changes such as hybrid working affecting commuter levels and season ticket sales.\n\nTo ensure the railways kept running during the pandemic, the government stepped in to finance the industry.\n\nRecently, rail minister Wendy Morton told the BBC that taxpayers had supported the railways with more than £14bn of funding, and that taxpayers had to get a good return on what they had invested.\n\nAs part of plans to modernise the railways, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps committed to modernising ticketing with more digitisation, as part of the Williams-Shapps plan for rail.\n\nTrain tickets purchased online can be collected at self-service kiosks in train stations\n\nManuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary, said: \"Grant Shapps needs to realise that this daft plan is likely to result in the threat of compulsory redundancies, and if that happens we will be issuing ballots for industrial action.\n\n\"Closing ticket offices will not only be opposed by the unions but the public at large.\n\n\"Shapps must stand up to the faceless accountants in the Treasury because a properly run and fully functioning railway is vital in building an economic recovery from Covid.\n\n\"The government should share their plans in detail with us and commuters now if they are so sure that closing ticket offices and taking £2bn a year out of our railways is the best way forward.\n\nRailway ticket offices are run by train operating companies in different stations, and not by Network Rail.", "Mr Ross said there would continue to be \"personal differences\" between himself and the prime minister\n\nThe only person to benefit from Boris Johnson being removed from office would be Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives has claimed.\n\nDouglas Ross was speaking for the first time after withdrawing his call for the PM to quit over Downing Street parties.\n\nMr Ross said the row over the lockdown parties now seemed trivial in comparison to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAnd he said now would be \"totally the wrong time\" to change leader.\n\nHe acknowledged that there would continue to be personal differences between himself and Mr Johnson, but said his position on the prime minister's leadership during the Ukraine crisis was very similar to that of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.\n\nMr Ross said: \"Now is not the time to try and replace a prime minister - now is the time for unity.\n\n\"The only person who would gain from the removal of a UK prime minister from office would be Vladimir Putin.\"\n\nMr Ross warned that the Russian president would use any signs of division as a \"wedge\" to drive between the forces that are trying to stop him.\n\nThe Scottish Conservative leader had written to the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs in January to express his lack of confidence in Mr Johnson and to call for a leadership contest.\n\nMr Ross described the prime minister's position at the time as \"untenable\" after he admitted attending a Downing Street party during the Covid lockdown.\n\nBut he announced on Thursday that he had formally withdrawn his letter to the committee, with the party also confirming that Mr Johnson would appear in person at the Scottish Conservative conference next weekend.\n\nMr Ross said Vladimir Putin would try to exploit any signs of division within countries that oppose him\n\nMr Ross said he \"had confidence in the prime minister to deal with this situation at the moment\", and that \"everything else seems trivial\" in comparison to the horrific scenes from Ukraine.\n\nHe added: \"That is why I think our focus should be on supporting and helping the people of Ukraine, not on personal differences we may have with each other here in the UK.\"\n\nOther parties were critical of Mr Ross for withdrawing his call for the PM to go, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar saying Mr Ross \"should not be using the Ukraine crisis to go back on his principles\" and Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie saying the Tory leader had \"the backbone of a jellyfish\".\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said it was \"an utterly humiliating u-turn for Douglas Ross\".\n\nBut Mr Ross said he did not care about criticisms from other parties, and that the SNP had also been calling for unity just a few days ago.\n\nHe added: \"They were standing up in the House of Commons saying we should work together, we should support the government because the threat is not here in the UK or between different political parties or the prime minister and the opposition.\n\n\"It is between the western world, Europe and allies across the globe and Russia - Vladimir Putin.\n\n\"That is the biggest threat at the moment, and that's what our efforts should be united in trying to defeat.\"", "Russia's flagship evening news broadcast on Channel One has been disrupted by an anti-war demonstrator.\n\nThe placard she held read: “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you”.\n\nThe demonstrator, identified as Marina Ovsyannikova, reportedly an editor at Channel One, also released a statement on her actions.", "Russia has been shelling the city\n\nThe boom of artillery, muffled by heavy snowfall, echoes across the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, triggering a series of air raid sirens.\n\nIn the faded grandeur of a long-abandoned club for navy officers, 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva is gathering food supplies, medicines and even home-made steel plates, carved out of local cars, for use as body armour.\n\nMykolaiv is now firmly in the sights of the Russian army - troops invaded from the nearby Crimea peninsula and have had more success in taking territory in this region than Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine.\n\nAs the Russians work their way west towards the city people are starting to flee and the hospitals are filling with the injured.\n\nBut Anastasia has decided to stay, sending her one-year-old daughter and her mother away to safety.\n\n\"I'm a mum of my baby. But I have to help because I know how to do it,\" the former army captain explains to the BBC.\n\nThe attack on a hospital in the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol on Tuesday made her decide she had no other choice.\n\n\"That was the hardest moment for me,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm a mum - but I have to stay,\" says ex-army captain 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva\n\nUkrainian forces in the city have, for more than a week now, successfully thwarted a major Russian advance west towards the larger port of Odesa.\n\nIn the city centre, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaliy Kim is standing in fatigues, explaining how Ukrainian soldiers, helped by new reinforcements, had pushed Russian troops back between 15 and 20km (nine to 12 miles) towards the east, and had even surrounded some Russian units which were now in negotiations for their surrender.\n\nSome of those troops were reportedly preparing to bring the captured and damaged Russian tanks into the city to show to residents.\n\nBut Mr Kim warns this is not a time to celebrate prematurely.\n\n\"We are winning this fight, but not this war,\" he says.\n\nThe governor said a relatively weak Russian force had underestimated local resistance and expected to \"be greeted with flowers\", but Russian reinforcements and planes could quickly turn the tide and enable the Kremlin to capture the whole Black Sea coastline.\n\n\"We need a closed sky,\" he said, referring to the idea of a no-fly zone enforced by Nato. The Western alliance has so far rejected such an idea, as it could bring them into direct conflict with Russian planes that entered the area.\n\nIn the local hospital, head doctor Alexander Dimyanov said 250 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been injured in the past fortnight, 12 fatally. Three patients, too sick to be moved further west to safety, remained on the trauma ward.\n\n\"We're exhausted,\" said a nurse, who declined to give her name. Dr Dimyanov showed a video of his colleagues in tears, explaining that they were overwhelmed by the workload and by fears that their own families might be hurt.\n\n\"They're crying because they don't know if they'll see them again. They don't run away. They work here every day. We have a lot of wounded people, every day. They see the blood,\" said Dr Dimyanov, who also called on the West to impose a no-fly zone.\n\nCivilians have been fleeing, heading west towards Moldova\n\nInhabitants of several apartment blocks in a civilian neighbourhood in the east of the city showed us where rockets or shells had hit their buildings in recent days, tearing holes in a stairwell and water pipes, and breaking dozens of windows.\n\n\"It's rocket and artillery fire at night. And it's pretty scary here. Very loud, especially at night,\" said 17-year-old Bogdan Somberakov.\n\nHe was waiting for a lift with his luggage and his family on the western edge of Mykolaiv.\n\nAs he spoke a long convoy of coaches passed by, carrying children west towards the Moldovan border and safety.", "Wagner member in the Donbas region in 2014/15\n\nSocial media channels and private messaging groups are being used in Russia to recruit a new brigade of mercenaries to fight in Ukraine alongside the army, the BBC has learned.\n\nThe BBC has spoken to a serving mercenary and a former fighter with close links to one of Russia's leading mercenary organisations, who have shared details of the recruitment campaign.\n\nThe serving mercenary said many veterans of the secretive Wagner organisation were contacted on a private Telegram group a few weeks before the start of the war. They were invited to a \"picnic in Ukraine\", with references to tasting \"Salo\", a pork fat traditionally eaten in Ukraine.\n\nThe message appeals to \"those with criminal records, debts, banned from mercenary groups or without an external passport\" to apply. The message also included that \"those from the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea - cordially invited\".\n\nThe Wagner group is one of the most secretive organisations in Russia. Officially, it doesn't exist - serving as a mercenary is against Russian and international law. But up to 10,000 operatives are believed to have taken at least one contract with Wagner over the past seven years.\n\nThe serving mercenary who spoke to the BBC said new recruits are being placed in units under the command of officers from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit of the ministry of defence.\n\nHe stressed that the recruitment policy had changed, and fewer restrictions were applied. \"They are recruiting anyone and everyone,\" he said, unhappy with what he described as the lower professionalism of the new fighters.\n\nHe said the new units being recruited are no longer referred to as Wagner, but new names - such as The Hawks - were being used.\n\nIn 2021, the BBC gained access to an electronic tablet left behind by a Wagner fighter in Libya\n\nThis seems to be part of a recent tendency to steer away from the Wagner group's reputation, as \"the brand is tainted\", says Candace Rondeaux, professor of Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies at Arizona State University.\n\nWagner has faced repeated accusations of human rights abuses and war crimes in its operations in Syria and Libya.\n\nThe mercenary sources who spoke to the BBC, said the recruits are trained at the Wagner base in Mol'kino in southern Russia, next to a Russian army base.\n\nAs well as the private messaging groups, there has also been a public campaign in Russia to recruit mercenaries.\n\nOn the Russian social media platform VK, a page that describes itself as a specialist in security activities, posted an advert during the first week of the invasion calling for \"security guards\" from other former Soviet Union countries to apply for \"the near abroad\". Military experts have said this is a reference to Ukraine.\n\nPreviously, a criminal record was a block for those wanting to join the mercenaries. Also restrictions were placed on anyone born outside Russia because of doubts around loyalty.\n\nTranslated advert for mercenaries on the VK social media site\n\nThere is a \"high demand on fighters\" and to make a difference on the ground \"they're going to need thousands of mercenaries\", says Jason Blazakis, senior research fellow at the Soufan Centre, a US-based security think tank.\n\nOn Friday, the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said that 16,000 fighters from the Middle East had volunteered to fight with the Russian army. The Russian president Vladimir Putin gave orders allowing fighters from the Middle East to be deployed in the war.\n\nIt has been reported that up to 400 fighters from the Wagner group have been in Ukraine.\n\nThe Wagner group was first identified in 2014, when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.\n\nThe serving Wagner fighter explained that in the first days of the invasion of Ukraine he was sent to the country's second city, Kharkiv, where he said his unit successfully completed a mission without revealing what it was.\n\n\"We were then paid $2,100 (£1,600) for a month's work and returned home to Russia,\" he told the BBC.\n\nBlazakis describes using mercenaries as a \"sign of desperation\" to keep the Russian public's support. Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has stirred several protests in Russia. Thousands have been arrested. Blazakis added that using mercenaries allows the Kremlin to \"keep the death toll down because mercenaries are used like cannon fodder\".\n\nMoscow has always denied any links with mercenary groups.\n\nThe BBC asked the Russian ministry of defence whether the base in Mol'kino was being used to recruit additional forces for what the Russian authorities call \"a special military operation in Ukraine''. No response was received.", "Mr Zelensky chatted to the injured troops, posed for selfies with them and awarded them and hospital workers with medals.", "Mr Sullivan, seen here in a file picture, warned that the US would not allow China to provide a \"lifeline\" to Russia\n\nChina will face consequences if it helps Russia evade sanctions in its invasion of Ukraine, the US says.\n\nUnnamed US officials told multiple news outlets that China had signalled willingness to provide military assistance to Russia.\n\nThe Chinese foreign ministry accused the US of spreading disinformation. Russia denied asking Beijing for military help.\n\nThe exchanges came before top US and Chinese officials met in Rome.\n\nMedia outlets, citing Washington officials, say that Russia has in recent days asked China specifically for military equipment, including drones.\n\nOn Monday, the US warned allies that China had suggested it was open to a move to provide military and economic support, media reports said.\n\nThe report came as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, for talks in Rome.\n\n\"Mr Sullivan raised a range of issues in US-China relations, with substantial discussion of Russia's war against Ukraine,\" a readout of the meeting said. \"They also underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China.\"\n\nIn an earlier CNN interview, Mr Sullivan said the US was \"communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them\".\n\n\"We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world,\" he said.\n\nHe added that while the US believed China was aware that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was \"planning something\" before the invasion happened, Beijing \"may not have understood the full extent of it\".\n\nRussia's military action is now in its third week and has horrified much of the world\n\n\"Because it's very possible that [Mr] Putin lied to them the same way that he lied to Europeans and others,\" Mr Sullivan said.\n\nIn response, a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing, Zhao Lijian, said the US had \"been spreading disinformation targeting China on the Ukraine issue, with malicious intentions\".\n\nAsked if he could clarify whether China had received a request for military help from Russia, Mr Zhao said this was \"fake news\" but did not deny it directly. He added that China's stance had always been consistent and that China was playing a constructive role in promoting talks.\n\nPresident Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports Russia had asked China for military assistance were not true.\n\n\"Russia possesses its own independent potential to continue the operation. As we said, it is going according to plan and will be completed on time and in full,\" he said.\n\nState Department spokesman Ned Price said the US raised concerns with the Chinese delegation \"directly and very clearly\".\n\nChina has so far refrained from condemning Russia for the invasion and has said Moscow's \"legitimate security concerns\" should be taken seriously.\n\nWhen the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn Russia's invasion earlier this month, China was one of 35 countries that abstained.\n\nBut Beijing at the same time has expressed \"unwavering support\" for Ukraine's sovereignty. It has also called for peace and has said it is ready to help end the war through diplomacy. Several countries have urged China to do more to stop Russia's invasion.\n\nThe EU and US help Ukraine, China helps Russia; if that's how this goes, then it's a delineation that will make the war in Ukraine an even more consequential one.\n\nThe White House has decided to make public its claim just as President Biden's top security adviser is due to meet China's most senior diplomat. It appears to be a tactical move, to put pressure on China; presumably to either confirm or deny it.\n\nThe bigger aim could be to try to make Xi Jinping weigh up the pros and cons to his current position of what was last week called a \"rock solid\" relationship with Moscow.\n\nRemember that it was just weeks ago, as the Winter Olympics opened in Beijing, that Presidents Xi and Putin declared a new alliance that had \"no limit\". Military aid could, clearly, be part of that.\n\nBut in the days after Russia's invasion China has condemned the UK, the US and others for giving weapons to Ukraine's military, saying they were adding \"fuel to the fire\".\n\nIf the US intelligence assessment is correct and Beijing follows through on that request, then they too would be \"adding fuel\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mariko Oi explains why China is in a delicate position in the Ukraine conflict\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A British journalist working for the Fox News Channel in the US has been injured while reporting on the war in Ukraine, the network says.\n\nFox confirmed on air that Benjamin Hall - listed as its US state department correspondent - is in hospital after an incident outside of the capital Kyiv.\n\nAfternoon news anchor John Roberts added teams on the ground were still gathering details of the incident.\n\nMr Hall is said to have been news gathering at the time.\n\nIn a memo circulated to Fox employees on Monday, CEO Suzanne Scott said there was \"a minimum level of details right now\" and called for prayers.\n\n\"This is a stark reminder for all journalists who put their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone,\" she wrote.\n\nMr Hall, 39, joined Fox News in 2015 and has been heavily involved in the network's foreign affairs coverage.\n\nHe has covered several wars from the frontlines, including in parts of the Middle East.\n\nA dual US-UK citizen, he completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in London.\n\nAnton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, posted on Telegram on Monday that Mr Hall was in a serious condition.\n\nMr Gerashchenko added that Ukrainian officials did not currently know the fate of a Fox News cameraman and a producer.\n\nHe said the news crew probably \"came under mortar or artillery fire\" from Russian forces as they were heading towards the city of Irpin, which sits just 20km (12 miles) north-west of Kyiv.\n\nEarlier on Monday, Ukraine's prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova had said that a Western journalist had been injured and was being cared for by Ukrainian doctors.\n\nThe State Department Correspondents' Association issued a statement, saying the state department's press corps was \"horrified\" to learn that Mr Hall had been injured.\n\n\"We know Ben for his warmth, good humor and utmost professionalism. We wish Ben a quick recovery,\" president of the association, Shaun Tandon, said.\n\nMr Hall's injuries come after another US journalist - Brent Renaud - was shot and killed on Sunday in the town of Irpin while working in the region. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital in the same attack.", "On day 18 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a military training base in the western city of Yavoriv was struck by a barrage of cruise missiles.\n\nAt least 35 people were killed and 134 injured in the deadly attack at the facility, near a major crossing point into Nato member Poland.\n\nVideo of the aftermath of the attack posted online and verified by the BBC showed a huge crater at the site and smoke billowing from a fire at a nearby building.\n\nWitnesses told the BBC how \"the night sky turned red\", sparking fears that the conflict would soon spread to the up-to-now peaceful regions in the west.\n\nFighting continued in areas outside the capital Kyiv, and a US journalist was shot dead in the town of Irpin.\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who had previously worked for the New York Times, though he was not on assignment for the publication in Ukraine.\n\nKyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.\n\nIt is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.\n\nBrent Renaud won a Peabody Award for his journalism in 2015\n\nInside the capital, the BBC's Jeremy Bowen spoke with teenagers who had volunteered at a centre in Kyiv to fight for Ukraine.\n\nMost of them were in their late teens, not long out of school. They told our correspondent that after three days' basic training they would head for the front line - or very close to it. Some of them were wearing knee pads that looked too small. A few had sleeping bags. One had a yoga mat.\n\n\"I feel a bit scared, as no-one wants to die, even if it's for your country. So, death is not an option for us\", 18-year-old Dmytro told him.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Maksym Lutsyk,19 (left) and Dmytro Kisilenko, 18 are at war with three days training.\n\nIn the UK, the housing secretary announced the details of a scheme designed to accommodate Ukrainian refugees.\n\nUnder the Homes for Ukraine plan, people will be able to nominate a named individual or a family to stay with them rent-free, or in another property, for at least six months. A website to express an interest in being a sponsor will launch on Monday. Ukrainians on the scheme will be given leave to remain for three years, with the right to work and access public services. Sponsors would get a \"thank you\" payment of £350 a month.\n\nCritics of the plan say it falls short of what is needed.\n\nOn the red carpet, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch hinted that he hoped to take in a refugee.\n\n\"What we all have to do is continue to put pressure on our politicians as far as the refugee crisis goes, continue to put pressure on the Putin regime, continue to help in any which way we can - whether that's through donations or housing refugees, all of which I'm looking to do - and have done\", he said.\n\nAccording to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war.\n\nThe EU, US, UK and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian flights, so they are heading for countries where flights are still permitted and where visas are not required, such as Turkey, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Many have fled to Armenia.\n\nThe BBC's Rayhan Demytrie spoke to Russians who have arrived in neighbouring Georgia. Many can be seen wandering around the capital Tblisi, with their suitcases and often their pets.\n\n\"I understood the best way to act against Putin's regime would be my emigration from Russia,\" Yevgeny, a 23-year old politics graduate told her. \"It's my responsibility to do anything I can to help the Ukrainians.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Yevgeny says it is his responsibility as a Russian to help Ukrainians", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Maksym Lutsyk,19 (left) and Dmytro Kisilenko, 18 are at war with three days training.\n\nJust over a week ago I met a group of young men who had volunteered at a centre in Kyiv to fight for Ukraine.\n\nMost of them were in their late teens, not long out of school. They told me that after three days' basic training they would head for the front line - or very close to it.\n\nMaksym Lutsyk, a 19-year-old biology student, told me he wasn't fazed about trying to become a soldier after less than a week of instruction. He'd manage, after five years in the Scouts, not just learning backwoods skills, but also some weapons training. He was 10 when Ukraine's long war with separatists sponsored by Moscow started in 2014.\n\nMaksym had gone to join up with his friend Dmytro Kisilenko, 18, who was studying economics at the same university.\n\nThe recruits were like any bunch of young lads who had decided they were no longer boys, laughing too loudly when someone told jokes to hide their nerves, or trying a bit of bravado.\n\nSome of them were wearing knee pads that looked too small, as if they had come with skateboards on their 12th birthdays. A few had sleeping bags. One had a yoga mat. When they waited outside for the bus that was going to be taking them to the training base, they looked like friends on the way to a festival - apart from the guns. Each had been given custody of a Kalashnikov assault rifle.\n\nMaksym (far left) and Dmytro (centre, with green jacket and white trainers) before their training\n\nI'm in touch with Dmytro and Maksym and the other volunteers. This weekend I went to see them at their posts on the eastern edge of the city, where they have been issued with uniforms, body armour, proper infantry kneepads and helmets.\n\nA bitter wind blew through the checkpoint which the volunteers were trying to turn into a real obstacle with sandbags and steel tank traps. They made the best of their very basic training.\n\nDmytro told me: \"I got used to my gun. I learned how to shoot and how to act in the battle, also many other things that will be very crucial in the fight with the Russians.\" He laughed, as if he found it hard to imagine what he was contemplating.\n\nMaksym looked more urgent, more serious, less like a laid-back student.\n\n\"I feel much more confident than I was before, because we get enough knowledge in tactics, in martial arts, in tactical medicine and in how to do something on the battlefield.\" Only half joking, he wanted to see the Ukrainian flag flying from the Kremlin.\n\nThe question on everyone's mind here is whether the battle is coming for Kyiv.\n\n\"It's definitely possible\" said Dmytro. \"We just have to stop them here, because if they get to Kyiv this war might be over.\"\n\nBarricades have been set up on roads in Kyiv using concrete blocks and \"tank traps\" from the city's museum\n\nThey are from the same town near the Russian border, which is being shelled. Their families are still there. I asked the boys what their parents thought of what they were doing. Maksym joked that his mother had told him to stay in a shelter and volunteer to cook the food. He had spared them the details of his deployment because he didn't want to worry them.\n\nDmytro's parents knew what he was doing. He had started by volunteering to make Molotov cocktails and after a few days rang his dad to tell him he had decided to join the territorial defence force. His father told him not to try too hard to be a hero.\n\nMy parents, Dmytro said, are proud of what I'm doing. He looked delighted. I asked him if he felt scared of what is ahead.\n\n\"Not much, but it is human nature to feel scared, and of course deeply in my soul I feel a bit scared, as no one wants to die, even if it's for your country. So, death is not an option for us.\"\n\nDmytro and Maksym talked about their dreams for the future, fun with friends, finishing their studies, careers and eventually families. Their parents must be praying that their sons' plans, energy and even their lives are not smashed by the brutal realities of war, like so many in all the other generations of young men who have joined up to fight in Europe's wars.\n\nForeign journalists have no access to the young Russian men only a few miles away on the other side of the front line. Many are believed to be conscripts, who were not told properly what was being planned for them. Wars are mostly fought by young men.\n\nI have no doubt that many young Russians in the war have hopes as high as Dmytro and Maksym. One difference might be less motivation to fight, though without the chance to report their side properly, it is hard to say with certainty.\n\nThe two young Ukrainian students-turned-soldiers went back to work on the checkpoint. The professional army is a couple of miles ahead, directly facing the Russians.\n\nBut if the Russians come, like all the volunteers, Maksym and Dmytro will be firing out of the trenches they helped dig into the surrounding ground, where boxes of Molotov cocktails are waiting - old bottles filled with petrol and pieces of grated polystyrene and stuffed with a rag to ignite what they hope might even disable a tank.\n\nIf that doesn't work, the Nato military alliance is pouring in thousands of much more sophisticated anti-tank weapons.\n\nEveryone here in Kyiv is waiting for what is likely to be the key battle of the war, soldiers, civilians in and out of uniform, along with Maksym and Dmytro and the other volunteers who are getting ready to fight with them.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Yevgeny says it is his responsibility as a Russian to help Ukrainians\n\nOutside Georgia's parliament, Yevgeny Lyamin heaves boxes of clothes and food parcels on to a waiting truck bound for Ukraine.\n\nHe is one of more than 25,000 Russians to have arrived in Georgia since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russians have been struggling to find affordable accommodation in all the major cities. Many can be seen wandering around the capital, Tbilisi, with their suitcases and often even their pets.\n\nA blue-and-yellow ribbon is attached to the lapel of Yevgeny's trench-coat - the colours of the Ukrainian flag. It was these ribbons that got him arrested at an anti-war protest in Russia, a day after it launched its war on Ukraine.\n\n\"I understood the best way to act against Putin's regime would be my emigration from Russia,\" says the 23-year old politics graduate. \"It's my responsibility to do anything I can to help the Ukrainians.\"\n\nThe exodus does not stop at Georgia. The EU, US, UK and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian flights, so they are heading for countries where flights are still permitted and where visas are not required, such as Turkey, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Many have fled to Armenia.\n\nAccording to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Konstantin Sonin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBelarusians are on the move too, fleeing repression and the Western sanctions imposed on authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko's government for collaborating with Russia's Vladimir Putin.\n\nThat has prompted prices to surge on last-minute flights and rental accommodation in the main host cities, such as Istanbul and Armenia's capital, Yerevan.\n\n\"A one-way flight to Istanbul cost me and my husband more than our combined monthly income,\" said Anya, who did not want to give her surname.\n\nFor her the moment of decision came with a new \"state betrayal\" law that has come into force in Russia. Anyone expressing support for Ukraine could face jail sentences of up to 20 years and Anya believed she could be a target.\n\n\"Fear of closed borders, political repression and forced military service is in our DNA. I remember my grandmother telling me stories about the state of fear they lived in during Stalin's time, and now we are experiencing it,\" she said.\n\nAn estimated 25,000 Russians have left for Georgia\n\nMany of the new emigres are tech industry professionals who can work remotely. A video games developer I met at a cafe in Tbilisi told me that he and most people he knew disagreed with Russian policy and they knew now that any protest would be violently suppressed.\n\n\"The only way we can protest is to leave the country, take our skills and money with us. Almost everyone in our circle has made a similar decision,\" said Igor (not his real name). He plans to leave the Georgian capital, because he does not feel welcome here.\n\nThere have been numerous reports of Airbnb hosts refusing to let their properties to Russian and Belarusian citizens.\n\n\"I do not accept Russian and Belarus people\" one host told a Belarusian couple, who shared their exchange with the BBC. \"You do not have time for vacations - revolt against your corrupt governments.\"\n\n\"They think we are running away from Russia because Apple Pay no longer works there,\" Igor complained. \"We are not running for comfort, we've lost everything there, we are basically refugees. Putin's geopolitics has destroyed our lives.\"\n\nAt Tbilisi's public service hall, new arrivals are registering businesses or applying for residency.\n\nKristina and Nikita, who are both IT specialists from the Belarusian capital Minsk, have registered as sole entrepreneurs. That will allow them to open Georgian bank accounts.\n\n\"We don't support our governments, which is obvious because we ran away. We want to be safe here,\" said Kristina. \"But we are being bullied just because of our nationality, I need to hide my country of origin, I don't feel comfortable when people ask me where I am from.\"\n\nSince the start of the war Tbilisi has seen some of the largest rallies in support of Ukraine. A recent survey found that 87% of Georgians view the war in Ukraine as their own war with Russia.\n\nBut many Georgians are uneasy about this dramatic influx of Russians, as it is less than 14 years since Russia's leader invaded Georgia.\n\nSome 30,000 Georgians listened to Ukraine's President Zelensky during a mass protest\n\nSome fear President Putin might claim Russian citizens abroad need protection, because that was his excuse to justify sending troops into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia in 2008. To date, 20% of Georgian territory remains under Russian occupation.\n\nHowever, tech entrepreneur Lev Kalashnikov thinks Georgia will benefit from what he asserts is the biggest brain drain in Russia's modern history. He opened a group for expats on the Telegram messaging app while standing in a queue.\n\n\"There were 50 people in front of me and 50 people behind me. They became my first subscribers and now we have nearly 4,000 members.\"\n\nMembers discuss where to find accommodation, how to open bank accounts, and whether or not it is safe to speak Russian in public.\n\nYevgeny Lyamin is already learning Georgian, practising Georgia's unique alphabet in an exercise book.\n\n\"I am against Putin, I am against war. I still can't withdraw money from my Russian bank account, but that's nothing like the problems that Ukrainians face.\"", "Witnesses to a deadly Russian attack on a Ukrainian military base have told how \"the sky turned red\" as missiles struck the site near the Polish border.\n\nAt least 35 people died in the strike on the Yavoriv training base, near a major crossing point into Poland used by refugees from the conflict.\n\nRussia fired around 30 cruise missiles at the base, outside the city of Lviv, early Sunday, the local governor said.\n\nHours after the attack, ambulances were still rushing to the scene.\n\nRoads leading to the facility were blocked with checkpoints and authorities were conducting search-and-rescue operations.\n\nRussian jets fired around 30 cruise missiles at the site, also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, authorities in Lviv said. Most, though, were intercepted by the air defence system.\n\nVideo of the aftermath of the attack posted online and verified by the BBC showed a huge crater at the site and thick smoke billowing from a massive fire at a small building nearby.\n\nDukhnych Vitalii, a 19-year-old student who lives in a nearby apartment complex, said \"the night sky turned red\" as the attack happened. \"We can't hear the air raid sirens in this area. We woke up when we heard the sound of the first explosion. We went to the bunker,\" he said. \"It looked scary.\"\n\nHis 25-year-old cousin was training at the facility, Mr Vitalii said, and his family were still trying to contact him.\n\nAnother resident, Nadin Berezovska, said she could see the fire from her parents' flat, where she had been living after fleeing the country's capital, Kyiv. \"It was very scary. We're in shock,\" Ms Berezovska, a 39-year-old photographer, said.\n\n\"Now we realise that it doesn't matter where you live,\" she said. \"We aren't safe. How can Poland be safe?\"\n\nThe base has previously been used for military training of Ukrainian troops, often with instructors from the US and other Nato countries. It was not immediately clear whether foreign instructors were at the centre when it was hit.\n\nThe attack is significant because the base, one of Ukraine's largest military facilities, is located just 25km (15 miles) from Poland, a Nato member. The border with Poland is a vital route for refugees, but also for weapons being sent by countries in the military alliance - which have included anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nIt is also the first major attack in western Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of the country, on 24 February. The region has become a hub for millions of people escaping the war in other areas, and around 2.6 million have left Ukraine so far.\n\n\"We're very scared,\" Yurii Vitiv, a 50-year-old driver, said. \"Until this morning we had hoped that the war would stop on eastern Ukraine.\"\n\nHours earlier, Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, said Moscow had warned the US that \"pumping weapons from a number of countries it orchestrates isn't just a dangerous move, it's an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets\".\n\nDespite sending weapons, Nato has, so far, ruled out a request by Ukraine's government to establish a no-fly zone over the country, saying this would trigger a wider conflict with Russia.\n\nBut Andriy Sadovyy, the mayor of Lviv, said such a measure was necessary to prevent Russia from carrying our aerial strikes.\n\n\"Europeans, understand this situation: it's easy to talk and drink coffee and say they're deeply concerned... but every hour the skies are not closed, the Russians are killing civilians and children,\" he told the BBC in an interview.\n\n\"We need closed sky. We need decision today. We need bullet-proof vests today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow Russian missiles [will] end up in the European Union.\"\n\nMs Berezovska, the photographer, agreed. \"In Ukraine, there's no place to hide,\" she said. \"We ask Nato to close the sky.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Lviv? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The Royal Family were warned about the risk of \"might being right\" in Ukraine\n\n\"At this very moment , Ukraine risks being pulverised,\" Lord Sentamu, former Archbishop of York, has warned the annual Commonwealth Service.\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Boris Johnson were among those at the Westminster Abbey service, with the prime minister wearing a Ukraine-and-UK badge.\n\n\"It is not the first time that might has demanded to be right,\" Lord Sentamu said of the attack on Ukraine.\n\nThe Queen, 95, had pulled out of attending this year's service.\n\nLord Sentamu told the Commonwealth Service, attended by royals including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and senior politicians, his prayer for Ukraine was \"heavenly justice will defend the poor and vulnerable\".\n\nIn contrast to a \"world which measures power in megatons\", he said, the Queen's long reign had been about duty and service and the principle: \"Whoever shall be great among you shall be your servant.\"\n\nLord Sentamu speaking to Boris Johnson as he arrived at the service, which celebrated the Commonwealth\n\nThe Royal Family have been unusually outspoken over the Ukraine war, with Prince Charles condemning the \"brutal aggression\" and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting the Ukrainian Cultural Centre wearing badges in the Ukrainian national colours.\n\nThe ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, celebrated the work of the Commonwealth, with parades of flags, readings and music from Emeli Sandé and Mica Paris, and a focus on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.\n\nAfter concerns about her ability to travel and her mobility, the Queen had been unable to attend in person.\n\nBut in a message she praised the Commonwealth as a force for good in \"these testing times\".\n\nShe also showed no sign of stepping back, repeating the lifelong commitment made when she was 21 that \"my life will always be devoted in service\".\n\nThe Queen recently recovered from Covid and has returned to holding diplomatic meetings and audiences in person.\n\nBut in one of those meetings last month, she said: \"As you can see, I can't move.\"\n\nPrince Charles represented her at the Westminster Abbey service.\n\nHe will also go on behalf of the Queen to the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, due to be held in Rwanda in June.", "The bar was popular among the city's young creatives\n\nYou'll Never Drink Alone were the words that hung above the bar at the Old Hem, an iconic pub in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.\n\nThe pub is named after Ernest Hemingway, and its patrons would walk past a statue of the legendary American writer on their way in.\n\nIt was popular among the city's young creatives, and Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine's best known poets, would often perform and drink there.\n\nBut now the Old Hem lies in ruins.\n\nThe pub was destroyed in shelling on Monday\n\nIt was completely destroyed during Russian shelling of the city on Monday. The Kharkiv prosecutor's office says two people died in the attack.\n\nThe bar's owner, Kostiantyn Kuts, told the BBC that no staff were in the bar when the strike hit, and those who died were in apartments above the pub.\n\nThe Old Hem stopped pouring pints and turned into a makeshift bomb shelter when the Russian army invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Mr Kuts says.\n\nHe initially hoped that he'd only be shutting up briefly.\n\n\"We did not completely believe in what was happening and hoped that soon the bar would work. But the illusions were destroyed with the first bombs on residential buildings,\" he said in a message.\n\nIn the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Our correspondent on the front line, with Ukraine’s troops - this report contains graphic images of casualties\n\nBut in the weeks leading up to the invasion, Mr Kuts says it was business as usual at the bar.\n\n\"The atmosphere was friendly. Many felt at home in the bar,\" he says. \"The pub was popular among young people, and they were all optimistic and did not believe in war.\"\n\nThis homely atmosphere was one the Old Hem had built up over a decade.\n\nMr Kuts says the pub was opened in 2012 as a place where people could \"meet and discuss current affairs over a glass of beer\". It soon became a focal point for Kharkiv's creatives and would showcase local talent.\n\nYuri, who often visited the Old Hem and declined to give his full name, said it was more of a hub than a pub. He recalls musician Oleh Skrypka, vocalist with the ground-breaking Ukrainian rock band Vopli Vidopliassova, playing a rare intimate show. Parties would regularly continue into the early hours.\n\n\"It was one of the first places in Kharkiv to support Maidan publicly with flags and manifestos on the doors,\" he says, in reference to the protest movement that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.\n\n\"Freedom and democracy combined with cheap beer is why youth loved it I guess,\" he says.\n\nThe pub was dedicated to Hemingway\n\nThe pub was dedicated to Hemingway, one of Mr Kuts' heroes, and had a statue of the writer at the entrance. The walls of the bar were decked out with portraits of other iconic authors including 20th Century Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov, Charles Bukowski and Mark Twain.\n\n\"I was often asked the question - why Old Hem?\" Mr Kuts says.\n\nHe said this was out of affection for an old friend rather than a reference to his age.\n\nBut what really made the bar was the people, he adds.\n\nMr Kuts hopes to one day rebuild his beloved pub\n\nMr Kuts is now in western Ukraine and is hoping to make it to Germany. But one day he hopes to return to his city to rebuild his beloved bar.\n\n\"I'm sure Hem's story didn't end today,\" he says. \"We will win and Hem will rise again.\"", "High demand for workout gear and health-conscious vegetarian options are now being used to calculate the change in the cost of living in the UK.\n\nItems such as tinned beans, boosted by a rise in plant-based diets, have also been added to the basket of goods used to measure prices.\n\nThe review by the Office for National Statistics also saw pet collars added.\n\nBut men's suits and doughnuts are out as homeworking shifted how we dress and snack during Covid lockdowns.\n\nThe ONS said it decided to add meat-free sausages to the basket of more than 700 goods, which is used to calculate how the cost of living is changing, to reflect a boost in demand for healthier food options.\n\nIt also said that the removal of a men's two-piece suit, and the addition of sports bras and crop tops, accounted for the fact that spending on formal clothes has been falling, as well as a \"heightened awareness of fitness\".\n\n\"With many people still working from home, demand for more formal clothing has continued to decrease,\" ONS head of economic statistics Sam Beckett said.\n\nSince the start of the pandemic, retailers such as Boohoo and Asos have reported a boost in sales for loungewear items such as joggers or hoodies too.\n\nIn total, 19 items were added while 15 have been removed.\n\nAnd although the deletion of doughnuts from the basket might suggest customers are opting for healthier snacks while working-from-home, multipacks of cakes are still included in the calculation.\n\nOther additions to the basket of goods signalled a shift in how consumers are spending during the pandemic.\n\nAnti-bacterial wipes, as well as craft and hobby kits for adults, were included in the basket of goods for the first time.\n\nPet collars for dogs and cats were also added \"to reflect the growth in pet accessories linked to the increase in pet ownership more generally during the pandemic\", it said.\n\nItems such as atlas books or encyclopaedias, as well as coal, are out too.\n\nThe official statistics body pointed out that the sale of domestic coal will be banned in 2023 as part of the government's attempt to tackle climate change. Dropping the item this year protects the index from being affected by big swings in price as that headline approaches.\n\nThe publication comes as experts point out that what has been described as the cost of living crisis could be exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nOn Monday, research from the Resolution Foundation think tank suggested that the war could see another spike in the cost of living this autumn.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ros Atkins on why the war in Ukraine is pushing up food prices - and the likely impact on poorer countries\n\nIt said that inflation, which tracks how the cost of living changes over time, could reach 10% for the poorest households, whose energy and food bills make up a bigger proportion of their budgets.\n\nSome analysts suggested on Monday that the update to the basket of goods was \"out of touch with the everyday expenditure for the masses\".\n\nMyron Jobson, senior personal finance analyst at Interactive Investor, said that climbing sessions, which was added this year, \"is unlikely to rank highly on the list of spending priorities among those struggling to make ends meet during the cost-of-living crisis\".\n\n\"We all have our own inflation number, and it is worth keeping tabs on your spending habits to get a better idea of the goods and services that are eating most into your budget, and where you could cut back,\" he added.\n\nWith inflation at the highest rate seen in 30 years, the ONS's methodology has come under extra scrutiny because of the concern that product selections do not reflect purchases made by those on lower incomes.\n\nPoverty campaigner Jack Monroe had complained that the official way inflation is calculated fail to accurately reflect this.\n\nThe ONS has said some changes were already in the pipeline to address that.From 2024, it will use a far wider range of prices from supermarket tills, which should make it easier to work out if certain brands of pasta or beans, for example, are rising faster than others.", "Last updated on .From the section American Football\n\nTom Brady, one of the greatest players in NFL history, is coming back for his 23rd season just six weeks after announcing his retirement.\n\nThe quarterback, 44, said last month he was ending his playing career after winning a record seven Super Bowls.\n\nBut Brady has now said he has \"unfinished business\" and will rejoin the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.\n\n\"These past two months I've realised my place is still on the field and not in the stands,\" he said on social media.\n\n\"That time will come. But it's not now. I love my team-mates, and I love my supportive family. They make it all possible. I'm coming back for my 23rd season in Tampa.\"\n• None From Pick 199 to the greatest of all time - the Tom Brady story\n\nAfter being selected by the New England Patriots with the 199th pick of the 2000 draft, Brady led the franchise to six Super Bowl wins.\n\nHe left for the Bucs in 2020 and helped them win the Super Bowl in his first season, being named the game's Most Valuable Player for a fifth time.\n\nA three-time NFL season MVP, he led Tampa Bay back to the play-offs last season and still had a year remaining on his contract with the Bucs when he announced his retirement.\n\nThe franchise were yet to sign a new quarterback and, when asked about a possible return for Brady earlier this month, coach Bruce Arians said: \"That door is never closed.\"\n\nIn his final game of the 2021 season, Brady narrowly failed to pull off a sensational comeback from 27-3 down in the play-offs as the Bucs ultimately lost 30-27 to the eventual Super Bowl winners, the Los Angeles Rams.\n\nHe amassed a career-high 5,316 passing yards last season and holds the all-time records for passing yards (84,520) and touchdowns (624).\n\nThe Bucs have been owned since 1995 by the Glazer family, who have also owned Premier League club Manchester United since 2005.\n\nBrady and his two sons were guests of the Glazers at Saturday's 3-2 win over Tottenham at Old Trafford, during which Brady met former manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the first-team squad, including forward Cristiano Ronaldo.\n\n'Thank you' - reaction to Brady U-turn\n\nTampa head coach Arians welcomed Brady's change of mind, while the franchise's general manager Jason Licht said he was \"thrilled\".\n\n\"Tom Brady loves to play football as much as anyone I have ever been around,\" said Arians. \"As Tom said, his place right now is on the football field.\n\n\"He is still playing at a championship level and was as productive as anyone in the league last season. We are ecstatic that he decided to continue playing and working toward winning another championship.\"\n\nBrady played in 10 Super Bowls, including an incredible comeback from 28-3 down against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017, and won a Super Bowl in three different decades.\n• None The Sports Desk podcast: The era of the age-defying athlete\n\nLicht said: \"We said we would leave all options open for him should he reconsider his retirement.\n\n\"Bruce and I have had plenty of conversations with Tom recently that led us to believe there was a realistic chance he'd want to come back.\n\n\"Tom is the greatest quarterback of all time who is still playing at an elite level.\"\n\nBrady's last touchdown was one to Mike Evans, which Rams player Jalen Ramsey could not intercept.\n\nRamsey greeted Brady's decision not to retire by saying \"thank you\" and adding \"throw that last touchdown on somebody else\".\n\nThe ball for Brady's last touchdown was thrown into the stands by Evans and the fan who caught it sold it via Lelands, a sports memorabilia auction company.\n\n\"If there is any item in the field of sports collectibles that needs no embellishment, it is this historic piece: the final touchdown ball of Tom Brady's career,\" wrote Lelands in its description of the ball.\n\nAn anonymous buyer paid $518,628 (£397,592) for it before Brady's retirement U-turn the following day.\n• None Six films that got their facts wrong: From the Jamaican bobsleigh team to Sylvester Stallone's goalkeeping heroics\n• None A look back to when Michael Vaughan sat down with cricket legend Shane Warne", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Caroline Lucas asks for an assurance the UK would not take part in a “more arms for oil deal” with Saudi Arabia\n\nThe UK government is to discuss how to diversify energy supply following disruption caused by the war in Ukraine, Downing Street has said.\n\nPetrol prices for UK drivers have reached record highs of more than £1.60 a litre in recent days.\n\nThe PM's spokesman said discussions with Saudi officials would look to tackle market volatility but there were no \"quick fixes\" available.\n\nIt comes after 81 men were executed in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.\n\nForeign Office Minister Amanda Milling said the British government was \"deeply shocked\" by the executions, and opposed the use of the death penalty in all circumstances.\n\nReplying to an urgent question from Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, she said the issue had already been raised with the Saudi authorities, and the government would continue to \"speak frankly\" about human rights.\n\nMr Blunt said the executions were \"appalling\" and had presented the prime minister with \"exquisite difficulties\" when asking Saudi Arabia for help in easing oil shortages.\n\nMs Milling told MPs the UK was phasing out Russian oil, adding that it was important to have stability in energy markets, and there was a role for OPEC - of which Saudi Arabia is a key member - in this.\n\nHuman rights groups say many of those executed did not receive fair trials, but the Saudi government denies this.\n\nThe average price of petrol for UK drivers hit £1.63 a litre on Sunday, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushing up costs.\n\nAsked whether the UK wanted Saudi Arabia - the world's second-biggest oil producer - to increase supplies, the prime minister's official spokesman said: \"We will be speaking to the Saudis about a range of issues, not just energy supply.\n\n\"Diversifying our energy supply is important, as is boosting renewable energy. There are no quick fixes but we do want to reduce the volatility and bring prices down.\"\n\nBoris Johnson held a meeting with ministers and leaders of gas and oil companies - including Shell, Esso and BP - on Monday, during which he voiced a \"firm commitment\" to continuing extractions from the North Sea.\n\nThey agreed to work to \"remove barriers facing investors and developers, and help projects come online more quickly\", Downing Street said.\n\nSaudi Arabia says those executed on Saturday, including seven Yemenis and one Syrian national, had been convicted of \"multiple heinous crimes\", including terrorism, torture, rape and weapons smuggling.\n\nThe number put to death exceeded the 69 who faced that fate during the whole of 2021.\n\n\"The UK is firmly opposed to the death penalty in every country as a matter of principle,\" the PM's spokesman said.\n\n\"We continue to raise human rights issues with other countries including Saudi Arabia. We do not shy away from raising these issues with our partners.\"\n\nIn the Commons, Labour's spokesman Bambos Charalambous said it was no coincidence that the Saudis had carried out the mass executions while the world's attention was elsewhere.\n\nResponding to reports that Boris Johnson is to visit Riyadh, the SNP spokesman, Alyn Smith, said no such visit should take place, after what he described as an \"atrocity\".", "The arrivals process into England is set to become easier for travellers\n\nThe transport secretary has confirmed that all remaining Covid travel measures will be scrapped.\n\nCurrently, everyone travelling to the UK must complete a passenger locator form before they arrive.\n\nTravellers who are not fully vaccinated have to take a Covid test before departure, fill in the form, and book and pay for a PCR test after arriving.\n\nGrant Shapps confirmed in a tweet that these rules will end at 04:00 on Friday.\n\nHis announcement means that passengers who are not fully vaccinated will no longer have to take Covid tests before and after travelling to the UK. The passenger locator form will no longer be necessary either.\n\nPeople planning an overseas trip will still need to be aware of other countries' entry rules.\n\nMr Shapps tweeted: \"These changes are possible due to our vaccine rollout and mean greater freedom in time for Easter.\"\n\nWhen any new Covid strains appear in the future, the government said its default approach would be to use \"the least-stringent measures\" for restricting travel.\n\nIts \"Living with Covid\" plan said new measures at the border would only be considered in \"extreme circumstances\".\n\nIt said the UKHSA would closely monitor the prevalence and spread of Covid variants.\n\nScotland and Wales have agreed to follow England in scrapping the remaining coronavirus border measures.\n\nBut Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan said she was doing so \"reluctantly\" - and was \"extremely disappointed\" that testing requirements and the passenger location form were being ditched.\n\nThe Scottish government said consistency across the four nations was agreed because of the \"negative impact of non-alignment on the tourism industry\".\n\nTesting requirements for fully-vaccinated arrivals into the UK were dropped in February.\n\nThe latest move was welcomed by some figures in the travel industry, which has campaigned for the remaining rules to be dropped so businesses can take full advantage of strong summer holiday demand.\n\nTim Alderslade, chief executive of trade body Airlines UK, said: \"Today's announcement sends a clear message to the world - the UK travel sector is back.\n\n\"With travellers returning to the UK no longer burdened by unnecessary forms and testing requirements, we can now look forward to the return to pre-Covid normality throughout the travel experience.\"\n\nA Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: \"The removal of all remaining UK travel restrictions is the final important step towards frictionless air travel, helping to further restore consumer confidence as we welcome more customers back to the skies this spring and summer.\n\n\"To uphold the experience of all travellers, it's vital that the UK Government works closely with industry to ensure the UK border is ready for increasing passengers, as international travel ramps up.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Eurostar's chief executive Jacques Damas said the easing of restrictions would help the cross-Channel train operator's recovery.\n\n\"We hope and expect to see the UK's approach replicated across our other markets in the coming weeks,\" Mr Damas said.\n\nHowever, as Covid restrictions recede, other headwinds for the aviation industry are appearing.\n\nThe price of jet fuel has soared as a result of higher crude oil prices. This adds to cost pressures on airlines, although some have been protected by their hedging strategies, whereby they purchased fuel in advance at lower prices.\n\nOn Friday, the chief executive of Heathrow airport, John Holland-Kaye, said the recovery of aviation remained \"overshadowed by war and Covid uncertainty\".\n\nBusinesses will also be keeping a careful eye on whether consumers' confidence to book is knocked by the war in Ukraine and rising household bills squeezing disposable incomes.\n\nAir France-KLM and Ryanair have both recently warned air fares will rise.", "Ukraine's foreign minister said Yevhen Matveyev was abducted by \"Russian war criminals\"\n\nUkraine's government has accused the Russian military of abducting another mayor in an area that it has captured.\n\nYevhen Matveyev was seized in the southern town of Dniprorudne, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted, accusing Russia of \"terror\" tactics.\n\nEarlier, Russia installed a new mayor in Melitopol, after allegedly abducting the city's previous incumbent.\n\nUkraine's president also accused Russia of trying to create \"pseudo-republics\" to break his country apart.\n\nIn her first public appearance, Melitopol's newly installed mayor Galina Danilchenko urged residents not to take part in \"extremist actions\" and declared her main task was construction of \"basic mechanisms under the new reality\".\n\nHundreds of people took part in a protest outside the city hall on Saturday to demand the release of previous incumbent Ivan Fedorov, who had refused to co-operate with Russian troops since they took the city on the third day of the invasion.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Myroslava Petsa This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Fedorov was last seen on Friday evening being dragged away from the city's crisis centre by several armed men with a bag over his head.\n\nUkrainian officials shared a video of the incident and said the armed men were Russian soldiers.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Mr Fedorov had told the BBC earlier in the week. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nRussian authorities have not commented on his disappearance, but the prosecutor's office of the Russian-backed breakaway eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk has reportedly accused him of \"terrorist activities\".\n\nCCTV image from the video allegedly showing the mayor being marched away\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded Mr Fedorov's immediate release and asked the leaders of Israel, Germany and France to put pressure on Russia to free him.\n\nIn his latest video address on Saturday night, Mr Zelensky said Russia was to create \"pseudo-republics\" in Ukraine.\n\nHe praised those refusing to collaborate in the Russian-controlled Kherson region.\n\nThe council there had earlier adopted a resolution reaffirming that it \"has been, is and will be an inalienable part of the united state of Ukraine\" in response to what it said was a Russian plan to stage a referendum on the creation of a \"people's republic\".\n\nMr Zelensky also warned \"certain figures\" of dire personal consequences of any collaboration - an apparent reference to Ms Danilchenko.", "China has always said repeatedly that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of others\n\nA month ago, Chinese leader Xi Jinping declared there was \"no limit\" to Beijing's newly strengthened relationship with Russia.\n\nHe and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had met face-to-face in Beijing, culminating in a joint document - and then they went off to see the opening of the Winter Olympic Games. Days after the Games ended, Russia invaded Ukraine.\n\nChina's government has neither condemned nor condoned the attack and has even refrained from calling it an \"invasion\" in the first place. It has always said that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of others, a core principle of its foreign policy.\n\nBut earlier this week, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi signalled that it was ready to play a role in mediating a ceasefire. State media here reported that Mr Wang \"reaffirmed China's unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty\" and assured his counterpart of China's readiness to make every effort to end the war... through diplomacy\".\n\nChina's government also recently expressed \"regret\" about the military action, saying it was extremely concerned about the harm to civilians.\n\nChina has also done one other thing of note. Alongside India, it was one of 34 nations that abstained from voting on a United Nations resolution condemning Russia's invasion - something analysts say has come as a surprise. Many had expected China to vote alongside Russia.\n\nSo, is it a sign of a shift in China's policy?\n\nIt is more likely a sign that China is trying to strike a balance between the principle of respecting Ukraine's sovereignty while recognising what it describes as the \"legitimate security concerns\" of Russia.\n\nIf you look back to the 5,000-word document signed off by Presidents Xi and Putin when they declared their deepening, unlimited alliance you'll see that objection to Nato expansion unites them, though the agreement covers multiple areas of common ground and planned co-operation; in space, in the Arctic, on Covid-19 vaccines.\n\nIt is their shared vision of a future in which China and Russia work much more closely, for mutual benefit.\n\nThe other key context to why China might stand fast in its support for Russia and Vladimir Putin - or its lack of condemnation, depending on how you see it - is Taiwan.\n\nThe self-governing island, regarded as a rogue province by Beijing, is a place that President Xi wants to see \"reunited\" with his motherland. Were Mr Xi to do that by military force China would likely face a similar - or likely more serious - reaction from the US and its allies; condemnation, heightened sanctions, cultural exclusion.\n\nTaiwan is not Ukraine. If nothing else, the legal status of the two places is different.\n\nBut in acknowledging what it calls Russia's \"legitimate security concerns\" and caveating the core principle of respecting sovereignty because of \"complex and unique historical context\", China's leader likely sees a future in which he can seek to justify to the world an \"invasion\" of Taiwan, and expect Russia's reciprocal support.\n\nAnd then there's the personal relationship between Mr Xi and Mr Putin. The two have met in person nearly 40 times now.\n\nWhen he arrived for the Winter Games last month, Russia's president was the most prominent leader by far to come to China since Covid-19 began.\n\nBoth are autocratic leaders who share an ambition to deepen the ties and allegiance between their people and their \"motherland\". Xi Jinping sees a future where China - a vast economy - is more-self-reliant, decoupled to an extent from some of the global ties it has benefitted from.\n\nBut the new \"no limit\" partnership with Russia may not mean an inevitable re-alignment away from the US, its allies and the established world order.\n\nIt is, after all, an order in which China has sought to do more in recent years; on climate change, on peace keeping.\n\nAnd there are also the politics to consider. Not electoral politics, but the politics of association with a warring nation.\n\nChina censors much of what its people can see and read but the severity of the war, which - more than any other conventional conflict - is being documented in often horrific detail, by the minute, on social media, may become an important factor in Beijing's calculations over its stance on Russia.\n\nXi Jinping and the other senior leaders around him may conclude that there is, in fact, a limit to the relationship, and they need to step back - or step up and try to play the role of mediator with Moscow. A role that it told Ukraine it was prepared to take on, but which it has yet to show any sign of starting.", "Brent Renaud won a Peabody Award for his journalism in 2015\n\nA US journalist working in Ukraine has been shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv, police say.\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who was working in the region for Time.\n\nKyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital.\n\nIt is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine.\n\nOne of the injured journalists, Juan Arredondo, told an Italian reporter he had been with Renaud when they came under fire.\n\n\"We were across one of the first bridges in Irpin, going to film other refugees leaving, and we got into a car\", he said in a video published on Twitter.\n\n\"Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge and we crossed a checkpoint, and they start shooting at us. So the driver turned around, and they kept shooting; there's two of us. My friend is Brent Renaud, and he's been shot and left behind... I saw him being shot in the neck.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nPhotographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times.\n\nIn a statement, the newspaper said it was \"deeply saddened\" to hear of Renaud's death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine.\n\nRenaud last worked for the publication in 2015, the Times said, and the press ID he was wearing in Ukraine had been issued years ago.\n\nTime editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal and Ian Orefice, the president and chief operating officer of Time and Time Studios, said they were \"devastated by the loss\".\n\n\"As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud,\" the statement said.\n\nRenaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High.\n\nHe often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine.\n\nRenaud's death comes less than two weeks after Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Skaum, a camera operator for the Ukrainian television channel LIVE, was killed when a TV transmission tower in Kviv was hit by shelling.\n\nA few days later, a British journalist covering the war in Ukraine was shot and wounded after coming under fire in Kyiv.", "A British national living in the UK has been accused by police in Hong Kong of jeopardising China's national security and told he faces three years in jail.\n\nBenedict Rogers runs Hong Kong Watch, a charity which campaigns for human rights in the former British colony.\n\nBut he has been informed that he faces charges of \"collusion with foreign forces\" if he ever returns there.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the threat was \"unjustifiable\". Mr Rogers said his group would not be silenced.\n\n\"We will continue to be a voice for the people of Hong Kong and those brave political prisoners who have been jailed under this authoritarian regime,\" he said.\n\nHong Kong was handed back from British to Chinese rule in 1997, at the end of a 99-year lease.\n\nBeijing agreed to govern it under \"one country, two systems\", granting the city its own legal system, limited democracy with multiple political parties and rights such as freedom of assembly and free speech.\n\nHowever in 2019 there were mass anti-government and pro-democracy protests against plans to allow extraditions to mainland China.\n\nClashes between police and activists became increasingly violent and a year later China passed a draconian law targeting secession, subversion and terrorism with punishments of up to life in prison.\n\nThe authorities have clamped down hard, arresting scores of activists and opposition politicians.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. From protests to 'patriots': Why China is bent on crushing Hong Kong dissent\n\nHong Kong Watch said police had written to tell Mr Rogers of his offence, and that he faced jail, or a HK$100,000 (£9,800) fine, if he returns to the city.\n\nIt is thought to be one of the first times authorities have tried to apply the legislation outside the territory.\n\nLord Patten, the former colony's last governor, said it was a \"disgraceful example\" of China trying to stamp out freedom of expression in Hong Kong.", "The aftermath of Russian artillery shelling on a residential area in Mariupol, 10 March\n\nThe Russian bombardment of some places in Ukraine is so intense that towns and cities are being forced to unceremoniously bury dozens of civilian victims in mass graves.\n\nNowhere is this grim reality of war more apparent than in Mariupol, a key port city devastated by constant shelling, where several burial sites have been hastily dug in the past two weeks.\n\n\"We can't bury [the victims] in private graves, as those are outside the city and the perimeter is controlled by Russian troops,\" Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC by phone.\n\nLocations include a retired city cemetery that has now been re-opened, Mr Orlov said.\n\nWarning: This article contains images that some may find upsetting\n\nOn Sunday, the city council said the civilian death toll had risen above 2,100. The heavy Russian shelling has prevented any mass evacuation from Mariupol, despite efforts to open a safe exit route.\n\nMr Orlov could not give a total for dead civilians buried in mass graves, but said 67 bodies were at one site. \"Some we can't identify but some had documents.\"\n\nThousands of residents are hiding in cellars and in some cases, he said, people are burying family members privately in courtyards or gardens.\n\nThe battered city's street cleaners and road repair teams were collecting bodies in the streets, he said, as municipal services had collapsed. \"Some people were killed during those collections. We've had no electricity, or heating, sanitation, water, food for 11 days,\" he said.\n\nFour-hundred miles to the north west, on the edge of the capital Kyiv, a mass grave was dug near a church in the town of Bucha, local MP Mykhailyna Skoryk-Shkarivska said. It contains more than 60 bodies.\n\nVideo of the burial was posted on Facebook by a doctor working in nearby Irpin, Andriy Levkivsky. Doctors buried the victims, who had been brought to Irpin hospital.\n\nMs Skoryk-Shkarivska told the BBC that a \"ritual service\" was conducted at the hospital before burial. Not all had been identified and \"nobody knows exactly where the relatives are,\" she said.\n\n\"Now we're discussing with volunteers how to create a digital system to identify people and trace missing relatives,\" she said.\n\nRussian troops captured the hospital on Saturday and told the doctors to leave, she said, speaking by phone from western Ukraine. Bucha and half of Irpin are now in Russian hands, she said.\n\nThe return of mass graves is a shock for Ukrainians. Many have bitter family memories of World War Two, when Jews and Soviet partisans were murdered by Nazis, and the Holodomor - the famine created in Ukraine by Soviet seizure of grain and livestock in the 1930s.\n\n\"My uncle is 92 and even he compared it with his childhood in the war,\" said Ms Skoryk-Shkarivska, who emphasised it is \"important for us to bury relatives traditionally, the Christian way, with praying\".\n\n\"Even now in war people sometimes ask priests to do that,\" she said.\n\nA mass grave in Bucha - still from video posted by Dr Levkivsky\n\nIn northern Ukraine the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Sumy are surrounded by Russian troops and relentless shelling has killed many civilians there too.\n\nOn 6 March Oleksandra Matviichuk, a civil liberties campaigner, tweeted a photo of coffins in a trench, accompanied by the message: \"Thus, civilians killed in the Russian bombing of Chernihiv are buried in trenches. Since the main city cemetery in Yatsevo is under constant shelling by the Russian occupiers, the victims are buried in the Yalivshchyna forest.\"\n\nOleksandr Lomako, secretary of Chernihiv city council, told the BBC that victims of Russian air raids and shelling were being buried in a temporary cemetery. He confirmed that the city's main cemetery was now inaccessible, with Russian troops surrounding the city on three sides, the nearest about 10km (six miles) away.\n\nCoffins buried in a trench in Chernihiv - photograph courtesy of mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko\n\n\"After the war we will rebury the dead,\" he said, estimating the city's civilian death toll in the Russian bombardment to be about 200.\n\nOne air raid killed 45 people in Chernihiv - the worst toll, Mr Lomako said - adding that nightly bombing was killing seven civilians on average. \"The planes drop three to four bombs on residential blocks. Also one hit the hospital, but it is still working. Dozens of housing blocks have been destroyed on the edge of the city.\"\n\nAs well as evidence of mass burials, there are accounts of makeshift graves.\n\nA mother and son were buried in the courtyard of their new apartment block in Irpin, which has been heavily shelled by the Russians. A photo of the grave was widely shared by Ukrainians, and a tweet by journalist Olga Rudenko showed Marina Met and her son Ivan enjoying life in Kyiv before the invasion.\n\nMakeshift grave of a mother and son in Irpin\n\nFor those whose loved ones have suffered the effects of siege and shelling at the hands of invading forces, burial in makeshift graves will no doubt feel like the final indignity.", "Protesters have draped Ukrainian flags over the property, which is believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska\n\nA demonstration at a mansion linked to Vladimir Putin ally Oleg Deripaska has ended with eight arrests, police said.\n\nProtesters occupied the balcony of 5 Belgrave Square, in central London, about midnight, and stayed most of the day, despite police efforts to remove them.\n\nThe squatters said they were reclaiming the property for Ukrainian refugees.\n\nJust before 20:00 GMT the Met tweeted the protests were over and that eight people had been arrested in total.\n\nA spokesman said four were arrested inside the building, and four more outside.\n\nPolice said they have searched the property and are satisfied there is no-one left inside, although a presence will be kept at the scene overnight.\n\nBillionaire energy tycoon Mr Deripaska is one of the oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMet police make arrests close to the building in Belgravia, central London\n\nA Met Police spokesman said four arrests were made about 18:00 GMT, for trespass, after protesters had tried to climb the back of the building, which is the Romanian consulate.\n\nEarlier in the day riot police had entered and searched the property but found nobody inside.\n\nFour people remained on the balcony, despite police negotiators' attempts to talk them down, and the spokesman said they would be monitored overnight.\n\nThe group called themselves the London Makhnovists, after the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno, who revolted against the Russian White Army in 1918-21.\n\nThere are links between Russian political donors and the war in Ukraine, the protesters claimed\n\nStanding on the balcony, one of the protesters told journalists they were doing the government's work for them by reclaiming the building for refugees fleeing their homes.\n\nHe said: \"[Home secretary] Priti Patel, don't worry, we did your job - we did the housing, just send them here, we did the housing. Refugees welcome!\n\n\"We're demanding this property belong to Ukrainian refugees. Their houses have been destroyed and this guy [Deripaska] supported the war.\"\n\nThe group said there were about 200 rooms in the \"ridiculous\" mansion, which was \"filthy fancy\" and had \"so much stuff a normal human being would never need\", including a home cinema and works of art.\n\nThe protesters said there were about 200 rooms in the mansion\n\n\"It is massive,\" one of the protesters said. \"I got lost I don't know how many times. There are so many unnecessary rooms.\"\n\nAnother added: \"[Michael Gove] said oligarchs' homes should be expropriated to house Ukrainian refugees.\n\n\"We're doing the government's work for them and we're doing it for free, so I expect a significant rebate on my tax bill later on in April.\"\n\nSpeaking about the possibility of arrest, one said the group has \"made peace\" with the option and added \"I'm ready to take the consequences for something I believe\".\n\nIn response, the prime minister's official spokesman said he thought new legislation would be needed to use seized property to house refugees.\n\nHe added: \"Squatting in residential buildings is illegal, but we are working to identify the appropriate use for seized properties while owners are subject to sanctions.\"\n\nIvan, who was passing by, said he was originally from Lviv in western Ukraine and fully supported the protest.\n\n\"I think it's very good,\" he said, adding he believed the mansion belonged to Mr Deripaska, who is \"a friend of Putin\".\n\n\"My people are suffering and they need help,\" he said.\n\nOther passers-by were supportive of the occupation, saying they were unable to protest themselves but the action would make a difference.\n\nIvan, from Lviv in Ukraine, supports the protest\n\nOne man said: \"We need to protest in every way we can because this war is not right. A lot of civilians and women and children are dying every day for Putin and it's unbelievable.\"\n\nCharles Delingpole, who said he works in the field of sanctions, said he supported the protest but it was important to uphold the rule of law.\n\nHe said: \"I think the UK has been too slow to sanction Russian oligarchs based on an abundance of caution as opposed to due process.\n\n\"However, this is the breakdown of law and just because we fight with monsters doesn't mean we need to turn into them ourselves.\"\n\nThe government has been too slow to sanction oligarchs, said Charles Delingpole\n\nMr Deripaska, founder of metals and hydropower company EN+, has been under US sanctions since 2018 as a result of his alleged close relationship with the Kremlin.\n\nA 2006 High Court judgement revealed Mr Deripaska was the beneficial owner of Five Belgrave Square.\n\nThe seven-bedroom house, in one of London's most expensive neighbourhoods, also has a home cinema, a gym and a Turkish steam bath.\n\nThe property had been bought through Ravellot Limited, an offshore company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and the business still owns the property.\n\nRussian tycoon Oleg Deripaska attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 3, 2021\n\nLand Registry documents give Graham Bonham Carter as the contact for Ravellot.\n\nFive bank accounts held by him are subject to asset freezing orders at the request of the National Crime Agency (NCA), following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe bank accounts were frozen because of suspected links to Mr Deripaska, the NCA said.", "A BBC investigation has uncovered new evidence about the corrupt deals that made Roman Abramovich's fortune.\n\nThe Chelsea owner made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995.\n\nMr Abramovich paid around $250m (£190m) for Sibneft, before selling it back to the Russian government for $13bn in 2005.\n\nHis lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality.\n\nThe Russian billionaire was sanctioned by the UK government last week because of his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nMr Abramovich's assets have been frozen and he has been disqualified as a director of Chelsea Football Club.\n\nThe Russian billionaire has already admitted in a UK court that he made corrupt payments to help get the Sibneft deal off the ground.\n\nHe was being sued in London by his former business associate Boris Berezovsky in 2012.\n\nMr Abramovich won the case, but he described in court how the original Sibneft auction was rigged in his favour and how he gave Mr Berezovsky $10m to pay off a Kremlin official.\n\nBBC Panorama has obtained a document that is thought to have been smuggled out of Russia.\n\nThe information was given to the programme by a confidential source, who says it was secretly copied from files held on Mr Abramovich by Russian law enforcement agencies.\n\nThe BBC cannot verify that, but checks with other sources in Russia have backed up many of the details in the five-page document.\n\nThe document says that the Russian government was cheated out of $2.7bn in the Sibneft deal - a claim supported by a 1997 Russian parliamentary investigation. The document also says that the Russian authorities wanted to charge Mr Abramovich with fraud.\n\nIt says: \"The Dept. of Economic Crimes investigators came to the conclusion that if Abramovich could be brought to trial he would have faced accusations of fraud… by an organised criminal group.\"\n\nRoman Abramovich's Dirty Money is on BBC One, Monday 14 March, at 20:00 GMT and on BBCiPlayer afterwards\n\nPanorama tracked down Russia's former chief prosecutor, who investigated the deal in the 1990s.\n\nYuri Skuratov did not know about the secret document, but he independently confirmed many of the details about the Sibneft sale.\n\nMr Skuratov told the programme: \"Basically, it was a fraudulent scheme, where those who took part in the privatisation formed one criminal group that allowed Abramovich and Berezovsky to trick the government and not pay the money that this company was really worth.\"\n\nThe document also suggests Mr Abramovich was protected by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.\n\nIt says law enforcement files on Mr Abramovich were moved to the Kremlin and that an investigation by Mr Skuratov was stopped by the president.\n\nThe document says: \"Skuratov was preparing a criminal case for the confiscation of Sibneft on the basis of the investigation of its privatisation. The investigation was stopped by President Yeltsin … Skuratov was dismissed from his office.\"\n\nMr Skuratov was sacked after the release of a sex tape in 1999. He says it was a stitch-up to discredit him and his investigation.\n\nHe said: \"This whole thing was obviously political, because in my investigations I came very close to the family of Boris Yeltsin, including via this investigation of the Sibneft privatisation.\"\n\nMr Abramovich remained in the Kremlin inner circle when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.\n\nThe document contains details of another rigged auction two years later, involving a Russian oil company called Slavneft.\n\nMr Abramovich formed a partnership with another firm to buy Slavneft, but a rival Chinese company was planning to bid almost twice as much.\n\nMany powerful people - from the Kremlin to the Russian parliament - would have stood to lose out if the Chinese won the auction.\n\nThe document says that a member of the Chinese delegation was kidnapped when they arrived in Moscow for the auction.\n\n\"CNPC, Chinese company, a very strong competitor, had to withdraw from the auction after one of its representatives was kidnapped upon arrival at Moscow Airport and was released only after the company declared its withdrawal.\"\n\nThe kidnapping story is backed up by independent sources who did not know about the document.\n\nVladimir Milov was Russia's deputy energy minister in the run up to the Slavneft sale. He didn't comment on the kidnapping story, but he said senior political figures had already decided that Mr Abramovich's partnership would win the auction.\n\n\"I said, look, the Chinese want to come in and they want to pay a much bigger price. They say it doesn't matter, shut up, none of your business. It's already decided. Slavneft goes to Abramovich, the price is agreed. The Chinese will be dragged out somehow.\"\n\nThere is no suggestion that Mr Abramovich knew anything about the kidnapping plot, or played any part in it.\n\nHis lawyers told the BBC the kidnap claim \"is entirely unsubstantiated\" and he has \"no knowledge of such incident\".\n\nDifferent factions had been fighting for control of Slavneft and there was widespread opposition to the Chinese bid.\n\nWhatever the reason for the Chinese withdrawal, Mr Abramovich's partnership had the only bid left on the table. And they bought Slavneft at a knockdown price.\n\nMr Abramovich's lawyers say allegations of corruption in the Slavneft and Sibneft deals are false, and he denies he was protected by Mr Yeltsin.", "A father threw his three-year-old son from the second storey of a burning building. First responders on the ground caught the toddler and then his dad, who also had to jump to safety.\n\nBoth are safe with only minor injuries. The fire started in an apartment on the third storey of the New Jersey apartment complex before spreading through the building. Fifty people were displaced by the blaze.", "Footage has been shared by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine showing disposal experts defusing a bomb.\n\nBBC News spoke to Kim Hughes GC, a bomb disposal expert, who gave his observations on what may have been happening in the video.\n\nThe device is reported to have fallen in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine after a Russian plane that was carrying them was downed.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The aftermath of a Russia strike on a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol.\n\nOn day 14 of the war in Ukraine, as civilians fled towns and cities around the country, an air strike hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol.\n\nThe attack - which Ukraine blames on Russia - has been condemned around the world.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky posted footage showing burnt out cars, blown out windows and a deep crater in the ground outside.\n\nOfficials say at least 17 people were injured - staff and patients.\n\n\"We don't understand how it is possible in modern life to bomb a children's hospital,\" the deputy mayor of Mariupol, Serhiy Orlov, told the BBC.\n\nElsewhere, convoys of civilians were waiting to leave several towns near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.\n\nIn eastern Ukraine, some people did manage to escape from the city of Sumy; others were blocked as negotiations and fighting continued.\n\nAlmost two weeks after Russian forces seized the former nuclear power plant Chernobyl, the power has gone out.\n\nUkrainian authorities - who blamed the Russian troops for the outage - have suggested the situation could become dangerous, as the plant still requires constant management, decades after it became the site of the world's worst nuclear accident.\n\nThe head of the UN nuclear watchdog has said the power cut has not affected safety as the spent nuclear fuel left on site could not heat up enough to cause an accident.\n\nThe BBC's science correspondent, Pallab Ghosh, has taken a closer look at why experts say there isn't much reason to panic.\n\nWestern officials have said they are \"very concerned\" about the risk of escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine - particularly when it comes to the possibility of Moscow using non-conventional weapons.\n\nThis most likely refers to chemical weapons although the term also covers tactical (small-scale) nuclear weapons, biological weapons and dirty bombs.\n\nThey said this was partly because of what had been seen in other places where Russia has been engaged in conflict, notably Syria where chemical weapons were used by its allies.\n\nThousands of Russians are leaving the country, including these arriving by train in Helsinki\n\nMore than two million Ukrainians have already fled the invasion which engulfed their country just two weeks ago.\n\nBut in Russia, tens of thousands are also fleeing - some scared for their futures in a country cut off from the wider world, others frightened by the prospect of life under a more repressive regime.\n\nIn Moscow, Lydia is considering becoming the third generation in her family to escape Russia, following in the steps of her grandfather - who ran from Stalin - and his father before him - who fled the anti-Jewish pogroms.\n\nMoney may be playing a huge part in her deliberations, but there is something else as well: shame.\n\n\"I think it's going to take me and most of my friends years, before I can say I'm Russian and not feel ashamed,\" she tells the BBC.\n\nOlena Zelenska is a familiar figure on the world stage\n\nOlena Zelenska - a screenwriter before she became Ukraine's first lady - has said the Russian invasion amounts to the same as the \"mass murder\" of her country's civilians.\n\nIn a letter, published on the president's website, she described the deaths of children as \"the most terrifying and devastating\" part of the invasion, mentioning the names of three who had been killed since Moscow launched its attack two weeks ago.", "With fuel prices in Northern Ireland hitting record-breaking levels, car-reliant businesses and their employees are feeling the pressures.\n\nPrices have soared since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn Thursday diesel was most expensive in Craigavon where it has hit 186.9p per litre, according to data collected the Consumer Council.\n\nSome filling stations in Belfast and Carrickfergus have reportedly run out of diesel.\n\nMeanwhile, the highest petrol price was found in Londonderry at 170.9p per litre.\n\nIn parts of Northern Ireland there is evidence some petrol stations offering the lowest prices have also struggled to meet demand.\n\nIt is believed customers are filling their tanks with cheaper fuel in anticipation of further rises.\n\nMotorists in the Republic of Ireland have been queuing at some petrol stations as a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel came into effect.\n\nOne fuel retailer said motorists from Northern Ireland were crossing the border to take advantage of the cuts, which has seen his prices fall by nearly 15 cents.\n\nBut in Omeath, County Louth, another town near the border, it has remained quiet despite a similar fall in fuel prices.\n\nFuel prices in other places near the border have remained mixed with stations offering higher and lower prices.\n\n\"We have to wait until Saturday before we can buy a load at the lower price,\" fuel retailer Terry Hughes said.\n\n\"It's going to take until then before we see the price reductions appear because everybody has a certain amount of stock in their tanks at the higher duty price.\"\n\nIn Northern Ireland, business owners have been speaking to BBC News NI about their concerns around fuel prices.\n\nEmily Magrath runs Caremark Belfast and North Down, which has 400 staff caring for about 700 vulnerable people.\n\nHer staff rely on being able to drive between patients' homes to provide that care.\n\nMrs Magrath said: \"(A typical client like) Mrs Jones could need four calls a day, seven days a week, so if a care worker is doing morning, lunch and tea, they could be going to nine or 10 houses, three times a day.\n\n\"We're all making decisions at the minute not to turn our heating on or to use public transport but care workers can't do that, because Mrs Jones has been contracted four calls a day, seven days a week, so a care worker can't just decide they won't call with her.\"\n\nFor care workers, higher outgoings means less change in their pockets.\n\nMrs Magrath explained: \"Our staff are paid a higher rate of pay, their mileage is included in their pay, but with higher fuel costs, there'll be less take home pay.\n\n\"One of our staff has recommended an app which tells the lowest petrol price in the area that they're working in.\"\n\nMrs Magrath says many have left the sector altogether.\n\n\"A rise in petrol prices is on top of the challenges that we're facing in terms of Covid - staff recruitment, getting staff into the sector, and in terms of staff retention, unfortunately staff have left this sector, and really good staff, because they've been so burnt out by what Covid has brought.\"\n\nIn a bid to retain staff, Caremark has made some changes to how staff operate.\n\n\"We're looking at all our runs and making sure they're really geographically close together so we wouldn't have care workers travelling from Bangor to Newtownards, we'd keep everyone in the same town,\" Mrs Magrath said.\n\n\"We've also started walking runs, so we've looked at runs that can be walked around, we're encouraging staff not to take their cars and to walk, and we're doing more of that in the coming weeks.\"\n\nShe told BBC News NI that due to the increase in fuel prices, she is paying almost double for diesel than she normally would have, to travel to all of her clients.\n\n\"Some days I could be going from Crumlin Road to Lisburn and then to Rathcoole, and I do try to fix the appointments to one particular area but sometimes I can't.\n\n\"From the increase, now I'm thinking 'is it worth my while going that far? Am I going to have to refuse some clients and keep it more local?'\n\n\"Because I'll end up working for pennies or turning clients away.\"\n\nMs Chambers said she had considered putting her prices up but feels people are already struggling financially since the pandemic and due to the soaring cost of living.\n\n\"Before the pandemic I had regular customers who visited me every two weeks but now it's every four, because it's not want any more, it's a luxury,\" she said.\n\n\"If things keep going this way I'm going to have to start asking people to travel to me and I know I'd lose customers.\n\n\"A lot of my clients are elderly, don't drive, or they're single mums trying to manage.\n\n\"So I would lose 80% of my income and I could end up having to close my doors, which I don't want to happen.\"\n\nDriving instructors who use their vehicles almost daily are having to fill their cars with fuel more often\n\nOliver Quinn, a driving instructor from County Tyrone, says like many others, it is costing a lot more to fill the tank in his car.\n\n\"Here in Omagh, lessons are usually about £25 but I've noticed people putting them up to £30 recently,\" he said.\n\n\"I haven't put mine up yet but I might have no other choice at the end of the month.\n\n\"I'm using diesel and it's not taking us far at all any more.\"\n\nMr Quinn says he is worried the situation is only going to get worse.\n\n\"I've noticed some people are going for tests without any lessons or enough lessons and they're not ready, but people can't afford them.\n\n\"People's wages aren't going up and people are already spending more money on the likes of heating oil, so other things will have to fall by the wayside and lessons might not be a priority in that case.\"\n\nHe says while he has not noticed much of an impact yet, he believes the increase in petrol prices is going to affect his business \"quite badly, soon\".\n\n\"It's going to start cutting into profits,\" he told BBC News NI.\n\n\"Then you have the issue of groomers who are maybe already doing it from home and don't have the overhead costs that we do.\n\n\"Customers might end up going there instead.\"\n\nWhen asked whether he considered increasing prices, Mr McRobb said he is going to \"hold off as long as possible\".\n\n\"When you add it all up - clipper blades, everyday maintenance, petrol, everything is already going up,\" he said.\n\n\"It'll make people not want to get their dogs groomed as often, they'll want to hold off.\n\n\"But coming into the summer they need cut and the dogs welfare will end up suffering.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ukrainians with passports will be able to apply for UK visas online from Tuesday - Priti Patel\n\nUkrainian refugees who have passports will be able to apply for UK visas online from Tuesday, says Priti Patel.\n\nThe move has been done with the approval of the security services, the home secretary told MPs.\n\nIt will only apply to people applying under the scheme where they can join family members already in the UK.\n\nThe speed of the UK's response has been criticised, with Labour's Yvette Cooper calling it a \"total disgrace\".\n\nMs Patel said those applying online would be able to give their biometric data, such as fingerprints, once in the UK - allowing visa application centres to focus on those without passports.\n\nNo further details were given about how a second scheme for refugees, in which people and organisations could sponsor Ukrainians to come to the UK, would work or when it would begin.\n\nIt had been suggested that the family scheme might be expanded to include relatives of people in the UK on temporary visas but this was not addressed by the home secretary in the Commons.\n\nBut the Foreign Office has confirmed that all Ukrainian staff working for the British embassy and British Council in Ukraine plus their dependents are also able to come to the UK.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said it was right that the UK should have \"an offer as generous as possible\" that was \"as light touch as possible\" for refugees, but said it remained important to have checks.\n\nHe said \"more than 1,000\" visas had been issued but added that number would \"climb very steeply\".\n\nMeanwhile, a UK charity appeal for Ukraine has raised £120m in less than a week. The Disasters Emergency Committee - made up of a group of UK aid charities - said the level of donations is second only to the response to the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in 2004.\n\nMs Patel said the new \"streamlined approach\" to visas would make the application process \"quicker and simpler\" but that the Ukrainians with passports can apply for visas online digital system would still allow \"important checks\" to be done.\n\nSpeaking about the issue of security, Ms Patel said the Salisbury poisonings in 2018 had showed what Russian President Vladimir Putin was \"willing to do on our soil\" and demonstrated that \"a small number of people with evil intentions can wreak havoc on our streets\".\n\nMPs who had been pushing the government to go further and faster have called the change progress - but many are anxious for more details of the second sponsorship scheme to take in Ukrainians without family in the UK.\n\nAn announcement on this may not come until Monday, BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said.\n\nShadow home secretary Ms Cooper asked why it had taken \"being hauled into the House of Commons to make basic changes to help vulnerable people who are fleeing from Ukraine?\"\n\nShe also questioned why there had been a delay when the home secretary had \"had intelligence for weeks, if not months, that she needed to prepare for a Russian invasion of Ukraine\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Yvette Cooper on the Home Office response to Ukrainian refugees: “Our country is better than this”\n\nDuring a visit to the Tapa military base in Estonia, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the Home Office approach to visas had been a \"complete shambles that is diminishing our reputation across the world\".\n\nHe later told BBC Radio 5 Live the Home Office was \"chopping and changing\" policies and \"making it harder\" for refugees to reach the UK.\n\nScotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has written to Mr Johnson urging him to do what the EU has done and waive all visa requirements for any Ukrainian nationals. Poland alone has taken in nearly 1.3 million people so far.\n\nEarlier Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, Vadym Pystaiko, said refugees must not face bureaucratic hurdles, adding that most refugees did not pose a threat.\n\nThe Préfecture du Pas-de-Calais has announced where the \"pop-up\" visa processing centre for Ukrainian refugees will be.\n\nThere had been reports it would be in Lille, but it's in Arras in France, which is one hour from Calais, two from Brussels and three from Paris.\n\nAlthough the UK government had promised that it would be open for several days, it still isn't, but the French authorities say it will be by Friday.\n\nMany of the hundreds of Ukrainians who are in northern France have spent the past week travelling to the French and Belgian capitals to submit biometric information and documentation.\n\nMany have already been processed and it's thought most will be by next Tuesday, when the process becomes simpler and will move online.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK has announced sanctions against seven more Russian oligarchs including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nMore than two million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded, and the Home Office has come under pressure to speed up visa processing.\n\nArmed Forces Minister James Heappey told BBC Breakfast the Ministry of Defence had offered to assist the Home Office with the visa process, although the countries where application centres are set up would have to approve British troops being sent to help.\n\nThe decision to allow Ukrainians with an identity document to apply online for a visa to join family members in the UK is significant.\n\nIt means that from next week many refugees escaping the war and heading for Britain will not have to go to a visa application centre or VAC.\n\nAllowing them to complete biometric tests in the UK after they arrive will reduce the pressure on stretched facilities in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere in Europe.\n\nBiometrics required as part of a UK visa application include fingerprints and a photograph of the applicant's face.\n\nHowever, the new rules will still exclude anyone who fled without their passport or identity document. They will have to go to a VAC in person. The rules also exclude Ukrainian residents who are not citizens of Ukraine.\n\nRead more from Mark here.\n\nSpeaking on BBC One's Question Time, Mr Prystaiko pointed out that most of those trying to get to the UK were women with children who were not posing a terrorist threat and said he hoped \"every bureaucratic red tape should be cancelled\".\n\nElsewhere, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said plans were under way to prepare for up to 100,000 Ukrainian children who might need places in UK schools.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: A British man has called the UK visa process \"torturous\" after his wife's family fled Ukraine\n\nLuke Morgan has spent the last week trying to get hold of visas for his wife's family - travelling to Calais, Brussels and then Paris in an effort to fill out the necessary paperwork and provide biometric data.\n\nVisas were finally granted on Wednesday for his wife's parents, sister and two nephews and the group set off for Calais right away after getting the visas.\n\nThe refugee crisis has escalated rapidly in recent days as Russia ramped up bombardments of civilian areas in cities.\n\nOn Wednesday, an air strike hit a maternity and children's ward at a hospital in the southern city of Mariupol.\n\nThe UK government's response to the refugee crisis has also been branded a \"disgrace\" by Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke, while fellow Conservative politician Sir Roger Gale called on Ms Patel to resign over the situation.", "Russia's invasion of Ukraine shows that \"the era of complacency\" is over, the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned in a speech in Washington DC.\n\nAddressing a think tank, Ms Truss said aggression, such as that shown by Vladimir Putin, can never again be allowed to \"grow unchecked\".\n\nShe also called for more defence spending and an end to dependence on \"hostile and authoritarian states\".\n\nThe West has reacted to Russia's invasion with a range of sanctions.\n\nOn Tuesday, the US and UK announced a ban on Russian oil, while the EU said it would end its reliance on Russian gas.\n\nThe same governments have frozen the assets of wealthy Russians believed to have links with Mr Putin.\n\nIn a tweet, Boris Johnson said he had spoken to Ukraine's President Zelensky, and that the UK would tighten sanctions to \"impose the maximum economic cost on Russia\" and increase military support to Ukraine.\n\nGiving the Makins lecture to the Atlantic Council think tank, Ms Truss said countries need to introduce further sanctions - including banning Russia completely from using the international payment system, Swift and freezing all Russian banking assets.\n\nShe said all countries needed to go further on financing their defence capabilities, arguing that spending 2% of GDP was be a minimum target and that during the Cold War countries were spending upwards of 5%.\n\nThe foreign secretary also used her speech to argue that the war in Ukraine is a \"paradigm shift\" comparable with the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.\n\nShe urged the West to \"rise to his moment\" by increasing pressure on the Russian president.\n\n\"How we respond today will set the pattern for this new era.\n\n\"We must start with the principle that the only thing aggressors understand is strength… and we must start by working together to stop Putin's offensive in Ukraine.\"\n\n\"We want a situation where they can't access their funds, they can't clear their payments, their trade can't flow, their ships can't dock and their planes can't land,\" she added.\n\nMore than two million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia invaded Ukraine\n\nSpeaking at a news conference on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ms Truss warned there would be \"terrible implications for European and global security\" if Mr Putin were not stopped in Ukraine.\n\nResponding to Ms Truss' comments, Labour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the invasion of Ukraine \"marked the final end of the post-cold war era\".\n\nHe criticised the Conservatives for \"isolating Britain on the world stage\" and said it was time \"to bring Britain back to the table and deepen ties with our European partners\".\n\nHe also called for a special tribunal to \"prosecute Putin for the crime of aggression\" and \"an end to the UK's dependency on foreign energy\".\n\nThe calls for stronger action come as western officials say they are \"very concerned\" Russia could resort to using non-conventional weapons.\n\nThis could include chemical weapons, biological weapons and dirty bombs.", "Ukrainian emergency services carry an injured pregnant woman from a hospital shelled by Russian forces\n\nPeople with loved ones trapped inside the besieged city of Mariupol were trying desperately on Thursday to connect to phones inside the city, which has been virtually cut off from the outside world by an escalating and indiscriminate bombing campaign by Russian forces.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a Ukrainian MP who grew up in Mariupol and whose parents are trapped there, said he last managed to connect to their neighbours four days ago.\n\n\"We spoke for 30 seconds after they went to a spot with signal - there are a couple of these spots people know about,\" Mr Gurin said.\n\n\"They said my parents were alive, living in the basement under their apartment building.\n\n\"Please understand me that this is not a shelter with light, water and a toilet, it is a basement with nothing.\"\n\nMr Gurin said his parents were using snow to drink water and trying to cook food on an open fire outside.\n\n\"Can you try to imagine this? Your parents, 67 and 69, are drinking snow and trying to cook on a fire outside in winter and there is continuous shelling,\" he said.\n\n\"This is not war any more. This is not army against army. It is carpet bombing. It is Russia against humanity.\"\n\nArthur Bondarenko, a 35-year-old coffee distributor in Odessa, said he was hopelessly sending messages every day to his close friends, a couple with a six-year-old son.\n\n\"Every day I message them and say, 'Hello, good morning, how are you?'\n\n\"None of the messages go through.\"\n\nMr Bondarenko said he last spoke to them on 2 March.\n\n\"They had no water, no electricity, no heating and there was no shelter under their house.\"\n\nMariupol, a city of about 400,000, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.\n\nThe city has now been subjected to nine days of heavy bombardment by Russian forces, destroying apartment buildings and flattening residential areas. Footage verified by the BBC showed shelling on Thursday, confirming a statement by the city council that the bombardment was ongoing.\n\nDmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, said on Thursday that the situation in Mariupol was the most difficult in the country.\n\nOn Wednesday, three people - two adults and a girl - were killed in Mariupol and 17 were wounded in a devastating strike that destroyed a maternity ward and children's ward of a hospital.\n\nDiana Berg, a Mariupol resident who managed to escape with her husband on Friday, said she learned of the strike via the news.\n\n\"Yesterday was the most brutal, shocking thing,\" she said. \"That hospital is very close to where I lived, I was there a week before, my family doctor is there. I don't know if he is still alive,\" Ms Berg said.\n\nMs Berg has also been unable to reach her mother-in-law since Saturday, and has no idea if she is alive or dead.\n\n\"She got one message through the day after we left to say she was alive and she knew we were still alive,\" Ms Berg said. \"Since then we know nothing. We use the Telegram app, we watch the media, that's it.\"\n\nMunicipal authorities have finally been able to begin collecting and burying bodies which had been in the streets, the deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC on Thursday. City officials estimated 1,300 civilians had been killed so far, Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"There is no possibility of private graves, because of the high numbers and because of the continuous shelling. They are being put into mass graves,\" he said.\n\nMs Berg said the news of the mass graves had spread through the Telegram chat groups people are using to monitor the situation inside the city.\n\n\"We have no news from our friends, all we know is they could be buried in those mass graves,\" she said.\n\nRussia has also heavily shelled the eastern city of Kharkiv and other major cities\n\nNumerous planned evacuation attempts for Mariupol residents have collapsed over the past five days after Russian forces have resumed shelling the city, despite ceasefire agreements. Mr Orlov said city officials were ready at any moment to put evacuation plans into place but no agreement could be reached with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor.\n\nMr Orlov said that a group of 100 citizens attempted to leave Mariupol on Thursday by private car and passed a Ukrainian checkpoint but were forced back when Russian forces fired close to the cars, blocking their path.\n\nMr Orlov's own parents and brother were still trapped inside a heavily shelled Mariupol neighbourhood, he said, and he had not been able to reach them for nine days.\n\nThere are growing fears now of a serious humanitarian crisis inside Mariupol, following widespread reports that people were trying to take water from snow and had no access to food or medicines.\n\nOleksandr Protyah, a 43-year-old English teacher, said his mother and close friend were trapped inside the city and his friend may have run out of medication for her diabetes.\n\n\"I managed to arrange insulin for her on the first day of the war but she has either run out or will run out soon,\" he said. \"This is a humanitarian catastrophe.\"\n\nThere would also soon be a food crisis, said Mr Gurin, the MP.\n\n\"The next thing will be the hunger,\" he said \"This is not a joke, in a week you will have famine in the centre of Europe.\"\n\nResponding to the strike on the Mariupol hospital on Wednesday, the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, accused Russian forces of a \"total evil that has no explanation\".\n\n\"How can this be justified?\" he said. \"This is a genocide organised by Russia against our people.\"\n\nRussia claimed on Thursday that the maternity ward destroyed in the attack had been taken over by Ukrainian troops long before it was hit, but images from the scene captured by the Associated Press news agency showed medical staff outside after the blast and a pregnant woman being carried out of the building in a stretcher.\n\n\"Thank god most of the people there were in the bomb shelter already,\" Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor said. \"Otherwise it would have been much worse.\"\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike an \"atrocity\" and reiterated his call for world powers to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine - a request that has so far been denied.\n\nThe foreign minister, Mr Kuleba said on Thursday that his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov had told Ukrainian officials Russia would continue its aggression until Ukraine met all its demands, including surrender.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nNovak Djokovic has withdrawn from Indian Wells and the Miami Open - the first two Masters Series events of the year - because of US coronavirus rules.\n\nRegulations require any non-US citizen to have a Covid vaccination before entering the country.\n\nSerb Djokovic, 34, told the BBC last month that he had not been vaccinated.\n\nThe 20-time Grand Slam winner was included in the draw for both events, but has since posted on Twitter that he knew it was \"unlikely\" he could travel.\n\nHe is likely to make his return to the tour at the Monte Carlo Masters in April.\n\nThe Indian Wells draw will be less balanced following the late withdrawal of Djokovic, who was seeded second.\n\nAs the next player in line to be seeded outside the tournament's top 32, last year's semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov will move into Djokovic's space in the draw. A lucky loser from qualifying will fill the Bulgarian's spot in due course.\n\nDjokovic missed the Australian Open in January, being deported from the country after its government cancelled his visa in a row over his vaccine status.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC last month, he said that he is prepared to miss other big events in future.\n\n\"The principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm trying to be in tune with my body as much as I possibly can.\"\n\nBy missing the Australian Open, Djokovic was overtaken in the list of overall major titles by eventual winner Rafael Nadal, who secured a record 21st Grand Slam.\n\nDjokovic's first tournament in 2022 came in Dubai in February, where he was beaten by Czech Jiri Vesely in the quarter-finals.\n\nThe defeat meant he conceded his world number one ranking to Russian Daniil Medvedev, who claimed his first major title at the US Open in September and is the top seed at Indian Wells.\n\nDjokovic has very few ranking points to defend before his likely next appearance in Monte Carlo.\n\nIn fact, he will be world number one again in a fortnight if Daniil Medvedev fails to reach the quarter-finals here in Indian Wells.\n\nBut even though his ranking will not be adversely affected, Djokovic is passing up the opportunity to win two of the biggest titles outside of the Grand Slams.\n\nFrom a public relations perspective, it would have been so much better to have withdrawn 24 hours earlier.\n\nThere are clearly far more important things going on in the world right now, but pulling out after the draw has repercussions for other players as well as the tournament itself.\n• None Meet the self-confessed conman who lifted the lid on the 'psychic mafia'\n• None Enter the debate as gaming is set to feature in the Commonwealth Games", "White House officials hosted a private Zoom briefing for about 30 influential TikTok creators to keep them informed of the latest US messaging regarding Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.\n\nThe briefing was conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Council adviser Matt Miller. Several of the social media stars have since gone on to post about Ukraine.\n\nThe topic included the US \"strategic goals in the region\", according to the Post, such as how the US would respond to a Russian nuclear escalation and how US aid dollars are being spent to help Ukraine.\n\nTikTok has been widely embraced by the Biden administration as a way to reach younger Americans who get much of their news from social media.", "Russia has hit back at western sanctions for invading Ukraine by imposing export bans on a string of products until the end of 2022.\n\nThe ban covers exports of telecoms, medical, vehicle, agricultural, and electrical equipment, as well as some forestry products such as timber.\n\nThe economy ministry said further measures could include restricting foreign ships from Russian ports.\n\nIt said: \"These measures are a logical response to those imposed on Russia.\"\n\nThe ministry added that the bans on countries that have \"committed unfriendly actions\" were \"aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy\".\n\nThe export ban includes more than 200 products. The measures will last until the end of the year.\n\nWestern governments have imposed a string of sanctions on Russia, notably on buying oil, and against billionaire oligarchs seen as close to President Vladimir Putin.\n\nAbout 48 countries will be affected, including the US and in the EU.\n\nThe order said that export exemptions can be made for Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and for members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.\n\nRussia's Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the ban would include exports of goods made by foreign companies operating in Russia. Items include cars, railway carriages, and containers.\n\nIt comes as Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev warned that assets owned by western companies that have pulled out of Russia could be nationalised.\n\nFirms have been leaving en masse or halting investment, including industrial and mining giants such as Caterpillar and Rio Tinto, Starbucks, Sony, Unilever and Goldman Sachs.\n\nOn Wednesday, Moscow approved legislation that took the first step towards nationalising assets of foreign firms that leave the country.\n\nAnd in a statement on Thursday Mr Medvedev said: \"The Russian government is already working on measures, which include bankruptcy and nationalisation of the property of foreign organisations.\n\n\"Foreign companies should understand that returning to our market will be difficult.\" He accused foreign investors of creating \"panic\" for ordinary Russians who could now lose their livelihoods.\n\nAccording to the most recent figures, Russia is the UK's nineteenth largest trading partner, with trade between the two nations totalling £15.9bn over a year from the end of September 2020.\n\nIt's an impressive-sounding list, but how much harm will these counter-sanctions actually cause?\n\nThe bulk of what western nations buy from Russia is made up of raw materials. Oil and gas, of course, but also metals like aluminium and nickel, not to mention potash and phosphates, widely used in fertilisers.\n\nThe conflict has already pushed the prices of these goods sharply upwards, amid fears supplies could be disrupted - and if they remain high, that will cause economic pain, particularly in Europe.\n\nBut a ban on the sale of railway cars and locomotives from Russia is unlikely to cause much hardship. Nor will restrictions on the sale of agricultural machinery, for example. These products are exported - but mainly to countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan.\n\nThe inclusion of vehicles on the list is a problem for the likes of Stellantis - the owner of Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroen. It had been planning to export vans made in Russia to Europe and other parts of the world.\n\nBut overall, the impact of the counter-sanctions looks more symbolic than significant. Restrictions on exports of raw materials on the other hand - if Russia were to introduce them - could have a much more dramatic effect.\n\nAfter Britain banned Russian-operated ships from its ports last week a retaliatory proposal to restrict foreign ships from entering Russian ports could also come into force.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that there would be \"negative consequences\" for the world's food markets due to the West's sanctions because Russia is a major producer of agricultural fertilisers.\n\n\"It is clear that at such moments people's demand for certain groups of goods always increases, but we have no doubt that we will solve all these problems while working in a calm fashion,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Lena and Raisa Kamolikova face a lengthy process to apply for a UK visa in Poland\n\nBoris Johnson has defended the UK's response to the refugee crisis and said an upcoming scheme will allow Britons to take Ukrainians into their homes.\n\nThe PM told Sky News the UK would be \"generous\" to those fleeing Ukraine, and that details of a second visa scheme would be announced on Monday.\n\nDefending the current visa rules, Mr Johnson said: \"People want us to be generous but also careful.\"\n\nThe UK has been criticised for only taking in about 1,000 refugees so far.\n\nUnlike the European Union - which is allowing Ukrainians three-year residency without a visa - the UK has retained controls on entry, saying they are essential for security.\n\nBut the government has come under mounting pressure, including from Conservative MPs, to do more to take in refugees fleeing Ukraine.\n\nA scheme allowing individuals and businesses to sponsor a refugee's visa to the UK was originally promised on 1 March, along with the other main route for Ukrainians to get to the UK, which launched last week and allows refugees to join relatives already settled in Britain.\n\nAs Russia targets more cities for air strikes and shelling, the United Nations said more than 2.5 million people have now fled Ukraine. More than 1.5 million refugees crossed into Poland, but about 40% of them are thought to have subsequently left for other countries.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK has imposed sanctions on 386 more members of Russia's parliament who voted to recognise the independence of breakaway Ukrainian regions Luhansk and Donetsk, which the Foreign Office said was used as a \"pretext\" for the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nA total of 400 members of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, are now subject to sanctions - including asset freezes, a ban on entering the country and a ban on doing business in the UK.\n\nSpeaking on Sky News' Beth Rigby Interviews programme, Mr Johnson said \"historically and by nature\", the British people are \"very generous, open and welcoming\".\n\nDefending the need to check biometric data, such as fingerprints, he said: \"People want us to be generous but also careful,\" adding security measures were \"light touch\" and \"sensible given the attitudes of the Putin regime towards the UK\".\n\nMr Johnson said this would also be the \"best thing for refugees, because they want a scheme that is safe, that is welcoming and that works\".\n\nChallenged on why the checks would be needed for children, who are estimated to make up around half of the two million refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the prime minister said these requirements did not apply to younger people.\n\nBut pressed on why just 1,000 family visas had been issued so far, Mr Johnson said the number would \"rise very sharply\".\n\nHe added that on Monday, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove would announce details of the second visa scheme, which he said would mean that \"if people want to welcome [them] into their own homes, they can do so\".\n\nHowever, the British Red Cross and Ukraine's UK ambassador have been among those urging the government to drop requirements for visas altogether during the war so Ukrainian refugees can travel to the UK more easily.\n\nOn Thursday Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that, from Tuesday, Ukrainian refugees with valid passports will be able to apply for visas online without submitting biometric information until they reach the UK.\n\nThe change - which Ms Patel said had the approval of the security services - would only affect people applying under the family scheme.\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said he saw a \"glimmer of pragmatism\" in the move but added that \"we'll see in coming days whether it's enough or needs to go further\".\n\nThe government is keen to avoid some of the problems of the scheme designed to help Afghans fleeing after the Taliban took back power, with thousands of people still stuck in hotels without temporary accommodation.\n\nThe Home Office will still administer the provision of visas, with the levelling up department taking responsibility for what happens once the refugees are here.\n\nIt's not impossible that the offer, expected to be detailed on Monday, could result in many thousands of Ukrainians coming here.\n\nWith more than two million people on the move as a result of the war, the need is plain.\n\nLike the family visa scheme, which has already been extended under political pressure, the sponsorship route is not expected to have a limit.\n\nHow many Ukrainians end up in the UK may rest therefore, in part, on the willingness of the British people to open their homes.\n\nRead more of Laura's analysis here.\n\nMinisters and officials met on Thursday afternoon to discuss the sponsorship plan, in which refugee groups are expected to be involved in finding suitable host individuals or organisations - such as families or church groups.\n\nIt is anticipated that those offering accommodation will be expected to commit to a minimum of six months.\n\nUkrainians entering through this new route are expected to be allowed to stay for a year initially and will be entitled to work, claim benefits and access public services.\n\nAhead of the scheme's launch, Krish Kandiah, a government adviser on the care system, said 2,000 people and organisations had signed up to help Ukrainian refugees settle in the UK through his Sanctuary Foundation.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast that he understood people would be able to offer homes to Ukrainians they already knew personally or they could be matched by the government with refugees.\n\nThe Préfecture du Pas-de-Calais has announced where the \"pop-up\" visa processing centre for Ukrainian refugees will be.\n\nThere had been reports it would be in Lille, but it's in Arras, in France, which is one hour from Calais, two from Brussels and three from Paris.\n\nThe UK government had been promising it would open for several few days now. French authorities say it is finally expected to start operating on Friday.\n\nMany of the hundreds of Ukrainians who are in northern France have spent the past week travelling to the French and Belgian capitals to submit biometric information and documentation.\n\nMany have already been processed and it's thought most will be by next Tuesday, when the process becomes simpler and will move online.\n\nThe Foreign Office also confirmed on Thursday that all Ukrainian staff working for the British embassy and British Council in Ukraine plus their dependents are able to come to the UK.\n\nHowever, the speed of the UK's response to taking in Ukrainian refugees has been criticised, with Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper calling it a \"total disgrace\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Yvette Cooper on the Home Office response to Ukrainian refugees: “Our country is better than this”\n\nMs Cooper asked why it had taken \"being hauled into the House of Commons to make basic changes to help vulnerable people who are fleeing from Ukraine?\"", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nRoman Abramovich's attempt to sell Chelsea has been halted after the oligarch was sanctioned by the UK government as part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe freezing of Abramovich's assets, which include Chelsea, means the club cannot sell further match tickets.\n\nThe move is intended to stop Abramovich making money from Chelsea.\n\nThe government has issued a special licence that will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket-holders to attend matches.\n\nChelsea have said they \"intend to engage in discussions\" with the government and will seek amendments to the special licence to \"allow the club to operate as normal as possible\".\n• None What do sanctions mean for Chelsea? All your questions answered\n\nMeanwhile, Chelsea's shirt sponsor, telecommunications company Three, has requested that the Blues \"temporarily suspend\" its deal with the club.\n\nThree has asked for \"the removal of our brand from shirts and around the stadium until further notice\".\n\nThe company added: \"We recognise that this decision will impact the many Chelsea fans who follow their team passionately.\n\n\"However, we feel that given the circumstances, and the government sanction that is in place, it is the right thing to do.\"\n\nChelsea will be unable to buy or sell players, or offer new contracts, while the sanctions are imposed on Abramovich. Chelsea-owned players who are on loan at other clubs will be able to continue to play for those clubs.\n\nThe London club's merchandise shop has also been shut.\n\n\"Once you start digging down into what this could do - yes, they can play their games but will they even be able [to]?\" former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin told the BBC World Football podcast.\n\n\"Massive amounts of questions but yes, it's not hyperbole to say the future of the club is in serious danger.\"\n• None Reaction and analysis to Abramovich's sale of Chelsea being halted\n\nThe government is open to considering a further addition to the special licence which will allow the sale of the club.\n\nA condition for that to happen would be that Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people who is believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin - receives no funds.\n\nHe has previously said that proceeds of any sale would be donated to victims of war.\n\nOn Wednesday, there were 20 credible parties looking at a potential Chelsea takeover and interest in buying the club has not been dented, despite Abramovich being sanctioned.\n\nHowever, the American investment firm - Raine Group - handling the sale has temporarily halted their efforts after the shock of the news and the confusion caused by what happens next.\n\nCulture Secretary Nadine Dorries has said the government is \"committed to protecting\" the club.\n\n\"Football clubs are cultural assets and the bedrock of our communities,\" she tweeted.\n\n\"I know this brings some uncertainty, but the government will work with the league and clubs to keep football being played while ensuring sanctions hit those intended.\"\n\nDorries later told BBC Sport: \"Abramovich has links to Putin, who is mounting a barbaric and evil attack against the people of Ukraine.\n\n\"We in this department stand with the people of Ukraine and I'm afraid sanctions have consequences. Abramovich's actions have consequences too.\"\n\nWhat does the special licence mean for Chelsea?\n• None Chelsea are able to pay the wages of all employees, including players and coaching staff\n• None They can pay \"reasonable\" costs of travel to and from fixtures but not exceeding £20,000 per game per team\n• None They can pay \"reasonable\" costs towards hosting home fixtures, not exceeding £500,000 per fixture per team\n• None Fans who bought season tickets or individual match tickets before 10 March 2022 can attend games\n• None Rights-holding broadcasters can broadcast any fixture involving the club\n\nThe sanctions were imposed on a day that both Chelsea's men's and women's teams were in action, with the Blues winning at Norwich in the Premier League, and also at West Ham in the WSL.\n\nDuring Chelsea's 3-1 win at Carrow Road travelling fans chanted Abramovich's name.\n\nThe Premier League said that it will \"work with the club and the government to ensure the season will proceed as planned and in line with the government's intention\".\n\nThe Chelsea Supporters' Trust has called for the government \"to minimise the uncertainty\" and to include fans \"in any conversation regarding ongoing impacts\".\n\nAs a result of the sanctions, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee will hear from Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston, Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham and the Premier League's chief policy and corporate affairs officer Helen MacNamara on Tuesday.\n\nCommittee chair Julian Knight said the hearing would \"explore issues around the role of Russian money in our national game and will examine the government's approach to financial sanctions targeted at specific individuals and its general policy on sporting sanctions and boycotts\".\n\nKnight added: \"This morning's announcement that Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the government and emerging details of the likely effect on one of the country's biggest football clubs illustrates the deep and wide-ranging impact such measures will have on sport in this country.\"\n\nSince his purchase of the club in 2003, Chelsea have been transformed, setting the template for how much finance was needed to compete at the top end of English football.\n\nIn total, Abramovich has loaned the club more than £1.5bn, which has helped to bring great success.\n\nUnder Abramovich's ownership, the club have won every major trophy possible - including the Champions League twice, both the Premier League and FA Cup five times, the Europa League twice and the League Cup three times.\n\nIn February, they won their first Club World Cup.\n\nThey have also won the Women's Super League title four times, the Women's FA Cup on three occasions and picked up the Women's League Cup twice in the past eight years.\n\nFinancial journalist Kieran Maguire told the BBC: \"In the short term, it's to a large extent business as usual. Chelsea will be able to pay wages due at the end of March and will have other overheads.\n\n\"Chelsea's wage bill is round about £28m a month. We don't know how much cash they have in the bank. The most recent accounts we have are from June 2021 when there was £16m in the bank. Abramovich has been injecting money into Chelsea on a regular basis over recent years and presumably that won't be able to continue.\n\n\"The concern might be what happens if Chelsea's cash reserves are insufficient to pay their wage bill - but presumably the government and Premier League, who have been working on this, will have been looking at it to try to minimise disruption on a club level.\"\n\nThere is no template for dealing with this type of situation and football's authorities are scrambling to work out the finer points.\n\nFor Chelsea, some elements are straightforward - and tricky.\n\nThey cannot offer new contracts - so the futures of Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and skipper Cesar Azpilicueta are uncertain.\n\nThe loan of Saul Niguez will not be turned into a permanent deal. Chelsea cannot sell the numerous players they have on loan, including Armando Broja, who has impressed so much at Southampton.\n\nPresumably numerous younger players they would have given contracts to now will not get them.\n\nBut what about the detail? Can Chelsea sell tickets to their own fans for away games given they as a club do not benefit?\n\nWhat will happen to the FA Cup semi-final - if they get there - when receipts are split between clubs?\n\nCan Premier League clubs like Brentford - who were part-way through selling their away allocation for their trip to Stamford Bridge on 2 April - still do so, or do they have to stop?\n\nAnd as for the £20,000 limit on expenses for away games, Chelsea have matches next week at Lille and Middlesbrough. Both would cost substantially more than £20,000.\n\nCan individuals make contributions or will Chelsea have to reduce the cost with a less expensive form of accommodation for Thomas Tuchel's side?\n\nClearly, the sale of the club needs to happen quickly if there is not to be a major impact. But that is in the hands of the government.\n\nRoman Abramovich's funding meant Chelsea emerged from the financial impact of Covid-19 relatively unaffected - that is unlikely to be the case this time.\n\nLike all the Russian billionaires who still run businesses in their motherland, Roman Abramovich has had to remain on good terms with President Putin, even though he no longer spends much time in the country.\n\nThis is what led to him being sanctioned, with the UK government saying he is a \"pro-Kremlin oligarch\" who has had a \"close relationship\" with Vladimir Putin for decades and has obtained \"financial benefit\" and \"preferential treatment\" from that relationship.\n\nOne example given of that is the contracts he received in the run-up to the 2018 World Cup.\n\nMore specifically on Ukraine and the Russian army, the UK government claims one of Mr Abramovich's companies, Evraz Plc, may \"potentially\" have been involved in providing steel which \"may have been used in the production of tanks\".\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Russia has been shelling Ukrainian cities, including Irpin, near the capital Kyiv\n\nRussia could be planning a chemical or biological weapon attack in Ukraine - and \"we should all be on the lookout\", the White House has said.\n\nPress secretary Jen Psaki said Russia's claims about US biological weapon labs, and chemical weapon development in Ukraine, were preposterous.\n\nShe called the false claims an \"obvious ploy\" to try to justify further premeditated, unprovoked attacks.\n\nIt comes after Western officials shared similar concerns about fresh attacks.\n\nThey said they were \"very concerned\" about the risk the war could escalate, and particularly the possibility of Russia using non-conventional weapons.\n\nThis most likely refers to chemical weapons although the term also covers tactical (small-scale) nuclear weapons, biological weapons and dirty bombs.\n\n\"We've got good reason to be concerned,\" said one Western official.\n\nThey said this was partly because of what had been seen in other places where Russia has been engaged - notably Syria where chemical weapons were used by its allies.\n\nMs Psaki said: \"We should all be on the lookout for Russia to possibly use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, or to create a false flag operation using them - it's a clear pattern.\"\n\nEarlier on Wednesday, the UK Ministry of Defence said in a tweet that Russia had used thermobaric rockets in Ukraine. These rockets are also known as vacuum bombs because they suck in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion.\n\nThis makes them more devastating than conventional explosives of a similar size, and can have a terrible impact on people caught in their blast radius.\n\nIn a subsequent update, the ministry said it was likely \"experienced mercenaries\" from Russian private military companies associated with the Kremlin were deploying to fight in Ukraine.\n\nThe update added Russian mercenaries have been accused of committing human rights abuses in Africa and the Middle East, including in Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧\n\nThe fears around chemical weapon use were borne from Russian claims potentially \"setting the scene\" for some kind of \"false flag\" claim, Western officials said.\n\nIn a tweet, the Russian Embassy referred to claims that \"recently found documents\" showed components of biological weapons were made in Ukrainian laboratories - with funding from the US Department of Defense.\n\nThe US dismissed the claims, saying it was the \"kind of disinformation operation we've seen repeatedly from the Russians over the years in Ukraine and in other countries\".\n\nRussian officials and media have also claimed in recent days that Ukraine was planning to build a so-called dirty bomb - which disperses radioactive material.\n\nMeanwhile Russia's foreign minister has claimed Ukraine had been seeking nuclear weapons.\n\nSome believe Moscow is pushing these claims to come up with a justification for its own public about why it invaded Ukraine. But Western officials also fear they could be used as the basis for a \"false flag\" event.\n\nFor example, Russia could claim any dispersal of non-conventional weapons came from Ukrainian facilities or troops, or they were used first by Ukraine. That could justify, for Moscow, the subsequent use of non-conventional weapons by Russia.\n\nThe Western official said similar stories had come from Russia before their use in Syria.\n\nThere were \"other indications as well\", they said - likely referring to some kind of intelligence. \"It's a serious concern for us.\"\n\nRussia's ally, the Assad government, used chemical weapons in Syria on multiple occasions against civilians.\n\nRussia is also accused of using nerve agents - a type of chemical weapon - in attempted assassinations like that of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018 and against opposition figure Alexei Navalny in Russia in 2020.\n\nThe global watchdog that oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention - the OPCW - describes a chemical weapon as a chemical used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties.\n\nTheir use is banned under international humanitarian law regardless of a valid military target because their effects are indiscriminate by nature and designed to cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.\n\nDo you have any questions about the crisis in Ukraine? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Kharkiv has been one of the focal points of the Russian attack\n\n\"We met only this afternoon, but already I know that just last week, his father Oleg was killed defending the city, and Lt Gromadsky is the seventh generation of military in his family. He plans for an eighth, in a free Ukraine.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has now entered its third week. What Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, surely intended to be a quick victory has stalled in the face of Ukrainian resistance.\n\nOur reporter, Quentin Sommerville, has been embedded with Ukrainian forces.\n\nOver a cup of borscht, he found men willing to fight but recognising they need more from the West if they are to win.\n\nUkrainian officials say three people including a child died in an attack on a children's hospital in Mariupol\n\nA dire picture is emerging from the southern port city of Mariupol.\n\nReports say food and medicine are hard to find, and residents resorting to melting snow for water. And all this under an intense Russian bombardment.\n\nWith the city encircled, residents of those trapped inside face the agonising uncertainty of trying to reach them by phone.\n\nThe BBC's Joel Gunter, who is in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, has been speaking to some of them.\n\n\"They are being put into mass graves.\"\n\nA relieved Dmytro (R) poses here with (L-R) his sister, neighbour, grandmother and mother\n\nBucha is a small town just to the north-west of Kyiv. Much like in Mariupol, the shelling has been relentless, with residents forced to shelter in basements.\n\nDmytro, a 30-year-old lawyer, decided to escape. He was joined with his sister, his mother and his two grandmothers, aged 74 and 83.\n\nNot long after they left, their grandmother could no longer walk so they needed to drag her to safety.\n\nRussia's Lavrov (R) in talks with Ukraine's Kuleba - but there was no immediate breakthrough\n\nFor the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, the two sides have held high-level talks as Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Turkey.\n\nThe two agreed to continue discussions but apart from that there was nothing in the way of a substantial agreement.\n\nThey remain far apart. Lavrov repeated Russia's demands Ukraine disarm and adopt a neutral position, something Kuleba said amounted to wanting a surrender.\n\nRoman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin pictured together at an event in Russia in 2016\n\nAs the fighting continued, individuals and companies linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin face more reprisals.\n\nThe UK on Thursday sanctioned one of the best known oligarchs, Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nHis exact relationship with the Kremlin remains murky - some suggest he is merely tolerated by President Putin, others say the relationship is much closer than that.\n\nThe sanctions against oligarchs are just one part of a long list of measures announced against Russia.\n\nThe US and UK are banning Russian oil imports, Russian banks have been shut out of international payment systems, and the central bank has had its assets frozen.\n\nA swathe of major brands have pulled out of Russia. For Russians, whether super-rich or not, that means no Big Macs or watching Netflix.\n\nRussia has now announced a series of counter measures, including export bans on a string of products such as agricultural equipment and telecoms. There's also a warning the assets of foreign companies could be seized.", "Alisher Usmanov (right) with President Putin at the Kremlin in November 2018\n\nThe UK has announced sanctions on two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Usmanov's company USM previously had sponsorship ties with Arsenal and - until this week - Everton.\n\nMr Shuvalov was formerly Russian President Vladimir Putin's deputy prime minister and is currently chairman of the management board of a Russian bank.\n\nThe BBC has contacted the two men for their response.\n\nUnder the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.\n\nBritish citizens and businesses will not be allowed to deal with them.\n\nBoris Johnson said: \"For as long as Putin continues his barbaric attack on innocent Ukrainians we will continue to exert every power we have to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his war machine.\"\n\nAnd his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We won't stop here - our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin's war machine.\"\n\nThe government said the two men had \"significant interests in the UK and close links to the Kremlin\".\n\nMr Usmanov founded USM Holding company, an investment group that owns iron, steel and copper suppliers and the Megafon telecommunications company.\n\nThe company, in which Mr Usmanov holds a 49% stake, sponsored Everton's training ground and had a naming-rights option for Everton's new stadium, due to open in 2024.\n\nHowever, on Wednesday, Everton suspended the company's sponsorship arrangements, saying the club was \"shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine\".\n\nMr Usmanov's business partner Farhad Moshiri - the owner and main investor at Everton - has since stepped down from his role as chairman of USM and announced that he had severed all business links with the Russian.\n\nAs part of the deal, the Megafon branding was added to two of the towers of the stadium, one of which can be seen here\n\nThe Megafon branding was quickly removed from the stadium in the run-up to Thursday's televised FA Cup match\n\nAt the club's FA cup match against Boreham Wood on Thursday evening, Everton's players walked out draped in Ukrainian flags, behind 22-year-old Ukrainian defender Vitaliy Mykolenko who has been made captain on just his fourth appearance for his new club.\n\nMr Usmanov's previous ties with Arsenal ended in 2018 when he sold his 30% stake. At the time he was the second largest shareholder in the north London club.\n\nIn addition to connections with Premier League clubs, the government said Mr Usmanov owned Beechwood House in Highgate, worth an estimated £48m, and the 16th century Sutton Place estate in Surrey.\n\nMr Shuvalov is less well-known in the UK but the Foreign Office said he owned \"two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11m\".\n\nThe Foreign Office also said it had established an Oligarch Taskforce to co-ordinate work to sanction further oligarchs.\n\nEarlier this week, the EU froze the assets of the Mr Usmanov, saying he was \"a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin\".\n\nAt the time, Mr Usmanov issued a statement calling the EU's decision \"unfair\" and adding that he would \"use all legal means to protect my honour and reputation\".\n\nMr Shuvalov, the other man to be sanctioned, has worked in the Russian government as first deputy minister and government chief of staff, as well as acting as an aide to President Putin.\n\nIgor Shuvalov, seen here with President Putin, is one of 13 oligarchs to be sanctioned by the UK since the invasion of Ukraine\n\nSince 2018 he has been the chairman of the management board of VEB, one of the Russian banks recently sanctioned by the government.\n\nOn Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had urged the prime minister to take action against Mr Shuvalov and accused the prime minister of being slow to target other individuals connected with the Putin government.\n\nGovernment sources have told the BBC it could take weeks to put together sanctions against such people.\n\nLabour, and some senior Conservative figures have said the UK should seize oligarchs' UK assets.\n\nConservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: \"We should be looking immediately to seize those assets linked to those who are profiting from Putin's war machine, holding it in trust and returning it to the Russian people as soon as possible.\"\n\nElsewhere, the US has announced fresh sanctions on Russian oligarchs including Mr Usmanov, Mr Shuvalov and Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nAuthorities in France and Germany have seized yachts owned by Mr Usmanov.\n\nMeanwhile, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab says the government will look at ways to stop lawsuits being used by wealthy individuals to intimidate journalists and organisations covering their wealth and financial interests.\n\nThe government is expected to set out a number of options to alter the system, including procedural changes in courts and potential legislation.\n\nMr Raab told the Telegraph: \"We will not have people close to Putin coming here to try and bankrupt people who shine a light on his excesses.\"", "Corrie Mckeague went missing from Bury St Edmunds - about 10 miles south of his RAF base - on 24 September 2016\n\nAn airman who went missing six years ago had slept under bin bags on a previous night out, an inquest heard.\n\nCorrie Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was 23 when he vanished in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in September 2016.\n\nPolice believe he died after climbing into a waste bin after a night out, but his body has never been found.\n\nMr Mckeague's best friend Paul Robb told the hearing in Ipswich the RAF Honington serviceman had used the bin bags \"almost like a blanket\".\n\nPaul Robb, who served with Mr Mckeague in the RAF, said the gunner had slept under bin bags following a night out in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in 2014.\n\nHe said Mr Mckeague had been out drinking when they were there on a medic course.\n\n\"He told me he slept under some bin bags,\" Mr Robb told the coroner's court.\n\n\"I can't remember if he described them being full of rubbish, outside a coffee shop or something like that.\n\n\"Round the back where the bin area was.\n\n\"He described using them almost like a blanket to stay warm.\"\n\nMr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV heading towards a bin loading area behind some shops in Bury St Edmunds town centre\n\nHe said on a previous night out Mr Mckeague \"downed a whole bottle of red wine in 17 seconds\", adding that he \"had a capability of doing things like that\".\n\nIn his witness statement, Mr Robb said Mr Mckeague was \"extreme with his drinking\" and described his mental state as \"up and down\".\n\nMr Mckeague's former line manager Sgt Ross Stevenson described him as a \"friendly lad\" who was a \"good laugh\".\n\nIn his witness statement he said Mr Mckeague was a \"nightmare on the drink\" and he had previously seen him walking back to the airbase in the morning still wearing his clothes from the night before.\n\nMr Mckeague had been asked to leave Flex nightclub a couple of hours before the last sighting of him on CCTV\n\nMr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV going into a bin loading area in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of 24 September 2016.\n\nWilliam Hook, the doorman of Flex nightclub, told the inquest he had asked Mr Mckeague to leave the venue a couple of hours beforehand after seeing him struggle \"to walk without holding on to anything\".\n\nHe said Mr Mckeague cooperated and \"there was no worry about him\".\n\nUS Air Force mechanic Kentron Manning, who was based at RAF Mildenhall at the time, said in a statement he saw Mr Mckeague at a pizza takeaway in Bury St Edmunds in the early hours of 24 September.\n\nMr Manning said he offered to share his taxi home with Mr Mckeague, but \"he said 'no' and he was going to walk back to his base\".\n\nThe inquest, due to last four weeks, continues.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nChelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he is planning to sell the club.\n\nIn a statement on the Premier League club's website, businessman Abramovich said he had made the \"incredibly difficult decision\" which \"pains\" him.\n\nThe Russian will not ask \"for any loans to be repaid\" and said proceeds of the sale would be donated to war victims.\n\nAbramovich had said on Saturday he would give \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its foundation trustees following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThat led to speculation Abramovich - who has loaned the club more than £1.5bn - would put Chelsea up for sale, and billionaire Hansjorg Wyss told Swiss newspaper Blick on Wednesday that he had been offered the chance to buy the club.\n\nWyss said Abramovich wanted \"to get rid of Chelsea quickly\" after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.\n\nAbramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nHe said \"all net proceeds from the sale\" would be donated to the \"victims of the war in Ukraine\".\n\nBBC Sport understands Abramovich has already received offers for Chelsea and that he values the club at as much as £3bn.\n\nIn his statement, Abramovich said: \"I have always taken decisions with the club's best interest at heart.\n\n\"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club's sponsors and partners.\n\n\"The sale of the club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid.\n\n\"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nBBC Sport understands the trustees of Chelsea's charitable foundation, who had not yet agreed to take control of the club, will no longer be asked to. Abramovich was criticised for not referencing Russia's invasion of Ukraine in that original statement on Saturday.\n\nChelsea's players were not told ahead of time about their owner's new statement, which was released less than a hour before the side's FA Cup fifth-round tie at Luton Town.\n\nAfter falling behind early on, the Premier League team won 3-2 to reach the quarter-finals.\n\nAbramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140m, and in his statement said it had \"never been about business nor money, but about pure passion for the game and club\".\n\nSince his purchase of the club, Chelsea have been transformed, setting the template for how much finance was needed to compete at the top end of the Premier League.\n\nIn total, Abramovich has loaned the club more than £1.5bn, which has helped to bring great success.\n\nUnder his ownership, the club have won every major trophy possible - including the Champions League twice, both the Premier League and FA Cup five times, the Europa League twice and the League Cup three times.\n\nIn August 2021, they won the Uefa Super Cup and in February won their first Club World Cup.\n\nHe has appointed 13 different managers and the club spent more than £2bn in the transfer market under his ownership.\n\nChelsea's women's team, who became affiliated to Chelsea FC in 2004, have thrived under Abramovich's ownership, winning the Women's Super League four times, the Women's FA Cup, three times and reaching the Champions League final last season.\n\nTheir high profile has seen world stars such as Australia's Sam Kerr and Danish forward Pernille Harder move to the club.\n\nWhy has Abramovich chosen to sell?\n\nOther Russian billionaires have already been the subject of European Union sanctions where their assets have been frozen.\n\nThat has included Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial links to Everton.\n\nThe United Kingdom government is yet to sanction Abramovich or Usmanov, but Labour MP Chris Bryant said in Parliament on Tuesday that Abramovich was \"terrified of being sanctioned which is why he is going to sell his home tomorrow [Wednesday], and another flat as well\".\n\nOn Wednesday, during Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Keir Starmer asked why Abramovich was not facing sanctions, with Boris Johnson replying it was \"not appropriate to comment on any individual cases at this stage\".\n\nA spokesperson denied the Labour leader's claims and said Abramovich had not done anything sanctionable.\n\nWyss also said: \"Abramovich is trying to sell all of his villas in England, he also wants to get rid of Chelsea quickly.\n\n\"I and three other people received an offer on Tuesday to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Abramovich declined to comment on those claims.\n\n'One of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in history of English football' - analysis\n\nWhile this was not an entirely unexpected development after it became apparent during the last 24 hours that Roman Abramovich was looking to sell Chelsea, this dramatic announcement still feels like a seismic moment. Not only for the west London club, but for the wider English game too.\n\nThe Russian billionaire's arrival almost two decades ago helped transform the Premier League's competitive balance, profile and spending power, reinforcing its status as a truly global competition.\n\nThe oligarch's riches turned Chelsea into a major force in the game, and his ownership seemed to pave the way for subsequent takeovers by overseas billionaires, at clubs like Manchester City for instance.\n\nBut there was significant controversy too.\n\nWith Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people - almost never commenting in public, he also came to symbolise the detachment of some super-wealthy club owners. Many also found the ruthlessness with which he treated managers questionable.\n\nThere was always intrigue surrounding the motives for his ownership, and how he made his fortune. While he has always denied direct links with Putin, the invasion of Ukraine led to calls in parliament for the government to sanction wealthy Russians.\n\nAbramovich vehemently denies that he had done anything to merit sanctions being imposed against him. But as the highest-profile oligarch in the country, and with one MP citing concerns about alleged links to corruption, his ownership was coming under mounting scrutiny.\n\nAnd with the government facing mounting pressure to seize his assets, and Abramovich criticised over his failure to explicitly condemn Russia's invasion, it is little surprise that he has swiftly announced his decision to sell.\n\nIn recent years Abramovich has been an increasingly infrequent visitor to Stamford Bridge, withdrawing his application for a visa in 2018 after relations between the UK and Russia worsened.\n\nBut while fans had got used to not seeing Abramovich, the Russian's departure could mean the club is run very differently in future - and perhaps with much more financial constraint - by whoever now buys it.\n\nThat may help explain why some at Chelsea will no doubt be sorry to see him go. Many other observers, however, will be pleased, some of whom have always viewed Abramovich's ownership as a classic example of 'sportswashing'.\n\nHaving always insisted he was passionate about the club and had its interests at heart, he leaves as one of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in the history of English football.\n\nChelsea will be a desirable football club for many given its status within the game. It's in London which makes it very attractive to ultra high net-worth individuals.\n\nYou have to caution that Chelsea has lost more money than any other club in the history of the Premier League and its stadium is a lot smaller than some of the other stadiums in London.\n\nSpeaking to some agents already today, I think the initial asking price is around £3bn. I think that is unlikely to be achieved. But if you are looking for a trophy asset - something to show off to your compatriots, to your friends, then Chelsea has an awful lot of attraction.\n\nThey are European and world champions - that does add to its allure.\n\nThere are three potential types of bidders we could see.\n\nWe could see the individual billionaire looking to add to their portfolio of well-known assets.\n\nIt could come for a private equity company based in the US who believes the riches of Premier League are undervalued in traditional markets.\n\nWe could see from a sovereign wealth fund as we've seen in relation to Manchester City, Newcastle and Paris St-Germain\n\nThis sale has come at a bad time in terms of the market. The share price of Manchester United - a good peer group company for Chelsea - is now trading significantly below its initial listing price in 2012. The market seems to have lost its love-in with football and this could impact on the ultimate price Chelsea is sold for.\n\n25 February: Labour's Chris Bryant tells MPs the UK government should remove Roman Abramovich's ownership of Chelsea and seize his assets, citing concerns about alleged links to corruption.\n\n26 February: Abramovich announces he is handing \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its charitable foundation.\n\n27 February: Foundation members express concern over whether Charity Commission rules would allow them to run the club. Chelsea beaten 11-10 on penalties by Liverpool in League Cup final at Wembley after game ended 0-0.\n\n28 February: Abramovich asked by Ukraine to help support their attempts to reach a \"peaceful resolution\" with Russia.\n\n1 March: The Charity Commission says it is \"seeking information\" from Chelsea after the club was placed under the control of its charitable foundation.\n\n2 March: Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss claims he has been offered the chance to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\n\n2 March: Abramovich announces he intends to sell the club.\n\n'It can take months or years'\n\nFormer Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer on BBC One: \"It's a huge moment for Chelsea. He has brought massive success over his 20 years but it is not simple, selling a football club. It can take months or years.\n\n\"But more importantly, there is still no condemnation from Roman or the club about what is happening in Ukraine.\"\n\nFormer Manchester City and England defender Micah Richards on BBC One: \"It is a better statement than Saturday, there is a lot more clarity and Roman Abramovich has done the right thing.\n\n\"It is so sad we have to talk about this on a football night after all the scenes we have seen. It is heartbreaking. The sooner it happens the better.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Boris Johnson was asked at Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions about the UK's policy on admitting Ukrainian refugees.\n\nHe said: \"This government has a proud, proud record. We've done more to resettle vulnerable people than any other European country since 2015.\"\n\nMr Johnson has made this claim before, which the government says applies to \"resettled refugees\".\n\nHe is right about this one category of refugees, but the overall picture is very different, as some other European countries have taken in far more refugees than the UK since 2015.\n\nResettled refugees are people who are admitted to the UK from another country where they had initially sought refuge. This would apply, for example, to someone who had fled the war in Syria and was now living in a camp in Jordan.\n\nBetween 2015 and 2020 (the years for which comparable data exists), the UK admitted about 24,700 resettled refugees - the majority of them Syrians.\n\nThis was higher than France, which resettled about 16,300 people, and Germany with about 14,500.\n\nResettlement schemes are just one part of the asylum system.\n\nThe majority of those who flee their home country, and cannot safely return to it, seek refuge by applying for asylum in another country.\n\nWhen you factor in the number of people who were granted asylum since 2015, then the picture changes dramatically.\n\nIt is clear that looking at the overall numbers of refugees allowed to stay, several European countries are way ahead of the UK.\n\nIf you add up the number of resettled refugees and those who were granted asylum, the UK gave refuge to just over 92,000 people from around the world from 2015 to 2020.\n\nGermany, by contrast, gave refuge to more than one million people.\n\nFrance, Sweden, Italy and Spain all outperformed the UK over the same period.\n\nAnd if you look at the figures in proportion to a country's overall population, the UK has provided refuge to 121 people per 100,000.\n\nOn that measure, 20 other European countries have taken in more refugees than the UK.\n\nSweden, with 1,619 refugees per 100,000 people leads in Europe, followed by Germany with 1,274, Austria with 1,134 and Switzerland with 955.", "Last updated on .From the section Champions League\n\nKarim Benzema scored a superb second-half hat-trick as Real Madrid produced a stirring fightback at a raucous Bernabeu to reach the Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of Paris St-Germain.\n\nKylian Mbappe's first-half goal had given PSG a deserved two-goal aggregate lead and looked to have put Mauricio Pochettino's side well on course for the last eight.\n\nHowever, a mistake by PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma proved the catalyst for a dramatic recovery with Benzema turning home after the Italian dawdled in possession.\n\nLuka Modric's driving run and intricate pass made Benzema's second as he levelled the tie against a clearly panicked PSG, and as the visitors attempted to regroup the 34-year-old drove a low effort into the bottom right corner seconds after the restart to settle the tie.\n• None Is Benzema the best number nine in the world?\n\nUntil Donnarumma's error PSG had been in complete control.\n\nMarco Verratti was slick and dominant in midfield, while Neymar and Lionel Messi worked themselves into some dangerous positions as the hosts struggled to contain their more fluent opponents.\n\nMbappe in particular was electric, racing on to a pass from Neymar to open the scoring against the side he has been heavily tipped to join in the summer when his contract at PSG expires.\n\nEither side of that the 23-year-old tormented the Real defence, twice having goals correctly disallowed for offside but showing his predatory instincts nonetheless.\n\nA surge of acceleration also saw him burst past Real's Eder Militao and only a brilliant covering challenge from David Alaba prevented him from adding to his tally.\n\nMbappe's influence was such that he received warm applause from the home support as he got up after appearing to be hurt in a tackle, but the real damage to his and PSG's long-standing aspirations in the competition were still to come.\n\nBenzema's 17-minute treble ensured PSG suffered another painful elimination from a competition that has become an obsession since they moved into Qatari ownership in 2011.\n\nAnd after reaching the final and semi-finals in consecutive seasons this feels like a considerable backwards step for a squad that has been expensively assembled but remains prone to monumental collapses in this competition.\n\nThis felt every bit as shattering as their 6-1 thrashing by Barcelona in 2017, their last-16 defeat by Manchester United in 2019, and was even more remarkable given they had not lost a Champions League away game after leading at half-time since 2001.\n\nWhile PSG are runaway leaders in Ligue 1 and have been crowned French champions in seven of the past nine seasons, domestic success is not the barometer Pochettino will be judged by come the end of the season.\n\nAnd alarmingly the Argentine and his stunned players were unable to provide any adequate response once the tide had turned in this contest.\n\nJulian Draxler and Angel di Maria were only introduced once the Parisiens were chasing the game, and aside from a late Messi free-kick which dipped just over, they were unable to conjure a single clear-cut goalscoring opportunity as they meekly exited the tournament.\n• None Attempt missed. Lionel Messi (Paris Saint Germain) left footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high from a direct free kick.\n• None Attempt missed. Luka Modric (Real Madrid) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top left corner.\n• None Lucas Vázquez (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Offside, Real Madrid. Eder Militão tries a through ball, but Karim Benzema is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Rodrygo (Real Madrid) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right following a set piece situation.\n• None Attempt blocked. Rodrygo (Real Madrid) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt blocked. Vinícius Júnior (Real Madrid) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ian Blackford: \"I have a good team, a strong team, we are getting on with the job.\"\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has denied rumours that he is considering quitting from the post.\n\nThe Politico website had claimed the MP was considering his position due to infighting among the party's MPs.\n\nMr Blackford told BBC Scotland there was \"nothing in it\".\n\nOther SNP members came to the Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP's defence, with Stewart McDonald saying the story had been \"made up by people with the luxury of too much time on their hands.\"\n\nMr Blackford took over as the party's Westminster leader in 2017 after Angus Robertson lost his seat in that year's general election.\n\nPolitico's daily newsletter said it had spoken to four party officials who said they believed his departure could come before May's council elections.\n\nIt said there had been a \"weeks-long row\" over statements Mr Blackford had made about pensions in an independent Scotland, quoting an unnamed MP as describing his position as an \"unforced error\".\n\nThe article also said there had been tension between Mr Blackford and other senior MPs, including Mr McDonald and the party's foreign affairs spokesman Alyn Smith.\n\nHowever both men have rejected the story, with Mr McDonald tweeting that Politico \"has been had\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Stewart McDonald MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Blackford himself told BBC Scotland that it was \"like silly season has arrived early\".\n\nHe said: \"I have a good team, a strong team, we are getting on with the job.\n\n\"I'll be doing that safe in the knowledge that I have a group that's behind me and a government in Edinburgh that we work closely with.\n\n\"Let's focus on the day job of holding the government to account, dealing with the crisis in Ukraine and delivering the Scottish government's manifesto commitments.\"\n\nAsked if MPs were restless about the lack of progress towards holding a fresh referendum on Scottish independence, Mr Blackford said the party was \"serious\" about delivering a vote.\n• None Resignation rumour is evidence of 'silly season' Video, 00:01:08Resignation rumour is evidence of 'silly season'", "A video has emerged which appears to show a column of Russian tanks being ambushed on the outskirts of Kyiv.\n\nThe drone footage shows a large convoy of tanks under attack by Ukrainian forces in Brovary.", "EU leaders meeting on Thursday in Versailles focused on rethinking defence in Europe and how to move away from Russian energy\n\nThe opulent Palace of Versailles was designed by the kings of France to impress the outside world, yet by the time of the French Revolution it had turned into a glaring symbol of royal failure.\n\nNow EU leaders who are here for a two-day summit hope to project an image of unity in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.\n\nThat's easy when they discuss the big picture.\n\nBut some details up for debate are clearly divisive amongst member states: such as energy prices impacted by the war, EU common defence plans and the enlargement of the bloc to include Ukraine.\n\nYet the bureaucratic, often bickering behemoth that is the EU has already been transformed by the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Let's take a step back to get some perspective:\n\nIs this a temporary blip, or are we looking at a Brussels rebirth; an EU 2.0?\n\nThe EU was already aware - certainly after the 2016 Brexit vote, if not before - that it needed some serious self-improvement.\n\nThe bloc was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize back in 2012 \"for over six decades contributing to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe\".\n\nEU member states have sent defensive weapons to Ukraine but face demands for greater support\n\nBut in the eyes of many Europeans, Brussels became seen as a home for neo-liberalism, rather than liberalism. A promoter of trade deals prioritising big business, and a maker of dirty migrant deals (with Turkey, for example) to keep refugees from reaching EU shores.\n\nA bloc that, along with many national governments, was perceived as helping banks instead of families after the 2008 economic crisis. An entity, decades after the Second World War, that had lost its vision, mission and recognition as a force for peace in Europe.\n\nPopulism, nationalism and illiberalism became familiar faces in European politics, as voters looked for \"a better fit\". EU countries fell out over migration, eurozone reform and more.\n\nConspiracy theories flourished, as trust in Brussels and traditional politicians waned. \"Strongman\" leaders like Hungary's Viktor Orban, Turkey's Recep Erdogan, America's Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin were increasingly admired.\n\nThen, in 2020, the Covid pandemic prompted a reset.\n\nAfter an unedifying start, Brussels was perceived as working in the public interest. Member states seemed more united, opinion polls were approving.\n\nThe EU's Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, has appealed to EU leaders to display the same drive and resolve shown in face of Covid when dealing with the Russia-Ukraine crisis and resulting challenges.\n\nThis war on European soil has refocused EU minds as to what the bloc could - or should - stand for. Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine is also seen by the EU majority as a geopolitical attack on European security as a whole.\n\nThe war in Ukraine is an immense trauma, a human, political, humanitarian drama and it's undoubtedly an element that'll lead to completely redefining the architecture of our Europe\n\nBut this two-day informal summit could well expose cracks in this new-found EU unity.\n\nAll EU leaders fret about rising energy costs and the impact back home of Russia sanctions and possible counter sanctions. But they disagree on what to do about it. Some call for an EU-wide solution - that is, new funds from Brussels. Others, like Germany and the Netherlands, say no.\n\nEmmanuel Macron is the host of the summit, since France currently holds the rotating EU presidency.\n\nHe's long been a champion of a stronger, more independent Europe, weaning itself off food, technology and energy imports and building up its own defence force to work alongside Nato.\n\nBut the prospect of a European Army (under French command) remains an unlikely prospect.\n\nInstead, EU countries will discuss better co-ordination and the pooling of military resources... while likely arguing over which nations should win the best contracts.\n\nThere is a war in Europe. My wish is for the EU to unleash its strength and continue to act in unity to ensure peace in Europe has a good perspective. That is what is at stake now\n\nAs for migration. two million Ukrainians have already fled the country. Depending on how long the misery and violence continue, many more could arrive in the EU. Diplomats I've spoken to predict that funding, housing and relocating millions across different member states could yet prove difficult, longer term.\n\nRight now though, the scenes of suffering and loss in Ukraine mean emotions are running high amongst EU leaders.\n\nTheir debate over whether Ukraine's application for EU membership can be fast-tracked, as a symbol of solidarity, looks to be the most heated Versailles Palace will witness this week.\n• None 'We are not co-operating': Life in occupied Ukraine", "In the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent the week with the Ukrainian forces as they fight to stop a further Russian advance.\n\nThis report contains material some viewers will find disturbing\n\nThe first casualty of war is time. Ask the young soldier at the front when the attack happened, or the old lady in the hospital bed when her home was shelled, and they look at you confused. Was it 24 hours ago, or 48? The days have become one, they tell you.\n\nIn Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, time is elastic. It's close to the border with Russia and the nightly shelling from Russian artillery and warplanes gives no rest. The past two weeks have seemed like an eternity, yet peace can be remembered as if it were yesterday.\n\nIn a frozen landscape on the city's north-eastern edge, 21-year-old Lieutenant Yevgen Gromadsky stands with hands outstretched. There are trenches dug in nearby. \"Outgoing,\" he says, lifting his right hand to accompany the thump of fire from his positions. \"Incoming,\" he says, and his left hand ticks up. With a crump, Russian shells are fired from their positions 900m away across snow-covered fields.\n\nThe shelling continues like clockwork at the edge of this bombed-out village - \"Incoming, outgoing, incoming, outgoing,\" Lt Gromadsky flicks his hands with each report.\n\nWe met only this afternoon, but already I know that just last week, his father Oleg was killed defending the city, and Lt Gromadsky is the seventh generation of military in his family. He plans for an eighth, in a free Ukraine.\n\nHe describes the fight so far, \"Sabotage groups are probing our lines out, we have direct tank battles. They shoot with mortar shells at first, and then tanks fire at our positions.\"\n\nWe move along the front lines from position to position. Inside his armoured vehicle, a Russian army hat - a trophy from their first capture - hanging from the ceiling, he continues, \"We are shooting back with anti-tank guided missiles and also the usual small arms. They dismount, they scatter, there's always a lot of people.\"\n\nInside the truck there are Mexican Day of the Dead air fresheners. Grinning skulls hanging from every corner as we bounce along rutted dirt road. On the floor, rocket-propelled grenade launchers roll around.\n\nFrom the front passenger seat Lt Gromadsky says, \"Sometimes they use this tactic - first, they raise a white flag above their equipment, then come closer to our positions. When we come up and kind of take them as prisoners of war, they start to open fire on our troops.\"\n\nThe position was attacked on Monday (or was it the day before, he wonders), two Russian tanks and an armoured vehicle. \"Don't worry, we are well defended,\" he says as he gestures to a pile of American-made Javelin guided anti-tank missiles. \"Lockheed Martin, Texas,\" is written on their casing. Nearby, is a pile of British next-generation light anti-tank weapon (NLAW) missiles. \"Eliminates even the most advanced tanks,\" its manufacturer Saab promises on its website.\n\nIt is bitterly cold and two puppies are playing around Lt Gromadsky's feet. His shoes are a pair of white Puma trainers - \"You need to be fast out here,\" he says.\n\nThe Ukrainians are improvising in this war. Their government has been criticised for being ill-prepared, and now there is a rush to bring men forward to the front. The regular army is being merged with civilian defence forces. At a marshalling point on the city's eastern edge, I watch as buses arrive with hundreds of freshly equipped soldiers. \"Where's my body armour?\" asks one. \"You'll get it at the front,\" yells an officer, and moments later they are gone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Our correspondent on the front line, with Ukraine’s troops - this report contains graphic images of casualties\n\nSome will be joining Lt Gromadsky's unit and working alongside a medic who goes by the name of Reaper. \"You've heard of the grim reaper, right?\" he asks. He's also in command of this defence line at the edge of a village. Many of the homes there have been destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling.\n\nHow are the Russians fighting, I ask. \"They fight like stupid animals,\" says Reaper. \"They fight like it's 1941 - they have no manoeuvrability, they just come to the front and that's all. They have a lot of people, a lot of tanks, a lot of vehicles, but we are fighting for our land, and we are protecting our families. it doesn't matter how they fight because we fight like lions and they won't win.\"\n\nBack in the rear, the field kitchen is in a coffee shop. The army cook is reassuringly large with a knitted hat atop his head. He offers bowls of steaming hot borscht - \"Have sour cream with it,\" he insists. There are piles of cakes and biscuits, made by local factories for the troops.\n\nI sit beside a 30-year-old battalion commander, Sergey. \"We see the enemy, we kill the enemy, there's no conversation, that's it,\" he says. He wants to know where I'm from. I tell him and he asks if it's true that British volunteers have come to fight for Ukraine. \"What aircraft have you given us,\" he says as he finishes his borscht.\n\nBut across the east and south of Ukraine, Russia has been advancing. The Russian army has met more determined resistance than it expected, but cities continue to fall. And for all their front-line courage, there is a recognition that their abilities on the ground will not be enough. Soldier after soldier says they need air defence, a no-fly zone.\n\nI get inside another armoured vehicle, which two weeks ago was doing cash pickups at the city's banks. It, too, has now been put into the war effort. As we drive through the city, with its wide boulevards, and fine buildings, we reach a Soviet-Era apartment complex. And there I meet Eugene, a great Viking of a man, heavily tattooed with an orange beard.\n\n\"If Kharkiv falls, then all of Ukraine falls,\" Eugene, 36, tells me. He's a part of a reconnaissance team working near apartment blocks. Some of the flats have taken direct hits and in the car park, a car lies ripped apart from another grad missile strike.\n\nWhat there isn't here in Kharkiv, is any surprise at the Russian attack. \"Since 2014 we knew they would come, maybe in a year, 10 years, or 1,000 years, but we knew they would come\".\n\nAt 04:55 on 24 February, Eugene received a call from a friend saying the attack was about to begin. \"Then I heard the rockets attack our city,\" he says. Like everyone else he hasn't been home since.\n\nLeaving the front to return to the centre of the city is almost like entering another world. The relentless Russian shelling has meant that most of the 1.5m population has fled. Few neighbourhoods have escaped some kind of damage. Early in the mornings, queues can still be seen at pharmacies, banks, supermarkets and petrol stations, as those who stayed behind stock up on supplies. A huge logistical and humanitarian effort is going on behind the scenes to keep Kharkiv running.\n\nBefore curfew I make my way to the city's Hospital Number 4 to meet Dr Alexander Dukhovskyi, head of paediatrics. Underneath his hospital whites, he's wearing a Miami Beach 2015 T-shirt, with the American flag. He hasn't gone home in weeks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How Russia is using tactics refined over a decade in Syria\n\nHe laughs when I say that Russia says it isn't targeting civilians. Then, silently, he takes me down corridor after corridor of victims of Russian attacks. They are in the hallways because Russian shells have landed nearby, so the patients aren't safe in the wards with large windows. Most here were injured while at home.\n\nThe children's intensive care unit is on the ground floor. Its narrow windows catch the brilliant light from the snow outside and glint over the golden icons of saints above the nurses' station.\n\nIn a bed nearby is eight-year-old Dmitry. His toes poke out from under the blanket and a hand, bruised and bloodied peeks out too. His face is scraped and scarred with hundreds of marks, his right eye is not quite closed. A few days ago, the doctors removed a bullet from under his skull and vertebrae.\n\nIt is hoped he'll make a full recovery, but for the moment he's in a sorry state, with tubes taking out fluids from his small body in plastic bottles hanging beneath his bed. The thin blanket with tiny roses on it, rises and falls with his mechanical breathing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Doctors removed a bullet from between Dmitriy's skull and vertebrae\n\nVladimir Putin said he wanted to demilitarise Ukraine, instead he's creating a no-man's land. At night the city is in near total blackout. A steady beat of Russian strikes fall through the night.\n\nKharkiv was once Ukraine's capital - it has the parks, cathedrals, museums and theatres you would expect, as well as the Antonov aircraft factory and tank and turbine manufacturers.\n\nAll of the city is now a front line.\n\nAnd this, too, should come as no surprise. The Russian war-playbook has been perfected in Syria over the past 10 years. Surround, besiege, and terrorise the population. In Ukraine, as in Syria, the population is being bussed out of their home cities as Russian forces continue their advance.\n\nI meet an intelligence team, who drive with anti-tank missiles ready to use in the back of their vehicles. Again, I head to the city's edge, and pass through the front lines into a wasteland. Two petrol stations just outside the city that have been destroyed by shelling and gunfire.\n\nLying in the snow, are a dozen or so frozen Russian corpses. The men lie like wax figures, some with hands reaching out, their matted beards frozen stiff in the cold.\n\nThe guts of one are spilled across the forecourt. There are blood-red footprints around his corpse. Their weapons have been taken, and I ask Uta, one of the officers, what will happen to the bodies.\n\n\"What do you think will happen, we will leave them for the dogs,\" he says with a shrug.\n\nAnd at this miserable spot on Kharkiv's edge, unremarkable for its ordinariness two weeks ago, surrounded by frozen corpses, it's as if time is standing still.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Russia's Lavrov (R) in talks with Ukraine's Kuleba - but there was no immediate breakthrough\n\nA first round of talks between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine has failed to yield progress on a ceasefire, Ukraine says.\n\nSpeaking after the meeting in Turkey, Dmytro Kuleba said that the demands his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov had made amounted to a surrender.\n\nMr Lavrov meanwhile said his country's military operation was going to plan.\n\nThe talks come after Russia bombed a children's hospital, which Ukraine said was a war crime.\n\nOfficials say three people including a child died in the attack in the south-eastern city of Mariupol.\n\nRussia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two weeks ago and more than 2.3 million people have since fled the country.\n\nThe worst humanitarian situation was in Mariupol, Mr Kuleba said, where residents have been trapped for days in freezing temperatures without electricity or water.\n\nBut Russia had not committed to establishing a humanitarian corridor there and had also not responded to proposals for a 24-hour humanitarian ceasefire across Ukraine, he said.\n\n\"I want to repeat that Ukraine has not surrendered, does not surrender, and will not surrender,\" he said, adding that he was willing to continue meeting.\n\nFor his part, the Russian foreign minister offered no concessions and repeated demands that Ukraine be disarmed and accept neutral status. Moscow was waiting for a reply from Kyiv, he said.\n\nMr Lavrov also accused the West of fuelling the conflict by supplying weapons to Ukraine.\n\nRussia would cope with Western sanctions and \"come out of the crisis with a better psychology and conscience\", he said.\n\n\"I assure you we will cope and will do everything not to rely on the West ever, in any areas of our lives,\" he said.\n\nUN Secretary General António Guterres described the attack as \"horrific\" and the US accused Russia of a \"barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians\".\n\nBut at his press conference Mr Lavrov dismissed allegation of a war crime in Mariupol, alleging that the maternity hospital had been occupied by Ukrainian forces.\n\nMariupol - where about 400,000 people live - has been surrounded by Russian forces for several days, and repeated attempts at a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave have broken down.\n\nAll the shops were looted several days ago and many people in the city no longer had food for their children, Sasha Volkov from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team in Mariupol told the NGO by satellite phone on Wednesday.\n\n\"People started to attack each other for food. People started to ruin someone's car to take the gasoline out,\" the ICRC quoted him as saying.\n\n\"We have started to get sick, many of us, because of the humidity and cold that we have,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The aftermath of a Russia strike on a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol.\n\nWestern officials - including the White House - have warned Russia could use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine or create a \"false flag\" operation - a misleading operation blamed on the other side, usually used to justify a supposed counter-attack.\n\nAt his press conference Mr Lavrov repeated Russia's claim that the Pentagon was using Ukrainian territory to develop pathogens that could be used to create biological weapons - an assertion the US has called \"preposterous\".\n\nHe also alleged that Ukraine had been preparing an attack against two Russia-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.\n\nMoscow earlier said Ukrainian forces had transported some 80 tonnes of ammonia in the country's north-east, without providing evidence.\n\nThe US House of Representatives voted in favour of nearly $14bn (£10.6bn) in aid for Ukraine, as well as voting to ban US imports of Russian oil and other energy products. The measures still must pass through the Senate, which is expected to vote later this week.\n\nMeanwhile US Vice-President Kamala Harris is in Poland, a day after Washington rejected the country's plan to transfer military jets to the US, rather than directly to Ukraine.\n\nAnd in Europe, EU leaders are meeting in France's Palace of Versailles for a two-day summit to discuss Ukraine's possible future membership, more sanctions on Russia, and a new common defence policy.\n\nUS officials estimated that between 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since the war began on 24 February.\n\nUkraine says more than 12,000 Russian service personnel have died, while Russia last week acknowledged 498 fatalities - but none of the competing claims can be clearly verified.", "Like many other Ukrainians, Volodymyr Dehtyarov has no idea how long the exile will last\n\nThe Russian invasion of Ukraine has torn apart the lives of millions. Many of those who were fleeing the country grew up under communism when Ukraine was part of the USSR - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The BBC's Fergal Keane met two members of that older generation at a railway station in Lviv, western Ukraine, where they were trying to escape from Ukraine.\n\nWhen he was a soldier in Afghanistan there was only him and the men he fought alongside. To fight the mujahideen in Kandahar meant looking out for each other. Nobody else mattered. The men were given their orders and they fought.\n\nIn those days Volodymyr Dehtyarov was a soldier of the USSR, not knowing then that the mission to save the pro-Moscow regime in Kabul was doomed.\n\n\"We were given our orders and we did our duty,\" he tells me. The old soldier is standing in a long line at Lviv railway station waiting to be evacuated to Poland along with his daughter, daughter-in-law and four of his grandchildren. His son and an autistic grandson have had to stay behind in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine.\n\nVolodymyr Dehtyarov - seen in this picture during his military service in Afghanistan - does not speak to the Russian veterans he once fought alongside any more\n\nIn his black-and-white photographs from that other war the background is bleached of detail by the harsh sunlight. He stands confidently, weapon cradled in his arms.\n\nThe photos, like his Afghan service medal, are mementos of a once mighty power and a time of comradeship forged in battle.\n\nBut the Red Army is long gone. And this new war has cleaved apart his friendships with the Russian veterans he once fought alongside.\n\n\"We no longer speak with each other,\" he says.\n\nVolodymyr retired from the military with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is aware of the propaganda being fed to Russians by their government, the characterising of Ukraine as a state run by Nazis and fascists.\n\nWhen I ask what he thinks of such labels he laughs. It is a long, bitter laugh and he waves his arm towards the press of women and children and old people in the line around him.\n\n\"That's some question. Here? Nazis? Fascists? These people? Guys what are you talking about? These are not fascists or Nazis? Look at them. These are Ukrainians. It's simple.\"\n\nThe veteran boarded a train for Poland with his family group and was hoping to go further west, further into the European Union. Like everybody else here he has no idea how long the exile will last.\n\nValentyna Malyshkina doesn't even have a mobile phone - but hopes to get one from volunteers in Poland\n\nHeading in the same direction - but alone - is 82-year-old Valentyna Malyshkina, from Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine. She has a piece of paper in her hand upon which her daughter's phone number is written.\n\nShe explains that she does not have a mobile phone - but hopes to borrow one from a volunteer when she gets to Poland.\n\nWhere exactly was she going? She didn't know. Would anybody meet her? Again, she was not aware of anybody waiting in Poland. But so far the volunteers had been kind. They had given her food.\n\nWhen her blood pressure went up and she felt faint they gave her a tablet to place under her tongue to relieve the symptoms of dizziness. Someone had found her a chair.\n\nEvery time the queue moves along somebody helps her to stand and go forward.\n\n\"I don't know anything. I am going. And that's it,\" she says. \"I hope there are good people. That's all. I believe I won't be left behind.\"\n\nI thought for a moment that it was brave to be so confident in the kindness of strangers.\n\nYet everything I have seen at Lviv station, and all I have heard about the reception for the elderly in Poland, suggests Valentyna is right. There will be welcome and comfort for the old woman as she moves into that unknown landscape in the ninth decade of her life.", "Chancellor Rishi Sunak faces a \"huge judgment call\" over whether to borrow more or allow household budgets to be squeezed, new research suggests.\n\nThe Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says the soaring cost of living and war in Ukraine present fresh challenges ahead of the Spring Statement.\n\nWithout extra protection, many households will struggle to keep up with bills, it suggests.\n\nInflation rose to its highest level for 30 years last month.\n\nPrices surged by 5.5% in the 12 months to January, up from 5.4% in December, due to rising energy, fuel and food prices.\n\nInflation, which measures how quickly the cost of living increases over time, is now rising faster than wages and is expected to climb above 7% this year.\n\nAs Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine pushes energy costs, fuel and other commodities even higher, the IFS says Chancellor Rishi Sunak faces three big decisions.\n\nThe first is whether to borrow billions more or allow household incomes to take a bigger hit than at any time since at least the financial crisis. The government has already increased borrowing in recent years to pay for Covid-related measures such as the furlough scheme.\n\nMr Sunak must also weigh whether to allow inflation to impose effective pay cuts on teachers, nurses and other public sector workers - or to spend less than anticipated on other parts of public services, if borrowing is not an option.\n\nPublic sector workers face an average pay cut of about £1,750 once inflation is taken into account, the IFS research says.\n\nAnd as war in Ukraine continues, the chancellor will have to decide whether to allow defence spending to fall over the next three years, or to borrow to boost it.\n\n\"At the Spring Statement, Rishi Sunak has to make a huge judgment call,\" IFS director Paul Johnson said.\n\n\"Will he do more to protect households from the effects of energy prices, which have risen even further in the last two weeks?\n\n\"If he doesn't, then many on moderate incomes will face the biggest hit to their living standards since at least the financial crisis. If he does, then there will be another big hit to the public finances.\"\n\nHe told the BBC's Today programme that the chancellor will have to borrow \"at least another £10bn just to cover half the blow from energy prices\".\n\nMr Johnson warned that rising energy costs look set to continue rather than be a short peak. \"If energy prices are high for three-to-four years, it makes it much harder for the government to support people,\" he said.\n\nRising inflation - which he warned could reach 8% or more this year - is hurting public sector workers.\n\nMr Johnson estimated the Treasury would have to find between £1,500-£2,000 per worker to make up the impact of inflation on pay. \"They've already suffered big cuts,\" he said.\n\nThe IFS suggests that if Mr Sunak wants to achieve the same level of protection for households' budgets as he announced earlier this year, he will need to find an extra £12bn.\n\nWhile the chancellor might have had little choice in spending billions to protect the economy during the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, Mr Johnson says the chancellor's response to the cost of living crisis will reveal more about how he sees the government's role in protecting consumers from external events.\n\nThe boss of energy regulator Ofgem, Jonathan Brearley, for example, has said that households are heading for an \"almost inevitable\" rise in energy bills in the autumn.\n\nSpikes in wholesale gas prices, which were rising even before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will be passed on to consumers, he warned on Tuesday.\n\nA Treasury spokesperson said the government was already providing more than £20bn to help people with the cost of living and would continue to monitor the economic impact of the conflict.\n\n\"Russia's devastating invasion of Ukraine will have a huge impact on lives and livelihoods around the world and the effects will be felt across this country,\" the spokesperson said.\n\n\"It is right that we do all we can to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine and work with our allies and partners to impose the most punishing sanctions to inflict maximum and lasting pain on Russia.\"\n\nThe shadow chancellor, Labour MP Rachel Reeves, accused the government of allowing \"the cost of living crisis to spiral out of control since September\".\n\nShe called on the chancellor to reconsider \"unfair\" National Insurance contributions, which are due to go up in April to fund social care in England and help the NHS recover after the pandemic.\n\nThe Labour party has proposed the introduction of a one-off \"windfall\" tax on oil and gas producers, which would then be used to cut energy costs for consumers.", "Pippa's parents Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths have been among those to campaign for a wider inquiry into maternity care in Shropshire\n\nA midwife found guilty of misconduct over the death of a baby six years ago is to be struck off.\n\nClaire Roberts was investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for failures in the care she gave to Pippa Griffiths - who died a day after being born at home in Myddle, Shropshire.\n\nAn independent disciplinary panel described the midwife as \"a danger to patients and colleagues\".\n\nMs Roberts, who was not present at the hearing, now has 28 days to appeal.\n\nThe decision has been welcomed by Pippa's parents Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths.\n\nMs Roberts and fellow midwife Joanna Young failed to realise the \"urgency\" of medical attention needed, following the birth, the panel said.\n\nThey had failed to carry out a triage assessment, after Pippa's mother called staff for help because she was worried about her daughter's condition.\n\nThe panel concluded Ms Roberts's fitness to practise was impaired.\n\nInaccurate record-keeping by Ms Roberts represented \"serious dishonesty\", panel chair David Evans said, adding she had carried it out \"in order to protect herself from disciplinary action\".\n\nHer failures had represented a \"significant departure from standards expected by a registered midwife,\" he added.\n\nMr Evans said she had also failed to engage with the NMC or give evidence and had shown a \"lack of insight, lack of remorse and lack of remediation identified around the areas of concern\".\n\nHer colleague Ms Young, whose case was also heard by the panel, faced strong criticism on Wednesday, but was told she would face no sanction after the hearing concluded she had shown remorse and undergone extra training since 2016.\n\nKayleigh Griffiths said she and her husband welcomed the findings and sanctions.\n\n\"We're really relieved that one of the midwives has been struck off and actually we're also relieved to find that the other midwife has learnt and feels significant remorse for the event that took place,\" she said.\n\n\"We realise people do make mistakes and I think how you deal with those mistakes is really important.\n\n\"All we do ask is that learning was made from those and I think in one of the instances it did occur and in the other it didn't - so I think the right outcome has been found.\"\n\nDonna Ockenden's report into wider maternity standards at SaTh has faced fresh delays\n\nThere was also criticism during the hearing of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which the panel heard had demonstrated shortcomings including in leadership, communication and records systems.\n\nIn noting the judgment and the action that has been taken, SaTH director of nursing Hayley Favell said: \"We offer our sincere condolences to the family over the loss of their daughter and, as a trust, we take full responsibility for the failings in the standard of care given to mothers and babies, for which we apologise unreservedly.\n\n\"We remain committed to taking all of the steps necessary to improve and all our work is driven by a determination to ensure that we deliver safe, effective, reliable and high-quality services to the women and families we are caring for.\"\n\nPippa was just 31 hours old when she died from a Group B Strep infection. An inquest in 2017 found she could have survived with earlier intervention.\n\nSince then, her parents have called for routine testing for the Group B Strep bacteria and have been among the most prominent campaigners for a wider inquiry into maternity standards at SaTH.\n\nIt has become what is thought to be the largest maternity inquiry in the NHS's history.\n\nIts chair Donna Ockenden was due to publish her findings this month, but families have been told this will be delayed due to parliamentary processes.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk", "US Border Patrol agents found dozens of horned lizards and snakes hidden in a man's clothing as he crossed into the US from Mexico last month.\n\nThe scaly discovery occurred at the San Ysidro border crossing near San Diego around 03:00 local time on 25 February.\n\nThe man was driving a pickup truck when he was pulled over for inspection.\n\nOfficers discovered 43 horned lizards and nine snakes in plastic bags \"concealed in the man's jacket, pants pockets and groin area,\" agents said.\n\nThe suspect, identified as a 30-year old American citizen, was arrested on the suspicion of illegal wildlife smuggling.\n\nCustoms and Border Patrol (CBP) officials say some of the animals are endangered and have now been placed in \"a secure and safe area\" quarantined from other animals.\n\n\"Smugglers will try every possible way to try and get their product, or in this case live reptiles, across the border,\" said Sidney Aki, CBP director of field operations in San Diego, California.\n\n\"In this occasion, the smuggler attempted to deceive CBP officers in order to bring these animals into the US, without taking care for the health and safety of the animals.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The iguanas had been stuffed into a suitcase (2015 smuggling case)", "More than two million people have now fled Ukraine because of the Russian invasion\n\nHome secretaries must know how to deal with flak. It goes with the job.\n\nBut when accusations of foot-dragging, complacency, heartlessness and lies come from your own backbenches, you know you have got a serious problem.\n\nOne Tory MP has called for Priti Patel to resign over her handling of the Ukrainian refugee emergency.\n\nThe Home Office is in crisis mode, trying to convince an increasingly sceptical nation that the department has got a grip of the situation.\n\n\"We are doing our best,\" one insider tells me, before adding: \"But we haven't got everything right.\"\n\nThe nightly images of desperate families fleeing a war but turned away by UK government officials confirm the latter point.\n\nThis is becoming deeply damaging for the Home Office and the prime minister. Priti Patel is under intense pressure, with suggestions that Downing Street is losing confidence.\n\nThe surprise appointment of a minister for refugees operating across two government departments suggests the Home Office is not trusted to sort matters out alone.\n\nTellingly, the sponsorship scheme launched to bring some Ukrainians to Britain is being run by Michael Gove's communities department.\n\nHome Office staff were overstretched before the latest humanitarian disaster started to unfold - trying to deal with thousands of Afghans coming to Britain to escape the Taliban, migrants arriving by the boatload having crossed the channel, tens of thousands of Hongkongers fleeing the Chinese clampdown, and increasing numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with nowhere to stay.\n\nFor a department trying to convince sceptical voters its attitude to immigration has changed from the days of the \"hostile environment\" and the Windrush scandal, accusations of inhumanity over the plight of Ukrainian refugees are damaging.\n\n\"We are working 24/7 to try to respond in really, really challenging circumstances,\" an official tells me.\n\n\"Some of the criticism has been soul-destroying, but we are not going to give up.\"\n\nShe shows me a box of Pringles. \"This is my breakfast,\" she says, as evidence of how hard everyone is working.\n\nBut it was the sight of hapless officials handing out crisps and Kit Kats to desperate refugees in Calais that will stick in the public's mind, a sense that the home secretary was not taking the plight of those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine seriously.\n\nThe Home Office says it has been preparing for a possible humanitarian crisis in Ukraine since January, designing detailed policies for how to respond. But officials accept that their plans had to be adapted almost as soon as the first refugees asked for sanctuary in Britain.\n\n\"You can create a scheme on paper, and the first family group that applies does not meet the criteria,\" an insider tells me. \"We set up a scheme that we thought was very generous and then a case came onto the helpline and it wasn't suitable.\"\n\nCritics see a department that is on the back foot, constantly forced into embarrassing U-turns, accused of both inhumanity and incompetence. But inside the department's headquarters in Westminster, they insist they are listening to the feedback and adjusting their policies in response.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel visited the Ukrainian embassy in London at the weekend\n\nOne senior official gives me an example: \"In issuing a visa to a child, the original process required both parents to consent. But we realised that conscription in Ukraine meant fathers were away fighting and could not give consent. So we went to the home secretary and she agreed to change the rules.\"\n\nThe question, though, is why did they not realise the problems earlier? Why was eligibility under the Ukrainian Family Scheme not initially applied to aunts and uncles, cousins and step-children? Why did the rule changes have to be forced out of the Home Office when the emergency reached the UK border?\n\nThe answer is that the Home Office's response to desperate people fleeing a war is shaped by a determination to maintain the integrity of the UK border. This is a government and a home secretary elected to get Brexit done, and for many of those who campaigned to leave the EU, taking back control of our borders was the central goal.\n\nThat is why Priti Patel's initial response was to say that people escaping the conflict should claim asylum in the first safe country they reached. \"It's important to note that the situation in Ukraine is very different from Afghanistan,\" I was advised by the Home Office, as the Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border.\n\nIn those first days of the war, anyone displaced who wished to come to the UK had to satisfy the rules of the government's post-Brexit immigration system. The points-based approach meant refugees would have to demonstrate they earned enough money or had skills that benefited the United Kingdom.\n\nIt was a serious miscalculation. As the scale of the humanitarian crisis became clear, the Home Office was forced to move away from its hard-line policy. Time and again the Home Office has found itself having to adjust its policies as the pressure for a more compassionate response has increased.\n\nThe central challenge stems from the insistence that any refugee coming to the UK must apply for a visa, complete biometric tests and satisfy ever-changing rules on eligibility.\n\nThe prime minister has defended the checks.\n\n\"Some sort of control is an important feature of the way we do things,\" Boris Johnson said. \"Uncontrolled immigration is not the way forward\".\n\nThe government is trying to respond to a humanitarian disaster while still following the Brexit playbook. There are understandable concerns about opening Britain's doors to large numbers of refugees, that undesirable individuals may use the crisis to sneak into the country, posing a threat to national security.\n\nControlling our borders remains central to the approach, a challenge currently most acute in Calais, where hundreds of Ukrainians are pleading to be let into Britain.\n\nThere is no visa application centre in Calais, so refugees are advised to travel to Paris or Brussels to sort out their paperwork before boarding a ferry or driving through the tunnel. The department claims it wants to ensure there is not a \"choke point\" in the city which might lead to vulnerable refugees being preyed upon by people-trafficking gangs.\n\nMigrants camped around Calais continue to cross the channel in small boats, 2,214 already this year, a phenomenon that infuriates Brexit-supporting MPs who demand the home secretary do more to police the UK's border.\n\nThere have been calls from across the House of Commons for the government to waive the visa requirements as countries across the EU have done. Priti Patel, though, remains opposed to such a move, preferring to tweak the existing immigration rules rather than set up a new humanitarian pathway for those displaced by the war in Ukraine.\n\n\"We need to be really careful managing this process, organising housing, education, access to public services, registering for benefits,\" an official explains. \"We don't want services or resources not to be available.\"\n\nThe experience of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, welcoming people who had fled the Taliban after the British military withdrawal, may help explain the reluctance to open the UK borders this time.\n\nFinding housing for the thousands who have already arrived has proved hugely problematic, with the department currently paying more than £1m a day to keep Afghans in requisitioned hotels.\n\nChastened by that experience, perhaps, the home secretary supported the idea of a Ukrainian sponsorship scheme - in which private individuals or companies can apply to bring a refugee into the UK, with the sponsor rather than the state taking responsibility for accommodation and support.\n\nSponsorship has been used before, notably to help Syrian refugees. But it is not a quick or straightforward response to a humanitarian emergency. The details are still being worked out. It remains unclear who will be eligible. It will be some time before any Ukrainian will arrive by that route.\n\nThe 21st Century Home Office must look tough and compassionate in equal measure. It must navigate the complex politics of immigration and balance the demands for freedom and control.\n\n\"We are genuinely less worried about the reputational side of this than getting the right messages across,\" an insider claims.\n\nBut the concern is that the Home Office is destined always to be playing catch-up as the human tragedy of the Ukrainian refugee emergency unfolds.", "A return of Waitrose's popular free coffee for loyalty card members will be trialled in some stores.\n\nThe free hot drink for members of the myWaitrose scheme was scrapped at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nBut boss Dame Sharon White told the BBC's Amol Rajan she was looking at potential ways to bring it back.\n\nIt comes as John Lewis restored its annual staff bonus after sales bounced back in 2021, but it warned customers would see higher prices this year.\n\nDame Sharon told the Amol Rajan Interviews: \"Coffee we're actually looking at because one of the things we haven't been able to do with Covid is actually is to have the coffee offer.\n\n\"So we're going to be experimenting in a few stores how we do that safely.\"\n\nThe free beverages were originally collected by customers using self-service machines and disposable cups. But in 2018 Waitrose asked customers to bring their own reusable cups.\n\nDame Sharon, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, said a previous offer of a free newspaper had ended. But it would be replaced with personalised offers such as a voucher or access to new products, she said.\n\nJohn Lewis scrapped staff bonuses last year for the first time since 1953 after seeing heavy losses in the pandemic.\n\nBut they're back after John Lewis sales hit a record £4.9bn and Waitrose revenues rose 1% to £7.5bn.\n\nThe retailer will now give its around 80,000 staff a bonus of 3% this year, equivalent to one-and-a-half weeks' pay, and increase wages by 2%. This is on top of a pledge to pay the real living wage.\n\nDame Sharon said the Ukraine conflict and rising inflation meant passing some price rises on to customers was unavoidable.\n\nShe told the PA news agency: \"As far as we can, we're trying to absorb the cost pressures... not all of these pressures are absorbable.\n\n\"The cost of living pressures are real - real for our partners and customers and we're doing everything we can in our power to try to limit the impact.\"\n\nMeanwhile, rival Marks & Spencer has announced its chief executive will step down after six years in the role.\n\nSteve Rowe, who joined M&S aged 15, will leave his full time job on 5 July but has agreed to stay on as an adviser to the new leadership for up to 12 months.\n\nA statement from the company credited Mr Rowe with reviving M&S food and doubling clothing and home online sales.\n\nCompany chairman Archie Norman said Mr Rowe had lived and breathed M&S and put his heart and soul into the job.\n\n\"He will be much missed and goes with our huge affection and best wishes,\" he said.\n\nMr Rowe said: \"A piece of my heart will always remain with the M&S family... I'm proud that I am leaving a very strong team who will lead it into the next growth phase. I wish them every success.\"\n\nJohn Lewis executive director Pippa Wicks said price rises at department stores had so far been \"small\" and only affected certain products, but did not specify which.\n\nJames Bailey, executive director at Waitrose, said it had also put up some prices as food inflation ran at 3-4% across the UK.\n\nEven before the war in Ukraine, the cost of living in the UK was rising at its fastest rate in 30 years as fuel and energy bills soared.\n\nBut the conflict is worsening inflation, prompting warnings the UK faces its biggest income squeeze in nearly 50 years.\n\nJohn Lewis said sales at its department stores had climbed 8% in the 12 months to 29 January, and its losses shrank to £26m from £517m in the previous year, when lockdown closures rocked its business.\n\nDame Sharon said the group had made a \"good start\" to a tough five-year restructuring plan but warned it was \"only one year through\".\n\nEven before the pandemic the retailer had been hit hard by the shift to online shopping, and last year announced store closures and almost 2,500 job cuts.\n\nSince then, the group has been trying to bolster it business by investing more in John Lewis shops and online shopping, and cutting costs elsewhere.\n\n\"Looking ahead, we see continued uncertainty from global events, affecting the economic environment, our customers, partners and society. As inflation and energy prices rise, our customers face higher living costs.\n\n\"While this creates uncertainties as we look ahead, we remain focused on investing significantly in our Partnership Plan to transform and grow our business.\"\n\nThe group, which also owns the Waitrose supermarket chain, recently said it would ditch its \"Never Knowingly Undersold\" promise to customers, which began in 1925.\n\nThe pledge means the retailer matches prices on branded products with national retailers, but not online-only sales. However, John Lewis said it was becoming less relevant as shopping moved increasingly online.\n\nThe group has also said it will remove any products made in Russia from Waitrose and John Lewis in response to the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nAmol Rajan's full interview with Dame Sharon White will be broadcast on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Thursday, 17 March, and viewable in the BBC iPlayer", "Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi was a veteran Iraqi jihadist whose real name was Amir Mohammed al-Mawla\n\nThe Islamic State (IS) group has named a new leader after confirming the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi.\n\nAn audio message posted online said Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi was now \"caliph\", without providing any further details about his identity.\n\nThe message did not mention how, where or when Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi died.\n\nThe US has said the Iraqi jihadist blew himself up, killing his family, during a special forces raid on his hideout in north-western Syria on 3 February.\n\nPresident Joe Biden said his death \"removed a major terrorist threat to the world\", accusing him of overseeing the spread of IS affiliates around the world and of being the \"driving force\" behind the genocide of the Yazidi people.\n\nThursday's audio message was delivered by a new IS spokesman, Abu Umar al-Muhajir, who revealed that his predecessor Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi had also died recently.\n\nMuhjair said he could not reveal the real name of the new leader, but he urged followers to pledge allegiance to him.\n\nThere had been speculation that the most likely candidate was an Iraqi man called Bashar Khattab Ghazal al-Sumaidai, also known as Abu Khattab al-Iraqi, Hajji Zaid and Ustath Zaid.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Footage depicts aftermath of US raid in Syria\n\nIS once held 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from eastern Iraq to western Syria and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.\n\nThe group was driven from its last piece of territory in 2019, but the UN estimates it still has between 6,000 and 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq who continue to carry out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and roadside bombings.\n\nAbu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi's death in the opposition-held Syrian province of Idlib came days after a major IS attack on a Kurdish-run prison in the north-eastern Syrian city of Hassakeh - the group's most significant operation in years.\n\nAt least 121 guards, Kurdish-led militia fighters and civilians were killed in a week of fierce clashes, alongside 374 IS detainees and attackers, officials said.\n\nEarlier this week, a monitoring group said IS was behind an attack on a military bus in the central Syrian desert that left 15 government soldiers dead.", "UK food prices will rise as a result of the war in Ukraine, the National Farmers' Union (NFU) has warned.\n\nSome 30% of the world's wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia and exports will stop during the conflict, it says.\n\nIn addition, the price of gas - which is used to heat greenhouses and to make fertiliser - has soared.\n\nThe union has written to the government to call for urgent action to help UK farmers produce enough food to keep supermarkets stocked and affordable.\n\n\"The government must act now, with a clear signal that food security is a priority for the nation,\" the NFU said.\n\nIts letter warned that disruption to food production, supply chains and the availability and affordability of food in the shops could last for years.\n\nEarlier this week, the boss of one of the world's biggest fertiliser companies, Yara International, warned that the war in Ukraine would deliver a shock to the global supply and cost of food.\n\nThe Federation of Wholesale Distributors has also warned that the increase in fuel prices will lead to people paying more for food in shops and restaurants.\n\nNFU president Minette Batters said the government must work with farmers to address food supply issues\n\nNFU president Minette Batters told the BBC that the rising cost of producing fruit, vegetables and meat could cause farmers to make less at a time when the nation needs more.\n\n\"I think the whole world has got to recognise that this is not something we've faced before, we are going to see wheat price inflation levels that have never happened,\" she said.\n\n\"The real danger is that farmers contract, they decide not to invest, they hold back from planting, and we produce less food,\" she said.\n\nMs Batters said the shortage of crops would also affect meat production as farmers need it to feed their livestock.\n\nThe cost of producing a chicken was 50% higher than it was a year ago but farmers were absorbing much of these costs, she said.\n\nUK feed wheat prices are already 39% up on March 2021 at £279.40 a tonne, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)\n\nRussia and Ukraine produce 80% of the world's sunflower oil exports and 20% of corn exports, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).\n\nAnother factor affecting food production in the UK is that Ukrainian workers have accounted for 60% of recruits under the UK's Seasonal Workers Scheme, the NFU said.\n\nThese workers carry out essential roles such as planting, picking, packing and grading fresh produce.\n\nThe NFU is asking the government to release an additional 10,000 visas under the Seasonal Workers Scheme, in addition to the 30,000 already granted.\n\nFarmer Dan Wallis says he will be growing more wheat\n\nDan Wallis, who runs Rookery Farms in Newbury, Berkshire, said he decided this week to sow spring wheat on land that was not due to be planted on until next autumn.\n\n\"Given the current crisis in Ukraine the demand for food is ever increasing,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"There's going to be a shortage of wheat and barley, predominantly wheat, so today we are planting spring wheat into some fallow land which should have remained fallow until next autumn.\n\n\"I made the decision in the last week or 10 days - it's the right thing to do.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ros Atkins on why the war in Ukraine is pushing up food prices - and the likely impact on poorer countries\n\nThe Environment Secretary, George Eustice, told MPs that in early January he had set up teams to make contingency plans for the UK's food security.\n\nHe told the House of Commons that he would attend a special meeting of the G7 group of the world's largest economies to discuss the issues further on Friday.\n\nCommons Leader Mark Spencer said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was \"across the threats that we face\".\n\n\"There is no prospect of food shortages at any point in the future, and Defra are working with Treasury to try and make sure that that continues to be the case,\" he said.", "The UK, EU, and US governments have responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with devastating sanctions against the billionaire businessmen perceived to be in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.\n\nMr Putin has warned his allies for many years they should protect themselves against such measures, particularly as relations soured with the US and EU countries after the annexation of Crimea.\n\nBut while some of those closest to him took his advice and remained invested in Russia, others kept their money in palatial properties overseas and football clubs, and their companies remained listed on foreign stock exchanges.\n\nThey now find themselves scrambling to hold on to their assets amid the most comprehensive economic penalties imposed in the modern era. Here's what we know about some of them.\n\nSaid to be one of Mr Putin's favourite oligarchs, Alisher Usmanov is also one of the richest, worth an estimated $17.6bn, according to Forbes. A former professional fencer, the EU describes him as a \"businessman-official\" who helps the president solve his business problems.\n\nBorn in Uzbekistan while it was still part of the Soviet Union, he runs USM Holdings, a huge conglomerate that involves mining and telecoms, including Russia's second biggest mobile network MegaFon.\n\nThe EU announced sanctions against him on 28 February, and the US and UK have followed suit. He has called the sanctions unfair and said all the allegations against him were false.\n\nUSM Holdings appears to be hoping to avoid EU sanctions as he owns just under 50% of the shares. His superyacht Dilbar, named after his mother, is undergoing a refit in Hamburg and is at risk of being seized.\n\nIn the UK, his main visible investments are in property. In London he owns Beechwood House, a £65m country house with grounds in the heart of the city, and just outside London in Surrey, he owns a Tudor mansion, Sutton Place. Both have been frozen by UK authorities.\n\nHis business partner Farhad Moshiri owns Everton, and Mr Usmanov's companies USM, MegaFon and Yota have been key sponsors at the club, with suggestions his involvement was even closer. Everton suspended the sponsorship deal last week, and Mr Moshiri quit as a USM board member.\n\nOne of the most high-profile Russian billionaires because of the phenomenal success of his football club Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich was sanctioned later than some others, possibly because he is less obviously influential than other Putin allies.\n\nHow influential he is in the Kremlin is much debated. Some suggest he is merely tolerated by Mr Putin, but the UK believes the two are close and that Mr Abramovich has made money out of the relationship, being awarded lucrative contracts for the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia, for example.\n\nMr Abramovich strongly denies having close ties to Mr Putin or the Kremlin, but the UK portion of his estimated $12.4bn fortune is now frozen. Just before the UK sanctions were announced, he put Chelsea up for sale for £3bn. His £150m house in London's Kensington Palace Gardens in London was also reportedly up for sale.\n\nMr Abramovich made his money in the 1990s and was one of the original oligarchs during Boris Yeltsin's presidency. His biggest break was buying the oil company Sibneft at a knockdown price. His assets include the third-longest yacht in the world, Eclipse, which recently left the British Virgin Isles, heading east across the Atlantic. His other mega-yacht, Solaris, is in the Mediterranean.\n\nHe had started to withdraw from the UK in recent years. In 2018 he decided not to apply to renew his UK visa, and has instead been using his newly acquired Israeli passport to visit London. And while he used to go to every Chelsea home game, in recent years he was rarely seen at Stamford Bridge - and now he is banned from entering the UK.\n\nWhen President Putin came to power, Oleg Deripaska was immensely rich, his wealth peaking at about $28bn - but he is now thought to be worth a mere $3bn.\n\nOleg Deripaska, right, with Mr Putin in 2017\n\nHe fought his way to a fortune in the 1990s, coming out on top in a vicious battle for the aluminium industry. The US said he was involved in money laundering, bribery, extortion and racketeering, and reported allegations that he had \"ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group\". He denies the allegations.\n\nHe suffered badly in the 2008 financial crisis and needed Mr Putin to bail him out. In 2009, President Putin humiliated him by suggesting publicly that he had stolen a pen. Since then, he seems to have worked himself back into favour and was described in the Mueller report - a US investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election - as being \"closely aligned\" with the president. When it announced its sanctions, the UK also described him as closely associated with Mr Putin.\n\nHe founded a green energy and metals company, En+ Group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, but reduced his stake in it to below 50% when he was subjected to US sanctions in 2018. At the time, one of Mr Deripaska's companies, Basic Element, released a statement calling the sanctions \"groundless, ridiculous and absurd\".\n\nHe owns a vast art deco property, Hamstone House in Weybridge, Surrey, which he has been trying to sell for £18m but has now been taken off the market. He also owns a yacht, Clio, which was recently seen in the Maldives.\n\nUnlike many sanctioned oligarchs Mr Deripaska has been vocal about his view on the war, taking to social media to call for peace. \"Negotiations need to start as soon as possible!\" he wrote.\n\nIgor Sechin's connections to Vladimir Putin run long and deep, according to the EU which announced sanctions against him on 28 February. He is said to be one of Mr Putin's most trusted and closest advisors, as well as a personal friend, and the two are thought to be in daily contact.\n\nHis progress was made through ruthlessly pushing aside opponents - his nickname in the Russian press is Darth Vader. A leaked US embassy cable from 2008 described him as \"so shadowy that it was joked he may not actually exist but rather was a sort of urban myth, a bogeyman, invented by the Kremlin to instil fear\". The US imposed sanctions on him in 2014, which he called \"totally unjustified and illegal\". They announced new sanctions against him on 24 February.\n\nMr Sechin has spent his career alternating between jobs in politics and business, sometimes holding senior jobs in both at the same time. When Putin was prime minister, he was a deputy prime minister, and now runs the state oil giant Rosneft.\n\nMr Sechin worked with Mr Putin in the mayor's office in St Petersburg in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have been in the much-feared intelligence service, the KGB, although has never openly admitted it.\n\nBased in Russia, no-one knows how much money Mr Sechin has, but the French have seized a yacht called Amore Vero that was linked to him after his second wife Olga Sechina kept posting photographs of herself on board. They have since divorced.\n\nBeyond that there is little sign he has substantial wealth overseas that could be easily uncovered, and it may be hard to track down and freeze any more of his assets.\n\nAlexey Miller is another old friend of Vladimir Putin's. Something of a grey man, he too has built his career on loyalty to the president, starting when he was Mr Putin's deputy on the foreign relations committee of the St Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s.\n\nAlexey Miller, right, with Mr Putin in February this year\n\nHe has run the immensely powerful state-owned gas company Gazprom since 2001, but it was a surprise appointment and it is widely assumed that he is just carrying out the orders of his old boss. The US ambassador to Moscow in 2009 described Gazprom as \"inefficient, politically driven, and corrupt\".\n\nMr Miller was not sanctioned after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but when he was added to the list in the US in 2018, he said he was proud. \"Not being included in the first list. I even had some doubts - maybe something is wrong? But I am finally included. This means we are doing everything right,\" he said.\n\nHe does not appear to have easily traceable assets outside Russia and there is no information about his net worth.\n\nThe EU describes Pyotr Aven (pictured on the left) as one of President Putin's closest oligarchs, and Mikhail Fridman as an enabler of Putin's inner circle. Together the two men created Alfa-Bank, the largest private bank in Russia.\n\nThe Mueller report said Mr Aven met with Putin in the Kremlin about four times a year, saying he \"understood any suggestions or critiques Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through\".\n\nThey were warned by Mr Putin in 2016 to protect their interests from future sanctions. This week the pair stood down from the London-headquartered LetterOne investment group they founded almost 10 years ago because their shares were frozen by EU sanctions on 28 February. Mr Aven also stood down as a trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.\n\nThe two businessmen said they would \"contest the spurious and unfounded basis for the imposition of these sanctions - vigorously and through all means available to them\".\n\nMr Fridman, thought to be worth around $12bn, lives in London in a house next to Lord's Cricket Ground and also owns a huge property, Athlone House in north London, that he paid £65m for in 2016.\n\nAt a London press conference on 1 March, he said the Ukraine war was a \"huge tragedy\" but would not criticise the Kremlin directly saying to do so could put the jobs of hundreds of thousands of employees at risk.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nChelsea beat bottom club Norwich as Mason Mount scored one and made another on the day his club's long-term future was thrown into uncertainty.\n\nTravelling fans at Carrow Road chanted the name of Roman Abramovich hours after it was announced Chelsea's Russian owner had been sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nOn the pitch, Chelsea's players responded to one of the most dramatic days in the club's 117-year history by storming into a 2-0 lead inside the opening 15 minutes on their way to a fourth successive league win.\n\nTrevoh Chalobah opened the scoring in the third minute after meeting Mason Mount's corner before Kai Havertz set up England's Mount for his eighth goal of the season.\n\nNorwich were much better after half-time and Teemu Pukki gave his side hope from the penalty spot after Chalobah handled, but Havertz sealed the points with a late third for Chelsea.\n\nWhile the win strengthened Chelsea's grip on third spot, Norwich are five points from safety with just 10 games left.\n• None Follow live text of Norwich v Chelsea, plus the rest of Thursday's Premier League games\n• None Tuchel 'still happy' to be Chelsea boss\n• None Go straight to all the best Chelsea content\n• None What do government sanctions mean for Chelsea? Your questions answered\n\nBusiness as usual on the pitch\n\nWhile Chelsea's future off the pitch is precarious right now, it was pretty much business as usual on it.\n\nCaptain Cesar Azpilicueta spoke before the game about \"this not being a normal day\" while boss Thomas Tuchel talked about \"a lot of noise\" around the club.\n\nWithin hours of the announcement that Abramovich had been sanctioned, Chelsea' main shirt sponsors - mobile network provider Three - suspended its deal with the club.\n\nNevertheless, the Blues wore their usual kit with the sponsors logo as the timing of Three's suspension made it impossible to get a fresh kit with no logo to Norfolk.\n\nThere were 'Champions of Europe' banners in the away end although the Abramovich chants were greeted with some boos from the home fans.\n\nYet any concerns Tuchel might have had about the day's worrying off-field developments seeping onto the pitch were quickly dispelled as Chelsea raced into a 2-0 lead.\n\nChalobah got between Grant Hanley and Christoph Zimmermann to put the visitors ahead before Mount lashed home the second high into the roof of the net.\n\nAndreas Christensen - out of contract at the end of the season and in a state of short-term limbo following today's announcement that Chelsea are unable to offer new deals - went close with a header.\n\nMateo Kovacic grazed the woodwork from 20 yards and Mount was denied a second goal by Tim Krul before Havertz sealed Chelsea's 10th Premier League away win with a fine 90th minute finish after a lay-off by N'Golo Kante.\n\nWith the flag of Ukraine flying at Carrow Road, Norwich produced a spirited second-half performance before Havertz's fifth goal in his last six appearances killed off their hopes of salvaging a point.\n\nThis was another hard-luck tale in a season of hard-luck tales for Dean Smith's side.\n\nHaving got to half-time having conceded only two goals, they came out fighting in the second half but were unable to avoid a 19th top-flight defeat of the season.\n\nSmith will still believe his side can avoid a quick-fire return to the Championship.\n\nNorwich still have to entertain fellow strugglers Burnley but time is running out of the Canaries.\n\nThey have 10 matches left including games against West Ham (home), Tottenham (home) and Manchester United (away), who are all chasing European places.\n• None Goal! Norwich City 1, Chelsea 3. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Offside, Norwich City. Max Aarons tries a through ball, but Milot Rashica is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Romelu Lukaku (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ruben Loftus-Cheek.\n• None Attempt missed. Pierre Lees-Melou (Norwich City) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left.\n• None Offside, Norwich City. Brandon Williams tries a through ball, but Grant Hanley is caught offside.\n• None Trevoh Chalobah (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "A British national who has spent the last fortnight trying to secure passage to the UK for his wife’s family after they fled Ukraine has said the visa process has been \"torturous\".\n\nThe government has been under growing pressure to speed up the process to help those fleeing the war.", "Three people including a child died when Russia struck a hospital on Wednesday\n\nTwitter has removed two posts by the Russian embassy in London which claimed the bombing of a Ukrainian hospital by Russian forces had been faked.\n\nThe Mariupol hospital was attacked on Wednesday, leaving three people dead.\n\nBut the embassy's tweets made unfounded claims the hospital was not operational at the time, and that injured women pictured at the scene were actors.\n\nTwitter told the BBC the tweets violated rules \"related to the denial of violent events\".\n\nOfficials at the embassy have offered no proof to back up their claims, and the BBC's disinformation team has found evidence which contradicts the allegations.\n\nThe embassy claimed the hospital had been \"long non-operational\". However, a week-old post on the hospital's Facebook page asked for fuel to keep operations going.\n\nReports from Mariupol last week - from the Associated Press news agency and Sky News - also says it was treating bombing victims, and that the maternity ward had been moved to the basement.\n\nThe allegation that a beauty blogger was used to fake photos of a pregnant woman at the scene was also called into question, as the woman in question, who lives in the city, is seen heavily pregnant in Instagram posts dating from last month.\n\nThis tweet was deleted by Twitter for violating its rules\n\nThe initial claims that the bombing was faked by Ukraine did not come from the embassy. They first began trending among Russian users of the Telegram messaging app earlier in the day, and were then mentioned on state television news bulletins and chat shows.\n\nA further claim circulating that the beauty blogger also pretended to be another woman caught up in the bombing and photographed at the scene is also untrue. A look at high-resolution images of the other woman featured in the claims shows she looks nothing like the beauty blogger. Those are two different women.\n\nFinally there were accusations that the hospital had been taken over by a far-right battalion of the Ukrainian army. As yet there is no evidence that this was the case.\n\nThese claims all continue to circulate online, despite the tweets being removed.\n\nThe pregnant beauty blogger's Instagram account has also now become a target for online trolls and conspiracy theorists.\n\nSocial media companies have been trying to tackle misinformation on their platforms, with many big tech companies blocking Russian broadcasters RT and Sputnik.\n\nBut Twitter has not banned several accounts linked to Russian government organisations - including Vladimir Putin's official Twitter account.", "Bucha is encircled and its residents face constant shelling\n\n\"The last straw was when a Russian tank shelled my neighbour's house and a nearby church,\" says Dmytro Tkachuk. He then decided it was time to flee Bucha, a small town just to the north-west of Kyiv. \"The dome of the church is destroyed. It's terrifying.\"\n\nUkraine's emergency services have singled out Bucha and the area around it as facing one of the worst humanitarian situations in Ukraine. The biggest emergency is in Mariupol, a key port city of more than 400,000 people.\n\nBucha is encircled by the Russian army and partly occupied. It has come under relentless bombardment since the start of the war.\n\nNo humanitarian aid or food has reached the town for days. Thousands of residents remain trapped in basements, many of them elderly or with severe disabilities. Communications are down and there is little hope of getting in touch with friends and family.\n\nEscaping Bucha meant a 17km (10.5-mile) trek for Dmytro, a 30-year-old lawyer, along with his sister, his mother and his two grandmothers, aged 74 and 83. They were joined by two neighbours and a small dog.\n\nAs shells exploded nearby, they had to fling themselves to the ground at least 20 times.\n\nNot long after they had left, his grandmother could walk no more and he and his sister had to drag her for much of the way under fire.\n\n\"My granny begged us to leave her behind. She didn't want to be a burden for us but we didn't drop our loved ones.\"\n\nA relieved Dmytro (R) poses here with (L-R) his sister, neighbour, grandmother and mother\n\nThere was no safe corridor for evacuation and no help for them. They knew the risk but carried on until they eventually reached safety near Kyiv in what the family believes is a miracle.\n\n\"On our way out of Bucha I saw bodies lying on the ground all over the place. I saw people going crazy in front of their burning houses. I saw entire apartment blocks torn out of the soil. It was appalling.\"\n\nBucha was one of the evacuation corridors agreed by the Ukrainian government and Russian defence ministry on Wednesday. But no ceasefire was confirmed and only people like Dmytro have made it out.\n\nWhile thousands of Ukrainians have managed to escape bombarded towns and cities, Mariupol, Bucha, Izyum and other areas remain isolated. Bucha is only a few kilometres from the front of Russia's notorious 64km convoy of stalled armoured vehicles, tanks, and artillery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor five days there has been no word from a colleague and her mother who are trapped together in Bucha. In her last message she said that there was no escape and their only means of survival was to try to sleep for as long as possible in the freezing cold of their unheated basement.\n\nThere is no electricity or heating. The gas has been cut off because of fires caused by shelling. No food supply is getting in and there is no mobile reception. Occasional internet access is the only way of getting messages through to the outside world.\n\nEarlier this week one disabled resident managed to post an appeal on her Facebook page. She and other people with disabilities had become hostages, she said. They were unable to hide in shelters and had no access to food, water and medicines.\n\nOur house was under direct shelling from a tank. The city is looted by Russian invaders. We have no chance to rescue - we have nowhere to run!\n\nThe next day she posted an update to say she was alive and had managed to cook a meal with her neighbours.\n\nDmytro fled when he decided he and his family had little chance to survive.\n\nThey had to avoid a Russian checkpoint to get out of the town and then once they had reached neighbouring Irpin they hid under the town's half-destroyed bridge.\n\nFrom Irpin they crossed a field as fast as they could under constant mortar fire.\n\nThey were warned repeatedly of the deadly risk they were taking. Shrapnel flew past them and they saw houses and a bridge hit as they passed.\n\n\"My whole life was flashing by. I was praying to God to survive,\" says Dmytro.\n\nThe heaviest shelling came from the direction they were heading in as Ukrainian forces tried to halt the Russian advance.\n\n\"I realised that was our route to safety, despite the loudest explosions coming from over there.\"\n\nThey finally reached a bus heading for Kyiv. But for many others in their town the nightmare continues.", "Fergus Drake is overseeing aid heading to Ukraine from Poland Image caption: Fergus Drake is overseeing aid heading to Ukraine from Poland\n\nUkraine's health ministry is calling out for medical trauma kits to stem shelling wounds, desperately needed oxygen for patients, and protective armour for doctors and nurses.\n\nBut a key supplier says bringing those much-needed essentials across the border is being hindered by a lack of Ukrainian drivers.\n\nMany of them have been called up to fight - and those that remain face the threat of Russian attacks on aid convoys, and have no easy routes into besieged cities, like Kharkiv and Mariupol.\n\nBut Fergus Drake, who is overseeing around £1m worth of humanitarian aid into Ukraine for a medical supplies distributor, says there has been \"a tidal wave of humanity we haven’t seen since World War Two\".\n\nHis non-profit company has been working in Ukraine for 25 years and he describes seeing \"astonishing acts of kindness\" from people at the Polish border.\n\nHis Ukrainian staff who have left their homes have been offered accommodation, food and phone credits and welcomed, as Drake puts it, \"using language like ‘you are Polish now'\".", "Anthony Russell had admitted the three murders, but denied rape\n\nA triple killer has been found guilty of the rape of his final victim, who was five months pregnant.\n\nAnthony Russell, 39, has previously admitted the murders of Julie Williams, her son David Williams and 31-year-old Nicole McGregor, whose body was found in woodland near Leamington Spa.\n\nThe jury heard he had assaulted Ms McGregor just hours after she showed him a picture of her baby scan.\n\nRussell is due to be sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on Friday.\n\nFollowing the verdict on Thursday, Police described Russell as an \"evil\" and extremely dangerous individual, and said the \"violent series of killings\" had taken place over a week in October 2020.\n\nPolice said there was no known link between Russell and Nicole McGregor\n\nWest Midlands Police said it believed Mr Williams, 32, was killed on 21 October due to Russell's \"mistaken belief that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend\".\n\nWhen Russell then went to speak to Julie Williams about her son's disappearance, Det Supt Shaun Edwards said officers suspected \"he confessed to David's killing\" and \"then killed Julie to stop her from speaking to the police\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRussell, of Riley Square, Coventry, strangled Mr Williams with a lanyard and left the body under his bed, where it was found by police five days later, covered in 87 injuries.\n\nHe then strangled Mr Williams' mother on 25 October, in an attack that saw the 58-year-old hit five times on the head and neck, prosecutors said. She had 113 separate injuries.\n\nHowever, there was \"no known link\" between the killer and Ms McGregor, Det Supt Edwards said.\n\nJulie Williams and her son, David Williams, were found dead at separate addresses\n\nProsecutor Zoe Johnson QC said: \"Just three hours after meeting the defendant it appears that Nicole has agreed to walk with the defendant into Newbold Comyn.\n\n\"We suggest that the defendant lured Nicole on to the Comyn, not for sex but more likely for drugs.\"\n\nAfter the murder, heroin user Russell pretended to help Ms McGregor's partner look for her.\n\nFollowing her disappearance, the court heard he had told her partner, the baby's father: \"I bet you can't wait for it to be born\" - knowing he had raped and killed her.\n\nStrangled on 26 October, Ms McGregor's body was found three days later.\n\nThe killer was eventually the subject of a national manhunt and fled Leamington by stealing a car from a 78-year-old man.\n\nRussell rang the pensioner's doorbell asking for directions, the court heard, and when the victim was distracted, he hit him over the head from behind with a brick, leaving him with a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain.\n\nHe was arrested on 30 October after police spotted the stolen Ford C-Max parked on a road near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, and found Russell on the back seat.\n\nHe was unanimously found guilty of rape after a retrial at Warwick Crown Court.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig has died.\n\nDavid Bennett, who had terminal heart disease, survived for two months following the surgery in the US.\n\nBut his condition began to deteriorate several days ago, his doctors in Baltimore said, and the 57-year-old died on 8 March.\n\nMr Bennett knew the risks attached to the surgery, acknowledging before the procedure it was \"a shot in the dark\".\n\nDoctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were granted a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the basis that Mr Bennett - who was ineligible for a human transplant - would otherwise have died.\n\nHe had already been bedridden for six weeks leading up to the surgery, attached to a machine which was keeping him alive.\n\nMr Bennett underwent the surgery on 7 January, and doctors say in the weeks afterwards he spent time with his family, watched the Super Bowl and spoke about wanting to get home to his dog, Lucky.\n\n\"He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end,\" surgeon Bartley Griffith, who performed the transplant, said in a statement released by the hospital.\n\nBut Mr Bennett's son, David Jr, said he hoped his father's transplant would \"be the beginning of hope and not the end\", according to news agency AP.\n\n\"We are grateful for every innovative moment, every crazy dream, every sleepless night that went into this historic effort,\" he added.\n\nDr Griffith said previously the surgery would bring the world \"one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis\". Currently 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting list.\n\nThe possibility of using animal organs for so-called xenotransplantation to meet the demand has long been considered, and using pig heart valves is already common.\n\nIn October 2021, surgeons in New York announced that they had successfully transplanted a pig's kidney into a person. At the time, the operation was the most advanced experiment in the field so far. However, the recipient on that occasion was brain dead with no hope of recovery.\n\nThe first pig-heart transplant was a landmark moment in medicine.\n\nThe biggest barrier to using organs from another species is \"hyperacute rejection\". The body sees the tissue as so foreign that it starts to kill the donated organ within minutes.\n\nThe hope was the 10 genetic modifications made to the pig meant its organs would be acceptable to the human body.\n\nIt was a nervous moment when the heart went in, but there was no hyperacute rejection and that monumental barrier had been cleared.\n\nWhen I spoke to the surgical team one month after the operation they said there were still no signs of rejection and the donated heart was performing like a \"Ferrari engine\". But they warned Mr Bennett himself was still frail.\n\nExactly what has happened since and the precise cause of Mr Bennett's death is not clear.\n\nThe results of those investigations will determine how close we are to a future of using pigs to solve the global shortage of transplant organs.", "A blown-off tank turret near Kharkiv - the West has supplied anti-tank weapons to Ukraine\n\nThe UK is increasing its supply of weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian attack, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.\n\nBefore the invasion, Britain delivered 2,000 light anti-tank missiles and is now sending another 1,615.\n\nMr Wallace told MPs the UK would also deliver a small consignment of longer range Javelin missiles and was looking at sending surface-to-air missiles.\n\nSmall arms, body armour and medical supplies have also been sent, he added.\n\nThe UK has said it is helping \"facilitate\" the deliveries of these weapons but Western officials are not giving details of how the supplies are getting through.\n\nThere is some evidence that weapons supplied by the UK have already been used to destroy Russian armour.\n\nUkraine's military has released several videos showing Russian helicopters being shot down by surface-to-air missiles.\n\nIn a Facebook post, Ukraine claims Russia has lost 317 tanks, 1,070 armoured vehicles and 81 helicopters since the invasion began - the BBC has not been able to verify those figures.\n\nSpeaking in the Commons, Mr Wallace described how \"indiscriminate and murderous\" artillery and air strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine had wreaked \"horrific devastation\".\n\nHe stressed the importance of Ukraine maintaining its ability to fly and suppress Russian air attacks.\n\nThe Russians were \"changing their tactics and so the Ukrainians need to too\", he went on to say.\n\nIn response to a request from Ukraine, the government was exploring the possibility of sending high-velocity Starstreak manned portable anti-air missiles, he said.\n\n\"We believe that this system will remain within the definition of defensive weapons but will allow the Ukrainian force to better defend their skies.\"\n\nHe highlighted that the government was \"bound by the decision to supply defensive systems\" and not escalate the war.\n\nMeanwhile Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is in Washington visiting her US counterpart Antony Blinken, has condemned Wednesday's attack on a hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol as \"absolutely abhorrent, reckless and appalling\".\n\nShe also rejected Ukraine's call for the West to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine. It would lead to a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia and that was not what we were looking at, she said.\n\nUkrainians would need training to use the Starstreak surface-to-air missiles\n\nBritain started sending weapons to Ukraine before Russia's invasion of that country. More than a dozen countries are now doing the same.\n\nAnnouncing the delivery of more anti-tank weapons, Mr Wallace said the UK was also \"exploring\" the possibility of supplying Ukraine with Starstreak surface-to-air missiles. The challenge will be how to train Ukrainians to use them, without British boots on the ground.\n\nPracticalities of supplying weapons that Ukrainian forces know how to use is not the only limitation.\n\nMr Wallace stressed the government was \"bound by the decision to supply defensive systems\".\n\nThe West is already concerned about the response to this from Russia - one reason why the supply of Polish warplanes has proved more controversial.\n\nFighter jets are not just defensive weapons. Nato allies do not want to become directly involved in a war with Russia - with the danger it could spread closer to home.\n\nEnforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine and putting troops on the ground there is clearly seen as a step too far.\n\nThe UK is not alone in sending weapons to Ukraine, but most countries only started to send weapons in response to the Russian invasion, which began on 24 February.\n\nIn all, 14 nations have supplied arms, including Sweden and Finland, which both have a long history of neutrality and are not Nato members. They have both sent thousands of anti-tank weapons.\n\nGermany has supplied 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 US-made Stinger missiles, a scourge of Soviet aircraft during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.\n\nThe Baltic states have also delivered thousands of weapons including Stingers and Javelin missiles, one of the world's most effective anti-tank weapons with a range of 2.5km (1.5 miles).\n\nCNN, quoting a US defence official, put the total at 17,000 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 Stingers, sent overall by the US and Nato allies.\n\nDo you have any questions about the crisis in Ukraine. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Sam Ryder will represent the United Kingdom at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, Italy.\n\nHe's one of the UK's most followed singers on TikTok, with 12 million fans on the app, and will perform his song Space Man at May's grand final.\n\n\"I love Eurovision. I think it's such a privilege to be able to do it,\" he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.\n\nLast year's contest in Rotterdam was won by Italian rock group Måneskin.\n\nSam's taking part following two consecutive years where the UK has placed last at Eurovision.\n\n\"I don't want to let the stigma or fear of coming at a certain place in a table stop me from doing something and being a part of something that I enjoy so much,\" he says.\n\nIn 2021, James Newman's entry Embers received the dreaded \"nil points\" and Michael Rice came bottom in 2019 with ballad Bigger Than Us.\n\n\"As long as I can go to Eurovision and know in my heart of hearts I'm going to do the best job I can then everything else is out of my control.\" he says.\n\nThe last time the UK made the top ten in a final at Eurovision was in 2009 with the song It's My Time by Jade Ewen.\n\nAfter their Eurovision victory, Måneskin were nominated for Best International Act at this year's Brits\n\nDue to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been banned from this year's contest by the show's producers, the European Broadcast Union (EBU).\n\nOn singing at Eurovision with the backdrop of conflict in Europe, Sam says he tries to come back to the fact that \"music is about sharing and connection\".\n\n\"The only thing I have in my power to do is remember kindness, gratitude for the opportunity and empathy.\"\n\nAfter last year's British poor placing, management company Tap Music came on board to find a new act for the UK.\n\nIt's been responsible for the careers of singers like Ellie Goulding, Lana Del Rey and, until recently, Dua Lipa.\n\nSam was chosen internally between Tap and the BBC and speaking before Sam was selected, Tap's Ben Mawson said: \"We don't want to see Eurovision as a boom or bust night for the artist. We want to see this as a platform for development for a career.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sam Ryder says TikTok has helped him launch a solo career\n\nDuring the first lockdown, Sam picked up a huge social media following after performing snippets of songs on TikTok.\n\nHis covers were noticed by the likes of Justin Bieber and Alicia Keys, and he became the platform's most viewed UK artist in 2020.\n\nHe launched his solo career when he signed with record label Parlophone in 2021.\n\nSam says his love of 2006 Finnish monster rock winners Lordi helped his decision to compete for the UK at Eurovision.\n\n\"Lordi winning was a huge moment in my life because I'd loved them before they competed on Eurovision.\n\n\"Seeing them at Eurovision didn't change the way I felt about them and I was just stoked for that band going to represent their country and smashing it.\"\n\nSam's Eurovision faves Lordi stormed to victory in 2006 with Hard Rock Hallelujah\n\nEurovision has become a whole new ball game in the past five years and contestants need to arrive as the whole package.\n\nYou can't simply have a good song. You need to connect with viewers when you look down the camera lens.\n\nSam Ryder has nailed this already on TikTok.\n\nA \"good\" performance is no longer enough either. It needs to blow people's minds.\n\nThink about Ukraine's Go_A techno rave from 2021 or Norway's fiery Spirit In The Sky from 2019.\n\nEven though neither won, they crucially got the public at home to vote from them.\n\nIt's a slick TV event that brings people together and the memories of the competition from the mid-noughties (when it was slightly cheesy) don't exist in the minds of younger viewers who watch the build-up to the contest through social media.\n\nThe Eurovision grand final takes place on 14 May, with 40 countries taking part.\n\n\"There's something comforting about knowing that so many other people are watching the exact same thing as you are,\" says Sam.\n\n\"It's like the Super Bowl or the World Cup.\"\n\nSo who will be Sam's main competition?\n\nKalush are seen here performing in Lviv in 2021\n\nFolk rap group Kalush Orchestra are currently due to represent Ukraine with their track Stefania.\n\nThey originally came second in their national final, but were upgraded to compete when singer Alina Pash had to withdraw.\n\nConsidering the conflict, it will be an achievement in itself if the group make it to Turin, as several members have reportedly been helping in Ukraine's war effort.\n\n'Before that wolf eats my grandma... give that wolf a banana'\n\nOn the surface, Norwegian's electronic wolf duo (yes, really) Subwoolfer might seem like your stereotypical joke entry but it's a lot cleverer than you might think.\n\nSimply credited as Jim and Keith, their identity remains a mystery but the lyrics and vocals all seem to point towards comedy duo Ylvis, who went viral in 2013 with their song, What Does The Fox say.\n\nMahmood (right) lost out to the Netherlands' Duncan Laurence in the 2019 contest\n\nMahmood's no stranger to Eurovision, having previously placed second in 2019 with Soldi.\n\nThis time he's representing his home nation alongside 19-year-old singer Blanco. The pair won Italy's legendary Sanremo Music Festival. It's a week long TV spectacular featuring dozens of songs and artists.\n\nBest known for their 2003 hit In The Shadows, Finnish rock group The Rasmus are representing their country with Jezebel.\n\nThe song was co-written by Desmond Child, who was also responsible for Ricky Martin's Livin' La Vida Loca and Bonnie Tyler's 2013 Eurovision entry Believe In Me.\n\nListen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.", "A volunteer from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group paints a heart on the National Covid Memorial Wall opposite the Palace of Westminster in central London\n\nThe draft terms of reference for the UK public inquiry into the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic have been published.\n\nIt will look at preparedness, the public health response, the health and care sector response and the economic response, the Cabinet Office said.\n\nThe probe will play a key role in \"learning lessons\" from the pandemic and for the future, it said.\n\nThe inquiry is due to start in the spring.\n\nThe terms of reference were published after a consultation with inquiry chairwoman and former High Court judge Baroness Hallett, and with ministers in the devolved nations.\n\nRepresentatives of the inquiry will travel to towns and cities across the UK in the coming weeks to meet with people impacted by the pandemic and hear their views on what should be investigated.\n\nThe Scottish government has already published the terms of reference for its own Covid-19 inquiry, to be led by Judge Lady Poole.\n\nThe inquiry aims to produce \"a factual, narrative account\" covering decision-making at all levels of government and the response of the health and care sector as well as identifying the \"lessons to be learned\".\n\nThe draft document said the inquiry would \"produce its reports (including interim reports) and any recommendations in a timely manner\".\n\nIn the UK, more than 162,000 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.\n\nThe Cabinet Office said the UK-wide inquiry would \"reflect the importance of understanding the experiences of those most affected by the pandemic\" such as bereaved families and examine any \"disparities\" in the impact of the pandemic and the government's response.\n\nIt said there would now be a further public consultation led by Baroness Hallett to consider any changes to the terms before they are finalised.\n\nBaroness Hallett said she would open the public consultation into the scope of the inquiry, which will run until 7 April.\n\nIn a statement, she reiterated it was independent and urged people across the UK to share their views on what it should cover, especially those \"who have been bereaved, experienced hardship or suffered other harm\".\n\nBecky Kummer, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said the publication was a \"huge step forward\" and the organisation looked forward to contributing to the consultation on the terms.\n\nChris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said there was much the NHS did well during the pandemic but: \"It is right the inquiry looks at areas where there were major challenges - such as infection prevention and control, access to PPE, testing, and robust epidemiological modelling.\"\n\nHe said trust leaders welcomed the inquiry covering \"the nation's preparedness, initial capacity, and resilience ahead of, and during the pandemic, and the important focus on inequalities\".\n\nEmma Norris, director of research at the Institute for Government think tank, said on Twitter the inquiry's \"huge remit\" had \"likely implications for the length and timeliness of the inquiry\", adding: \"A wide scope usually means a longer inquiry.\"\n\nTo avoid a lengthy inquiry, she said a large team would be needed to probe different issues concurrently, but that the mention of interim reports was \"positive\".\n\nBarrister and Covid lockdown regulations expert Adam Wagner also said on first look, the draft terms of reference appeared to be \"very wide\".\n\nIn a Twitter thread, he said they failed to mention explicitly the policing of the pandemic, the government's hotel quarantine policy for people arriving in the UK from abroad and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on human rights.\n\nHe said these elements would \"hopefully\" be covered by the items \"the use of lockdowns\" and \"travel and borders\".\n\nAs the terms stand, he predicted it would be \"a massive, long and difficult\" inquiry with \"many strands and elements\".\n\nSeveral reports have already put the UK government's handling of the pandemic under the spotlight.\n\nA report by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee last October said the UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country's worst public health failures.\n\nIt said the government approach - backed by its scientists - was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection.\n\nThe MPs said this led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing thousands of lives.\n\nA report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) last November found ministers were not properly prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19 and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption.\n\nThe government said the unprecedented pandemic had challenged health systems around the world - not just the UK.", "Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra was due to perform a Tchaikovsky night at St David's Hall this month\n\nA Welsh orchestra has dropped music by Russian composer Tchaikovsky from a concert because of the Ukraine war.\n\nCardiff Philharmonic Orchestra said it would be \"inappropriate at this time\" to perform the composer's music after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe orchestra said a member had family in Ukraine and it was also aware some of Tchaikovsky's work was deemed offensive to Ukrainians.\n\nIt had planned a Tchaikovsky concert at St David's Hall in Cardiff on 18 March.\n\nInstead, it will perform works by John Williams, Dvorak and Elgar.\n\nIn a statement issued on its Facebook site, the orchestra said the decision was based on \"here and now\".\n\nIt added: \"A member of the orchestra has family directly involved in the Ukraine situation and we are trying to respect that situation during the immediate term.\n\n\"There were also two military-themed pieces as part of the programme - Marche Slave and 1812 Overture - that we felt were particularly inappropriate at this time.\n\n\"We were also made aware at the time that the title Little Russian of Symphony No 2 was deemed offensive to Ukrainians.\n\n\"Whilst there are no plans to repeat the Tchaikovsky concert at the moment, we have no plans to change our summer and autumn programmes which contain pieces by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakof. So, in summary, this is a one-off decision made with the best of intentions.\"\n\nHowever Welsh Conservative MP Fay Jones said on social media: \"Groan. Putin is the enemy here. Not Russia.\"\n\nTchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is regarded as offensive to Ukrainians\n\nThe move is the latest in a series of music resignations, cancellations and withdrawals that have been made since the Russian invasion.\n\nConductor Valery Gergiev, 68, has been dropped by festivals, concert halls and management due to his links with Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nHe was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for not rejecting the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGergiev's resignation as honorary president of the Edinburgh International Festival was also \"asked for and accepted\" by the event's board of trustees last month.\n\nGergiev has also been dropped from the Vienna Philharmonic's five-concert US tour and the Rotterdam Philharmonic in the Netherlands also cut ties, citing an \"unbridgeable divide\" between the orchestra and conductor.\n\nSoprano Anna Netrebko withdrew from her future engagements at the Metropolitan Opera rather than repudiate her support for President Putin, costing the company one of its top singers and best box-office draws.", "Mr Ross wrote to the 1922 committee calling for a leadership contest after saying Mr Johnson's position was untenable\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has withdrawn his call for Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister.\n\nMr Ross had written to the party's 1922 committee in a bid to trigger a leadership contest amid the row over Downing Street parties during lockdown.\n\nHowever he said this should now be \"put on pause while there is war in Europe\".\n\nMr Ross - who is both an MP and MSP - has withdrawn his letter, saying it was essential to fully support the UK government's efforts over Ukraine.\n\nIt was confirmed earlier on Thursday that Mr Johnson will attend the Scottish Conservative conference, which is being held in Aberdeen on 18 and 19 March.\n\nThe party said it would welcome the prime minister in person to give a speech about the war in Ukraine.\n\nMr Ross called for the prime minister's resignation in January, saying Mr Johnson's position was \"no longer tenable\" after he admitted attending a Downing Street party during the Covid-19 lockdown.,\n\nHe was later dismissed as being \"quite a lightweight figure\" by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons.\n\nMr Johnson had said he thought the May 2020 gathering was \"technically within the rules\", and that he had \"believed implicitly that it was a work event\".\n\nHowever he is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police, and submitted a questionnaire about his involvement to officers - which has the same status as information given as an interview under caution.\n\nMr Ross was backed in his position by almost all of the party's MSPs, and doubled down later in January by saying he would not be changing his mind.\n\nHowever he has now said that \"the middle of an international crisis is not the time to be discussing resignations\".\n\nHe added: \"There will be a time and place to debate partygate but, as even Keir Starmer said at the weekend, we should put that on pause while there is war in Europe.\n\n\"It's essential that we all fully support what the UK Government is doing. In light of Russia's appalling actions, the government and Prime Minister need our backing, and they have mine and the whole Scottish Conservative party.\"\n\nOther parties were critical of the move, with Labour leader Anas Sarwar saying Mr Ross \"should not be using the Ukraine crisis to go back on his principles\" and Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie saying the Tory leader had \"the backbone of a jellyfish\".\n\nAnd SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford - who had earlier denied rumours he was thinking of quitting his own post - said it was \"an utterly humiliating u-turn for Douglas Ross\".\n\nHe said Mr Ross had \"ended up catastrophically undermining his own position\" and was \"no doubt on borrowed time\".\n\nIt was earlier confirmed that Mr Johnson will attend the Scottish Tory conference later in March.\n\nThere is another Conservative conference in Blackpool on the same dates, which meant it was thought Mr Johnson would appear in Aberdeen via a video link or in a pre-recorded message.\n\nHowever the party said it would be welcoming him \"in person to speak about the war in Ukraine\".", "Richard Gnodde said the company remained committed to its London head office\n\nGoldman Sachs has said it will close its operations in Russia, becoming the first Wall Street bank to pull out of the country in response to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMoney transfer giant Western Union has also said it will suspend operations in Russia and Belarus.\n\nThe firms join a rush of global brands halting operations in Russia.\n\nEarlier on Thursday, the owner of Uniqlo made a U-turn and decided to suspend operations in the country.\n\nOperating in Moscow has been increasingly difficult for Western financial institutions and other firms amid international sanctions against Russia.\n\nMore than 330 firms have withdrawn or significantly curtailed operations in the country in recent days, according to Yale researchers, who have been tracking the corporate response.\n\nOn Thursday, Goldman Sachs said it would be \"winding down\" its business in Russia rather than leaving immediately.\n\nThe bank said it was doing so \"in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements\".\n\nAt the end of 2021, Goldman Sachs' total credit exposure in Russia was $650m (£496m).\n\nLater Thursday, fellow Wall Street giant JP Morgan Chase also said it was \"actively unwinding Russian business\", with activities focused on taking care of staff and helping global clients manage risk and close out obligations.\n\nMeanwhile Western Union said it \"stands with the world in condemning the unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine\".\n\n\"Ultimately, in light of the ongoing tragic impact of Russia's prolonged assault on Ukraine, we have arrived at the decision to suspend our operations in Russia and Belarus,\" the company said.\n\nThe action is a further blow to flows of money in Russia. Western Union provides international money transfer and payments services in more than 200 countries and 130 currencies.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC published today, Ukrainain Central Bank Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko had called on Western Union to \"cease deliveries of cash to Russian and Belarusian banks.\"\n\nEarlier on Thursday, Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing said it had decided to change its stance on continuing trading in Russia.\n\nIt said it was faced with \"operational challenges\" due to the \"worsening of the conflict situation\" after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nEarlier in the week it had said it would keep its Russian shops open, saying that clothing is a \"necessity of life\".\n\nBut in its latest statement, it said Uniqlo could \"no longer proceed\" in Russia.\n\n\"Uniqlo has made everyday clothing available to the general public in Russia,\" it said.\n\n\"However, we have recently faced a number of difficulties, including operational challenges and the worsening of the conflict situation. For this reason, we will temporarily suspend our operations.\"\n\nAmong the latest wave of companies to call a halt to trading or pull back from investing in Russia, Rio Tinto became the first major mining company to cut ties with Russian businesses, while Japan's Sony and Nintendo suspended deliveries of gaming consoles.\n\nThe world's biggest insurance broker, New York-listed Marsh McLennan, also announced it would exit Russia on Thursday. Ownership of its Russian businesses will be transferred to local management that will be independently operated, the group said.\n\nJapanese firm Hitachi said it would stop exports and cease most operations in Russia except for vital electrical power facilities, following similar moves by US companies such as Caterpillar.\n\n\"We took multiple factors including the supply chain situation into account,\" a Hitachi spokesperson said.\n\nUkraine's Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov had been urging the suspension.\n\nEntertainment giant Sony, which had already stopped releasing films in Russia, suspended the launch of racing game \"Gran Turismo 7\".\n\nFood companies Nestle, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have halted investment in Russia, but said they would continue providing essentials.\n\nThe fast food giant has said that the move, which includes continuing to pay its 62,000 staff and restaurant employees in Russia, will cost about $50m (£38m) a month.\n\n\"This is a really challenging and complex situation for a global company like us,\" said chief financial officer Kevin Ozan.\n\nA number of other US food retailers, including Starbucks, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co, have said they will stop some or all business in Russia following the Ukraine invasion.\n\nMeanwhile Burger King has suspended all of its corporate support, marketing and investment in Russia. But as its Russian outlets are fully franchised, many will remain open as they are managed by local franchisees.\n\nOn Thursday, Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported that the Russian government had put together a list of about 60 foreign companies that could be nationalised in response to the suspension of operations.\n\nIt said firms including Apple, Ikea, Microsoft, IBM, Shell, McDonald's, Porsche, Toyota and H&M could have their accounts and assets seized, and \"external management\" brought in, BBC News Moscow producer Will Vernon said.\n\nIt is unclear how the nationalised companies would be able to sell the products associated with those firms.\n\nIn response to Western sanctions, Russia has imposed export bans on a string of products until the end of 2022.\n\nThe ban covers exports of telecoms, medical, vehicle, agricultural, and electrical equipment, as well as some forestry products such as timber.\n\nMeanwhile in the UK, the CBI business lobby group called for government support as Western economies cope with the repercussions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe CBI said it \"fully supports\" the sanctions that have been placed on Russia \"despite their cost\".\n\nBut its director general Tony Danker said the UK government must help businesses cope with the fallout such as rising energy costs and inflation as well as any impact on investment.\n\nHe said the UK and other countries \"now need to confront the economic consequences of unwinding from Russia\".\n\nThe CBI wants the government to \"fast-track progress on some of the big policy issues and help firms invest\".\n\nMr Danker called for an acceleration of renewable energy and government support on energy bills, especially for energy intensive industries.\n\nHe also asked for the UK government \"to stand behind domestic oil and gas in our energy transition\" while the country should also \"identify new trading partners\" for minerals and other commodities, and enhance cyber security.", "The scene in Melitopol. \"We have not stopped protesting,\" one resident said\n\nIn the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.\n\nHe told his followers that the Russian forces occupying the city had now taken control of the city's communications network, so they needed to be wary of what they heard on TV and the radio.\n\nHow many people would see his warning, he didn't know. Melitopol's internet connection had also all but disappeared, making it nearly impossible to reach people inside by WhatsApp or Telegram call, or stay connected for more than a few minutes.\n\nThe ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. \"We cannot use,\" he said. \"Too easy for the Russians to listen in.\"\n\nWhen the invading forces took control of Melitopol a week ago they ransacked the mayor's offices, Federov said, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Federov said emphatically. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is liberating historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.\n\nRussian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine\n\n\"There are protests in Melitopol every day,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, 33, who before the invasion helped run her family business of electronics stores.\n\n\"At some point the Russian army started shooting at us and one man got shot but we have not stopped protesting,\" Kovaliova said. \"We are not afraid to protest because we are together. We are afraid to walk alone at night, but we are not afraid to protest.\"\n\nAbout 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.\n\n\"I don't know how to count the number of people protesting, I thought it was 2,000 at least,\" said Yunona, a 29-year-old IT worker in the southern city of Kherson. \"One of our friends was beaten and taken by the Russian soldiers and people got so angry they chased the occupiers down the street and took him back.\"\n\nThe Russian troops in Kherson looked young and uncertain, said Olha, a 63-year-old English teacher. \"We go to the protests every day and they are close to us but they look afraid,\" she said. \"We are all just waiting for the Ukrainian army to kick them out.\"\n\nBerdyansk in the south-east has also seen protestors take to the streets\n\nReports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.\n\n\"Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,\" said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. \"I have asked them - please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.\"\n\nVadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors - non-fatally - and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.\n\nNovopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.\n\n\"A new 'administration' has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose\n\nGaev and his team left town when Russia seized Novopskov, in order to keep his administration running - a move he said had divided residents, some of whom accused him of a betrayal while others said they were grateful he was still able to work.\n\nTwo residents of Kherson told the BBC they thought the mayor there had betrayed the city by co-operating with Russian forces - an accusation circulating in Telegram chat groups. Two others said he was simply doing what he could to ensure the city kept running.\n\nThe mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, told the BBC: \"If I had betrayed the city would I still be here? I am in the office every day, working with my team to keep things running.\"\n\nThe priority was to restart food production and get people back to work, Kolykhayev said.\n\n\"We are running out of food and there is no aid coming in, it's just not happening,\" he said. \"So we are telling everyone in the city: make any food you can make, manufacture anything you can manufacture.\"\n\nMost residents who spoke to the BBC from the occupied cities said food was fast running out.\n\n\"Shops are almost empty. You can buy the things that are left but very few things are left,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, the electronics shop owner from Melitopol. \"Pharmacies are empty and my mother can't buy her heart medicine.\"\n\nKovaliova said that two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said.\n\n\"Later we saw on it on TV. Russia has taken over the TV towers here so we only have one Russian channel being shown now and it was showing people taking the food and saying how thankful they are to the Russian humanitarian convoy.\"\n\nMaxim, a 22-year-old piano teacher in the city, also described the supposed humanitarian convoy. \"They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,\" he said. Yunona, the IT worker in Kherson, said she saw the same thing there, and Ukrainian media reported on the phenomenon in Berdyansk.\n\nIvan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these 'humanitarian convoys' too. But there were \"no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,\" he said.\n\n\"They could open humanitarian corridors at any time to allow food and medicine in, but they do not want to. We know, we have tried.\"\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, as usual, Federov put out his daily Facebook update, appealing to anyone in the city who could afford it to pay their utility bills and congratulating Ukraine's women on International Women's Day. \"I'm sure the war will end soon and we will celebrate all our holidays in a peaceful, Ukrainian Melitopol,\" he said.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Nelia said she feels safer in Northern Ireland but her three children are still scared after what they saw in Ukraine\n\nA mother who has arrived in Northern Ireland after fleeing war in Ukraine has said she had to leave everything behind for her children's sake.\n\nLiving 10km (6.2 miles) from Kyiv, Nelia said her children were living in fear and saw civilians being bombed and shootings.\n\nNeila and her three children have now been reunited with her brother-in-law in Lurgan, County Armagh.\n\nBut her husband has stayed to fight in Ukraine's territorial army.\n\nNelia said that while she feels safe now, her children are still waking in the night feeling scared.\n\nSpeaking through her brother-in-law Oleg as a translator, she told BBC News NI that for 36 years her life was good - and then she had to pack everything up into two small schoolbags.\n\nA residential building in the city of Irpin, near Kyiv, that was destroyed by shelling\n\nThe mother-of-three said her children could only bring their very favourite, special small toy - nothing else.\n\nShe added that the biggest worry of the journey was the threat of the Russian army and that they were afraid to drive for fear of being an easy target.\n\nAfter a journey through Poland and across Europe by train and ferry, the family were reunited with their relatives in Northern Ireland.\n\nOleg said it was a \"gorgeous exciting\" moment, but he still has worries about other family members.\n\n\"They're still in Ukraine and they're still in danger,\" he said.\n\nNelia's children were only able to bring one small toy when they fled their home\n\nThe Ukraine family scheme visa allows people to join an immediate or extended family member in the UK, providing that this relative has British nationality, indefinite leave to remain, settled status or proof of permanent residence.\n\nThe process has been heavily criticised for its pace and hold ups in Calais.\n\nSo far, 460 visas have been granted under the scheme in the UK with 22,000 applications \"on their way through\", according to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.\n\nIn comparison, the Republic of Ireland has taken in 2,123 Ukrainian refugees through ports in Dublin.\n\nBut Oleg praised the process, saying it had allowed his family to reach safety.\n\n\"I want to say 'thank you' to Boris Johnson for letting me bring my family,\" he said.\n\n\"At least I'm happy my sister-in-law and her three children are here and they are safe.\"", "A former Radio 1 DJ has been jailed for 12 years for arranging the sexual abuse of children in the Philippines.\n\nMark Page, 63, of Ingleby Barwick, Teesside, used a webcam to contact victims and travelled to the country.\n\nHe claimed his devices had been hacked but jurors at Teesside Crown Court found him guilty of four offences on Wednesday.\n\nJudge Paul Watson QC said Page targeted vulnerable children and was the \"very embodiment of depravity\".\n\nPage, who was on Radio 1 in the 1980s and worked as Middlesbrough FC's stadium announcer for 20 years, was found guilty of four charges of arranging the commission of a child sex offence.\n\nThe divorced father of three was convicted of two counts of abuse by using a webcam linking his home to the Philippines in 2016 and two more of offences while visiting the country in 2016 and 2019.\n\nOne of his victims, a then 13-year-old fatherless waitress who was the eldest of six children, has been traced and now lives in a place of safety, the court heard.\n\nThe judge said Page's offences \"involve the grotesque sexual abuse of young children for your own sexual gratification\" as he imposed a life-long Sexual Harm Prevention Order on the former broadcaster.\n\n\"You took advantage of the poverty and deprivation in an underdeveloped country in which children are routinely forced, through economic and social deprivation, into acts of prostitution.\n\n\"It did not matter to you that you were robbing them of the innocence of their childhoods, it did not matter to you what long-term trauma and emotional damage you were leading them to.\n\n\"You obviously delighted in their humiliation and the satisfaction of your own corrupt sexual desires.\n\n\"This was, in my view, the very embodiment of depravity.\"\n\nMark Page claimed he had been a victim of hacking but jurors found him guilty of four offences\n\nPage had his phone, tablet and a computer seized in 2020 after Facebook monitors raised concerns.\n\nHe claimed he had been hacked but did not mention this in police interviews, when he gave \"no comment\" answers.\n\nPage visited the Philippines regularly for business as managing director of armed forces radio station Garrison FM.\n\nThe jury heard he tried to haggle down the price for a sexual encounter with a 12-year-old girl and a boy of 13, saying 3,000 pesos - around £44 at the current exchange rate - was too much.\n\nMark Page was a DJ at Radio 1 in the 1980s and latterly a stadium announcer for Middlesbrough FC\n\nDet Sgt Kevin Carter from Cleveland Police's paedophile online investigation team, said Page had \"refused to accept responsibility\" and instead tried to \"lay blame on everyone but himself\".\n\nMr Carter said: \"Page attempted to present himself as a respectable and credible individual, yet his actions betrayed the trust and confidence of many people, not least his family and close friends.\"\n\nHe said children of the Philippines would be \"that bit safer\" with Page in prison and his jailing should be a warning to other paedophiles.\n\nJo Kidd, prosecuting, said it was recently estimated that 60,000 children in the Philippines had been forced into prostitution and the situation had been made worse by the \"crippling poverty\" caused by lockdown.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government as part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHe is one of seven oligarchs to be hit with fresh sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans.\n\nThe list also includes billionaires Igor Sechin and Oleg Deripaska, both seen as allies of Vladimir Putin.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said \"there can be no safe havens\" for those who have supported the invasion.\n\nChelsea FC cannot sell any more tickets for games, its merchandise shop will be closed, and it will be unable to buy or sell players on the transfer market.\n\nThe government said it would issue a special licence that allows fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches.\n\nMinisters have come under pressure to sanction Mr Abramovich, who said he had made the \"difficult decision\" to sell Chelsea FC earlier this month.\n\nThe football club is among the assets frozen as part of the sanctions against Mr Abramovich and its sale has now been stalled.\n\nRoman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin pictured together at an event in Russia in 2016\n\nBut the BBC understands the government would consider allowing Mr Abramovich to apply for a special licence to sell the club, providing he can prove he would not benefit from the sale.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nThe government says Mr Abramovich, who has an estimated net worth of £9.4bn, is \"one of the few oligarchs from the 1990s to maintain prominence under Putin\".\n\nMr Abramovich has stakes in steel giant Evraz and Norilsk Nickel. He sold a 73% stake in Russian oil firm Sibneft to state-owned gas titan Gazprom for £9.87bn in 2005.\n\nHe is believed to own a number of properties in the UK, including a 15-bedroom mansion at Kensington Palace Gardens in west London, reportedly valued at more than £150m.\n\nWhile the sanctions against him throw Chelsea's future in doubt, ministers sought to reassure the club it would not be \"unnecessarily harmed\".\n\nIn a tweet, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said holding those who have \"enabled the Putin regime to account\" was the priority.\n\n\"I know this brings some uncertainty, but the government will work with the league and clubs to keep football being played while ensuring sanctions hit those intended,\" she wrote.\n\nWhen asked if being unable to sell tickets and merchandise would hit Chelsea's finances, the culture secretary said: \"Sanctions have consequences and that's a fact.\"\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan expressed support for the government's actions but said Chelsea fans were \"completely innocent\" and that it was important to ensure the club was not \"sold off in a fire sale\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nadine Dorries says her focus is to protect Chelsea FC, its fans and the \"national game\"\n\nTelecommunications company Three, said it would temporarily suspend its sponsorship of the club and would \"request the removal of our brand from shirts and around the stadium until further notice\".\n\nChelsea has enjoyed major success since Mr Abramovich bought the club in 2003 for £140m, winning major titles including the Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup.\n\nThe club's fans were heard chanting Mr Abramovich's name during a match against Norwich on Thursday evening.\n\nMr Abramovich has previously said that proceeds of the club's sale would be donated to victims of war.\n\nOn Wednesday, there were 20 credible interested parties looking at a potential Chelsea takeover, including British businessman Nick Candy.\n\nLike all the Russian billionaires who still run businesses in their motherland, Roman Abramovich has had to remain on good terms with President Putin, even though he no longer spends much time in the country.\n\nThis is what led to him being sanctioned, with the UK government saying he is a \"pro-Kremlin oligarch\" who had has a \"close relationship\" with Vladimir Putin for decades and has obtained \"financial benefit\" and \"preferential treatment\" from that relationship.\n\nOne example given of that is the contracts he received in the run up to the FIFA 2018 World Cup.\n\nMore specifically on Ukraine and the Russian army, the UK government claims one of Mr Abramovich's companies, Evraz Plc, may \"potentially\" have been involved in providing steel which \"may have been used in the production of tanks\".\n\nIt is probably now too late for Roman Abramovich to recover his position and he may find himself being sanctioned by the US and the EU as well.\n\nLike many Russian businessmen he is now likely to turn to China.\n\nThe UK and its western allies have been ratcheting up sanctions against individuals and companies linked to President Putin since the invasion of Ukraine was launched on 24 February.\n\nThe government said Thursday's sanctions against \"seven of Russia's wealthiest and most influential oligarchs\" were part of the UK's \"efforts to isolate Putin and those around him\".\n\nAmong those sanctioned was Oleg Deripaska, a leading industrialist who has had links with British politicians.\n\nOnce one of the richest men linked to President Putin, Mr Deripaska made billions from his stake in Russia's aluminium industries, including EN+ Group, and has a multi-million pound property portfolio in the UK.\n\nMedia reports have named Mr Deripaska as the owner of a property on Belgrave Square, one of London's most exclusive neighbourhoods.\n\nHis net worth is now an estimated £2bn, according to the Foreign Office, and he has been subject to US sanctions since 2018.\n\nUnlike other Russian oligarchs, who have remained silent on the war in Ukraine so far, Mr Deripaska has called for \"peace as soon as possible\" in a tweet.\n\nIgor Sechin is another wealthy businessman who is said to have deep ties to President Putin.\n\nNamed Putin's right-hand man by the UK, Mr Sechin worked with the president when he was mayor in St Petersburg in the 1990s.\n\nIgor Sechin is the chief executive of Rosneft, a Russian state oil company, and has been sanctioned by the US and EU.\n\nIn its statement, the government said the four others sanctioned included:\n\nThe UK has now sanctioned 18 oligarchs since the invasion of Ukraine began, a Downing Street spokesperson said.\n\nIn addition to President Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and four Belarusian generals, 23 high-profile Russian oligarchs were now on the UK's sanctions list, the spokesperson said.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the government had targeted the oligarchs to \"ramp up the pressure on the Putin regime and choke off funds to his brutal war machine\".\n\nShe said: \"With their close links to Putin they are complicit in his aggression.\n\n\"The blood of the Ukrainian people is on their hands. They should hang their heads in shame.\"\n\nLabour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the sanctions were the \"right decision\" but \"should not have taken the government weeks\".\n\n\"Too few oligarchs linked to Putin's rogue regime have so far faced sanctions from the UK government,\" Mr Lammy said.\n\nThe government has been accused of moving slower than western allies the US and the EU in its sanctioning of individuals linked to President Putin.\n\nThe government's Economic Crime Bill, which is expected to become law later this month, is designed to harden and quicken these sanctions.\n\nThe government says the bill will also stop wealthy Russians using the City of London for money laundering and hiding gains linked to organised crime.", "The number of people in Scottish hospitals with Covid is at its highest for 13 months, new figures have shown.\n\nOn Wednesday, there were 1,636 people in hospital with recently-confirmed Covid-19, up 127 on the previous day.\n\nThat is higher than the Omicron peak of 1,571 which was recorded in January this year.\n\nHealth boards say that while far fewer people need intensive care, large numbers of Covid patients are affecting available beds and other services.\n\nThere are more patients in hospital than at any time since 8 February 2021, when the total was 1,672. In January, 2021 hospital numbers peaked at 2,053.\n\nThe latest Covid figures from the Scottish government show that more than 14,000 people have tested positive in the last 24 hours. That is the highest daily case rate since 8 January.\n\nScotland has recorded 41 coronavirus-linked deaths in the last 24 hours - more than double the total of 18 from the previous day.\n\nJillian Evans, head of health intelligence at NHS Grampian, said it was a difficult situation to manage in hospitals.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland's Drivetime programme : \"It is quite a rise in new cases. We are also seeing the impact on hospitals and it is quite marked actually.\n\n\"The last few days, we've seen quite big step changes every day. I know from my own board - I've just come from a meeting where we've been talking about flow of patients, pressure on beds, and I know how difficult it is to manage that in a system that's operating with very, very little headroom anyway.\n\n\"And then you have what feels like a continued surge of admissions or people in hospital with Covid so it's a difficult one to manage but we are living with this at the moment.\"\n\nShe said the threat risk was still \"fairly elevated\", given the trajectory of new cases, and the fact the latest ONS infection survey showed a fifth consecutive rise.\n\nMs Evans said the number of people in hospital had risen from 872 four weeks ago to 1,636 now, adding that the number of patients being admitted to hospital were older or more vulnerable people.\n\nShe said the rise could be partly due to the waning effectiveness of the Covid vaccine and welcomed the booster top-up programme that was now starting for most vulnerable groups.\n\n\"The only thing we can do right now is to continue doing what we've done really well,\" she said. \"Keep wearing those masks even though those legal protections might be lifted. And most importantly, be vigilant to symptoms. If you think it's a cold, it's probably Covid and stay away from other people.\"\n\nScotland's largest health board, Greater Glasgow and Clyde said hospitals were near capacity with more than 550 Covid-19 patients.\n\nIn Lanarkshire, numbers have gone from 66 in the middle of last month to 162 across its three main hospitals.\n\nThe majority of Covid patients do not need intensive care treatment but the high volume of patients mean people wait longer than they should in emergency departments for beds to become available.\n\nA number of health boards have also had to limit or cancel routine operations and change visiting arrangements.\n\nStaff absences have been improving but continue to cause some disruption.\n\nIn Orkney, there are currently 2,375 cases per 100,000 - more than double the UK level. BBC Scotland's Rob Flett said it had taken 21 months to get to 1,000 infections, two months to get to 2,000 infections and just a month to get to 4,000 infections.\n\n\"It's spreading like wildfire through here,\" he said, adding that lots of schools were returning to home learning, with 62 teachers off at the beginning of the week.\n\nHe said that while there was no increase in significant and serious illness but it was having a \"massive impact\" on services on the islands.\n\nNumbers are also high in Shetland and in the Western Isles.\n\nOf the 1,636 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19, 22 were in intensive care, a rise of three from the previous day.\n\nThe 41 deaths recorded on Thursday, up from 18 on Wednesday, mean the number of people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 has risen to 10,947.\n\nOn Wednesday, Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, said that recently rising Covid-19 case numbers were \"concerning and a reminder that Covid is still with us\" and urged people to get their vaccinations.\n\nSo far, 4,439,451 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 4,165,704 have received their second dose, and 3,459,127 have received a third dose or booster.\n• None Coronavirus (COVID-19) protection levels- what you can do - gov.scot The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThe future of European champions Chelsea is uncertain after sanctions were placed on Russian owner Roman Abramovich on Thursday.\n\nThe billionaire has been in charge since 2003 but had his attempts to sell the club halted by the UK government, which has frozen his assets.\n\nWhat does it mean for Chelsea's fans, players and staff? BBC Sport explains how the situation will affect those associated with the club.\n\nWhat exactly happened on Thursday?\n\nAbramovich was sanctioned by the UK government as part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe government believes the billionaire has had a \"close relationship for decades\" with Russia's president Vladimir Putin, links Abramovich has always denied.\n• None The Sports Desk: Life after Abramovich - what's next for Chelsea and English football?\n\nLike the rest of his assets, Chelsea would have been frozen but a special licence granted by the government allows the Stamford Bridge club to keep operating.\n\nThe special licence issued by the government allows the men's and women's teams to fulfil their fixtures for the rest of this season as normal.\n\nChelsea's men won away at Norwich in the Premier League on Thursday while Chelsea's women were victorious at West Ham in the Women's Super League at the same time.\n\nWhat does it mean for match-going fans?\n\nSeason-ticket holders will still be able to attend games at Stamford Bridge as normal, while match tickets sold before 10 March will be honoured.\n\nBut beyond that, supporters cannot buy any new tickets to watch Chelsea.\n\nTickets were due to go on sale for the FA Cup quarter-final tie at Middlesbrough on 19 March but a post on the club's official website on Thursday confirmed that would no longer happen as planned.\n\nThe club is also unable to sell any merchandise, with the club shop at Stamford Bridge closing on Thursday morning.\n\nCan Chelsea sell season tickets for next year?\n\nAll the licence says is that anyone who purchased season tickets before 10 March, and makes payments in regular instalments, can \"continue to make those payments\".\n\nNo mention has been made about future seasons.\n\nCan Chelsea keep paying staff wages in the short and mid-terms?\n\nThe government's special licence allows Chelsea to pay the wages of all employees, including players and coaching staff.\n\nThe licence is in place until 31 May, so covers the Blues for the rest of the season and the Treasury has the right to vary, revoke or suspend it at any time.\n\nDo these sanctions mean they cannot transfer players in or out?\n\nWhile the sanctions are in place, Chelsea are effectively under a transfer ban and are unable to buy or sell players.\n\nThey are also unable to negotiate new contracts for the players they currently own, so leaves an uncertain future for those whose current deals expire in the summer.\n\nThat applies to Antonio Rudiger, Cesar Azpilicueta, and Andreas Christensen, although the latter two have been linked with a move to Barcelona.\n\nRudiger was believed to be close to a new deal but current developments leave the defender in a limbo situation.\n\nWhat about the future of Chelsea men and women head coaches?\n\nIt's the same situation for both Thomas Tuchel and Emma Hayes - nobody has any idea how this will affect them yet.\n\nThey have got contracts, no-one is saying they won't get paid. However, this is a time of great change. Does it make the club more vulnerable to an approach for either manager from a rival team? Things are likely to change significantly at the club.\n\nTuchel said the future was uncertain, though he was happy to remain as manager when giving his reaction to Thursday's developments after Chelsea's game at Norwich later on the same day.\n\nHayes, who has been at the club for a decade, signed a long-term contract in July and had her eye on chasing a first Champions League title with Chelsea.\n\nShe is extremely well supported within the club and has earned the respect from those high up, having won 10 major trophies during her time in charge.\n\nHayes was also among the exclusive list of trustees to whom Abramovich attempted to give 'stewardship' of Chelsea at the end of last month. Her commitment to the club has never been questioned so fans will no doubt be monitoring the situation cautiously.\n\nCan Chelsea still be sold?\n\nChelsea were put up for sale on 2 March and there are understood to be plenty of interested parties, despite Abramovich being sanctioned.\n\nThe UK government is open to considering a further addition to the special licence to allow a sale to proceed.\n\nThose working on the deal on behalf of Abramovich were always told that proceeds from the sale would go to a fund for victims of the war in Ukraine.\n\nThis was made clear when Abramovich put the club up for sale last week. It is understood that the £1.5bn loan from Abramovich will not be deducted from the price.\n\nAbramovich had instructed American investment firm Raine Group to seek £3bn for the club, but finance experts believe that an already inflated price could drop further given the current uncertainty around Chelsea.\n\nRaine Group has temporarily halted the sale process while it seeks answers from the government.\n\nHow quickly the club can be sold once a buyer has been found depends on the government receiving assurances that the proceeds would not go to Abramovich, but securing those assurances could take time.\n\nWhat about Chelsea's participation in European competition?\n\nAll we've had from Uefa at this stage is that it is \"seeking further clarification on the matter\" before it comments further.\n\nWhat Uefa is presumably trying to establish is what happens if Chelsea make it through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and can't sell any tickets.\n\nIf Chelsea get to the FA Cup semi-finals, will their section of the ground be empty?\n\nChelsea's men's side are away to Championship side Middlesbrough in the quarter-finals on 19 March (17:15 GMT), which will be shown live on BBC One.\n\nIf they win that then they will play at Wembley in the semi-finals on the weekend 16-17 April.\n\nIt is unclear at this stage how the the restrictions would impact FA Cup ticket sales if they progressed to Wembley.\n\nCan Chelsea afford away travel, given the government budget?\n\nThe government has set a limit of £20,000 per team per match for travel to and from matches.\n\nBBC Sport understands the club considers the £20,000 cap to be too low to allow it to operate normally, and this is a pressing matter given next week the men's team travel to Lille in the Champions League.\n\nHow much are Chelsea's sponsors worth and how have they reacted?\n\nWithin hours of the announcement that Abramovich had been sanctioned by the UK government, Chelsea' main shirt sponsors suspended their £40m-a-year deal with the club.\n\nMobile network provider Three had been Chelsea's official partner since 2020.\n\nIt is unclear whether any of Chelsea's other sponsorship deals are at risk at this stage.\n\nIn 2016, the London club signed a new kit deal with US sportswear giants Nike. At the time it was reported to be worth £60m a season for the next 15 years, but the club did not confirm any cash figures.\n\nIn May 2021, Chelsea named global hotel search platform Trivago as the club's official training wear partner in a multi-year partnership.\n\nChelsea also have a number of other official partners.\n\nCould Chelsea go into administration?\n\nIf Chelsea are unable to pay their bills they could go into administration and face a nine-point deduction.\n\nIn the short term, it's to a large extent business as usual. Chelsea will be able to pay wages due at the end of March and will have other overheads.\n\nChelsea's wage bill is round about £28m a month. We don't know how much cash they have in the bank. The most recent accounts we have are from June 2021 when there was £16m in the bank. Abramovich has been injecting money into Chelsea on a regular basis over recent years and presumably that won't be able to continue.\n\nThe concern might be what happens if Chelsea's cash reserves are insufficient to pay their wage bill - but presumably the government and Premier League, who have been working on this, will have been looking at it to try to minimise disruption on a club level.\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "The largest private suppliers of children's homes and foster care places in England, Wales and Scotland make excessive profits, says a watchdog.\n\nThe UK has \"sleepwalked\" into a system where some vulnerable children do not get good care, says a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report.\n\nHowever, private providers say some of their services can cost less than their council equivalents.\n\nThe CMA study into children's social care was launched a year ago.\n\nIt found large private sector providers of fostering services and children's homes appeared to be making higher profits in England and Wales than would be expected in a well-functioning market.\n\nThis suggests councils are paying more than they should, particularly for fostering, the report found.\n\nThe researchers found prices and profits of the largest private providers were materially higher than would be expected if the market was working well.\n\nData on 15 large providers from 2016 to 2020 showed steady operating profit margins averaging 22.6%, and costs rising from £2,977 to £3,830 over the period, says the report.\n\nOverall there is a shortage of appropriate places for looked-after children, leading to some not getting the care they need, being placed far from schools and friends or separated from their siblings, says the CMA.\n\nThe authors are particularly concerned about the financial stability of some children's homes in England and Wales which are financed through private equity firms with high levels of debt.\n\n\"It is important to manage the risk of children's homes providers going bust and local authorities having to pick up the pieces,\" said CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli.\n\nThe report also recommends a warning system to assess the financial health of the hardest to replace private providers, and greater efforts to bring foster care in-house.\n\nIt notes that the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales are already moving away from the model of for-profit provision in children's social care.\n\nThe CMA says a well-functioning market should generate returns to investors of up to 6%, but the largest children's home providers make about double that.\n\nForensic accountant Vivek Kotecha, of the Balanced Economy Project, has done similar research and says such excess profits would be better spent by councils on more services for children.\n\n\"It could have paid for better staff wages, or it could have just funded more children who need care, or at the borderline of potentially needing care or extra help. So I think it affects children, the ones in care, but it also affects the ones who could be in care or need to be in care, but aren't receiving it.\"\n\nHowever, in a briefing paper issued ahead of the report, the Independent Children's Homes Association says the high costs highlighted are outliers which do not reflect those in the sector generally, where profits are more modest.\n\nThe association quotes University of Kent research suggesting that private provision, particularly for children with complex needs, is often cheaper than that provided by councils.\n\nThe BBC spoke to Hampshire County Council's assistant director of children's services Suzanne Smith, who runs the team which finds foster care or children's home places for young people who can no longer remain with their families.\n\nThe team struggles to find suitable placements, the costs keep growing and they feel there is more picking and choosing by independent providers about which child they will take.\n\nHampshire County Council has eight of its own children's homes, which cost more than £3,000 a week per child.\n\nBut the council says independent providers can charge anywhere between £3,500 a week to more than £10,000 for each child, depending on the complexity of their needs. Unlike in council homes, children can sometimes be asked to leave private homes with only a few hours' notice.\n\n\"Unfortunately, it drives towards profit generation as opposed to the outcomes for the child,\" says Ms Smith.\n\n\"What we'd really like to see is a diverse market where you've got providers who can make profit, but those profits are reasonable, and then shared accountability around the outcomes for the children.\"\n\nLondoner Kim Emenike, 24, who went into foster care at seven when her mum died of cancer, says she too often felt like a pay cheque rather than a human being.\n\nBy the time she was 13, Kim says the relationship with the foster family had broken down, with little support or love, while the council did the bare minimum.\n\n\"It's like a tick box exercise,\" she said.\n\nKim Emenike says she had little support or love from her foster family\n\nHowever, Kim stayed with them for another five years, fearing a shortage of foster places would mean she could be sent out of the area, away from friends and school.\n\nShe felt she was with her foster family just \"because someone wants to get paid\" and it was cost-effective for the council to keep her there.\n\nKim wants to see the care system reformed to be less profit-driven.\n\n\"I'm just someone who needed someone to care, someone to love me and someone to just be my cheerleader.\n\n\"You've got to do it because you have the heart for it - not because you get paid for it.\"\n\nThe Department for Education said an ongoing independent review of children's social care would address radical reform of the system.\n\nAn official said the department was also \"taking forward urgent reforms to address pressures in social care\", including £259m to help councils provide high quality safe homes for the most vulnerable children.", "The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was an early casualty of Germany's change of heart over Russia\n\nYou know that feeling when you're running downhill, going so fast that you seem to lose control of your own feet?\n\nThat's where the EU appears to be at the moment.\n\nOnce dismissed as impossible - or at least, hugely improbable - from one day to the next, EU revolutions, provoked by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, have been happening thick and fast.\n\nThe next seismic change bubbling in Brussels? A looming energy revolution, provoked by a simple question: What's the point of punitive financial sanctions if Vladimir Putin's war chest is refilled on a daily basis with oil and gas revenues?\n\nThe EU depends on Russia for 40% of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil imports.\n\nEU countries pay about €1bn a day to Moscow for those supplies, according to Bruegel, the Brussels-based think tank.\n\nThe US - which is far less reliant on Russian energy supplies than Europe - says it's considering banning Russian oil imports as part of its sanctions against the Kremlin.\n\nOn Monday, standing next to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lithuania's foreign minister agreed. \"We cannot pay for oil and gas with Ukrainian blood,\" he said.\n\nAlong with other eastern European Nato and EU members, Lithuania views Vladimir Putin - with his ambitions to change Europe's geopolitical order in Moscow's favour - as an active security threat.\n\nThe West must fight Russia \"with all means available\", said Lithuania's president. \"To avoid World War Three.\"\n\nBut other EU countries, such as big powers Germany and Italy - far more reliant on Russian energy than most - feel more threatened by the prospect of skyrocketing energy prices that would surely follow any sanctions on Russian oil or gas imports.\n\nEnergy prices are already painfully high across the continent.\n\nUntil Russia's attacks on Ukraine, the majority of Germans supported Nord Stream 2, their new gas pipeline direct from Russia.\n\nThe pipeline has been frozen as part of EU sanctions against Russia, but Berlin fears public opinion could turn if Germans suddenly can't fill their cars with petrol or afford to heat their homes.\n\nGermany's Federation of Industries, the BDI, has warned that soaring prices could crush the EU's largest economy, forcing factory and other German business closures, with a rippling effect across the single market.\n\nAnti-nuclear sentiment has always been strong in Germany\n\nFrance's Emmanuel Macron is nervous too. He hopes to be re-elected president next month.\n\nThe last time he was blamed for petrol price hikes in France, it sparked months of massive street protests by the \"gilets jaunes\", the yellow jackets, so-called because of the high-visibility vests they wore.\n\nSo, while on the world stage, President Macron presents himself as the European champion of carbon neutrality, energy prices are such a sensitive issue in France that he introduced €100 bonuses for the poorest voters this winter, to mitigate fossil fuel prices as part of his re-election bid.\n\nIt's notable, too, that French energy giant Total says it's staying put in Russia for now, despite the Kremlin's onslaught against Ukraine, while competitors BP and Shell have voluntarily pulled out.\n\nSo are energy sanctions against Russia just the latest example of an \"EU impossible\" that will suddenly become reality?\n\nThe issue will be discussed in the European Parliament on Tuesday and among EU leaders at their Thursday summit.\n\nWhen I speak to EU naysayers, they talk defensively, not only about the dangers of domestic blowback, but also potential aftershocks in the global energy market.\n\n\"At the moment, we're speaking with one voice alongside Latin America, regarding Russian aggression,\" one diplomat told me.\n\n\"But what would happen if the Argentine economy implodes as a result of energy price hikes and scarcity and the EU and the West is blamed for that?\"\n\nSo for the moment, the EU is clinging to what it views as safer ground.\n\nOn Monday, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would be speeding up efforts to wean itself off Russian energy.\n\nRussia's actions in Ukraine mean Brussels now views the Climate Question as a question of security. Energy security.\n\nGermany's new chancellor took the world's breath away a week ago by reversing his country's defence policy, sending weapons to Ukraine and announcing a €100bn investment in the German military.\n\nHis finance minister has also announced a €200bn investment in renewable and alternative energy sources. Germany's need is acute, as it has all but phased out nuclear energy, as well as phasing out coal.\n\nBut those plans for renewable energies, alternative suppliers and a clean energy divorce from Russia will take time.\n\nSomething Ukraine just does not have.", "The Police Ombudsman has completed an investigation into officer conduct and a fatal crush outside a disco in 2019.\n\nLauren Bullock, 17, Morgan Barnard, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, died as hundreds queued outside Cookstown's Greenvale Hotel on 17 March - St Patrick's Day.\n\nThe investigation got under way when it emerged the first officers who arrived at the scene withdrew to await support.\n\nA file of evidence on five officers has been sent to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) for consideration.\n\nNone of the five officers under investigation has been suspended.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) referred the matter to the ombudsman within days of the tragedy.\n\nThe then Chief Constable Sir George Hamilton initially described the officers' actions as \"brave\", but later said he regretted causing the families distress in doing so.\n\nAt the time it was reported that the investigation would cover four officers who went to the Greenvale Hotel and another who dealt with call handling on the night.\n\nGreenvale Hotel owner Michael McElhatton was among those questioned by police\n\n\"During the course of the investigation, five police officers were interviewed under criminal caution on suspicion of the offence of misconduct in a public office,\" said a statement from the ombudsman's office.\n\n\"The Police Ombudsman has sent a file for direction to the Public Prosecution Service.\n\n\"As this is an ongoing investigation, the Police Ombudsman cannot provide any further information at this time.\"\n\nThe Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file police officers, said it supported calls for an inquiry into the causes of and responses to the tragedy .\n\n\"The deaths of three young people on a night out is one which will resonate throughout society for many years to come and my thoughts are with their families as we approach the third anniversary of this incident,\" chairman Mark Lindsay said.\n\n\"I have no doubt whatsoever that my colleagues who attended this shocking and tragic incident did their best in what were unique and challenging circumstances.\n\n\"I agree with the families of the young victims that there should be an inquiry into the causes and responses to the incident, which examines the roles of the various agencies involved and that of the event organisers.\"\n\nThe PSNI has been conducting a separate investigation.\n\nAmong those it questioned was the hotel owner, Michael McElhatton.\n\nOn Thursday, the PSNI said it had taken more than 1,300 witness statements and specially-trained officers had interviewed more than 140 young people.\n\n\"In total, 11 individuals have been interviewed by police in connection with a range of criminal offences and we await the response of the Public Prosecution Service,\" Det Supt Eamonn Corrigan said.\n\n\"The file of evidence contains significant amounts of material and may take some time for the PPS to consider.\n\n\"Because these matters are now being considered by the PPS, it would not be appropriate to comment further.\"\n\nThe officer said the police investigation into the deaths \"remains active\".\n\nThe PSNI file has been with the PPS since February 2021.\n\n\"All the available evidence in this large and complex file is being carefully considered by the prosecution team,\" said a PPS spokesperson.\n\n\"While we are not yet in a position to take decisions, significant progress has been made since receiving the file.\n\n\"We are conscious of the length of time which has passed since the tragedy and are working hard to issue decisions as quickly as possible, whilst giving these matters proper and careful consideration.\n\n\"We will update the families when there are key developments.\"", "", "Kyrylo Shevchenko, Governor of National Bank of Ukraine, in September 2021\n\nFrozen Russian assets should be used to rebuild Ukraine after the war, the governor of Ukraine’s Central Bank has told the BBC.\n\nKyrylo Shevchenko called for an extensive list of extra sanctions, from cutting card payments to suspending Russian access to the IMF.\n\nEvery day that sanctions are delayed \"is costing the lives of civilians and children\", he said in an interview.\n\nFor security reasons, he answered questions sent by email.\n\nMr Shevchenko, governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, said that Russia should eventually be made to pay to repair the damage caused during the invasion.\n\n“The need for money will be huge,” he told the BBC. “It could be fulfilled through loans and grants from multinational organisations and direct help from other countries. However a large share of financing is needed to be obtained as a reparation from the aggressor, including funds that are currently frozen in our allied countries.”\n\nThe government building in Kharkiv, destroyed by Russian missiles. Rebuilding Ukraine will cost billions\n\nMuch of Russia’s $630bn of foreign exchange reserves are thought to be held outside the country, and effectively frozen by sanctions in the US, the EU and other places.\n\nThat would make billions available for reconstruction – if Ukraine is able to access it once the war is over.\n\nMr Shevchenko welcomed the financial sanctions already imposed by the international community, but said the world should go much further. He called on governments, institutions and companies to impose an extensive list of further financial sanctions, targeting every corner of Russia's economy.\n\n“We already see the effect [of sanctions] on the aggressor’s financial system, but we are still waiting for more to be done. I would like to underline that every day that sanctions are delayed is costing the lives of civilians and children,” Mr Shevchenko said.\n\n“These are the lives of Ukrainians who have chosen the European way and are now defending not only their own country, but also the entire system of values that lies at the core of the Western civilization.”\n\nWhat is clear from the testimony of the Ukraine's version of Andrew Bailey is that in this war they are leaving no stone uncovered in their targeting of the Russian financial system.\n\nEvery pipeline of cash into the \"aggressor\" has been identified, even as Mr Shevchenko's team tries to keep the cash flowing in the Ukrainian financial system and to its millions of refugees, and even set his country's monetary policy from a bunker.\n\nThe IMF, the Bank for International Settlements, Western Union, Chinese credit card payment systems, former Soviet nations' use of Russia's payments system, all are the subject of Kyiv's lobbying to subject the Russian financial system to an unprecedented squeeze.\n\nAbove all, that targeting of Russia's Central Bank, agreed by G7 nations, has disarmed its warchest of foreign exchange reserves and halved the value of the rouble.\n\nI asked him if he was worried about the precedent being set here for institutions normally given sovereign immunity. He pauses. \"I can answer from the bottom of my heart. We see that the Central Bank of Russia supports military invasion and thus is also guilty, responsible in deaths of civilians in Ukraine\".\n\nAround 11bn hryvnia ($350m, £280m) has been paid in to the two special accounts set up by the National Bank of Ukraine to receive donations for the military and for humanitarian causes, Mr Shevchenko told the BBC.\n\nThe account for the military was set up on 24 February to accept international and local donations in multiple currencies.\n\nA similar account for humanitarian purposes was set up on 1 March.\n\nWestern countries have wrestled with the difficulties of suspending purchases of Russian energy. While the cash Moscow receives for oil and gas exports is a vital lifeline, European governments have decided that they can’t live without vital Russian supplies, at least for now.\n\nMr Shevchenko said: “Today we can see that Russia is using its energy resources capacities to put economic pressure on Europe. Energy is also one of the leading narratives in the Russian media. They are using it to misinform the Russian public about the West’s unwillingness to take tougher measures, out of fear of losing access to Russian oil and gas.\n\n“We realise how difficult this decision is for our Western partners. We understand the cost of such a step. But we must work together to find and use all possible tools to stop the killing and the suffering that Russia is increasingly causing in Ukraine.”\n\nMr Shevchenko also described some of the challenges of keeping the country’s financial system running during a war.\n\nHis staff are working round the clock, he said, many sheltering from bombardment in underground bunkers.\n\nBut he said electronic payments and ATMs were still working, and cash was being delivered to everywhere but active combat zones.\n\n“I can proudly say that Ukrainian banking system remains stable and liquid even under martial law.”\n\n“This is extremely difficult time for every Ukrainian - for the people and the country,” he said. “The National Bank of Ukraine is doing everything in its power to support Ukraine, its defenders, and the population affected by Russian aggression.”", "Oil prices rose on Thursday amid confusion over whether major producers would help to plug a gap in supplies from Russia.\n\nThe United Arab Emirates had appeared to push members of the Opec producer group to raise output, only for the UAE's energy minister to quash hopes.\n\nThe oil price rose more than 5%, after a 17% fall on Wednesday.\n\n\"To suggest the oil market is confused would be an understatement,\" said analyst Stephen Innes.\n\nUS President Joe Biden and other leaders have pledged to try to ease the price pressures for households. Officials from the US have been in talks with oil producers aimed at boosting supply.\n\n\"We favour production increases and will be encouraging Opec to consider higher production levels,\" Ambassador Yousuf Al Otaiba said in a statement tweeted by the UAE Embassy in Washington.\n\nBut the energy minister Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said later that the Gulf state remained committed to the existing Opec monthly output agreement, which fixes how much crude is produced by member countries.\n\nOil prices have jumped more than 30% since 24 February, touching $139 (£105) a barrel at one point this week. The oil price had fallen back to about $106 a barrel at one point on Wednesday, but by Thursday morning it was trading at around $116.\n\nOn Tuesday, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck issued an \"urgent appeal\" to Opec oil producers to increase output \"to create relief on the market\".\n\nSaudi Arabia-led Opec and an extended group of oil producers called Opec+ - which includes Russia - have agreed to avoid a price war and keep control over the market.\n\nMr Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management, said: \"To suggest the oil market is confused would be an understatement as we are in an unprecedented situation.\"\n\nCommonwealth Bank commodities analyst Vivek Dhar said: \"We think it will be challenging for Opec+ to boost production in this environment.\"\n\nWorries about oil and gas supplies have led to soaring domestic heating bills and fuel prices at the pump. Both petrol and diesel prices hit new records in the UK on Wednesday, according to the RAC motoring group.\n\nUnleaded petrol was 159.57p a litre on average, while diesel was 167.37p.\n\nDespite the mixed messages coming out from the UAE, there is a broad consensus within Opec+ that there is no immediate need to boost oil production faster. So, even if the UAE tries to convince other members to increase production during the next meeting, it will be difficult to find many backers.\n\nWhile Abu Dhabi is a prominent member of Opec+, Riyadh and Moscow are the leaders of the pack and they are the ones who call the shots. Any decision to increase supplies will essentially boil down to Saudi Arabia.\n\nWhile the UAE is keen to increase production, it is very unlikely that it will break ranks and pump more oil unilaterally. Both the Saudis and the Emiratis have maintained a neutral stance during the course of this war, and the former would be unwilling to take any decision related to Opec+ that the Russians would oppose.\n\nOpec+ has attributed the recent rise in prices to market volatility caused by geopolitical tensions and maintained that there is no shortage of supplies in the market.\n\nRAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: \"A tank of petrol is now almost £88 while diesel has now gone over £92. Diesel unfortunately appears to be on a clear path to £1.70 a litre.\n\n\"As this is an average price, drivers will be seeing some unbelievably high prices on forecourts as retailers pass on their increased wholesale costs.\"\n\nEnergy prices have been soaring for more than a year amid a rapid rebound in demand for oil, which had collapsed during the pandemic.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine added new price pressures, as sanctions make it hard for the country - typically the producer of about 7% of global supplies - to find buyers for its oil.\n\nThe US and Canada have also announced bans on Russian oil imports, while the UK said it would phase them out by the end of the year.\n\nThe International Energy Agency (IEA) recently agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from strategic national reserves, but that move is not enough to respond to the recent run-up in prices.\n\nThe agency said on Wednesday that oil reserves may be tapped further.\n\n\"If there's a need, if our governments decide so, we can bring more oil to the markets, as one part of the response,\" said IEA chief Faith Birol.", "British troops are banned from travelling to join the conflict between Russia and Ukraine\n\nA small number of British soldiers have disobeyed orders and may have travelled to Ukraine to fight, the British Army has confirmed.\n\nThe soldiers were absent without leave and may have gone to Ukraine \"in a personal capacity\", the Army said.\n\n\"We are actively and strongly encouraging them to return to the UK,\" a spokesperson added.\n\nAll service personnel are banned from travelling to Ukraine until further notice.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss has previously said she supports UK civilians who might want to go to Ukraine to help fight, and that it was up to people to make their own decisions.\n\nBut the government later clarified that the Foreign Office advises against all travel to Ukraine.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence says joining the fighting may be against the law and could lead to prosecution.\n\nThe Army statement follows a report in the Sun of a 19-year-old from the Coldstream Guards who left his Windsor barracks and bought a ticket to Poland at the weekend.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence has not confirmed the report but said soldiers travelling to Ukraine, whether on leave at the time or not, would face disciplinary consequences.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged foreigners to help his troops resist the Russian invasion\n\nLast week serving soldiers were warned that heading to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion also risked giving \"the mistaken perception\" to Russia that Britain had sent in troops to fight.\n\nHundreds of former British soldiers have said they want to go to Ukraine to fight or help with medical or humanitarian efforts. Many have told the BBC they are getting mixed messages from the government about whether they should go.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged foreigners to join what he calls an \"international brigade\". It is unclear how many people have responded to his calls, but hundreds of Britons expressed their wish to volunteer.\n\nAlthough the UK has sent weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia, it has repeatedly said it would not be sending British troops to fight in Ukraine.\n\nThe West has been clear that it would not engage in direct military confrontation with Russia and countries in the Nato military alliance - including the UK - have repeatedly rejected President Zelensky's calls to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe director of hit superhero film Black Panther was mistaken for a bank robber as he tried to take money out of his own account in the US, a police report has revealed.\n\nRyan Coogler was briefly arrested after trying to withdraw $12,000 (£9,100) from the Atlanta bank in January.\n\nThe teller had reportedly told her boss she suspected an attempted robbery after misinterpreting the situation.\n\nMr Coogler told US outlet TMZ the \"situation should never have happened\".\n\nHowever, the 35-year-old said Bank of America had since \"worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction and we have moved on\".\n\nAccording to the police report, which was obtained by the entertainment website, Mr Coogler - reportedly wearing a covid face mask, as well as sunglasses and a hat - handed the teller a withdrawal slip with a note saying he wanted $12,000 from his checking account.\n\nThe note also asked for the money to be counted somewhere else, ending \"I'd like to be discreet\". He also showed identification. The New York Times reported that he told police he was paying for a medical assistant who worked for his family and sought discretion over safety concerns due to the cash amount he requested.\n\nThe teller, who is black, as is Mr Coogler, was pregnant and worried about her safety at the time, according to the newspaper.\n\nThe transaction triggered an automatic notification as it was over $10,000, at which point the teller told her boss she suspected a robbery, and the police were called.\n\nThe director, who has been working on the sequel to 2018's Black Panther, was briefly handcuffed and detained before proving his identity and being released.\n\nA Bank of America spokesperson told US magazine Variety: \"We deeply regret that this incident occurred. It never should have happened and we have apologised to Mr Coogler.\"", "\"We're here to destroy the enemy brigades,\" says Johnny Dragan (left)\n\nThe commander called himself Johnny Dragan, and he smoked each cigarette as fiercely as if it was going to be his last.\n\nDragan was strengthening a blocking position at a strategic crossroads north-west of Kyiv. If the Russians broke through, Dragan and his men would have to stop them. Behind him was a dual carriageway heading straight to Kyiv.\n\nOff-duty soldiers were eating and resting at a restaurant on the crossroads that Dragan had taken over as his headquarters. The food was hearty, and they stacked their rifles in neat conical piles next to their tables.\n\nOutside, the active shift was working during another bitterly cold day, with the snow settling on their shoulders. A tank was in position. A deadly-looking artillery piece was positioned to fire directly, over open sights, at anything coming down the road that Dragan decided was a threat.\n\n\"We're here to destroy the enemy brigades,\" he said. \"The occupiers who've come to our country - and are heading our way.\"\n\nA builder's lorry was lowering slabs of reinforced concrete with the crane it had used until a fortnight or so back to deliver housebuilding supplies. Destruction not construction has been happening since. It felt more urgent near the frontline today. Ukrainian troops inside and outside Kyiv are reinforcing checkpoints into barricades.\n\nDragan's men were close to Hostomel, a small and strategically important town. Fighting has not stopped there since the first morning of the war, when Russia airborne troops came in by helicopter to seize a cargo airport as a bridgehead.\n\nTanya says Hostomel \"used to be such a lovely place to live\" but now there is \"no house, no street and no town\"\n\nWe picked up Tanya and Ivan, a couple in their 60s who had been walking for three hours to get out of Hostomel. It took 13 days, they said, to gather the courage to leave their freezing cellar.\n\nTanya described what they had seen on the first day of the war before they fled underground. \"When our guys blew up the bridge, we saw tanks and a car with the soldiers ahead of the column, but our guys did not let them go… The bridge was blown up and the car and everything was destroyed.\"\n\nWhen they emerged at dawn after nearly two terrifying weeks to walk towards Kyiv, about 20 miles (32km) away, everything had changed. Tanya wept a little as she remembered how it had been in Hostomel. \"It used to be such a lovely place to live. But when we came up this morning there was no house, no street and no town.\"\n\nSome destroyed buildings north-west of Kyiv are still smouldering\n\nMany villages nearby, not just their home, are in ruins.\n\nIn buildings that are still burning a few traces of old lives are left; smouldering kitchens where families must have eaten, argued and loved. Dogs scavenge for food, waiting close to the rubble for owners who abandoned them.\n\nRussian tactical and military blunders, plus well-organised and determined resistance, have bought the Ukrainians time to beef up for whatever comes next. That is not going to last indefinitely.\n\nThe barrage of international sanctions against Russia shows no sign of forcing President Vladimir Putin to change his mind. His public utterances reinforce what seems to be his determination to finish the job of crushing Ukrainian independence, which he tells the Russian people is a necessary step to protect themselves and their nation.\n\nIt is hard to overstate the gravity of the crisis caused by the invasion, and the years of tension that led to it. It is deadly serious because of Russia and the Nato countries' radically different views of the security and orientation of states that used to be firmly in the orbit of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe parties to the wider conflict, above and beyond the war in Ukraine, are armed with nuclear weapons that could destroy all of us. The chances that this war could somehow go nuclear are very low, despite Mr Putin's decision to increase the level of readiness of part of his arsenal.\n\nBut wars generate confusion and misperception, and the dangers of escalation are ever-present.\n\nA local hospital that has been treating the wounded Ukrainian soldiers is being abandoned\n\nLike most people who grew up in the Cold War, I cannot forget the relief I felt when it ended, and the joy of turning on the television on 9 November 1989 and seeing Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall.\n\nIt is hard to believe that more than 30 years later I have spent the day reporting on the Russian push into Ukraine, and the results of a failure by all concerned to build security that would stop Europe going back to its old ways.\n\nA couple of miles from the Russians in Hostomel, Ukrainians were preparing to abandon a hospital that has been treating the wounded. They had been evacuated further away from the fighting, and the hospital director Dr Valerii Zukin was supervising staff wrapping sensitive medical equipment with bales of clingfilm. Beds were waiting to be picked up and trucked out.\n\nMy ship is sinking, Dr Zukin told me, and I am the captain so I will be the last to leave.\n\nHis voice rose as he said Ukrainians did not want food aid. Instead, they wanted weapons and a no-fly zone enforced by Nato.\n\n\"The Russians understand only the language of the power. I would like to use the words of the former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, who said it was impossible to negotiate with the man who came to kill you.\"\n\nIt was a lonely and tense drive through the snow until we saw the suburbs of Kyiv. Ukrainian troops were dug into the woods, waiting.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In Kyiv, citizens like Maria are turning out for weapons training in case they have to defend themselves\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Sgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the woman in 2016\n\nA police officer has been jailed for 10 years for raping a woman who went on to give birth to his child.\n\nSgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police, attacked the woman at a mutual friend's house in Bradford in 2016 after a night out.\n\nLister, 36, from Bradford, was found guilty of rape and sexual assault after a retrial at the city's crown court.\n\nPassing sentence, Judge Jonathan Rose said the officer carried out a \"disgusting and persistent\" attack.\n\nProsecutor Richard Woolfall told the jury that Lister, who was off duty at the time, and the woman had both fallen asleep on separate sofas after drinking \"a large amount of alcohol\".\n\nHe said the woman was later woken by the defendant grabbing her legs and pulling her to the floor, where he raped and sexually assaulted her.\n\nMr Woolfall said the victim, who cannot be named, \"didn't consent\" and had \"no recollection\" of having sex with the defendant.\n\nThe court was told the woman approached the police in 2020 after having a \"breakdown\" at work and confiding in a colleague about the assault.\n\nIn a statement read to the court, the woman said although she \"loved her little girl to bits\", she had \"always struggled since she was born\".\n\n\"I really didn't cope well throughout the pregnancy and felt like I shouldn't have kept her, because I knew deep down what had happened to me and how she was conceived,\" she said.\n\n\"I look at her and feel she is a constant reminder of what he has done to me.\n\n\"She is such a lovely, funny, caring young girl and I already dread the future. I don't want her to grow up to hate me even though I have done nothing wrong.\"\n\nLister was jailed for 10 years after being found guilty at Bradford Crown Court\n\nJudge Rose told Lister: \"You took advantage of her, knowing she couldn't physically fight you off.\n\n\"The consequences will extend for many, many years and there are difficulties yet to come when the child asks 'who is my daddy?\"'\n\nHe added: \"You were a police officer. That carries with it a requirement that you behave in an upright, decent and proper manner at all times, whether on or off duty.\n\n\"Every woman of any age is entitled to go out and enjoy themselves and to do so knowing they will be safe throughout the evening and when they return to the comfort of a home.\"\n\nWest Yorkshire Police said Lister, who worked in the Bradford district, was suspended from the force when he was charged with the offences in December 2020.\n\nDet Supt Mark Long praised the \"bravery and courage\" of the victim for coming forward.\n\n\"I hope this conviction demonstrates that no-one is above the law,\" he said.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Starmer says the 'baton has passed' after Birmingham Erdington by-election win\n\nSir Keir Starmer has hailed Paulette Hamilton's victory in the Birmingham Erdington by-election as the passing of a \"baton\" from one \"great champion of working people\" to another.\n\nThe former nurse polled 9,413 votes, 55% of ballots cast, as Labour increased its vote share.\n\nShe has become Birmingham's first black MP and revealed her father died just as her campaign started.\n\nThe by-election was held following the sudden death of Jack Dromey.\n\nThe veteran MP died in January aged 73 and had held the seat since 2010.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Birmingham following the win, the Labour leader said: \"Jack would be smiling this morning... looking down seeing that baton being passed to Paulette, a champion of working people for Erdington.\"\n\nAddressing Ms Hamilton, he said: \"You will be a fantastic champion for them, bringing them what they want most - the security of knowing they've got a champion for them in Parliament, the prosperity that they want for themselves, their businesses, their communities, and the respect that they so richly deserve.\"\n\nSir Keir, who had earlier tweeted that Ms Hamilton had \"made history\", added her swearing in as an MP on Monday would be a \"special moment\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFollowing her win, she said: \"I never thought I'd be running to be an MP, but the fact that I am now not only the MP for Erdington but the first black woman - the first woman to ever get the position - I am delighted and I am still pinching myself.\"\n\nShe said after talking to residents during the campaign, she believed the regeneration of the high street was a priority, along with crime and housing.\n\nBut she said: \"The big hidden one which keeps coming up is the economic issues around the economic crisis - the issues around gas and electricity bills.\n\n\"People are really concerned about will they be able to eat or pay their bills.\"\n\nTwelve candidates stood in the election and the turnout was 27%, compared with 50.3% in the 2019 general election.\n\nRobert Alden, Conservative leader at the city council, had been vying to become the first Tory MP for the constituency since 1936.\n\nHe won 6,147, or 36% of votes, giving Ms Hamilton a majority of 3,266.\n\nJack Dromey, 73, had held the Erdington seat since 2010\n\nIn her victory speech, Ms Hamilton said she was \"exhausted but delighted\".\n\n\"But I'd also like to say a special thank you to Keir Starmer for his endless support - even when my dad died, they were there, they wrapped me in cotton wool and they supported me, and my dad isn't even buried yet but they were there when I was crying.\"\n\nThanking her family and campaign team, she also gave thanks to police and council staff for the \"smooth running\" of the count operation.\n\n\"I know it's a lot of work that often goes unmentioned, so thank you for your endless professionalism and commitment to the democratic process,\" she added.\n\n\"Something I think we all treasure even more following the events in Europe.\"\n\nPrior to the election, Conservative MPs Tom Hunt and Gary Sambrook had called on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to suspend Ms Hamilton, following comments she made at an event titled \"The Ballot or the Bullet - Does your vote count?\" in 2015 about increasing ethnic minorities' representation in politics.\n\nMr Hunt added she should have the party whip withdrawn if she was elected.\n\nVoter turnout was 27% with 17,016 ballots cast in the election\n\nA Labour spokesman said: \"In Paulette, the people of Birmingham Erdington have elected a great local champion.\n\n\"We're delighted that this campaign has seen the first black MP elected from a Birmingham constituency.\"\n\nSome 17,016 ballots were cast in the election, in an electorate of 62,996.\n\nBuki Hannaway said Ms Hamilton would be representing the wider black community in the city\n\nSome in the local black community said they were surprised the city had not had a black MP before.\n\nShopkeeper Buki Hannaway said it was \"shocking\" and \"really quite sad\".\n\nBut she welcomed the development and said: \"It's positive change for me personally as a local resident and as someone who works in the area as well.\"\n\nShe also believes Ms Hamilton will feel the pressure of being the first and said: \"It's with anything, across society. If you're the first, you're carrying everybody with you and their expectations.\"\n\nLabour increased their vote share from the 2019 general election\n\nThis was a by-election which started with the background of investigations into parties at Downing Street and ended overshadowed by war in Ukraine.\n\nIt's a case of as you were for the two main parties, though Labour's vote share increased and the Conservatives' reduced slightly.\n\nThe Lib Dems meanwhile were beaten down to sixth behind the Trade Unionist Socialist Coalition, Reform Party and the Greens.\n\nThis result may not tell us a huge amount about the standing of the two parties with voters, but it is a landmark moment, as Paulette Hamilton becomes the first black MP to represent a Birmingham constituency.\n\nMr Alden said the low turnout was a reflection Labour was not \"ready to govern\".\n\n\"This is a seat that has been Labour over the last 85 years... the fact the majority is so small here today is really a damning indictment where the Labour party is nationally,\" he added.\n\nConservative candidate Robert Alden said the result was a \"damning indictment\" of Labour nationally\n\nMr Dromey, a shadow minister married to fellow Labour MP Harriet Harman, made his name in politics through the union movement, as a leading figure in the Transport and General Workers' Union, which later became Unite.\n\nIn the 2019 general election he won the seat with 17,720 of votes cast.\n\nA by-election is held when a seat becomes vacant when an MP resigns or dies, is declared bankrupt, takes a seat in the House of Lords or is convicted of a serious criminal offence.\n\nThe Monster Raving Loony candidate SirNosDa The Good Knight, right, had been among the 12 candidates standing\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Diane Abbott says some ministers are waiting for the Windrush generation \"to pass away\".\n\nLabour MP Diane Abbott has accused ministers of waiting for the Windrush generation to pass away, instead of improving the compensation scheme.\n\nOther MPs called for the scheme to be passed from the Home Office to an independent body.\n\nThe government rejected the calls but accepted the need for improvements.\n\nThe scheme aims to help those affected by the Windrush scandal which saw people removed from the UK despite having lived in the country for years.\n\nOthers were denied access to work, welfare services and the NHS.\n\nThe Windrush generation refers to the thousands of people who came to the UK between 1949 and 1971 from Caribbean countries.\n\nThe Home Office kept no record of those granted leave to remain and issued no paperwork - making it difficult for Windrush arrivals to later prove their legal status.\n\nA compensation scheme for those affected has been running for almost three years - but it has long been criticised for being too complicated and too slow - and at least 23 victims have died without being paid.\n\nDuring a parliamentary debate about the scheme, Ms Abbott, whose mother was part of the Windrush generation, accused ministers of ignoring proposals for ways to speed up the scheme.\n\n\"That suggests to me that they don't respect that generation, they don't understand the humiliation this generation feels and clearly it is as if they are waiting for this generation to pass away,\" said the former shadow home secretary.\n\nLabour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Committee Diana Johnson was among other opposition MPs who said the scheme should be passed from the Home Office to an independent organisation.\n\nSupporting her proposal, the SNP's Stuart McDonald said: \"Is it not blindingly obvious that people who have had their lives destroyed by a government department will be reluctant, terrified even, to have to engage with that same department again.\"\n\nIn response, the Home Office minister Kevin Foster rejected calls for the Home Office to be stripped of the scheme - and said doing so would risk significantly delaying payments to people.\n\nHe added that the programme had been overhauled in December 2020 and that £36m had been paid out.\n\nGlenda Caesar came to the UK from Dominica in 1961 before her first birthday.\n\nIn 2009 she lost her job as a GP's practitioner as she didn't have the paperwork to prove she could legally work in the UK.\n\nShe was watching the debate and told the BBC that some members of the generation didn't want to make a compensation application because of their age.\n\n\"They don't want to take on the stress and worry,\" she said.\n\n\"The Windrush community are still having to wait for payments, still having to go through a lot of paperwork and reliving the trauma they were put through in the first place.\n\n\"Some of these people are really old, some of them are not computer literate - they do need assistance but they need it from someone they trust.\n\n\"They have no trust in the Home Office because the Home Office has let them down.\"", "Drone footage shows the extent of destruction to buildings as well as Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, 60km (40 miles) north-west of Kyiv.", "Visa and Mastercard pull out of Russian market\n\nThe payments giants Mastercard and Visa have announced that they are suspending their operations in Russia in protest over the invasion of Ukraine. In a statement, Mastercard said that Russian banks would no longer be supported by its network and any card issued by the company outside of country would not work at Russian merchants or ATMs. The company said it had listened to representations from partners and taken its decision due to the \"unprecedented nature of the current conflict and the uncertain economic environment\". Meanwhile, Visa said that it would work to cease all transactions in the country in the coming days, adding that Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia would also stop working in the country' territory. Al Kelly, Visa's CEO and chairman, said the company had been \"compelled to act following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed\". “We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues, and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia. This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values,” he concluded.", "Former defence secretary and education secretary Gavin Williamson is to receive a knighthood.\n\nThe Conservative MP for South Staffordshire was sacked from the cabinet in last September's reshuffle.\n\nMr Williamson faced opposition calls to quit over his handling of disruption to England's schools and exams during the pandemic.\n\nThe 45-year-old, whose first career was in manufacturing, previously served as the government's chief whip.\n\nHe was given a CBE in 2016 for political and public service, and it is understood that his knighthood is being awarded for the same reasons.\n\nMr Williamson was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and became chief whip, in charge of Conservative Party discipline, under Prime Minister Theresa May, in 2016.\n\nWhile in that role he notably kept a pet tarantula called Cronus on his desk.\n\nIn 2017, Mrs May made Mr Williamson defence secretary, a role he served in until 2019 when she sacked him, saying she had \"lost confidence in his ability to serve\".\n\nThis followed an inquiry into a leak from a National Security Council meeting on whether the Chinese firm Huawei should be involved in setting up the UK's 5G network. Mrs May said she had \"compelling evidence\" that Mr Williamson was responsible for the leak, but he denied this.\n\nHe returned to the cabinet as education secretary in summer 2019, after Boris Johnson became prime minister.\n\nBut his time in the job was marked by severe criticism from opposition parties over his handling of school closures, free school meal provision and GCSE and A-level exams during the Covid pandemic.\n\nMr Williamson was replaced as education secretary by Nadhim Zahawi in last autumn's reshuffle.\n\nReacting to the news of his knighthood, Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: \"Gavin Williamson let children to go hungry, created two years of complete chaos over exams and failed to get laptops out to kids struggling to learn during lockdowns. His record is astonishing and disgraceful.\"\n\nGeoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said head teachers and parents would be \"surprised\" to learn the news.\n\nHe said the pandemic would have been \"challenging for any education secretary\" but added that Mr Williamson's tenure had been one of \"endless muddle\" and \"inevitable U-turns\".\n\nMr Williamson has not commented so far on his honour.", "Putin's KGB friends and former judo partner among those targeted by new US sanctions\n\nPresident Biden was pretty blunt in announcing the new package of sanctions on Russia. He said its oligarchs were lining their pockets with the Russian people’s money while Ukraine and its people were hiding in subways to protect themselves from Russian missiles. Biden added that sanctions against President Putin and those around him were already having a “profound impact”. The additional list of eight names of those to be sanctioned by the US is interesting. They include former friends of Putin during his time in the KGB in East Germany and one of his former judo training partners. They also include the Kremlin press secretary who, the Americans say, is a \"top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda\". And we’re told a lot of these Russians have houses and other major assets in the US. Earlier on Thursday, the White House also told us that President Biden had no plans to talk to, or meet, President Putin to discuss ways of halting the invasion.", "Re:Store shops, which sell Apple products in Russia, have been closed.\n\nApple has become the latest major firm to halt all product sales in Russia, in a widening corporate backlash to the country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe tech giant was said it was \"deeply concerned\" about the Russian invasion and stands with those \"suffering as a result of the violence\".\n\nApple Pay and other services such as Apple Maps have also been limited.\n\nNike did not comment on the conflict but customers are no longer able to order its products online.\n\nAn automated message said Nike was halting online orders because it could not guarantee delivery of goods to customers in Russia.\n\nHowever, the website directed customers to their nearest Nike stores.\n\nOne Ukrainian member of parliament, Lesia Vsylenko, tweeted that the sportswear giant's move was a great example of how private companies could impose sanctions against Russia.\n\nA series of high profile brands have pulled back from Russia in recent days, including film studios, carmakers and technology firms.\n\nGoogle has removed Russian state-funded publishers such as RT from its features.\n\nMobile banking apps in Russian, such as Russia's VTB Bank's app, may soon not function fully on devices using Apple's iOS operating system, according to news agency RIA.\n\nApple said in a statement that the firm had disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a \"safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens\".\n\nLast week, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov published an open letter to Apple on Twitter, in which he asked Apple to cut Russia off from its products, services, and App Store.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nApple's iPhones are the third best-selling smartphone in Russia, supplying about 13% of all the handsets sold last year,according to market research firm Counterpoint. However that represents less than 2% of Apple's global iPhone sales.\n\nEarlier, Google restricted news firms funded by the Russian government from advertising tools and some features on YouTube.\n\n\"We are committed to complying with all sanctions requirements and we continue to monitor the latest guidance,\" the company wrote in a blog post.\n\nThe company also told the BBC that Google Pay had been limited in the country - for those using sanctioned banks. Google has not, however, blocked Google Pay in Russia.\n\nGoogle also said \"most of our services (like Search, Maps and YouTube) currently remain available in Russia, continuing to provide access to global information and perspectives.\"\n\nApple is generally fairly good at keeping its head down when it comes to global affairs.\n\nFor example, it has faced criticism for not standing up to China over its treatment of Uyghurs.\n\nThis move then is significant, and unusual, by the iPhone maker.\n\nOne by one global brands have been moving to distance themselves from Russia - making the country look more and more isolated.\n\nBut it was by no means certain that Apple would make this move. The company had started to receive criticism for its relative silence on Ukraine.\n\nThe BBC had reached out to Apple for comment, but had not received a reply until this announcement.\n\nThere are many phone companies in Russia, and plenty of alternatives to Apple products.\n\nPeople with iPhones will also still be able to use the App Store - the pause in sales will not have a huge immediate impact.\n\nBut as brands desert Russia, its citizens will begin to notice that products they used to buy, simply aren't available anymore.\n\nMeanwhile, the Finnish network equipment maker Nokia said it would stop deliveries to Russia to comply with sanctions imposed on the country following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn Monday, Netflix also said it had \"no plans\" to add state-run channels to its Russian service. Russian regulations had required it to carry 20 free-to-air news, sports and entertainment channels in the country.\n\nThe biggest shipping firms in the world, Danish Maersk and Geneva-based MSC, also suspended container shipping to and from the country on Tuesday. The UK has also banned ships from Russia in its updated sanctions.\n\nRussia supplies a sixth of the world's commodities so will now be cut off from a significant part of shipping trade.\n\nMotorbike firm Harley-Davidson also suspended business and shipments of its bikes to Russia.\n\nAnd US plane manufacturer Boeing Co said on Tuesday it was suspending parts, maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines - as well as major operations in Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.", "Facebook said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nRussia has limited Twitter in parts of Russia, Twitter has confirmed.\n\nIn a statement, the company said \"We're aware that Twitter is being restricted for some people in Russia and are working to keep our services safe and accessible\".\n\nOn Friday Russia restricted Facebook after a clash over \"censorship\".\n\nRussia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor accused Facebook of violating \"the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens\".\n\nFacebook said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nInternet connectivity watchers at NetBlocks say there is a total or near-total restriction on Twitter in Russia.\n\nNetBlocks said Facebook and Instagram weren't \"observably restricted per our metrics, certainly not to the extent Twitter is at present\".\n\nThe actions follow Russia's attack on Ukraine with many videos and images of the invasion going viral on social media.\n\nThe BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, said he'd had difficulty tweeting.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Steve Rosenberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCircumvention for those in Russia is currently possible using VPN services, which can work around government-imposed restrictions.\n\nNetBlocks Director Alp Toker told the BBC: \"Russia's restriction of Twitter will significantly limit the free flow of information at a time of crisis when the public most need to stay informed.\"\n\nRoskomnadzor has not announced actions against Twitter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Can a government switch off access to the web?\n\nIt is unclear what the Facebook restrictions could mean if implemented or if other Meta-owned platforms - like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram - will be hit.\n\nThe Russian regulator had demanded Facebook lift the restrictions it placed on Thursday on state news agency RIA, state TV channel Zvezda, and pro-Kremlin news sites Lenta.Ru and Gazeta.Ru.\n\nIt said that Meta had \"ignored\" these requests.\n\nSir Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Meta, said Russian authorities \"ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling\" the outlets' content.\n\nBut he made clear he wanted Russians to continue to use Meta's platforms.\n\n\"Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organise for action\", Sir Nick said, and the company wants \"them to continue to make their voices heard\".\n\nMany state-owned media outlets in Russia have painted a largely positive picture of Russian military advances in Ukraine, calling the invasion a \"special military operation\" that had been forced on Moscow.\n\nOn Thursday Meta said it had set up a \"special operations centre\" to monitor content about the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nRussia has its own Facebook equivalents, VK and Odnoklassniki, but Facebook is also popular in the country - as is Meta-owned Instagram.\n\nOn Friday, US Senator Mark Warner said Facebook, YouTube and other social media services had \"a clear responsibility to ensure that your products are not used to facilitate human rights abuses\".\n\nMeta has been under pressure to label misinformation - and has been working with outside fact-checkers, including Reuters.\n\nMoscow has also increased pressure on domestic media, threatening to block reports that contain what it describes as \"false information\" regarding its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTwitter also told the BBC that its safety and integrity teams were \"disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information and to advance the speed and scale of our enforcement\".", "Living in the basement - Rustam, Liana, Vera, and Tyson the cat\n\nSeven days which sparked a burning patriotic resolve in Ukraine, which propelled people the world over, from presidents and prime ministers, bankers and business leaders, football stars to figure skaters, artists and activists, to stand up and be counted to condemn Russia's aggression.\n\nThe Russian rouble collapsed, the UN General Assembly called on Moscow to pull out; Russian leaders denounced this \"Russiaphobic frenzy\". And, on the ground, swathes of Europe's second-largest country were reduced to smoking ruins, a harrowing echo of Russia's blistering campaigns in Grozny and Aleppo.\n\nIn the days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv was a European city of golden-domed cathedrals gleaming in the night, brightly-lit restaurants serving steaming bowls of borsch, corner kiosks pouring coffee behind frosty winter windows.\n\nAnd the world was a place where many thought a blitzkrieg across a border was only history's business. At the Munich Security Conference, many a government minister quietly told me \"I just don't think it will happen\". And, of course, not against the capital.\n\nBut in her home in Kyiv, 37-year-old Liana was ready with bags packed, including some books; clothes ironed, enough money from an ATM to last a while. Her mother Vera refused to do the same. Her friends poked fun at her. But Liana's son Rustam, a bespectacled 13-year-old wired to his smartphone, was ready too.\n\nIn the dead of night on Thursday 24 February, in a city which couldn't sleep, rumours and reports electrified social media and exploded in chat groups.\n\nThis snippet \"Russian action will begin at 4am\" shot through cyberspace with the kind of chilling precision Western intelligence reports had used for weeks to warn of \"an imminent invasion\" by nearly 200,000 Russian troops and heavy weaponry now massed along the borders.\n\nLocal flights kept cancelling, parents wondered if they should take their children to school in the morning, journalists started asking each other if they were staying.\n\nBy 05:00, posts cascaded across the internet - \"hearing thuds\" in Kyiv, Kramatorsk, Melitopol, Chernobyl, Odessa. The list was long.\n\nAt 05:58, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted \"Putin has launched a full-scale invasion\". Hours earlier, President Vladimir Putin had announced the start of a \"special military operation\" in eastern Ukraine.\n\nAt 06:00 Liana called her mother. \"I told you so. Are you packed?\"\n\nBy nightfall, roads out of Kyiv were gridlocked. Homes were emptied of energy as a city went underground, to basements and bomb shelters, to subway stations with marble stairways and magnificent mosaics built deep below in the 1960s to also double as Cold War bunkers.\n\nIt was a day which ended the tidy life of Liana, who runs a small office supply company, and terrified her mammoth Maine Coon cat, who found he couldn't live up to his namesake - the US professional boxer Mike Tyson known as Iron Mike.\n\nI met them all in a cavernous basement in the city centre, two floors below ground, where our BBC team also took shelter. A tight-knit family, including mother Vera with a shock of red hair and an even warmer smile, took up residence on thin mats on the hard floor next to ours.\n\n\"It was a difficult night,\" declared champion boxer-turned-mayor Vitali Klitschko as the day dawned on Saturday with news that Russian forces were now advancing on Ukrainian cities from the north, east, and south. \"Russian troops are not in our city,\" he reassured \"Kyivians\" who woke - if they slept at all - asking that very question.\n\nHis rallying cry was amplified hours later, on that day, and every day after, by the comedian-turned-president-in-a-suit-turned-wartime-leader-in-olive-green-attire. \"We won't lay down our arms,' President Volodmyr Zelensky declared, rebuffing \"fake news\" that he'd done the opposite.\n\n\"Are you worried?\" I asked Liana. \"I can't be sad, I must be hopeful to support our president,\" she exclaimed in her own act of resistance underground. Tyson, however, was hiding upstairs, under a bed. And Liana worried about her father living north of the capital, in a village close to Chernobyl, now occupied by Russian forces. He'd crept out of his home last night, crawling through fields under cover of darkness, to see Russian troops throwing tarpaulin over heavy weaponry to hide them from view.\n\nIn Kyiv, air raid sirens were now blaring day and night, a chilling soundtrack of the city. A weekend curfew came in force. We discreetly rigged up a smartphone to broadcast from the basement where at least five dogs, including Kurt a puffy white Pomeranian named after the American singer-songwriter, and Andrew, a trembling Yorkshire terrier, never seemed to bark.\n\nOn Sunday, Liana and Vera rushed pell-mell toward me. \"What happened?\" I asked, trying to suppress a note of worry. \"Thank you, thank you!\" they shouted excitedly, words tumbling over the other. Their friends in the US, Britain, and the UAE had sent them screenshots of our BBC broadcast.\n\nThere they were, in the corner of the screen, quietly sitting along the wall. \"Now they know we're safe!\" they gushed, reflecting that surge of anxiety worldwide in the large Ukrainian diaspora as the invasion intensified.\n\nBut news from Liana's father was ominous. He could hear Russian tanks rumbling past, heading south towards Kyiv. His electricity was now cut; he cooked potato soup outside, on an open fire in sub-zero temperatures, all the while trying to hide the flame.\n\nBy Monday, when the weekend curfew lifted, satellite images shared by Maxar technology revealed a massive Russian armoured column, stretching along 40 miles (64km) of road, stopped just 20 miles from Kyiv. The plight of other cities was even more foreboding. Residential areas of Kharkiv, the second largest city to the west, were being pounded - so was Chernihiv to the north.\n\nThin mats have been replaced by mattresses in this new subterranean world - Ukraine beds down and digs in. All through the night, smartphones glow under covers. Liana, like everyone else, connects incessantly with friends and family across Ukraine and beyond.\n\nA Russian missile has slammed into her father's vegetable garden, smashing his sustenance for the long run. Rustam, intense at the best of times, is now an extension of his phone saturated by everything Ukraine. Sometimes Tyson the cat emerges from under his bed above ground for a comforting cuddle.\n\nRussia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has vowed to continue the offensive until \"its goals are achieved\".\n\nIt's been a week of war. Unparalleled sanctions imposed on Russia are being described as economic war. A war crimes investigation has already been launched, and everyone everywhere is taking a stand. Even the International Feline Federation (FIFe) has banned the import of any Russian breeds of cats.\n\nThe southern city of Kherson has fallen. Mariupol is encircled by Russian forces, without electricity, running water, or enough food. The armoured convoy north of Kyiv still hasn't made its move.\n\nAnd Liana is in a flood of tears. \"Eight Russian soldiers barged into my father's house last night looking for cigarettes, and they've taken over his house,\" she wails. She hears a story about a family who tried to flee and was shot dead on the spot. They're looking for young men able to fight. She says her elderly father sits in a chair and doesn't dare move.\n\nIn some areas, whole neighbourhoods have been obliterated by Russian firepower or seem to be under its sway.\n\nNow it's the second week. More than a million Ukrainians have fled. Many are staying to pick up guns to fight. \"We are the nation that broke the plans of the enemy in the first week,\" boasts President Zelensky in his latest video message, still dressed in olive-green.\n\nPresident Putin announces his \"special military operation is going according to plan\", vowing to \"destroy this anti-Russia created by the West\".\n\nLast night Kyiv was rocked by explosions, coming ever closer to city centre, which painted the sky orange. When the night curfew lifts, Liana and her mother Vera make a dash to the shops to check for supplies - including cat food - on fast-emptying shelves. Then she settles in to try to read the tome she packed for what could be a long and anxious haul. It's a Russian-language version of Homer's the Iliad, a rare book given two centuries ago to Russia's Catherine the Great, the empress known for bringing Russia into Europe's cultural and political life.", "More than a million people have fled Ukraine since the war started last week\n\nLabour are urging the government to introduce emergency protection visas for Ukrainians who want to reach the UK after fleeing from Russia's invasion.\n\nThe party says the visas would provide a \"quick, simple and safe\" route to the UK.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel will visit Poland later to launch a visa scheme allowing relatives of Britons and people settled in the UK to come over.\n\nBut Labour says her rhetoric on refugee help \"does not match the reality\".\n\nThe United Nations says more than a million people have fled Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attack last week.\n\nOn Tuesday, under pressure to do more for fleeing Ukrainians, the government relaxed family visa rules and promised to open a community sponsorship scheme.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK could take in 200,000 or more Ukrainians under these initiatives.\n\nThe changes came after criticism that the UK was doing less than EU members, which have agreed to let in Ukrainian refugees for up to three years without first having to seek asylum.\n\nThe UK's initial visa offer was restricted to immediate family but was widened to include parents, grandparents and siblings, with applications opening on Friday.\n\nUnder the separate sponsorship scheme, individuals and organisations will be able to bring Ukrainians to the UK for 12 months initially.\n\nOn Friday, Ms Patel will travel to Medyka in eastern Poland, where she will outline the UK's plan for helping Ukrainians displaced by the war.\n\nMore than 624,500 people have fled Ukraine to Poland since the war began, the country's border guard agency said on Friday.\n\nPrior to the trip, Ms Patel said: \"The British government will do everything it can to support the Ukrainian people at this critical moment as they fight for freedom.\n\nShe said the family visa scheme would enable Ukrainians with relatives in the UK \"to be welcomed safely, quickly and free of charge\".\n\n\"The United Kingdom stands to shoulder with Ukrainians, providing humanitarian practical support,\" she added.\n\nBut Labour says \"many relatives of UK residents still do not qualify under the family visa, the community sponsorship programme will take time to set up, and there is still no provision for people in Britain to help Ukrainian friends\".\n\nEmergency protection visas would lift normal visa conditions other than security checks, which can be swiftly done en route, and go \"beyond the current family provisions\", the party says.\n\nOn the sponsorship scheme, Labour urged the government to set up an emergency taskforce to accelerate its rollout.\n\nLabour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said families fleeing conflict in Ukraine \"need urgent help right now to reach safety and get support\".\n\n\"Most want to stay close to home, especially those who have had to leave relatives behind, but the UK must play its part to help people seeking support and safety in our country too,\" Ms Cooper said.\n\nOn top of helping refugees, the government has also been stepping up sanctions against Russia as part of western efforts related to the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nOn Thursday, the Liberal Democrats suggested the government should seize properties owned by oligarchs close to President Putin and use them to house Ukrainian refugees.\n\nWhen asked about the proposal on LBC Radio on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab replied: \"Yes, absolutely.\n\n\"We are looking at everything in the round, it is a team effort across government, from the foreign and defence secretary through to Michael Gove and, of course, the prime minister is driving this very hard.\"", "One of Russia’s last independent news outlets TV Rain has stopped broadcasting indefinitely after coming under pressure for its coverage of Ukraine.\n\nThe channel, also know as Dozhd, ended its final broadcast by showing staff walking off set on Thursday.\n\nRussia's telecommunications regulator accused the channel of \"inciting extremism, abusing Russian citizens, causing mass disruption of public calm and safety, and encouraging protests\".", "Alisher Usmanov (right) with President Putin at the Kremlin in November 2018\n\nThe UK has announced sanctions on two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Usmanov's company USM previously had sponsorship ties with Arsenal and - until this week - Everton.\n\nMr Shuvalov was formerly Russian President Vladimir Putin's deputy prime minister and is currently chairman of the management board of a Russian bank.\n\nThe BBC has contacted the two men for their response.\n\nUnder the UK government's new restrictions, their assets will be frozen and they will be banned from travelling to the UK.\n\nBritish citizens and businesses will not be allowed to deal with them.\n\nBoris Johnson said: \"For as long as Putin continues his barbaric attack on innocent Ukrainians we will continue to exert every power we have to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his war machine.\"\n\nAnd his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We won't stop here - our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin's war machine.\"\n\nThe government said the two men had \"significant interests in the UK and close links to the Kremlin\".\n\nMr Usmanov founded USM Holding company, an investment group that owns iron, steel and copper suppliers and the Megafon telecommunications company.\n\nThe company, in which Mr Usmanov holds a 49% stake, sponsored Everton's training ground and had a naming-rights option for Everton's new stadium, due to open in 2024.\n\nHowever, on Wednesday, Everton suspended the company's sponsorship arrangements, saying the club was \"shocked and saddened by the appalling events unfolding in Ukraine\".\n\nMr Usmanov's business partner Farhad Moshiri - the owner and main investor at Everton - has since stepped down from his role as chairman of USM and announced that he had severed all business links with the Russian.\n\nAs part of the deal, the Megafon branding was added to two of the towers of the stadium, one of which can be seen here\n\nThe Megafon branding was quickly removed from the stadium in the run-up to Thursday's televised FA Cup match\n\nAt the club's FA cup match against Boreham Wood on Thursday evening, Everton's players walked out draped in Ukrainian flags, behind 22-year-old Ukrainian defender Vitaliy Mykolenko who has been made captain on just his fourth appearance for his new club.\n\nMr Usmanov's previous ties with Arsenal ended in 2018 when he sold his 30% stake. At the time he was the second largest shareholder in the north London club.\n\nIn addition to connections with Premier League clubs, the government said Mr Usmanov owned Beechwood House in Highgate, worth an estimated £48m, and the 16th century Sutton Place estate in Surrey.\n\nMr Shuvalov is less well-known in the UK but the Foreign Office said he owned \"two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11m\".\n\nThe Foreign Office also said it had established an Oligarch Taskforce to co-ordinate work to sanction further oligarchs.\n\nEarlier this week, the EU froze the assets of the Mr Usmanov, saying he was \"a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin\".\n\nAt the time, Mr Usmanov issued a statement calling the EU's decision \"unfair\" and adding that he would \"use all legal means to protect my honour and reputation\".\n\nMr Shuvalov, the other man to be sanctioned, has worked in the Russian government as first deputy minister and government chief of staff, as well as acting as an aide to President Putin.\n\nIgor Shuvalov, seen here with President Putin, is one of 13 oligarchs to be sanctioned by the UK since the invasion of Ukraine\n\nSince 2018 he has been the chairman of the management board of VEB, one of the Russian banks recently sanctioned by the government.\n\nOn Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had urged the prime minister to take action against Mr Shuvalov and accused the prime minister of being slow to target other individuals connected with the Putin government.\n\nGovernment sources have told the BBC it could take weeks to put together sanctions against such people.\n\nLabour, and some senior Conservative figures have said the UK should seize oligarchs' UK assets.\n\nConservative MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: \"We should be looking immediately to seize those assets linked to those who are profiting from Putin's war machine, holding it in trust and returning it to the Russian people as soon as possible.\"\n\nElsewhere, the US has announced fresh sanctions on Russian oligarchs including Mr Usmanov, Mr Shuvalov and Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nAuthorities in France and Germany have seized yachts owned by Mr Usmanov.\n\nMeanwhile, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab says the government will look at ways to stop lawsuits being used by wealthy individuals to intimidate journalists and organisations covering their wealth and financial interests.\n\nThe government is expected to set out a number of options to alter the system, including procedural changes in courts and potential legislation.\n\nMr Raab told the Telegraph: \"We will not have people close to Putin coming here to try and bankrupt people who shine a light on his excesses.\"", "The Scottish government has tabled legislation at Holyrood to make it easier for people to change their legally recognised gender.\n\nMinisters say the current process takes too long and is too invasive, causing distress to a vulnerable minority.\n\nHowever campaigners have raised concerns about the changes potentially having an impact on women's rights.\n\nSocial Justice Secretary Shona Robison insisted the plans would not create new rights or change those women have now.\n\nAnd with four out of the five parties at Holyrood backing reform in their election manifestos last year, the changes are likely to be approved by parliament in some form.\n\nThe Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would make changes to the process by which people can obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) - the legal recognition of a trans person's \"acquired\" gender.\n\nAt present, people apply to a UK gender recognition panel and must provide a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria - a mismatch between the biological sex they were born with and the way they see and describe their gender - as well as evidence they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years.\n\nThe Scottish government wants to change this so that applications are handled by the Registrar General for Scotland, with no need for medical reports and the waiting time reduced to a total of six months.\n\nThe age at which people can apply would be reduced from 18 to 16.\n\nHowever, applicants would still need to swear that they intend to remain in their acquired gender for life, with a false declaration to be a criminal offence.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. What reforms are being proposed and why have they proved so controversial?\n\nSome groups have voiced concerns that the proposals could erode women's sex-based rights, and access to women-only spaces and services including hospital wards and refuges.\n\nAnd the Equality and Human Rights Commission has urged the government to pause the reforms for more detailed consideration, saying the current GRC system \"provides the correct balanced legal framework that protects everyone\".\n\nBut Ms Robison told MSPs that \"trans people in Scotland risk inequality, harassment and abuse simply for living their lives - they are amongst the most marginalised in our society\".\n\nShe said the existing gender recognition system was \"intrusive and invasive, overly complex and demeaning\", saying that many trans people did not even apply due to this.\n\nAnd she stressed that the new bill \"does not introduce new rights or remove rights\", or change public policy on single-sex services or access to toilets and changing rooms.\n\nShe said: \"We are not introducing new rights for trans people, and importantly we are not removing or changing any for women and girls.\"\n\nOpponents of the reforms have protested outside the Scottish parliament\n\nHaving been repeatedly delayed in previous years, the legislation now looks set to pass with the SNP-Green government holding a majority of seats at Holyrood.\n\nAnd while some SNP politicians have previously questioned the plans, Labour and the Lib Dems are also in favour of a more streamlined system.\n\nBoth parties back removing the need for medical reports from the process, and say the plans should go further by also recognising non-binary people who identify as neither men nor women.\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives are the only party which did not specifically support reform in their 2021 election manifesto, and have called for women's rights to be \"paramount\" in the debate over gender reform.\n\nMSP Meghan Gallacher said improvements to the system \"would be beneficial for trans people\", but said the proposals as drafted \"do not protect women's rights\".\n\nShe said: \"They do not offer enough protection for women's safety. The concerns of women are legitimate. They are reasonable, they are honestly and sincerely held. The cabinet secretary should listen again to the valid concerns of women who feel their rights are under threat.\"\n\nMs Robison said MSPs should look at the evidence from countries which have passed similar reforms, saying that \"all of the evidence shows that the threat to women's and girls safety comes from predatory and abusive men, not the trans community\".\n\nThe legislation will first go to Holyrood's equalities committee for consideration - a process which may take several months before any votes are held in the chamber.\n\nBoth Ms Robison and Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone urged MSPs to be respectful in the debate of the bill.\n\nThis was echoed by Labour's Pam Duncan-Glancy, who said the discussion around trans rights had become \"toxic for everyone involved\".\n\nShe said more should be done to prevent \"hateful and abusive rhetoric\" from dominating.", "Russian missile attacks have devastated cities, towns and villages across Ukraine. These before and after images show some of the destruction caused to civilian areas since the Russian invasion last week.\n\nWhile Russian forces remain some distance from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, there have been a number of deadly aerial attacks on the city.\n\nThe apartment block below was hit by a Russian missile in the early hours of last Saturday.\n\nThe small city of Irpin sits just 20km (12 miles) northwest of Kyiv and has found itself on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces over the past week.\n\nArtillery and air strikes have caused severe damage in the area, with one attack leaving the residential area pictured below almost completely destroyed.\n\nKharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been the focus of intense aerial bombardments by the Russians for several days now and the centre of the city has been badly damaged.\n\nUkrainian officials said residential and other areas in the city had been \"pounded all night\" on Wednesday by indiscriminate shelling, which United Nations prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.\n\nIn Borodyanka, a town 60km (40 miles) northwest of Kyiv, Russian airstrikes have destroyed several residential buildings.\n\nDrone footage from Thursday shows the extent of the destruction, with the remains of buildings still burning and vehicles strewn across the streets.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Drone footage shows damaged buildings on the streets of Borodyanka\n\nChernihiv, a city 120km (75 miles) to the northeast of Kyiv, has also faced heavy shelling in recent days by Russian forces invading from the north.\n\nOfficials said more than 30 people were killed on Thursday by attacks on residential areas in the city, including schools and a high-rise apartment building.\n\nSatellite images of the nearby village of Rivnopillya, which sits just to the north of Chernihiv, show craters in the ground and smoke billowing from burning homes following missile attacks by Russian forces.", "Facebook has hit out at a ban on its platforms introduced in Russia on Friday amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.\n\nRussia's communications regulator said the ban was a response to restrictions placed on its media there.\n\nIt said there had been 26 cases of \"discrimination\" against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020.\n\nThere were also reports that the use of Twitter had been restricted by the Russian regulator, Roskomnadzor, on Friday evening.\n\nFacebook's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said that \"soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information\".\n\nFacebook had previously been limited in the country, along with platforms including Twitter.\n\nAlthough its use was restricted, Facebook had not been blocked entirely in the country.\n\nOn Friday Russian media quoted the regulator as saying that Twitter had been restricted following a request by the prosecutor general from 24 February, the day of the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTwitter did not immediately respond to the BBC's request for comment on the reports.\n\nMeta, the company that owns Facebook, said last week though that it had restricted Russian-backed outlets across the European Union and was globally demoting content from state-affiliated media.\n\nIt had also refused to stop fact-checking several Russian state media outlets, including RT and Sputnik.\n\nRussia's media regulator said in a statement: \"Since October 2020, 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook have been recorded.\"\n\nThe statement says the block on Facebook platforms has been introduced \"to prevent violations of the key principles of the free flow of information\".\n\nIn response Meta said: \"We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nick Clegg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe White House said it was \"deeply concerned\" by Russia's decision to block the US company, and said the move was part of a broader effort to \"choke off information\".\n\n\"This is part of their effort ... to cut off a range of information from their public,\" White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said, adding that the US was also \"concerned about the threat on freedom of speech in the country\".\n\nThe ban comes after Russia's Parliament passed a new law this week imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally \"fake\" news about the military.\n\nThe BBC also said it would temporarily suspend the work of all its journalists and support staff in Russia following the introduction of the law.\n\nOther technology and social media giants have faced pressure to respond to the crisis in Ukraine from investors and their users.\n\nApple, for example, has halted all product sales in Russia, and limited other services such as Apple Pay and Apple Maps. Its retail stores in the country have closed as well.", "Kyrell Matthews died after being found in cardiac arrest\n\nA mother and her now ex-partner have been found guilty of killing her son after weeks of violent abuse.\n\nKyrell Matthews, aged two, was found in cardiac arrest at a home in Thornton Heath, south London, in October 2019.\n\nHe had 41 rib fractures when he died, which his mother Phylesia Shirley, 24, said were caused when she gave him CPR.\n\nFollowing a trial at the Old Bailey, Shirley was convicted of manslaughter and Kemar Brown was found guilty of murder.\n\nSentencing has been adjourned to 25 March.\n\nAddressing Shirley, Mr Justice Lucraft QC said the court had had to listen to recordings she made of the abuse meted out to a \"defenceless\" young boy.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Kyrell Matthews: Mum tells NHS 111 service her son had \"gone floppy\"\n\n\"You should feel utterly ashamed by what you have done,\" he told her.\n\nJurors heard harrowing audio recordings, covertly made by Shirley to see if Brown was cheating on her, which captured the violence.\n\nDuring the trial, the prosecution told jurors Kyrell had suffered the injuries in at least five incidents in the four weeks before his death.\n\nThe court heard Shirley had called NHS 111 after Kyrell became \"floppy\" at her flat on 20 October 2019.\n\nShe performed two-handed CPR for several minutes after phoning the non-emergency helpline.\n\nPhylesia Shirley and Kemar Brown will be sentenced on 25 March\n\nMr Brown's defence claimed the injuries were the result of incorrect advice to Shirley about how to resuscitate the little boy.\n\nAt the time of his death, Kyrell, who was non-verbal, also had internal bleeding and a 1.6in (4cm) cut to his liver.\n\nIn the audio files recorded by his mother, Kyrell could be heard being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying \"shut up\", causing the toddler to cry and scream.\n\nOn one occasion, Brown inflicted several blows on the little boy before telling him: \"You have to ruin the fun.\"\n\nAnother recording captured Shirley striking her son and causing him to cry in distress.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe trial heard that a passer-by had alerted officers on 17 July 2019 after hearing shouting and screaming coming from their flat, with a female voice saying: \"Stop hitting my face.\"\n\nIt followed an incident in May 2019, when Kyrell suffered a significant injury to the side of his face and spent five days in Croydon University Hospital.\n\nThe hospital carried out an investigation and found Shirley's explanation that the little boy had fallen off a sofa and hit his head on a highchair to be \"plausible\".\n\nIt can now be reported that Brown has convictions for robbery, battery, having a knife, drugs and resisting a police officer, as well as being subject to a non-molestation order relating to a former partner.\n\nProsecutor Edward Brown QC told jurors that Shirley had put her relationship with Brown above the needs of her own child.\n\nHe said: \"The truth is that his death came when once more he was abused in that flat, once more in a very similar way, causing very similar injuries, except on this occasion it was so much more serious, the abuse and the results were catastrophic.\"\n\nShirley and Brown both declined to give evidence in their defence.\n\nDet Ch Insp Kate Kieran said the audio recordings were \"harrowing\" and had affected her whole team.\n\n\"We all choose to become part of the murder investigation team but I've never, ever uncovered evidence like this in one of these cases,\" she said.\n\nSenior Crown Prosecutor Samantha Yelland said: \"It's been a horrific case for us all to work on.\n\n\"The two people who were supposed to look after him the most were those that caused injury, and in the end his death.\"\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Vitalii Tatarynov is hoping to bring his mother and sister back to the UK\n\nVitalii Tatarynov took a train from London's King's Cross at the weekend. He was embarking on a rescue mission.\n\nHis sister, Anna, and mother, Viktoria, had just spent 36 hours on a treacherous journey from the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih - and he met them in Poland, hoping to bring them back to the UK.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel went to Poland early on Friday to announce that British nationals and anyone who has settled in the UK can bring immediate family, parents, grandparents and siblings to safety.\n\nMs Patel announced that visas for family members will last three years - up from the initial plan of 12 months - adding the UK was \"standing in solidarity\" with Ukrainian refugees.\n\nBut the scheme she has launched does not help Vitalii, 33, because the 18 months he has spent living and working in London isn't long enough to count as 'settled' status.\n\nUkrainians with family in the UK have told the BBC the government should make more effort to provide refuge for those fleeing the country.\n\nDetails of a sponsorship scheme that may help have yet to be announced, but Labour is calling for emergency visas to allow any Ukrainian, who passes the necessary security checks, to come to the UK for up to a year.\n\nAnna and Viktoria travelled through military checkpoints and huge, snaking traffic jams to cross the border\n\n\"There are requirements from the government that I need to have the 'settled' status to be allowed to bring my family to the UK so I can take care of them,\" Vitalii tells the BBC, over a video call.\n\n\"It would be really nice if they can live next to me and I can help them on an everyday basis, rather than sitting and wondering if they are OK.\"\n\nThe Russian invasion of Ukraine means that Vitalii's sister Anna, 18, cannot finish high school. Instead of searching for a place at university, as she had hoped, she is a refugee.\n\n\"It would be great to come to the UK, because this country has many more possibilities to have a better life,\" she says.\n\nOn her trip to the Polish border town of Medyka, the home secretary told reporters that Ukrainians seeking safety in Poland were fleeing \"the most atrocious set of circumstances where they are being persecuted by President Putin\".\n\nAsked by the BBC whether she would widen rules to allow more family members to come to the UK, she said: \"We have today launched our extended family route, which will cover the individuals that you're speaking about. They can come to the United Kingdom, there are no barriers to them coming to the United Kingdom.\"\n\nUnder the scheme, the Home Office says normal requirements for salary or language tests are being waived, but essential security checks will still take place.\n\nBut Vitalii is not the only person who is concerned about family not being allowed into the UK.\n\nIryna and Tania Shevereva had to flee bombing in Kyiv\n\nTania Shevereva, 30, and her mother Iryna sought refuge in the mountains when bombing began in Kyiv. They travelled for 28 hours through Slovakia to reach Prague in the Czech Republic.\n\nIryna has been with her British partner Jock Mendoza-Wilson long enough to qualify under the government's scheme.\n\nBut Tania does not think she will be able to join Iryna in the UK under the new scheme.\n\n\"Of course I want to be close to my mum. She has a problem with her heart and she is crying all the time, so I am worried about her,\" says Tania, an art director from Kyiv.\n\n\"When you are close, you can check and you can make her comfortable. But if she is far away, I will worry much more.\"\n\nAs for so many, it is still sinking in how quickly their fortunes have turned around.\n\n\"I still can't believe that I am a refugee because I have a very good education. I had a very prestigious job in Kyiv. I won international awards,\" she says.\n\n\"It is so hard to believe that now you are a refugee. You don't have clothes, you don't have anything.\"\n\nThe mother and daughter say they cannot believe how their fortunes have changed\n\nTania took photos of their escape from Ukraine\n\nThere may be more help on the way.\n\nThe government has said it will launch a new sponsorship scheme, which would match individuals and organisations with those who do not have family ties to the UK, allowing Ukrainians to come for an initial 12 months with the ability to work and access public services.\n\nBut details about the scheme have yet to be released.\n\nMeanwhile, the Labour Party has called on the government to introduce emergency visas that go \"beyond the current family provisions\" and allow Ukrainians to come to the UK for up to a year.\n\n\"We do not want to sit and just get money from the government,\" says Tania.\n\n\" We want to do something, to work, to have a normal life.\"", "A total of 12 candidates are standing in the by-election\n\nVoters in Birmingham's Erdington constituency in England have been casting their ballots for a new MP in a parliamentary by-election.\n\nThe vote follows the death of Labour's Jack Dromey in January, aged 73.\n\nHe had held the seat since 2010 and entered politics through the union movement, as a leading figure in the Transport and General Workers' Union.\n\nA total of 12 candidates are standing. The result is due to be announced on Friday.\n\nPolling stations were open on Thursday from 07:00 to 22:00.\n\nListed alphabetically, the following 12 candidates are standing for election:", "The helipad was opened in 2015\n\nA woman in her 80s has died after an incident involving a helicopter that was landing at a hospital.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said two people were injured as a HM Coastguard helicopter was landing at Derriford Hospital's helipad in Plymouth earlier.\n\nOne person is being treated in hospital while the second person, a local woman in her 80s, has since died.\n\nThe Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the helicopter was flying a patient to hospital at the time of the incident.\n\nThe Air Accidents Investigation Branch said it was aware of the incident and had deployed a team to investigate.\n\nAn initial investigation is being conducted by Devon and Cornwall Police assisted by a number of partner agencies.\n\nThe force said it was \"believed that two members of the public were injured as a HM Coastguard helicopter was landing at the helipad at Derriford\".\n\nPolice said the family of the woman who died had been contacted.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said: \"Our deepest sympathies go out to those affected by the incident at Derriford Hospital.\n\n\"It would be inappropriate to comment while the incident is investigated by Devon and Cornwall Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a HM Coastguard helicopter was flying a patient to Derriford Hospital and \"as it landed, there was an incident which is now being investigated by the police and Air Accidents Investigation Branch\".\n\n\"Our thoughts are with all those affected by today's incident,\" she added.\n\nDerriford Hospital opened the helipad in 2015 to accommodate larger helicopters.\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nMarsh was taken ill last Thursday while travelling to a charity cricket match in Queensland.\n\nHe effected 355 dismissals - a world record at the time of his retirement - in 96 Test appearances for Australia from 1970 to 1984.\n\nHe also played 92 one-day internationals and served as Australia men's chairman of selectors until 2016.\n\nMarsh is third on Australia's all-time dismissals list behind Adam Gilchrist with 416 and Ian Healy's 395.\n\nAustralia Test great Mark Waugh described Marsh as \"an absolute icon\" of the sport.\n\nWaugh continued: \"I had the pleasure of working with Rod for a number of years as a selector and you wouldn't meet a more honest, down to earth, kind-hearted person.\"\n\nFormer Australia one-day international David Hussey paid tribute on Twitter, writing: \"Rod will be missed.\n\n\"His saying, 'cricket is a simple game made complicated' still resonates with me.\"\n\nMarsh would go on to form a formidable partnership with fast bowler Dennis Lillee, with the pair combining for a record 95 Test dismissals.\n\nHowever, he had a difficult start to his Test career and was nicknamed 'Iron Gloves' during his first series against England in 1970-71 after dropping numerous catches.\n\nHe came close to a maiden century during that Ashes series, making an unbeaten 92 in Melbourne before captain Bill Lawry declared with Australia nine down.\n\nMarsh did not feel as though he had missed out on a century, saying that he thought Lawry should have declared much earlier.\n\nHe later became the first Australian wicketkeeper to score a Test century when he reached triple figures against England in the 1977 Centenary Test.\n\nOn the 1981 tour of England, Marsh became the first keeper to claim 100 dismissals in Ashes Tests.\n\nAfter retiring Marsh commentated on Australian television before taking on a coaching role at the Australian National Academy.\n\nHe later took on a similar role with the England and Wales Cricket Board and was a selector for the men's team from 2001 to 2005.\n\nMarsh served as the Australian chairman of selectors from 2014 to 2016, stepping down after Australia were hammered at home by South Africa.\n\n'I thought he was invincible' - cricket pays tribute to Marsh\n\nAustralia Test captain Pat Cummins said Marsh's death had left a \"massive void\" in Australian cricket.\n\n\"I, along with countless other people in Australia, grew up hearing the stories of him as a fearless and tough cricketer,\" Cummins said.\n\n\"His swashbuckling batting and his brilliance behind the stumps over more than a decade made him one of the all-time greats of our sport, not just in Australia, but globally.\"\n\nFormer Australia captain Greg Chappell, who played alongside Marsh, described him as \"the spiritual leader of the group\", while Ian Chappell said \"anybody that met him enjoyed his company\".\n\nFormer Australia keeper Gilchrist said he was \"stunned,\" adding: \"I thought he was invincible. He was my absolute idol and hero and inspiration as to why I pursued what I did. The impact he had on my life is profound.\"\n\nEx-Australia all-rounder Shane Watson also paid tribute, stating he \"wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for Rod and his amazing skill to know how to get the best out of every young cricketer\".\n\nEx-England bowler Chris Tremlett described Marsh as \"a great man who helped guide me and many others on the right path in my younger years and taught me what it takes to play international cricket\".\n\nAustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is a keen cricket fan, wrote on Twitter that Marsh would be remembered as \"one of Australia's greatest ever Test cricket players\".\n\n\"As a kid he was my favourite player. He was a fierce competitor and a fine sportsman who valued what the game stood for,\" Morrison added.\n\n\"Rod Marsh was a proud Western Australian and an absolute Aussie legend.\"", "A jump in the price of gas amid the Ukraine conflict has added to worries that annual UK household energy bills could reach £3,000.\n\nThe cost of gas in Europe and the UK has hit record levels as fears persist that Russian supplies could be reduced.\n\nHigher costs for aluminium and copper also means UK shoppers are likely to face further price rises, the head of the London Metal Exchange has said.\n\nEconomists have warned inflation, which tracks the cost of living, may hit 10%.\n\nWholesale markets are where UK energy suppliers buy their gas to sell on to consumers. On Friday, wholesale gas prices for delivery to UK supplier jumped to 508p per therm. If prices remain high for long periods it will push up household bills, adding to cost of living pressures.\n\nOver the past few days, gas prices have been extremely volatile, but the trend has been upwards.\n\nOn Thursday, an industry body warned that UK household energy bills could reach as high as £3,000 a year.\n\nIn addition, the recent surge in the cost of metals is also likely to push up the prices of some goods. Copper prices are at five-year highs, and other commodities have jumped in price since the Ukraine conflict began.\n\nMatthew Chamberlain, who leads the London Metal Exchange, told the BBC's Today programme that prices for canned goods and copper wiring may rise.\n\n\"We've seen aluminium and nickel up 30% since the beginning of the year, and that will ultimately be passed on to consumers when you buy your drinks can made of aluminium, or when you make renovations to your house and you need copper for your wiring, all of those prices do go into the overall inflationary pressure.\"\n\nPanmure Gordon economist Simon French told the BBC that the UK's inflation rate could now hit 10%.\n\nSarah Hewin, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank, agreed, warning that with rising gas prices feeding into higher energy bills, and increasing petrol and food prices, it was \"entirely feasible\" that inflation could move beyond the 7.5% rate that the Bank of England has predicted for April.\n\n\"Russia and Ukraine are important grain producers so we're likely to food prices rising here in the UK as well,\" she said.\n\n\"Overall, food, energy and transport account for around 25% of consumer prices. It's possible, if the crisis continues in the coming weeks, and even months, that inflation could move up to double digits in the UK\".\n\nUK petrol prices have hit another record, with the average price of a litre of petrol reaching £1.53 a litre, while diesel reached £1.57 a litre.\n\nThis week, the price of Brent crude - the global oil benchmark - surged to more than $119 a barrel at one point, the highest since May 2012. On Friday, it was trading at around $114 a barrel.\n\nStock markets across Europe tumbled on Friday following sharp falls in Asia after a fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the largest in Europe.\n\nLondon's FTSE 100 closed 3.5% down while France's CAC-40 index dropped 5% and Germany's Dax also fell 4.4%.\n\nReflecting the sharp rise in commodity prices, Anglo-Russian gold producer Polymetal saw its share price in London jump by more than 25%. Evraz, the Russian steel-maker which counts oligarch Roman Abramovich as a major shareholder, also saw its share price jump by 23%.\n\nThe fire at the Ukraine nuclear power plant happened after Russia troops shelled the site. Some investor concerns were eased after officials said the plant's safety was \"secured\".\n\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later said that it had spoken to Ukraine's leadership and had been told important equipment at the plant was still working.\n\nThe shelling has drawn international condemnation, with the US President Joe Biden joining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in urging Russia to cease the shelling and allow firefighters to access the site.\n\nIn recent days, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sent shockwaves through the global financial and energy markets, as investors try to understand the implications of sanctions and supply chain disruptions.\n\nThe price of gold, which is regarded as a safer asset in times of uncertainty, has increased by 7.3% in a month to $1,938 per ounce.\n\nThe Russian rouble has hit a record low against the US dollar as countries around the world impose tough sanctions on the country.\n\nMeanwhile, more British executives are bowing to pressure to quit Russian companies.\n\nJames Rutherford on Thursday became the latest UK national to step down from a Russian company's board, resigning from the Roman Abramovich-backed steel firm Evraz.\n\nIt came after the business group the Institute of Directors called on Britons to resign from the boards of Russian companies, due to the invasion of Ukraine.", "The Ukrainian city of Mariupol has come under heavy shelling\n\nWhile Russian troops in the north and east of Ukraine have struggled to seize important targets, including the capital Kyiv, their advance into southern Ukraine appears to be more successful.\n\nRussia sees the south as vital to the success of its invasion, and has been laying siege to several southern cities and captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is Europe's largest.\n\nThe operation in the south was launched from Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 and is home to a sizeable Russian military presence.\n\nOn Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that Russia has a \"sophisticated and healthy architecture\" there.\n\nA look at the map below shows how crucial the peninsula is as a base to the assault on southern Ukraine.\n\nRussian troops are moving into Ukraine from Crimea, spreading east towards Mariupol and west towards Odesa, threatening to cut off Ukraine's maritime access which would inflict huge economic damage on the country.\n\n\"Strategically, there are major ports in that region that really allow Putin's forces to strangle any ability for Ukraine to be supplied via sea,\" Karl Qualls, professor of history and Russia specialist at Dickinson College, told the BBC.\n\nTo the east of Crimea, Russian forces are pushing to Mariupol, a city of 450,000 people, which is encircled and coming under heavy shelling. Water and power supplies have been cut off, and residents have told the BBC that they are terrified.\n\nIf Mariupol falls, it would give Russia control of one of Ukraine's biggest ports and create a land corridor between Crimea and the Russian-backed regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.\n\nConnecting Crimea with mainland Russia via the rebel-held areas would make it much easier for Russia to move goods and people to and from Crimea. Russia has wanted this since 2014, when the conflict in the east began.\n\nCurrently the peninsula is connected to the Russian mainland only via a single bridge, built at great expense after the Russian annexation.\n\nNorth-west of Mariupol, Russia has seized the Zaporizhzhia power plant. In normal times the plant produces around 20% of Ukraine's electricity, so by taking it Russia controls a significant portion of Ukraine's possible power supply.\n\nThe Russian military has also occupied the city of Kherson which is located where the Dnieper river meets the Black Sea, a important location for troops to move further into Ukraine.\n\n\"We're seeing them exploit the capture of Kherson,\" Dr Jack Watling from the Royal United Services Institute told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. \"They're now on the western side of the Dnieper and able to push both further up the river and towards Odesa.\"\n\nRussia says its forces have surrounded Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant\n\nIf Russia is able to move further west, to Odesa and beyond, it would not only cut off Ukraine's access to the sea but also surround the country on three sides.\n\n\"If they take Odesa, they have a key city to create a strategic arc around Ukraine. With Belarus in the north and Donbas to the east, they've all but encircled the country,\" Catherine Wanner, professor of history and Russia and Ukraine expert at Penn State University, told the BBC.\n\nThere is also a historical context to Russia's southern invasion. The region of Ukraine stretching from Odesa in the south to Luhansk in the east was taken by the Russian Empire in the 18th Century after a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire. It became known as Novorossiya, or New Russia.\n\nUnder the Soviet Union, most of Novorossiya was part of the the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic which later turned into modern-day Ukraine.\n\nIn 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that although Russia lost the territory of Novorossiya for various reasons, its people remained there.\n\n\"The mythology that Putin promotes is that these are Russian lands,\" said Professor Qualls. \"It was part of the Russian empire but it wasn't Russians who lived there. There were far more Romanians than there were Russians, and Ukrainians were dominant.\"\n\nIn 2014, separatist militants in Donetsk sported the tsarist-era \"Novorossiya\" flag\n\nNevertheless, the idea took hold, and for a brief period in 2014 the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk wanted to recreate Novorossiya, even sporting its tsarist-era red and blue flag.\n\nRussia's historic claim to Ukrainian land has been a frequent theme for President Putin in the run up to the invasion, but Professor Wanner says it should not be taken seriously.\n\n\"Mr Putin has shown himself unashamed in terms of fashioning highly creative historical interpretations to invade and annex territory - Novorossiya is a flimsy justification\", she told the BBC.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Do Russia's attacks on Ukraine amount to war crimes? Ros Atkins investigates", "Graham Bonham-Carter is said to be linked to Oleg Deripaska through five properties, according to the NCA\n\nA judge has frozen UK bank accounts operated by a British businessman amid allegations they are linked to one of Russia's most controversial oligarchs.\n\nAccounts linked to Graham Bonham-Carter, second cousin of actress Helena, and part of the extended famous family, were put on hold on Friday.\n\nNational Crime Agency investigators believe the accounts were being used to help Oleg Deripaska avoid sanctions.\n\nIt is alleged Mr Bonham-Carter manages property on behalf of the oligarch.\n\nGranting the order, Westminster Magistrates Court has given the National Crime Agency six months to investigate the accounts, in one of the first public court moves against an oligarch since the Ukraine crisis began.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter's lawyers have been contacted for comment. There is no suggestion anyone else in the Bonham-Carter family is being investigated by the NCA.\n\nOleg Deripaska is one of the richest men associated with President Putin - having made billions from his stake in Russia's aluminium industries.\n\nHe's been subjected to US sanctions since 2018 - but is not under any sanctions in the UK.\n\nHe first became widely known in the UK in 2008, when it emerged he had been involved in talks over a donation to the Conservative Party via George Osborne. The donation was never made - but the story triggered a huge row at the time about links between British politicians and Russia's elites.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter is described, on his Linkedin profile, as the director of a company that runs private homes and estates.\n\nAndrew Chadwick, a National Crime Agency investigator, told Westminster Magistrates Court that it wanted to freeze five bank accounts associated with Mr Bonham-Carter, of Surrey, to allow Mr Chadwick to investigate suspected links to Oleg Deripaska.\n\n\"The application is in respect of account-freezing orders for several bank accounts, held by Graham Bonham-Carter, of Surrey,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\n\"My investigation is that he is heavily linked with a well-known Russian oligarch, who is linked to various crimes and criminality and is currently subject to sanctions in the United States.\n\n\"My submission is that funds in accounts held by Mr Bonham-Carter may be for the use of, or from, criminal activity.\"\n\n\"Oleg Deripaska is a Russian national subject to sanctions since 2019,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\nThe officer told the court the US Treasury alleges Mr Deripaska has been involved in money laundering, threatening rivals, wiretapping a government official, extortion, racketeering, ordering a murder and having links to Russian organised crime. Mr Deripaska has called the US allegations and sanctions absurd.\n\nThe court heard that Mr Bonham-Carter had no criminal record and was not under investigation for taking part in organised crime.\n\nHe was said to be linked to Mr Deripaska through five properties - two in the United States and three in the UK, all of which are suspected to be ultimately held for the oligarch's benefit.\n\nIn London, Mr Chadwick said two properties, worth a combined £50m, were owned by a company based in the British Virgin Islands. That company benefited Mr Deripaska and the 'care-of' mailing address had been to Mr Bonham-Carter.\n\nHamstone House, near Weybridge in Surrey, is on the market for £18m\n\nThe third UK property is Hamstone House, a mansion near Weybridge, Surrey, currently on the market for £18m.\n\nMr Chadwick said that it was owned by Edenfield Investments and, according to public research, Mr Bonham-Carter's name had appeared on Land Registry documentation for the property when it was purchased. One of the aforementioned London properties had also been the forwarding address for mail to Hamstone House.\n\nThe two US properties, in New York and Washington, are owned by a company headed by Mr Bonham-Carter.\n\n\"Based on that information [about Mr Deripaska's apparent property] I have reasonable grounds to suspect that the accounts are being held for unlawful conduct,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\n\"The suspicion is that property held in the name of Mr Bonham-Carter, or companies that he is linked to, in fact belongs to Mr Deripaska - and the reason for the structure is to mask the true ultimate beneficial owner and to evade the sanctions.\"\n\nDistrict Judge Tan Ikran approved the National Crime Agency's freezing order for the next six months - allowing the agency time to investigate.\n\nThe accounts hold just over £100,000, but the NCA has established that nearly £800,000 has additionally flowed through them since November 2020.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter will have the chance to make representations to the court at a date to be fixed.", "The BBC is temporarily suspending its journalists' work in Russia, in response to a new law which threatens to jail anyone Russia deems to have spread \"fake\" news on the armed forces.\n\nBBC Director-General Tim Davie said the legislation \"appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism\".\n\nThe Kremlin objects to the conflict being called a war, instead calling it a \"special military operation\".\n\nBBC News in Russian will still be produced from outside the country.\n\nAccess to BBC websites had already been restricted in Russia. News outlets Deutsche Welle, Meduza and Radio Liberty also had their services limited, Russia's state-owned news agency RIA said.\n\nLater on Friday, Canada's public broadcaster and Bloomberg News said they too had temporarily halted reporting from Russia, and news channel CNN said it would stop broadcasting in the country.\n\nAnd on Saturday, German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF announced they were stopping their reporting from Russia - as did Italy's Rai\n\nResponding to the legislation passed by the Russian authorities, BBC Director-General Tim Davie said: \"It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.\n\n\"Our BBC News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.\n\n\"The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs. I'd like to pay tribute to all of them, for their bravery, determination and professionalism.\n\n\"We remain committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services. Our journalists in Ukraine and around the world will continue to report on the invasion of Ukraine.\"\n\nRecord numbers of people have read the BBC's Russian language news website since the invasion, seeking up-to-date information on the conflict.\n\nThe announcements from global media outlets come a day after one of Russia's last independent news outlets, TV Rain, stopped broadcasting after coming under pressure for its coverage of the invasion.\n\nThe channel ended its final broadcast by showing staff walking off set.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Staff from TV Rain walk off set after final broadcast\n\nRussia's telecommunications regulator had accused the channel of \"inciting extremism, abusing Russian citizens, causing mass disruption of public calm and safety, and encouraging protests\".\n\n\"No to war,\" said Natalia Sindeyeva, one of the channel's founders, as employees walked out of the studio.\n\nThe channel then began playing footage of a performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.\n\nThe ballet was used in Soviet-era broadcasts to mark the death of leaders, and was also played during the 1991 coup that contributed to the end of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe station's editor in chief, Tikhon Dzyadko, left Russia on Wednesday, saying it was due to concerns for his safety.\n\n\"The main problem is that we were covering Ukraine objectively, as professional journalists and covering from different sides. We had journalists going live and covering the situation,\" Ekaterina Kotrik, TV Rain presenter and former head of news, told the BBC.\n\nShe had to leave Russia due to the new law which could lead to prison terms of up to 15 years for people who intentionally spread what the Kremlin terms \"fake\" information about Russia's armed forces.\n\n\"Fifteen years in jail for just doing your job,\" Ms Kotrik said. \"It's the end of democracy in Russia. Any freedom is lost.\"\n\nRadio station Echo of Moscow was taken off air on Tuesday. On Thursday it was shut entirely by its board of directors and on Friday it was reported by Russia's Interfax agency that the lease at its office had been terminated and its website disabled.\n\nEkaterina Schulman is a political scientist who was presenting a programme on the station when it was taken off air.\n\n\"People like me might find ourselves with nowhere to work. Very soon there won't be media outlets, or lecture halls or other platforms where we can talk to the public,\" she told the BBC.\n\nRussia's state-controlled TV has depicted the war in a very different way to broadcasts seen around the rest of the world.\n\n\"Every deviation from the official narrative about this war is now punishable with jail,\" Mikhail Fishman, an independent journalist and commentator who recently left Russia, told the BBC.\n\n\"Everyone I know in Russian independent journalism has already left Russia or is trying desperately to do so now.\"\n\nThe newspaper Novaya Gazeta said in a tweet on Friday (in Russian) that it was removing material on the conflict, because of the threat of prosecution to journalists and other citizens disseminating information which differed from Russian defence ministry press releases.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Новая Газета This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe newspaper is run by Dmitry Muratov. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, along with Maria Ressa of the Philippines, for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.\n\nThe crackdown on independent journalists comes as Russia's economy has been hit by sanctions. Its currency, the rouble, has plunged in value, hitting the savings of citizens.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of \"nuclear terror\" after it reportedly bombarded a large nuclear power station, causing a fire in a nearby building.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin has insisted the war in Ukraine is \"going to plan\".\n\nThe BBC has issued a statement on how to access its content via circumvention tools.\n\nBBC advice on how to access BBC sites using circumvention tools", "Last updated on .From the section Clyde\n\nClyde say they will terminate a loan deal for David Goodwillie after a furious reaction to re-signing the former Scotland striker.\n\nThe 32-year-old was judged in a civil court in 2017 to be a rapist.\n\nThe entire playing squad and general manager of Clyde's women's team had quit in protest at the move.\n\nAnd North Lanarkshire Council - who own the club's ground - threatened to end the lease agreement if Goodwillie entered Broadwood Stadium.\n\nLate on Thursday, the part-time Scottish League 1 outfit released a brief statement, saying: \"The club are tonight in the process of terminating the loan agreement with Raith Rovers for David Goodwillie.\"\n\nCapped three times for Scotland between 2010-11, the striker had spent five years at Clyde before a January move to full-time Raith Rovers was met with a backlash of protests as several high-profile sponsors and board members left the Kirkcaldy club.\n\nA return to Broadwood was agreed this week but that has now broken down.\n\n\"All of the players in the ladies team have discussed the situation with the general manager/secretary and are all in agreement that we no longer wish to play for Clyde FC,\" the women's team said in a statement.\n\n\"As a group of female footballers, all we wish to do is play the sport that we love but due to the current circumstances we are unable to do this.\"\n\nNorth Lanarkshire Council had written to Clyde stating that Goodwillie \"must not be permitted access to the stadium, for any purpose, with immediate effect\".\n\nThe local authority have cited a clause in the tenancy where a person can be denied entry \"on the grounds of undesirable behaviour\".\n\nIn a statement, they added: \"The council believes in rehabilitation... however, Mr Goodwillie has not expressed any contrition.\n\n\"We regret that this action is necessary. However, the council has a responsibility to the wider community to act, and to send a clear signal that abuse must not be tolerated.\"\n\nThe council also said they did not act in this manner during Goodwillie's first spell at Clyde because the stadium was not legally under their control at that time.", "John Stahl appearing at the Royal Court Theatre, London in 2016\n\nGame Of Thrones actor John Stahl has died at the age of 68, his agent has confirmed.\n\nThe Scottish actor played the role of Rickard Karstark in two series of the popular HBO fantasy show.\n\nHe was also well known for playing Inverdarroch in the long-running soap opera Take The High Road.\n\nA statement from his agent Amanda Fitzalan Howard described him as \"an actor of remarkable skill and a stalwart of Scottish theatre\".\n\nStahl, who was from Sauchie in Clackmannanshire, also appeared in numerous theatre productions during his career, including performances at The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre.\n\nScottish screenwriter Peter May also remembered the actor and recalled how he had recently attended his online wedding.\n\nHe said: \"Terribly sad to hear that my old friend, John Stahl, has passed. I wrote so many scenes for the character of Inverdarroch that he portrayed in Take The High Road.\n\n\"Only recently attended his online wedding. Saw him last in Adelaide, Australia, for a fun reunion. RIP John.\"\n\nWriter Ian Rankin, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels, said he had hoped to work with the actor again after he featured in his play Long Shadows, describing his portrayal as \"terrifying and charismatic\".\n\nScottish playwright and theatre director David Greig described him as a \"truly great actor\" and noted that the Scottish theatre world will miss him.\n\nHe added that he was a \"beloved company member\" in many Scottish shows, recalling his roles in The Winter's Tale, Gagarin Way and his own play The Architect.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by National Theatre of Scotland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by National Theatre of Scotland\n\nThe National Theatre of Scotland also paid tribute, saying they were \"deeply saddened\" to hear the news.\n\nThey shared a photo of the actor on Twitter and added: \"We were fortunate to work with John on Mary Stuart and The James Plays.\n\n\"His passing is a huge loss to the industry, and he will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his loved ones.\"\n\nMr Stahl died on the Isle of Lewis on 2 March and is survived by his wife, Jane Paton.", "Models walk the runway in a Chanel fashion show in Moscow in 2018\n\nFrench luxury giants have joined other firms in announcing they will suspend sales in Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.\n\nLVMH, Hermes, Kering and Chanel have decided to temporarily shut their shops in Russia, the firms said on Friday.\n\nIt follows calls from Ukrainian high-end stores to \"stand up\" following the invasion of the country.\n\nLuxury retailers have so far largely been left out of sanctions introduced by Western governments.\n\nBut many have found doing business and fulfilling orders in the region more difficult, after measures introduced by the UK, European Union and US.\n\nThe maker of pricey Birkin bags Hermes and the Swiss Cartier owner Richemont were among the first firms to announce that they would pause business in Russia.\n\nLVMH, which owns such brands as Christian Dior, Givenchy and Bulgari among others, will close its 124 boutiques in the country from Sunday.\n\nChanel, famous for its boucle jackets, said in a LinkedIn post: \"Given our increasing concerns about the current situation, the growing uncertainty and the complexity to operate, Chanel decided to temporarily pause its business in Russia.\"\n\nKering, which is home to Gucci and Saint Laurent, has two shops in Russia, along with 180 employees in the country.\n\nThe French firm said its decision was due to \"growing concerns regarding the current situation in Europe\".\n\nAn executive at a luxury Ukrainian department store told the BBC that high-end firms must \"choose humanity over monetary gain\".\n\nMarusya Koval, marketing director at Tsum Kyiv, pointed out that some firms have pledged aid, but have not commented on whether they will stop selling their products in Russia.\n\nMarusya Koval said fashion brands need to do more for Ukraine\n\nShe said brands publishing social media posts in support of Ukraine \"won't help us to stop the war\".\n\nFashion house Prada, for example, did not respond to requests for comment from BBC News on whether it would stop selling its products in Russia.\n\nIn an Instagram post earlier this week, it said the war in Ukraine was \"of great concern\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by prada This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCountless other firms have already announced plans to withdraw from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGiorgio Armani has not said if it plans to stop sales in Russia, but Mr Armani said he told his team to not play any music at its recent Paris fashion show to \"communicate that we are not celebrating here\".\n\nThe Tsum Kyiv department store, as with other retailers in the Ukrainian market, is shutting down as Russian troops advance on the capital.\n\nMs Koval said she wanted to see the fashion and luxury industry \"react immediately by imposing sanctions on Russian brands, stores and retailers\".\n\nJewels on display at a Bulgari exhibition at the Kremlin Museum in Moscow in 2018\n\nWhile affluent Russians are keen consumers of luxury goods, analysts say the proportion of luxury sales generated in Russia is small compared to the industry's key markets - China and the United States.\n\nAnalyst Luca Solca, of Bernstein Research, said luxury fashion in Russia makes up about 2% of global revenues for most companies.\n\nHe said firms \"must be considering their options\" but said it could be \"possible\" brands were trying to make the most of Russian spending before sanctions affect the sector.\n\n\"There's a huge devaluation of the rouble so one of the ways they try to cushion it would be to buy expensive jewellery products.\n\n\"It's not a bad overall assumption, it could be happening,\" he said.\n\nProf. Etel Solingen from the University of California's School of Social Sciences told BBC News that targeted sanctions on luxury goods might target those closely linked to the upper levels of power in Russia.\n\n\"Who can afford to buy luxury items in Russia?... It may be a small fraction of Russia's growing penalties for what it has unleashed on the Ukraine, but they target a constituency that is better positioned to express discontent,\" she said.\n\nShe described brands making supportive comments on social media while supplying luxury goods as \"hypocritical\".\n\nProf. Thomai Serdari from the Stern School of Business at NYU said that luxury brands were mainly \"in the business of selling their creations\", goods that many people \"covet\".\n\n\"In tense moments like the one we are living now, it is a very good idea to not aggravate the situation with an explicit statement that would offend anyone and that could perhaps provoke a worse reaction,\" she suggested.\n\nShe added that there was \"no question\", however, that Russia's isolation would hurt high-end brands who have a presence in the country or continue to sell their goods online there.", "The rocket booster can be seen tracking across the sky right-to-left\n\nA discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon's far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the impact at 12:25 GMT.\n\nThe three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years, but its origin was contested.\n\nAt first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, and then said it was Chinese - something China denies.\n\nThe effects of the impact on the Moon should have been minor.\n\nThe rocket stage would have dug out a small crater and created a plume of dust.\n\nScientists hope to get confirmation in the coming days, or weeks.\n\nThe rocket part was first sighted from Earth in March 2015. A Nasa-funded space survey in Arizona spotted it, but quickly lost interest when the object was shown not to be an asteroid.\n\nThe rocket part is what's known as \"space junk\" - hardware discarded from missions or satellites without enough fuel or energy to return to Earth.\n\nSome pieces are closer to us, just above the Earth, but others, like this booster, are thousands of kilometres away in high orbit, far from the Earth's atmosphere.\n\nThe European Space Agency estimates there are now 36,500 pieces of space junk larger than 10cm.\n\nNo space programme or university formally tracks deep space junk. Monitoring space is expensive and the risks to humans from high-orbit debris are low.\n\nSo, it falls to a tiny handful of volunteer astronomers who spend their free time making calculations and estimating orbits. They fire emails and alerts back and forth, asking whoever is in the best location on the planet to spot an object in space.\n\nSix weeks after the booster was first seen, Peter Birtwhistle, 63, was watching the skies for asteroids from his garden in Newbury, in the south of England.\n\nHis telescope picked up a tiny dot of light tracking across the sky. Calculations suggested it was part of a rocket, he told BBC News.\n\nSpace junk drops in and out of view, often unpredictably. For seven years, he barely saw the rocket part - until in January, it reappeared.\n\n\"I grabbed some images when it passed close to Earth,\" he explained.\n\nHe sent his pictures to astronomer and data scientist Bill Gray, on the east coast of the United States. He is the expert who went on to identify it as a SpaceX booster heading for the Moon.\n\nNews that a discarded part of one of billionaire Mr Musk's space missions was going to strike the Moon made global headlines.\n\nBut tracking space junk is often \"detective work,\" Mr Gray explains. The rocket insignia cannot be seen - astronomers have to piece together its identity by tracking its route backwards through space. They then match its orbit to dates and locations of rocket launches and trajectories.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The satellite RemoveDebris will use a net and a harpoon to clean up space junk\n\nBut some space missions, including China's, don't publicise their routes.\n\n\"For a Chinese mission, we know the launch date because they are televised. So I take a guess that it's going to get to the Moon - usually in four or five days. Then I compute an approximate orbit,\" Mr Gray explains.\n\nAnd sometimes he makes mistakes. Weeks after the SpaceX identification, another observer sent Mr Gray new data, revealing that his identification was impossible.\n\nHe ran the numbers again and concluded it was the third stage of a rocket from China's lunar mission Chang'e 5-T1, launched in October 2014.\n\nThe debris may have come from a rocket like this one built by SpaceX\n\nChina denied this, saying the upper-stage had re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.\n\nMr Gray is sticking to his prediction. He believes China has mixed up the tracking of two rocket parts. \"I'm 99.9% sure it's the China 5-T1,\" he says.\n\nIn reality, we will never be sure.\n\nProf Hugh Lewis, from University of Southampton, says the scientific value of tracking deep space junk is limited. But he says it's important to \"keep an eye on what's there\", especially as human settlement in space becomes more likely.\n\n\"It's the mess we've created. Objects that we think are safe can actually return to Earth unexpectedly,\" he says.\n\nWherever it came from, no-one will have witnessed the booster's last moments.\n\nEvidence of what happened won't come until two satellites that orbit the Moon pass over the projected impact site and photograph the resulting crater feature.\n\nAnd as the booster broke into thousands of pieces, much of the physical evidence of its true origins will be lost, too. The best we've got are the estimates made by Mr Gray and the volunteer astronomers watching the skies.", "The price of a first class stamp will rise by 10p to 95p as Royal Mail seeks to cover higher delivery costs while the number of letters being sent falls.\n\nSecond class stamps will also increase by 2p to 68p, with the new prices coming into effect on 4 April.\n\nRoyal Mail said it was having to deliver to a growing number of addresses, which was adding to costs.\n\nLetter volumes have fallen by more than 60% since their peak in 2004-05 and by about 20% since the pandemic began.\n\nPostmen and women deliver about seven billion letters in total each year, said Nick Landon, chief commercial officer at Royal Mail, but the number of addresses they have to deliver to has grown by around 3.5 million since 2004, when letter volumes were at about 20 billion a year on average.\n\n\"We need to carefully balance our pricing against declining letter volumes and increasing costs of delivering to a growing number of addresses six days a week,\" he said.\n\n\"As customer needs change and we see a greater shift from letters to parcels, it is vital that the universal service adapts to stay relevant and sustainable.\"\n\nThe increase in stamp prices comes as many households are being hit by rises in the cost of living, with energy bills, fuel prices and food costs all going up.\n\nMr Landon said Royal Mail understood that businesses and households were \"finding it hard in the current economic environment\", and said the company would \"always keep our prices as affordable as possible\".\n\nCoronavirus lockdowns led to a sharp reduction in letter volumes, and Royal Mail lost £180m in revenue in the first half of 2020.\n\nIn November 2020, the company said revenue from parcel deliveries had surpassed letters for the first time, fuelled by a surge in online shopping during the pandemic.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night.\"\n\nThat was the verdict of the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday, after Russia attacked and seized a nuclear power plant in Ukraine.\n\nBuildings at the Zaporizhzhia plant - the largest in Europe - were damaged after it was hit by shelling.\n\nThe UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says that none of the safety systems at the plant were affected, and there was no release of radioactive material.\n\nBut it is still a very risky situation.\n\n\"For the first time this morning, I'm frightened,\" Sheffield University nuclear materials expert Prof Claire Corkhill told BBC News.\n\nAs well as the Zaporizhzhia plant, Russia has taken control of the now-retired Chernobyl plant - the site of the worst nuclear incident in history.\n\nExperts have stressed that there are important differences between the two plants.\n\nThe Zaporizhzhia site is far more secure, according to Dr Mark Wenman of Imperial College London.\n\nHe says the reactor is in a steel-reinforced concrete building that can \"withstand extreme external events, both natural and man-made, such as an aircraft crash or explosions\".\n\nThe Zaporizhzhia plant also does not contain any graphite in its reactor.\n\nAt Chernobyl graphite caused a significant fire and was the source of the radiation plume that travelled across Europe.\n\nTowns near Chernobyl were abandoned following the nuclear incident\n\nHowever, scientists say a military attack on the reactor itself isn't the only threat. Disruption to its electricity supply could also cause serious issues.\n\n\"You don't need to hit directly a plant to get a problem,\" said Olexi Pasiuk, deputy director of Ecoaction, an energy pressure group in Ukraine.\n\nThe Ukrainians were in the process of taking the reactors offline to protect them. Only one of the six reactors operational at the power plant is now thought to be running.\n\nBut reactors cannot just be turned off like conventional energy supplies. They must be cooled slowly over 30 hours, which requires a constant electricity supply to the plant.\n\nA disruption to this supply - and therefore the cooling process - could lead to radiation leaking into the surrounding environment.\n\nA loss of cooling like this was experienced at Japan's Fukushima plant following the 2011 tsunami.\n\nIn that case a loss of power caused a meltdown in three of its nuclear reactors.\n\nIf people are exposed to leaked radiation it can cause severe immediate and long-term health impacts including cancer.\n\nThis was seen in 1986 at Chernobyl.\n\nRussia may be trying to curb Ukraine's power capabilities, Prof Corkhill said.\n\n\"They're taking the rectors offline. This means they're shutting down the nuclear reaction and putting them into a safe and stable state.\n\n\"And this could be the intention of the Russians: if you want to target their power supply, you attack a building close to the power plant and force operators to shut it down.\"\n\nThere are four major nuclear plants in Ukraine, and the defunct Chernobyl.\n\nRussia has control of Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl and it is approaching a third site - the south Ukraine nuclear power plant.\n\nThere are also smaller plants and radioactive disposal sites which store waste material from nuclear power operations across Ukraine.\n\nOn 27 February, Russian missiles also reportedly hit the site of a radioactive waste disposal facility in Kyiv.\n\nUkraine's nuclear inspectorate said no radiation leaks were reported and the plant was not directly damaged.\n\nFor now, Russian forces - who have blamed the attack on Ukrainian saboteurs - have allowed staff to remain in the control room at Zaporizhzhia, to run operations.\n\nBut world leaders have accused the Kremlin of acting recklessly. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it could \"directly threaten the safety of all of Europe\", and Ukraine's president accused Russia of \"nuclear terror\".\n\nIAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said: \"We shouldn't wait for something like this to happen [again].\"\n\nHe plans to travel to Ukraine to negotiate with Russian forces for the safe operation of all power plants in Ukraine.", "Ros Atkins looks at Russian gas and oil; how it connects to the war in Ukraine, and the EU's efforts to cut economic ties with Russia.", "A group of MPs say they are \"ashamed\" at the support offered to aid workers in Afghanistan, following the UK's withdrawal from the country last year.\n\nA report by the Commons International Development Committee found ministers were too slow to provide help to humanitarian workers and Afghans.\n\nThe committee also warned some of the same mistakes were being repeated in the current crisis in Ukraine.\n\nThe government said it had evacuated thousands of people from Afghanistan.\n\nIn August last year, the Taliban seized control of the country, after foreign troops pulled out.\n\nThe withdrawal of British and other Western troops brought an end to their 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan.\n\nThe International Development Committee acknowledged the scale of the humanitarian response required after the militant group's rapid takeover was \"unprecedented\".\n\nHowever, its report said some Afghan aid workers - who were at risk of reprisals from the Taliban for working with the West or advocating the freedoms of women and minority groups - felt \"abandoned\" by the UK government.\n\nIt added that UK schemes \"do not adequately support\" those who wanted to come to the UK.\n\nThe report called on the government to accelerate its Afghan resettlement scheme and ensure aid workers were explicitly recognised and prioritised.\n\nWhile the committee said ministers had pledged \"significant sums of aid\" since the UK's withdrawal, it said the way it had been released had been \"excruciatingly slow\".\n\nThe committee's chairwomen, Labour MP Sarah Champion, said: \"We are deeply grateful to aid workers - be they British, Afghan or of other nationalities - for all they have done for the people of Afghanistan. The work that they do is phenomenal.\n\n\"But we are ashamed that the government did not give them the support that they needed during the UK's withdrawal, or now, during the complex task of delivering an aid programme under Taliban rule.\"\n\nThe committee says mistakes are being repeated in response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine\n\nThe committee also warned the government was making some of the same mistakes in its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nIt said this included being \"inflexible\" and \"begrudging\" in its approach, by only making limited concessions on pre-existing UK immigration routes and failing to provide sufficient clarity on what routes were available.\n\nIt also accused the government of \"dragging its feet\" in setting up new or variations on existing routes for people who wanted to come to the UK.\n\nA Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said the government had distributed £261m in aid in Afghanistan this financial year and had already announced £220m in aid for Ukraine.\n\n\"We evacuated more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight and have already announced an immigration programme for Ukrainians to come to the UK,\" the spokesperson added.\n\nThe government has faced some criticism for not doing enough to help Ukrainian refugees. Labour has called for anyone fleeing the conflict to be able to come to the UK on an emergency visa, with normal conditions - other than biometrics and security checks - lifted.\n\nMore than one million Ukrainians have now fled the country since Russia's invasion began last week, according to the United Nations, with most heading for neighbouring countries.", "Court documents say Guy Reffitt was seen on video on the west front of the US Capitol on 6 January\n\nThe son of a man accused of helping to lead the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot has testified that his father threatened him with injury if he alerted authorities.\n\nGuy Reffitt, 49, has pleaded not guilty to five felony charges related to the attack, and is the first accused rioter to stand trial.\n\nHis son, Jackson, 19, warned the FBI of his father's plans.\n\nMr Reffitt told his children alerting authorities would make them \"traitors\".\n\n\"If you turn me in, you're a traitor and traitors get shot,\" Jackson testified to a Washington DC court on Thursday.\n\nThe teenager said that he had felt \"nervous\" and \"weird\" searching how to contact the FBI to report his father, he told jurors in Washington DC, but felt compelled to do so after exchanges with Mr Reffitt he found alarming.\n\n\"I felt pretty gross and I felt pretty uncomfortable for even thinking about doing something like that, but I knew that it would help immensely,\" Jackson said. \"Better safe than sorry\".\n\nAccording to federal prosecutors, the elder Mr Reffitt drove from Texas to Washington DC to take part in the riot, in which supporters of former president Donald Trump attempted to storm the Capitol as lawmakers inside voted to certify the results of the 2020 elections.\n\nProsecutors also allege that Mr Reffitt was a member of a militia group, the 'Three Percenters' and led rioters up the Capitol's stairs to the building. They've described him as a \"leader\" and said he was at the \"tip of the spear\" during the riot.\n\nJackson had told FBI investigators that his father informed the family that he'd gone to the Capitol to protect the country and brought a gun with him.\n\nMr Reffitt is charged with bringing a handgun to the Capitol, obstruction of justice and obstruction of an official proceeding, among other crimes.\n\nOn 11 January, just 5 days after the riot, Mr Reffitt warned his children against reporting him to the police, telling them he'd \"do what he had to do\".\n\nSoon after, Mr Refitt allegedly told his daughter that he would \"put a bullet through\" her phone if she were recording him or sharing his comments online. He was arrested on 19 January.\n\nShe is also expected to testify during the trial.\n\nTo date, more than 750 people have been arrested for their role in the 6 January riot. The majority have been charged with misdemeanours, and about 40 have received prison sentences.", "The US has announced fresh sanctions on Russian oligarchs - the latest attempt to squeeze President Vladimir Putin as his invasion of Ukraine continues.\n\nThe new penalties will target members of the Russian elite, their families and close associates, cutting them off from the US financial system.\n\n\"The goal is to maximise the impact on Putin,\" US President Joe Biden said.\n\nDmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's press secretary, is among those targeted in the latest blockade.\n\nMr Peskov, 54, is already sanctioned by the European Union, and now joins a list of eight oligarchs and nearly two dozen of their family members and associates whose assets in the US will be frozen, and have their American properties blocked from use.\n\nAnother 19 oligarchs - including Putin ally Alisher Burhanovich - and 47 of their family members will face US visa restrictions.\n\n\"These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people,\" the White House said on Thursday. \"We will continue to work with our allies and partners to hold accountable the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who are profiting from this violent regime.\"\n\nEarlier this week, Mr Biden had promised to go after Russian oligarchs who have \"bilked [stolen] billions of dollars off this violent regime\" when speaking of the Ukraine crisis at his State of the Union address.\n\nOn Thursday, Mr Biden said the existing sanctions carried out with Western allies, such as blocking Moscow from the Swift international payments system and restrictions against the Russian central bank, were already having a \"profound\" impact.\n\n\"Our interest is maintaining the strongest unified economic impact campaign on Putin in all history and I think we're well on the way to doing that,\" he said.\n\nThe UK also announced further sanctions against two Russian oligarchs on Thursday.", "The rape complainant says police did not take her allegations seriously\n\nA woman who said \"dismissive\" police told her \"nothing would come\" out of reporting being raped after her drink was spiked has received £8,000 damages.\n\nShe said her treatment by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) was \"appalling\" when she reported the incident after a night out in Wigan in July 2019.\n\nOfficers did not take a statement or arrange forensic tests, she said.\n\nGMP said a review of its handling of the case was on hold until the conclusion of a criminal investigation.\n\nOn Thursday a report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said GMP, which is under special measures, was still falling short of expected standards.\n\nThe woman, who is not being named to protect her anonymity, told officers she feared she had been raped after waking up undressed and \"feeling sore\" in a strange house at 05:00 BST.\n\nShe said she feared her drink had been spiked when she was out with friends the previous evening, and she was attacked by the man whose house she woke up in.\n\n\"It was such a strange feeling the next morning, almost an out-of-body experience. I knew something wasn't right,\" she told BBC Radio Manchester. \"I was so scared.\"\n\nGMP says an internal probe into its handling of the case is on hold pending a criminal investigation\n\nThe woman, 29 at the time of the incident, said she contacted police when she got home and two officers attended.\n\nOne of them was \"very dismissive\" and treated her like she was \"just being silly\", she said.\n\nThe woman said the officers left after about 20 minutes without taking a statement or arranging for any forensic tests to be carried out.\n\nShe said: \"[A female] officer took me into a room on my own and advised me that if it went to court 'nothing would come of it'.\n\n\"Then we went back in the other room and in front of everyone she said to my husband 'I recommend you go to him [the alleged attacker] and see if you can set the record straight'.\"\n\nThe woman rang police again hours later and insisted the incident be properly investigated.\n\nShe said she was eventually examined following an 11-hour wait.\n\nShe said \"it makes me feel sick\" to think other victims may also be \"being ignored\".\n\nHer lawyer said the force had agreed an out-of-court settlement with no admission to her client's claims.\n\nSolicitor Nicola Bailey Gibbs said: \"It was a shocking error of judgment by trained police officers who completely failed in their duty of care.\"\n\nA GMP spokeswoman said a 43-year-old man had been arrested in relation to the case.\n\n\"The Professional Standards Branch is conducting a thorough investigation into this case but this is currently on hold until the criminal investigation has been concluded and so it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this time,\" she said.\n\nShe added that victim care was \"at the heart of everything we do\" and \"whenever we fall short of expectations it is important it is reported so we can take appropriate action wherever necessary.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nLegendary Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, has died of a suspected heart attack aged 52.\n\nWarne took 708 Test wickets, the second most of all time, in 145 matches across a stellar 15-year international career.\n\nHe had been found unresponsive in his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui on Friday, said his management company.\n\n\"It is with great sadness we advise that Shane Keith Warne passed away of a suspected heart attack,\" it added.\n\n\"Despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived.\n\n\"The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course.\"\n\nAustralia Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Warne's family will be offered a state funeral for him.\n\nWarne helped Australia win the 1999 50-over World Cup and claimed 293 dismissals in 194 one-day internationals between 1993 and 2005.\n\nIn 2000, he was named one of the five Wisden cricketers of the century, alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Sir Viv Richards.\n\nHe retired from international cricket in 2007 following Australia's 5-0 Ashes clean sweep of England at home.\n\nWarne also retired from first-class and List A cricket later that year, ending a seven-year spell with Hampshire, who he had captained since 2004.\n\nHe continued to play Twenty20 franchise cricket until retiring from all formats in 2013.\n• None Shane Warne obituary: A fascinating life on and off the cricket field\n• None Cricket pays tribute after death of its 'greatest showman'\n• None Shane Warne dies: All the tributes and reaction\n\nWarne worked regularly as a commentator and pundit, as well as holding coaching roles at T20 franchises.\n\nHe is survived by his three children with former wife Simone Callahan.\n\nHis death comes on the same day as legendary former Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, who died aged 74 of a heart attack, and was announced shortly after the close of play on day one of Australia's first Test in Pakistan.\n\nWarne's mastery of leg-spin - a style of bowling that declined during the 1970s and 1980s when fast bowlers dominated - revolutionised cricket.\n\nHis magnificent control and canny variations bewildered even the greatest batters of his generation.\n\nOnly Sri Lankan off-spinning great Muttiah Muralitharan, with 800 dismissals, has taken more Test wickets than Warne.\n\nHe was also a fine slip fielder and capable lower-order batter, scoring 3,154 runs at an average of 17.32 and is the only batter in Test history to surpass 3,000 runs without making a century - falling for 99 against New Zealand in 2001 and 90 against England in 2005.\n\nWarne was a larger-than-life figure whose fame transcended cricket and his sense of fun inspired successive generations of fans.\n\n\"Shane was a once-in-a-century cricketer and his achievements will stand for all time,\" said Australia men's Test captain Pat Cummins.\n\n\"So many of us in the playing group grew up idolising him and fell in love with this great sport as a result.\"\n\nCricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley added: \"Shane was one of the most talented and charismatic cricketers we have ever witnessed.\n\n\"He loved cricket, had an extraordinarily astute understanding of the game and his influence and legacy will last for as long as it is played.\n\n\"We are in a state of complete shock at his sudden passing and our thoughts are with his family, his many friends and the legion of fans from all over the world who loved and admired Warnie for his unbelievable bowling skills, his humour, warmth and engaging personality.\"\n• None 5 Live Sport special: All About... Shane Warne, the 'King of Spin'\n\nWarne holds the record for the most Ashes wickets in history, with 195 dismissals in 36 Tests.\n\nHe made his Test debut against India in 1992 after only seven first-class matches for his native Victoria, but announced himself on the world stage in astonishing style in the 1993 Ashes in England.\n\nWith his first ball of the series, Warne bowled England batter Mike Gatting with a stunning delivery that pitched outside leg stump and clipped the top of off stump.\n\nIt became widely known as the 'ball of the century'.\n\nThat was the first of six Ashes victories in a row involving Warne, until the run was ended by England's famous 2-1 win in 2005, despite the leg-spinner taking a staggering 40 wickets in that series.\n\nWarne gained revenge in 2006-07 when Australia won 5-0 and retired on the same day as long-time team-mates Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer.\n\nWarne was a key part of Australia's run to the 1996 World Cup final, where they were beaten by Sri Lanka.\n\nHe became vice-captain under Steve Waugh and starred in the 1999 World Cup triumph, being named man of the match after taking 4-33 in the final against Pakistan.\n\nHowever, he was sent home the day before the 2003 tournament started after testing positive for a banned diuretic and served a one-year ban from the sport.\n\nAustralia would go on to win the 2003 World Cup by beating India.\n\nWarne led Australia 11 times in ODIs but never captained the Test team, with batter Ricky Ponting replacing Waugh.\n\nWarne captained Hampshire for four seasons during a spell with the county from 2000 to 2007, and they named a stand after him at their Ageas Bowl ground in 2012.\n\nUnder Warne, Hampshire won the one-day Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy in 2005 - although he was unable to play in the Lord's final which was in the middle of the 2005 Ashes - and narrowly missed out on a County Championship title the same year.\n\nHe played his entire domestic career in Australia for Victoria.\n\nHe also played for Melbourne Stars in Australia's Big Bash League and Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League, also coaching the latter.\n\nIn last year's inaugural Hundred he coached London Spirit.\n\nShane Warne wasn't just one of the greatest spin bowlers in the game's history - he was also one of cricket's great characters.\n\nHis partnership with seamer Glenn McGrath made Australia virtually invincible in the 1990s.\n\nIn terms of a wrist-spinner's repertoire, Warne perfected the art completely, spinning the ball vast distances and always with a touch of theatre.\n\nHe took that character with him into the commentary box and beyond cricket. He featured regularly on the world poker circuit, and while brushes with the authorities were also a feature of his life, his contribution to cricket will never be forgotten.\n\n'He was the greatest showman' - tributes flood in for Warne\n• None Shane Warne dies: Follow all the tributes and reaction\n\nFormer England captain Sir Andrew Strauss told BBC Radio 5 Live: \"I'm utterly shocked and saddened. Shane Warne was cricket's greatest star and he was a guy who, I suppose, you felt the rules of life didn't apply to him. To hear about his untimely demise is genuinely shocking and I know the whole cricket world is in a great deal of mourning.\"\n\nStrauss added: \"He was the greatest showman. There were other great cricketers when you look at their records would potentially equal Shane's or maybe better it. But there was no greater star in cricket than Shane Warne, certainly in the time I have been around. You felt every time you were on the pitch against him it was his show. You were just a small part of his show.\n\n\"He used that to his advantage in terms of getting you out. He had such charisma and such passion for the game that it was infectious. If you were lucky enough to spend time with him off the pitch it was always a privilege. A man of great generosity of spirit, great passion for the game and a man who is going to be sorely missed.\"\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"Really shocked and really sad to hear such a legend of the game passed so suddenly.\n\n\"We had just started the game and it filtered through the dressing room. It's been quite a quiet dressing room off the back of it. It's hit everyone quite hard if I'm being brutally honest.\n\n\"My experiences of Shane were of someone who absolutely loved the game of cricket. He was always a joy to be around, he gave so much energy to the sport. As a kid growing up he was a massive idol of mine and someone you wanted to emulate. The way he could win a game on his own, his skill levels were incredible.\n\n\"I'd have been 14 when the 2005 Ashes was on, in many ways that series was a massive influence on my career.\"\n\nFormer England captain Mike Gatting told BBC Radio 5 Live: \"It's been devastating really, unbelievable. When you think he's just 52 and he's been an absolute legend in the game. I don't use that word lightly either. It's been unreal. We've lost a great cricketer and a great guy.\n\n\"The figures talk for themselves but he was inspirational to many, many young children. Certainly if you look at county cricket now, where he played himself for Hampshire.\n\n\"He inspired a lot of kids to take up spin bowling. The way he approached the game, he was knowledgeable, he loved the game. He was dedicated to the game but he also had a bit of fun as well.\"", "Dockers in Kent have refused to unload two tankers of Russian gas, forcing them to go elsewhere, a union has said.\n\nThe Boris Vilkitsky and Fedor Litke have been diverted from the Isle of Grain, the largest terminal in Europe for importing liquefied natural gas.\n\nUnison head of energy Matt Lay said staff were \"determined to support the Ukrainian people and uphold the sanctions imposed against Russia\".\n\nHowever, there are concerns over a loophole in the current sanctions.\n\nUK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Tuesday that the UK had become the first country to pass a law banning ships with \"any Russian connection\" from entering its ports.\n\nMr Lay said: \"Sadly, this doesn't seem to be the case.\"\n\n\"The Department for Transport rules only appear to cover the ownership and operators of vessels, not the cargo.\"\n\nThe Isle of Grain LNG is the largest terminal in Europe for importing liquefied natural gas\n\nThe two tankers contain enough liquid gas to supply the UK for up to 12 days.\n\nThe ships are sailing under the flag of Cyprus. Many ship owners opt to use a flag of another country for taxation or regulatory reasons.\n\nMr Lay added: \"The government must act immediately to stop Russian goods continuing to arrive in the UK under the cover of another country.\"\n\nA National Grid Spokesperson said: \"In line with government policy, we do not expect any Russian-linked ships to dock at Grain.\"\n\nAs the ground war in Ukraine continues, an economic offensive with Russia is under way.\n\nWestern governments have united during the last week to enforce broad sanctions on the Russian economy, its businesses and their leaders. Western retailers have pulled back too. But how effective are sanctions?\n\nBlocking Russian vessels alone in this scenario may not be enough as many Russian businesses use transport that is licensed and registered in other countries, such as Cyprus, Hong Kong or The Bahamas. Experts say this is a loophole in sanction enforcement.\n\nThe rule of law is important here, because on what grounds would you block a vessel in line with Russian sanctions that is flagged in Cyprus or another country?\n\nAn enormous amount of due diligence would also need to be applied to every vessel movement and what the vessels are carrying. This would require huge amounts of enforcement, which sanctions experts say is substantial and complicated.\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said the sanctions apply to ships that are Russian owned, operated, controlled, registered or flagged.\n\nHe added: \"Ministers are exploring options to further reduce the already small amount of imports we do get from Russia and we continue to urge Europe to put in place plans to end their dependence in Russian gas.\"\n\nJulian Bray, editor-in-chief of international shipping newspaper TradeWinds, said: \"While the cargoes themselves are not sanctioned, the ships are. And the number of ships is very wide, and can be added to ad hoc.\n\n\"The sanctions have effectively paralysed shipping to and from Russia. The legal uncertainties, risks to crews, insurance costs, and the potential financial and reputational risks means that very few ships and cargoes are moving.\"\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.", "Jack Ritchie took his own life in Vietnam in 2017 after years of gambling addiction\n\nA teacher with a gambling addiction who took his own life was failed by \"woefully inadequate\" warnings and treatments, a coroner has said.\n\nJack Ritchie's disorder had \"spiralled out of control\" before his death aged 24, but the help available did not meet his needs, an inquest heard.\n\nThe resulting \"feelings of shame and hopelessness\" had made him feel suicidal, coroner David Urpeth said.\n\nMr Ritchie's parents said gambling was \"the root and trigger of Jack's death\".\n\nSpeaking on the steps of Sheffield Town Hall, where the inquest was held, his mother Liz Ritchie said: \"Jack was abused by parasites who inflict life-threatening illness for profit and then blame the victims, making them feel that everything is their fault and that they are better off dead.\n\n\"As his family, we know that Jack was not the problem and in our grief we are also victims of predatory companies and a collusive government.\"\n\nJack's father, Charles Ritchie said: \"The government accepted that our frontline NHS staff - our GPs, our nurses - had no training to be able to recognise, diagnose or treat gambling disorders.\n\n\"It must now be clear we need a statutory levy for the NHS to remove any gambling industry influence over information and treatment.\"\n\nThe two-week inquest heard Mr Ritchie, from Sheffield, had become hooked in his late teens when he would use fixed-odds terminals in betting shops.\n\nHe spent the subsequent years battling with his addiction, but died while working in Vietnam in November 2017.\n\nCharles and Liz Ritchie set up the charity Gambling with Lives following the death of their son\n\nIn a narrative conclusion, South Yorkshire senior coroner Mr Urpeth said gambling had been a factor in Mr Ritchie's death, which was a \"stark reminder of the terrible consequences that can flow from an addiction\".\n\nHe said information about the dangers and associated treatments available at the time was \"woefully inadequate and failed to meet Jack's needs\".\n\n\"Jack did not understand that being addicted to gambling was not his fault,\" Mr Urpeth said.\n\n\"That lack of understanding led to feelings of shame and hopelessness which, in time, led to him feeling suicidal.\"\n\nThe coroner said he would be writing to a number of government departments with warnings about how future deaths could be prevented and particularly highlighted the need for more training for GPs about gambling disorders.\n\nHe told the hearing that \"evidence showed there were still significant gaps\" in provision for gambling disorders and warnings about the dangers.\n\nMr Ritchie's parents believe that failures on the part of UK authorities to address gambling issues contributed to their son's death.\n\nMr Urpeth praised the couple for their campaigning, saying they had \"channelled their terrible loss into a tireless battle\" for reform, and that he believed they had done all they could to help their son.\n\nMr and Mrs Ritchie believe the hearing is the first so-called Article 2 inquest in a case relating to suicide following gambling.\n\nThis means its scope included an examination of whether any arm of the state breached its duty to protect their son's right to life.\n\nFollowing the inquest, a Gambling Commission spokesman said: \"Jack's death was a tragedy and we have met and spoken with Jack's parents on several occasions to understand and agree how we can learn from their experience to inform the way we work.\n\n\"These conversations, along with those of others who have experienced harm, strengthens our commitment to protect consumers and make Britain's gambling market fairer and safer.\"\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Russia's plan not going as they wanted - Ben Wallace\n\nIt is not too late for Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.\n\nSpeaking at a news conference, Mr Wallace said Mr Putin was risking his nation being isolated for decades to come if he did not withdraw troops.\n\nHe also said thermobaric weapons had been deployed, and he worried how far Russia would go in the future.\n\nBut he went on to predict continuing stiff resistance from Ukraine, in an interview with the BBC.\n\n\"They won't break now and they won't break in 10 years' time,\" he said.\n\nHe described the Russian president as a man \"wrapped in sanctions of his own making, a man who's broken every international law and and a man more and more isolated\".\n\nMeanwhile, the foreign secretary said Russia's economy must be \"crippled\" to stop it from funding Mr Putin's war.\n\nSpeaking in Lithuania, Liz Truss said all Russian banks should be banned from using Swift, an international payment system, and Europe should reduce its dependency on oil and gas from the country.\n\nShe added: \"We need to make sure that the Russian economy is crippled so it is unable to continue to fund Putin and the war machine. And I suspect that the Russian people will draw their own conclusions from that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nLater, in an interview, Ms Truss, who is seeking to sanction more Russian oligarchs, said there was \"nowhere for any of Putin's cronies to hide\".\n\nShe said the right evidence was needed - but insisted legal threats would not impact the government's ability to sanction oligarchs.\n\nSome oligarchs have already been sanctioned, meaning their UK bank accounts are frozen and access to funds denied.\n\nBut the UK has been accused of being slower than its European neighbours and facing legal hold-ups preventing sanctions on Russian oligarchs - claims rejected by Downing Street.\n\nThe southern port of Kherson has become the first major city to fall and loud explosions were heard in the capital, Kyiv, overnight.\n\nThe mayor of Mariupol, a strategic port near the Russian border, says Russian forces are attempting to blockade the city, with residents trapped by intense shelling.\n\nAn investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine has been launched by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.\n\nMr Wallace welcomed the move, saying the use of Russian artillery on cities was leading to \"significant civilian deaths and significant damage to civilian areas\".\n\nUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Russian leader of war crimes, with the country reporting more than 2,000 civilian deaths since the invasion began last Thursday. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also accused Mr Putin of war crimes.\n\nAt a news conference in the Estonia capital, Tallinn, following a meeting with Nato allies, Mr Wallace said: \"The consequences of what we are seeing in Ukraine will ripple through Europe and Nato for not just weeks, but months and years to come.\"\n\nHe said it was unknown what kind of weapons Mr Putin was willing to use, but added that \"massive amounts\" of artillery had been deployed to Ukraine, as well as controversial thermobaric weapons.\n\nThese weapons - also known as \"vacuum bombs\" - are much more devastating than conventional explosives of a similar size - they create a massive blast wave and a vacuum that sucks up all surrounding oxygen, killing or injuring people in its path.\n\nMr Wallace said there was concern about how far the Russian military would go with weapons in the future - and it would be difficult for the international community to engage with Mr Putin in the long-term after his attack on a sovereign country \"at huge scale, inflicting huge damage and violence\".\n\nThe idea of a \"normal relationship\" with the Russian government would be almost impossible \"unless President Putin chooses to cease what he is doing now\", he added.\n\nLithuania, Latvia and Estonia are members of Nato - unlike Ukraine - having joined after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.\n\nThe defence secretary says Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a united response in Europe that President Putin failed to predict.\n\nYou can certainly see and feel it in the capital of Estonia. Public buildings and squares in Tallinn have been lit up with the colours of the Ukrainian flag.\n\nOfficials wear blue and gold ribbons in a show of solidarity. But it's much more than that.\n\nEstonia and Denmark, the two countries Mr Wallace is visiting, are both supplying weapons to Ukraine.\n\nThe UK has done the same and says it is helping to \"facilitate\" those deliveries - though British officials are not giving any details of how.\n\nDenmark, like the UK, also contributes to the Nato military force that has been established in Estonia.\n\nThat specific force was first set up to act as a deterrent following Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, and to reassure an ally.\n\nBritain has now doubled the number of its troops in Estonia in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine.\n\nPresident Putin was warned that this was likely to be one of the consequences of invading Ukraine - more Nato, not less on Russia's border.\n\nOther British ministers have also been meeting international allies to discuss what further economic and cultural sanctions could be taken against Moscow.\n\nAt a summit of global sports ministers, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is due to try to mobilise more support to isolate Moscow.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid has confirmed the UK has this week sent three planes with 320,000 medical items to help people in Ukraine.\n\nHe said Britain would do whatever was needed for as long as was necessary to help Ukrainians at home, in neighbouring countries or in the UK, and that the government's overall aid package would rise to at least £220m.", "Images and video emerged on Friday showing destruction in residential areas of Chernihiv and other cities\n\nCivilians in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv have described being trapped under relentless shelling as Russia indiscriminately pounds residential neighbourhoods there and in several other cities.\n\n\"We can hear the sounds right now of air strikes nearby,\" Svitlana, 40, told the BBC. She was hiding in Chernihiv on Friday morning under her dining table with her two children, aged six and three, and her neighbours in her five-storey apartment building.\n\n\"There are no military targets here, there is only a cemetery, residential buildings, clinics and a hospital, why are they bombing us?\" Svitlana said.\n\nRussia escalated its air campaign against Ukraine on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 47 civilians in Chernihiv and continuing to lay siege to residential areas in Mariupol, Borodyanka and Kharkiv.\n\nAerial attacks in Chernihiv destroyed high-rise apartments buildings and damaged a clinic and hospital, sending residents fleeing into the streets and to underground bunkers.\n\nAn apartment building 500m from Svitlana's was destroyed on Thursday, she said. Her building sits just 50m from a children's hospital, where staff had taken children including cancer patients to a shelter between the two buildings but were not able to create a sterile environment there and were struggling to evacuate the children.\n\nReached on Friday morning, Sergey Zosimenko, a charity worker supporting the hospital, told the BBC that the staff were in the process of attempting an evacuation.\n\nImages and video footage from Chernihiv, which is 90 miles (144 km) north of the capital Kyiv and home to about 300,000 people, showed indiscriminate destruction to residential areas, drawing immediate comparisons to the devastating Russian bombing campaigns against Grozny in the late 1990s and Aleppo in 2016. Chernihiv has reportedly been surrounded by Russian forces.\n\nThe BBC verified the full names and exact locations of people it spoke to in Chernihiv and other cities under attack but is not publishing those details for safety reasons.\n\nKatya, a 22-year-old nurse in Chernihiv, said she had been able to hear the sounds of continuous shelling throughout Friday morning.\n\n\"I'm calling back now because I don't know if it will be too late, I don't know if we will survive,\" she said.\n\n\"There is me, my mother, my grandma and our neighbour and we all are hiding in our house. At this very moment I can hear the shelling. Local hospitals and schools are destroyed. Russians promised not to kill civilians but they are killing.\"\n\nLarysa, a 52-year-old maths teacher, managed to escape alive with her husband, sister and brother-in-law after their Chernihiv apartment building was hit in a direct strike.\n\n\"We were hiding in the staircase near our sixth-floor apartment and we could hear planes flying overhead and they sounded low,\" she said. \"Suddenly there was a boom and the whole building shook. We ran outside and people were screaming. We could see that the missile went through our building and hit the next building.\"\n\nLarysa's apartment building, hit while she was hiding in the staircase with her family\n\nRussia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape from cities under siege, but residents in Chernihiv and in the southern port city of Mariupol told the BBC on Friday that there had been no significant break in the aerial bombardment to allow people to move.\n\nThe escalating strikes on residential areas raised concerns that Russia would continue to target civilians from the air after meeting staunch resistance from Ukraine's army and failing to make significant progress on the ground. The bombing of Chernihiv on Tuesday came after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, told French leader Emmanuel Macron that Russia would achieve its military goals in Ukraine \"whatever happens\".\n\nHeavy bombardment continued in Mariupol, which entered its third day on Friday without power, water or its sanitation system. The city's deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, told the BBC on Friday that the city council was trying to create a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to escape.\n\n\"We have been preparing everything we can, transport, routes, supplies, but as of Friday morning there is no agreement how and when we can get people out and there has been no break in the shelling,\" he said.\n\nMr Orlov said the Ukrainian army was holding its positions around Mariupol, \"but they cannot do anything about aerial bombing\".\n\n\"What you have to understand is this is not troops fighting troops, Putin sees destruction and humanitarian crisis as the goal. He wants to terrify people and force them to lose their will.\"\n\nDamage in central Kharkiv in Thursday after days of aerial bombardment against the eastern city\n\nIn Kharkiv, in the east, Ukrainian authorities said the city had been \"pounded all night\" by indiscriminate shelling, which UN prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.\n\n\"Yes the shelling has been constant,\" said Elena, a 59-year-old engineer who was hiding in the basement of her apartment building with her daughter and grandchild. \"We can hear planes flying overhead and explosions,\" she said. \"Nothing has hit our building yet.\"\n\nMasha, a 24-year-old communications manager in western Ukraine, whose aunt Larysa survived the direct strike on her Chernihiv apartment building, said she had \"no feelings right now, only emptiness\".\n\n\"It is the eighth day of the war and I can't feel anything - no fear, no nothing. Chernihiv was my second home, and now it's destroyed,\" Masha said.\n\n\"I didn't realise what was really happening until the moment I saw a slow-motion video of a missile hitting the building I used to live in.\"\n\nSvitlana, who was sheltering in her Chernihiv apartment with her two children and neighbours, said she could only wait for a break in the shelling.\n\n\"We are terrified here but we have to be brave,\" she said. \"Ukraine above all.\"", "Valerie Warrington and her ex-husband Clive Warrington were found dead in different locations\n\nA man has been charged with murdering his divorced parents whose bodies were found 15 miles (24km) apart.\n\nThe body of Clive Warrington, 67, was found at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham at 06:25 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nShortly afterwards the body of his ex-wife, Valerie Warrington, 73, was found at a property in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds.\n\nWilliam Warrington, 40, will appear at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court on Saturday accused of their murders.\n\nThe body of Clive Warrington was found first at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham\n\nMr and Mrs Warrington were both found with fatal stab wounds.\n\nTheir family said they were devastated by the \"sudden and tragic loss\".\n\n\"We thank everyone for their messages of love and support, which are of great comfort to us,\" they added in a statement.\n\n\"We would like to request privacy at this time so that we can come to terms with what has happened and grieve in peace with the rest of the family.\"\n\nGloucestershire Police is investigating and said the thoughts of officers were with the family.\n\nMrs Warrington's body was found after her ex-husbands at a property in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: Bristolbristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Denise Coates was appointed CBE for services to the community and business in 2012\n\nBet365 boss Denise Coates took home about £300m during its last financial year - £170m down on the previous year - as growth stalled.\n\nThe billionaire founder of the online gambling firm received £250m in salary and a share of the company's pay-out of £97.5m in dividends.\n\nMs Coates, one of Britain's wealthiest women and a major philanthropist, has received a total of about £1.3bn from the business in the past five years.\n\nMs Coates and her brother John took over a betting shop business run by their father, spotting that online gambling could revolutionise the industry. She now owns about half of the company.\n\nBet365's latest accounts filed at Companies House show revenues were broadly flat at £2.82bn in the first year of the pandemic, compared with £2.81bn in the previous year.\n\nAlthough not named in the accounts, Ms Coates has always been regarded as the person referred to as \"highest paid director\". She is thought to be Britain's biggest individual tax payer.\n\nIt's unclear why the pay fell so much, although Bet365's earnings from sports betting was hit as the pandemic caused chaos to sporting schedules. A rise in betting via online slot machines and casinos helped offset the loss.\n\nBet365 said: \"At the start of the period we experienced the almost complete cessation of sporting events. However by the end of the first half of the year, we saw the resumption of sports with the vast majority of European football leagues managing to conclude their domestic seasons.\"\n\nMeanwhile, operating profit increased by 47% year-on-year to £285.5m, a gain the firm said was driven in large part by reduced pay packets for directors.\n\nBet365 made charitable donations, mostly to the Denise Coates Foundation, of £103m, up from almost £90m the year before.\n\nMs Coates achieved a first-class degree in econometrics and later trained as an accountant within the family firm.\n\nThe company owns Stoke City football club, and is based in Stoke-on-Trent.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. At the height of the blaze 120 firefighters were at the scene\n\nFive people have been arrested over a suspected arson attack which gutted a mill used to film scenes for Peaky Blinders and Downton Abbey.\n\nA huge blaze engulfed the historic Dalton Mills complex in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on Thursday.\n\nNo-one was inside the building, in Dalton Lane, at the time of the fire and no injuries were reported.\n\nWest Yorkshire Police said the five suspects were being questioned on suspicion of arson.\n\nAt the height of the blaze, which started at about midday, 120 firefighters were at the scene and one eyewitness said he watched the inferno take hold \"within minutes\".\n\nThe mill was gutted by the blaze on Thursday, but the four exterior walls were left standing\n\nBradford District Commander, Benjy Bush, said: \"It was a really ferocious, challenging fire, we had 20 fire engines and two aerial appliances here, the police and ambulance were on the scene, as well as utilities and Bradford Council.\n\n\"We won't be putting firefighters inside the building as it is structurally unsafe.\n\n\"Possibly the building could be saved, but that's down to the structural engineers.\"\n\nTwo fire crews remained for damping down on Friday morning, with about 10 firefighters continuing to throw water on the site to prevent the fire from re-igniting.\n\nBen Oakley, from Save Britain's Heritage, said there may still be a chance to preserve the building, and his organisation had been \"involved in saving a lot of enormous and fantastic industrial landmark mills across the north and in Yorkshire.\n\n\"These buildings have stood empty and are deteriorating - many of them for a very long time - and whilst the impressions can look terrible and be very disheartening, perhaps a lot more can be done than meets the eye.\"\n\nAt its height, about 120 firefighters tackled the blaze at the Keighley mill\n\nThe mill had been used for a number of film and television productions in recent years.\n\nRichard Knight, from Screen Yorkshire, described it as \"a destination in its own right\".\n\nBuilt in 1869, it was once the largest textile mill in Yorkshire, employing more than 2,000 workers.\n\nIt was struck by a serious fire in 2011, when it was believed copper thieves set fire to the site as they tried to burn off insulation to steal metal.\n\nThe fire was visible from across the West Yorkshire town\n\nThe complex fell into disrepair before being partially restored and taken off English Heritage's at-risk register in 2015.\n\nWest Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said a multi-agency inquiry was due to start later.\n\nPolice are appealing to anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area between 11:30 GMT and midday to contact them.\n\nOfficers are also looking for drivers who may have dashcam footage from the scene to come forward.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n• None Peaky Blinders mill complex goes up in flames\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Liz Truss wants allies to agree on more restrictions targeting Russia's oil and gas exports\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is seeking agreement from the international community to step up support for Ukraine, in the face of continuing attacks from Russian forces.\n\nForeign ministers from across the West have gathered in Brussels to consider how to maintain pressure on Russia.\n\nMs Truss said she wanted allies to agree to do more to restrict Russian oil and gas exports.\n\nBut she also said the existing sanctions regime is damaging Russia.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"You can see that on the Russian stock markets, the Russian money markets, the fact that people are having to queue for the bank or the metro station.\"\n\nMs Truss added that the West needed to do more on sanctions, particularly around fossil fuel exports to Europe, to \"cut off and cripple\" the Russian economy.\n\nAround half of the European Union's gas and one quarter of its oil imports come from Russia.\n\nMeanwhile, Home Secretary Priti Patel has travelled to Poland to launch a new family scheme for Ukrainian refugees.\n\nUnder the extended scheme, which was announced earlier this week, British nationals and anyone settled in the UK will be able to apply to bring their parents, grandparents and siblings to the country.\n\nThe UK's initial visa offer was restricted to immediate family, including children and partners.\n\nIn Brussels, the foreign secretary has urged her counterparts from Nato, the G7 and EU to \"embrace reliable partners rather than be dependant and beholden on any one country\" for oil or gas.\n\nMs Truss, who described it \"one of the biggest days of diplomacy\", said co-operation between the UK and EU was \"essential to defend European security\".\n\n\"We will work with fellow freedom-loving democracies to tighten the vice around Putin's war machine and signal our strong support for Ukraine's territorial integrity,\" she added.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin has insisted the war in Ukraine is \"going to plan\", despite taking only one major city - Kherson in the south.\n\nElsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of \"nuclear terror\" after it bombarded a large nuclear power station, causing a fire.\n\nThe authorities say the Zaporizhzhya plant - which is the biggest of its kind in Europe - is secure and radiation levels are normal.\n\nIt comes after President Zelensky asked Mr Putin for one-to-one talks, saying it was the only way to end the war. He has also appealed to Nato to supply warplanes.\n\nWhile defensive weapons have been sent to Ukraine, the West has largely responded to the invasion with economic sanctions against Russian individuals, businesses and banks.\n\nOn Thursday the UK announced sanctions on two more Russian oligarchs - Alisher Usmanov, a billionaire whose company previously had links with Arsenal football club - and Igor Shuvalov, a former deputy prime minister to Mr Putin.\n\nBut there have been calls for swifter clampdowns on oligarchs, with the UK accused of being slower than its European neighbours - claims rejected by Downing Street.\n\nThere are fears that oligarchs will sell property and move money and assets out of the UK before they are targeted. Ministers have set up a taskforce to look into individual cases.\n\nDeputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said he would support seizing property in the UK owned by wealthy Russians with links to Mr Putin, as long as the government has \"the evidence and there is the legal basis\" to do so.\n\nMr Raab also confirmed he would support housing Ukrainian refugees in any seized properties, a move called for by the Liberal Democrats.\n\nHe also said the government is looking at ways to stop lawsuits being used by wealthy individuals to intimidate journalists and organisations looking into sources of their wealth.\n\nMr Raab said wealthy people connected to the Russian president were abusing libel laws to intimidate individuals and organisations highlighting corruption in Russia.\n\nAlisher Usmanov (right) with President Putin at the Kremlin in November 2018\n\nMeanwhile on Friday, the home secretary has met Ukrainians applying for the UK's family scheme in Medyka, near the border with Ukraine.\n\nMs Patel said the UK was \"standing in solidarity\" with Ukrainian refugees and the Polish people.\n\nDuring her visit, Ms Patel told reporters that Ukrainians seeking safety in Poland were fleeing \"the most atrocious set of circumstances where they are being persecuted by President Putin\".\n\nShe said: \"We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine but also with our dear friends here in Poland, who are working really night and day, we can all see this, under incredible circumstances.\"\n\nUnder the scheme, normal requirements for salary or language tests will be waived and checks will be accelerated to process applications as quickly as possible, the Home Office said.\n\nIt added that \"essential security checks\" would still take place \"given the malign action being taken by the Russian state to infiltrate Ukraine\".\n\nIt said the family scheme would be followed up by another for Ukrainians with no ties to the UK - with further details to be set out \"in due course\"\n\nHowever, Labour called for the creation of a simple emergency visa, valid for 12 months, allowing anyone fleeing the conflict to come to the UK, with normal visa conditions other than biometrics and security checks lifted.\n\nMore than one million Ukrainians have fled the country since the invasion began last week, according to the United Nations, with most heading for neighbouring countries.\n\nSo far, the UK has sent three planes with 320,000 medical items to help - and the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee has launched an appeal.", "Oleg (R) with his wife, Irina, and their six-year-old daughter, Sofia\n\nA family trying to flee Russian attacks was deliberately targeted by Russian soldiers at a checkpoint in southern Ukraine, relatives say. Five people were killed. This article contains details some readers may find upsetting.\n\nOn 24 February, as Russian forces launched their attack on Ukraine, the Fedko family made a desperate attempt to flee their city of Kherson, in the country's south, to join relatives in a village where they felt they would be safe.\n\nOleg, who is a police officer, had to stay as his department was on full war alert. His father came to take Irina, Oleg's wife, and the couple's two children, six-year-old Sofia and Ivan, who was not even two months old, to his house in Vesele.\n\nShortly after they arrived, Russian forces entered the village. The troops had come from Crimea, which Russia had invaded and annexed in 2014, and advanced quickly, facing little resistance.\n\nElectricity and water supplies were cut off. Worried they would be caught up in the fighting, the family decided to flee, again, this time to the village of Nova Kakhovka, where other relatives lived.\n\nThey were now a bigger group, divided in two cars. One carried Oleg's aunt, uncle and cousins. In the second were his parents, wife and children. Their journey would see them driving along a dam, which was already under Russian control, to cross the Dnipro river, which cuts through Ukraine dividing the country in two.\n\nThe first car had passed through a checkpoint manned by Russian soldiers, but they had lost sight of the other vehicle.\n\nOleg's parents were also killed while trying to reach Nova Kakhovka\n\nDenis, Oleg's brother, was monitoring their moves by phone from Cherkasy, in central Ukraine. At 17:13, he called his mother. \"I was trying to convince my mom not to go to Nova Kakhovka, not to stay in Vesele,\" he said. \"I told them: 'Go to Odesa, I have a flat there for you'.\"\n\nAt that moment, he told me, he heard his mother scream: \"Oh my God, it's a child, how can you do that\". His sister-in-law, he said, was also screaming.\n\n\"Then I heard the sound of shooting,\" he said. \"The car stopped and I heard the opened door beeping. I heard the baby cry. He cried, cried, cried. Then I heard [more] gunshots.\"\n\nDenis was in shock. What had happened? What could he do?\n\nHis aunt, who was in the first car and also called Irina, was frantically trying to call her sister, Denis's mother. She was not answering. She tried others in the car. No-one was picking up the phone. Irina was in panic. They decided to return and check.\n\n\"Back at the checkpoint,\" she said, \"we approached a soldier and asked about the car\". The soldier, Irina told me, pointed at the ditch and said \"the driver didn't obey orders and nearly ran over an officer\".\n\nIrina said she begged the soldiers to let her and Oleksandr, her husband, go to the car. \"I said there were children there,\" she told me. Two soldiers went to the car. Oleksandr followed them. The car, he said, was pierced through with bullets. \"The front, the back and both sides had bullet holes.\"\n\nIrina and Sofia, who were travelling in the car allegedly targeted by Russian soldiers\n\nIvan was pulled out by one of the soldiers. He was crying. \"I told them [Sofia] was also there and ran towards the car. Sofia was in the back seat,\" Oleksandr said. \"I looked at her and there was a hole in her chest\". The three adults - Oleg's parents and his wife - had been killed.\n\nSofia was still alive. Ivan had now gone silent. Irina and Oleksandr brought the children to their car and rushed to a hospital in Nova Kakhovka.\n\nBut the doctors there could not save them.\n\nIvan, it turned out, had also been shot. \"He was shot in the ear, and the bullet went through the back of his head. His face was clean but the back of his head was covered with blood. But he was still alive and crying,\" Oleksandr said.\n\n\"All that time the soldiers were nearby,\" he told me, \"but they didn't even come to check on the people\" in the car.\n\nIrina is inconsolable. \"I still can't believe that they're gone. I don't even understand that this happened to us,\" she said. \"I cry all the time.\"\n\nThe Russian military only allowed the family to retrieve the bodies of the adults the following day. The doctor who inspected the bodies told them that they all died from multiple gunshot wounds.\n\nThe BBC has approached the Russian defence ministry for comment.\n\nThe International Criminal Court (ICC) said evidence was being collected on alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by Russia in Ukraine. And the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish a commission to investigate alleged human rights violations by Russia in the war.\n\nRussian soldiers are now digging trenches and strengthening their positions in Nova Kakhovka and nearby villages. The local population live in constant fear. \"I wasn't scared before,\" Irina said. \"But I'm scared now.\"\n\n\"There were some Russian soldiers near a pharmacy today. They were checking people's phones and their pockets. And they pointed their guns at them. We got in the car and drove away,\" Irina said in tears.\n\nOleg continues with his work with the police department, despite the loss of his wife and children. \"He's doing everything to protect our citizens,\" Denis said. \"But his pain of failing to protect his own family while defending the nation is unimaginable.\"", "Sections of a 40-mile Russian military convoy have been modelled in a 3D video using satellite imagery.\n\nFollow its path from above, showing its scope and magnitude, by watching this video.\n\nThis video has no sound", "A raft of actions by the West is aimed at choking Russia's economy and banking system, and punishing Vladimir Putin's inner circle. What more sanctions could they impose?\n\nIn response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US, UK, EU and more than two dozen other nations retaliated with economic measures that have sent the Russian rouble tumbling, cut major Russian banks from the global financial system and hurt state-owned firms and oligarchs, including Mr Putin himself.\n\nThe US says its actions hit 80% of banking assets in Russia; and the EU 70%. The allies have also taken steps to limit Russia's access to key technology, such as microchips and lasers; and moved against cryptocurrencies.\n\nTogether, they represent the toughest sanctions Mr Putin's Russia has ever faced.\n\nAnd analysts expect policymakers to continue tightening - for example, by adding more kinds of technology and new companies to blacklists. The most recent action by the US, on Wednesday, targeted oil refining equipment, among other steps.\n\n\"We are at a seven or eight out of 10 on the escalation ladder right now,\" said Emily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Washington think tank, the Center for New American Security. \"There is definitely still room to go with tightening.\"\n\nMany Western companies, including BP, Apple and others have responded to the situation by taking steps to halt services or exit the country.\n\nBut for now, trade can still flow - not least key exports like oil and gas, for which Russia is a major global supplier.\n\nWestern policymakers have been reluctant to hit energy, in part for fear of causing a spike in energy prices that would cause economic damage at home as well - especially in Europe, which relies on Russia for roughly 40% of its gas imports and roughly 30% of its oil imports.\n\nBut as the violence in Ukraine has escalated, there is growing pressure on the US and Europe to act.\n\nWill the West target Russian oil and gas exports for sanctions?\n\n\"My sense is that it's going to become politically untenable to say we'll keep paying Russia for oil, gas and coal,\" says Christopher Miller, professor at Tufts University's Fletcher School and an expert on the Russian economy.\n\n\"That's already been politically tough for Western leaders to stand by and I think it's going to become even tougher as the Russian military escalates its use of force.\"\n\nWhile oil and gas transactions are key to preventing the Russian economy from going \"off a cliff\", cutting off that lifeline risks provoking more extreme reaction by Russia, says Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank.\n\n\"The level of economic pressure now is severe. If you go for the economic jugular, Putin may respond with cyber and military action that will only make the suffering worse,\" he says.\n\nWhat's more the commitment, announced by Western allies this week, to release a 60m barrels of oil from strategic national reserves - half of which will come from the US - will only act to soften a temporary spike in prices.\n\nRussia may be able to withstand the loss of Western buyers, if it can sell less on the global markets at a higher price, says Ms Kilcrease.\n\n\"People I think want to see something there... but you have to think about the effect of what cutting off those sales would actually be. Will it hurt Russia? It's not actually clear,\" she says.\n\nThe sanctions have already caused economic havoc in Russia.\n\nBefore closing this week, the two major Moscow stock indexes plunged more than 20%. The rouble has dropped to record lows against the dollar, hurting the purchasing power of Russian families at a time when rising prices and deteriorating standard of living were already concerns.\n\nThe war has sparked protests in Russia, which has also seen the standard of living slide in recent years\n\nThe consultancy Capital Economics recently estimated that the sanctions could shrink Russia's economy by 15% this year.\n\nNor has the pain been limited to Russia.\n\nGlobal oil prices have already risen more than 10% since the start of February amid the tensions - and analysts expect they will remain elevated due to uncertainty from the conflict. Ukraine and Russia also supply nearly 30% of the world's wheat, 19% of its corn and 80% of its sunflower oil.\n\nCurrencies in countries with close ties to Russia, like Kazakhstan, have also been hit.\n\n\"That's the problem with sanctions - they never just end up targeting only one place,\" says Kristy Ironside, professor of Russian and Soviet history at McGill University. \"They tend to have other knock-on effects so anything [policymakers] do next, they have to consider very carefully in light of that.\"\n\nNor is it clear how economic destabilisation will affect Mr Putin's standing at home - or if they will make him willing to negotiate a political end to the violence in Ukraine.\n\nAfter all, Russians have endured economic isolation before and the ability to afford international travel and imported cheese may not matter much to his base.\n\n\"As long as pensions keep getting paid and people can enjoy a relatively reasonable standard of living... I think there's some leeway,\" Prof Ironside says. \"If this is sustained... I don't know.\"\n\nProf Miller says he is not optimistic that the sanctions will force Mr Putin to negotiate over Ukraine. But if sustained, he says, they may curb his power.\n\n\"Anything that touches the financial system is going to get more complicated and expensive as a result of this,\" Prof Miller says. \"That will have a ripple effect throughout the Russian economy.\"\n\n\"It will make Russia's economic outlook over the next couple of years substantially dimmer and therefore make it harder for the Russian government to keep its domestic political situation under control while simultaneously waging a set of wars abroad.\"\n\n\"This is the goal,\" he adds. \"To create this medium to longer term degradation of Russia's abilities.\"", "The ship was said to be without cargo when it sank\n\nAn Estonian cargo ship has sunk off the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa after an explosion, the ship's owners say.\n\nAll six crew members of the Helt were able to abandon ship and Ukrainian officials said they were later rescued.\n\nThe vessel had been anchored off the coast after leaving port several days ago.\n\nUkrainian media say the Russian navy had been using the Helt as a shield to hide from Ukrainian weaponry as Russian forces advance towards Odesa.\n\nThe Panama-flagged ship is owned by Estonia-based company Vista Shipping Agency. Baltic state Estonia is a member of Nato and has a border with Russia.\n\nUkraine's military says that Russia is sending amphibious landing vessels to capture Odesa, a city of a million people and a major seaport, as it continues its advance across southern Ukraine.\n\nRussia describes the invasion as a \"special military operation\" to demilitarise the country.\n\nA Ukrainian official told Lloyd's List the ship was evacuated after sustaining damage below the waterline and listing by 70 degrees.\n\nCaptain Igor Ilves, managing director of Vista Shipping Agency, told the BBC there was an explosion on or near the ship but that it was not thought to be a mine.\n\nCapt Ilves, who was not on the ship at the time, said it was not carrying any cargo.\n\nHe expressed concern for the fate of the crew, some of whom were initially reported missing.\n\nThey comprised four Ukrainians, one Russian and one Belarusian, Capt Ilves added.\n\nUkraine's infrastructure ministry later reported on its Telegram channel that they had been rescued.\n\nViktor Vyshniov, deputy head of Ukraine's Maritime Administration, told Reuters they were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Chornomorsk.\n\nHours earlier, a Bangladeshi-owned ship was hit by an explosion in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Olvia, killing one crew member.\n\nEfforts were being made to rescue the remaining 28 crew of the Banglar Samriddhi, the ship's owner told Reuters.\n\nThe Nato Shipping Centre has warned commercial vessels in the northern part of the Black Sea to \"exercise caution and stay away from areas where military operations are taking place\".", "A humanitarian crisis is growing, with many cities under intense bombardment\n\nRussian and Ukrainian negotiators have made limited progress at ceasefire talks, agreeing on the need for humanitarian corridors for civilians.\n\nA senior Ukrainian official said that despite this outcome, the talks had not led to the results Kyiv was hoping for.\n\nThey came as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the invasion of Ukraine, saying it was \"going to plan\".\n\nBut a humanitarian crisis has been growing in Ukrainian cities under intense Russian bombardment.\n\nMr Putin also spoke by phone for 90 minutes to French President Emmanuel Macron.\n\nAn aide to Mr Macron told reporters the French president expected that the worst was still to come, after Mr Putin told him Russia would continue its campaign in Ukraine until it had fulfilled its goals.\n\nMr Macron told his Russian counterpart the invasion was a serious mistake, and that his views did not correspond with reality.\n\nAt talks from an undisclosed location, the second this week, Russian and Ukrainian delegates agreed to possible temporary ceasefires.\n\nBut the truces would only be in places where humanitarian corridors were being set up and for the duration of civilian evacuations, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said.\n\n\"To our great regret, we did not get the results we were counting on,\" he added.\n\nSeveral Ukrainian cities are currently surrounded or almost surrounded by Russian forces.\n\nThe situation is particularly intense in the southern port city of Mariupol, which has been under relentless bombardment with almost no respite for several days.\n\nHundreds of people are feared dead in the city.\n\nUkraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, has also been under a fierce aerial assault. Its mayor told the BBC shelling and cruise missile strikes were hitting residential areas and inflicting heavy civilian casualties.\n\nOn Wednesday Russian tanks entered the port town of Kherson, a provincial capital home to about 250,000 people. It is the first major Ukrainian city to fall in more than a week of fighting. The US said the situation on the ground was changing rapidly, with fighting ongoing.\n\nUkraine reports that more than 2,000 civilians have died since the invasion began last Thursday. The conflict has also caused more than a million people to flee Ukraine, according to the UN.\n\nAfter his phone call with the French president, Mr Putin addressed members of his Security Council.\n\nIn televised remarks, he defended the attack on Ukraine, saying the campaign was on schedule.\n\nHe said he would never give up his conviction that Russians and Ukrainians were one people, claiming that some Ukrainians had been intimidated or \"duped by Nazi propaganda\".\n\nMr Putin alleged that Ukrainian forces were using civilians as human shields and holding foreigners hostage. He provided no evidence for this.\n\nIn a defiant video message on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded that Russia compensate Ukraine for the trauma of the invasion.\n\n\"You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full,\" he said.\n\nHe called on the West to send more military aid, including aircraft, and warned that if Ukraine lost the war, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would be Mr Putin's next targets.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko has thanked the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport about the Russian invasion of his homeland.\n\nThe 25-year-old Manchester City left-back was named captain for the midweek FA Cup win over Peterborough and carried out the Ukraine flag before the match, having sat out the previous two league games.\n\nSince Russia invaded Ukraine a little over a week ago, about a million Ukrainians have fled to safety while many others have stayed to fight.\n\nThe international community has almost universally backed Ukraine, in many cases sending weapons or imposing sanctions on Russian companies or individuals.\n\nZinchenko, who has family and friends in Ukraine, spoke to Gary Lineker about \"his mission\" to tell the world what is happening in Ukraine.\n\nYou can watch the full interview on Football Focus from 12:00 GMT on Saturday on BBC One.\n\nOn discovering the news and crying in the car\n\n\"At midnight UK time, my wife woke me up and she was crying,\" the Ukraine international says of how he discovered the invasion had started.\n\n\"I was in shock. She showed me the videos, the pictures, what's going on now in Ukraine.\n\n\"Maybe the most closest feeling is when someone from your circle is dying. You know, this feeling like you feel so bad inside. But this is even much more worse.\"\n\nNine days into the war and he says the emotion keeps hitting him.\n\n\"I'm just crying. So already a week, I'm not counting, but even I can drive the car from the training ground, or it doesn't matter where, I can just cry from nothing,\" he said.\n\n\"It's everything in my head. Imagine the place where you was born, where you was growing up. And there is just empty ground.\"\n\nOn his pride in Ukrainians who won't give up\n\nMany Ukrainians - including Zinchenko's friends - have stayed to fight Russia, with some who live abroad returning home for the war.\n\n\"I'll be honest, if not for my daughter, my family, I would be there,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm just born like that. I know the people from my country, the mentality of them, and all of them, they think exactly the same.\n\n\"I'm so proud to be Ukrainian, and I will be forever for the rest of my life. And when you're watching the people, how they fight for their lives.\n\n\"I know the people, the mentality of my people from my country, they prefer to die, and they will die. But they're not going to give [up].\"\n\nOn the world standing by Ukraine\n\nHe said he had been overwhelmed by support he had received from football fans, from people in the street and also form seeing donations from the British public.\n\n\"I'm so grateful,\" he said. \"I'm so grateful to all these people for the support I'm getting here. I didn't realise it's going to be like that in this way. So I would like to say all of them big thanks. I appreciate it.\n\n\"I'm getting a lot of messages from a lot of guys in Ukraine and they are asking me about the videos of support [from the UK].\n\n\"So people are watching TV, the people are still watching football, and they can see all these things, and I guess it helps a lot for them\n\n\"It's like, the people who are supporting Ukraine, they are trying to push them - don't give up. And I know my people they won't.\"\n\nOn his mission to let the world know what is happening\n\nZinchenko feels his \"mission is to show that the rest of the world the real truth, what's going on now in Ukraine\", especially amid Russian propaganda.\n\n\"I spoke with many people who are on our side. And they said that the way Russian TV is showing us is ridiculous.\n\n\"My mission is to show the rest of the world what's going on in this moment.\n\n\"There are few cities in the lowest part of Ukraine where the civilians, Russian people, are coming and they do fake protests that like 'we want to be with Russia' and stuff like that.\n\n\"I can show you one million pictures. I can show you one million videos, what they are doing now. I can show you every city in my country, which they destroyed.\n\n\"The people are starving there. The people are just surviving, sleeping on the ground, in bunkers, they cannot live a proper life.\"\n\nZinchenko revealed that was the reason he wanted to do the interview.\n\n\"I was thinking a few days about this interview. Should I do it? Should I not?\" he said. \"But I just want to send the message to all the people that please don't ignore this. We need to stop the war.\"\n\nOn his disappointment in Russian footballers\n\nZinchenko has said he is really disappointed that no Russia internationals have spoken out against the invasion.\n\nRussia captain Artem Dzyuba even spoke out against his country's suspension from international tournaments by Fifa and Uefa and said \"I am proud to be Russian\".\n\nZinchenko said: \"I was surprised that no-one, not one of them, from all of them [has said anything].\n\n\"Most of them play in the national team and they have a lot of followers on Instagram, Facebook, wherever.\n\n\"And they can, they can at least they can do something to stop this war. Because the people can hear them.\n\n\"I already know that they scared. But they're scared of what? They're not gonna do anything with them.\n\n\"At least they can say their positions, but they don't they just ignore it. I don't know why.\"", "As a humanitarian crisis unfolds in Ukraine following its invasion by Russia, many people in the UK are looking for ways they can help.\n\nFrom using donations to help people in the warzone or fleeing bombs, to enabling refugees to resettle in the UK, here are some of the groups offering support in the crisis.\n\nGlobal charities operating in the UK and Ukraine are appealing for funds to offer aid in the humanitarian crisis.\n\nSean Ryan, media director of Save the Children, said: \"The best way to help is to make a cash donation.\"\n\nHe said collecting supplies like blankets or infant formula means transporting heavy goods hundreds of miles, whereas cash can reach people quickly to buy what is needed.\n\nAmong the organisations collecting funds for Ukraine are include:\n\nThe Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, the largest representative body for Ukrainians in the UK, has raised more than £1.1m, which it said would fund medicine, food and other essentials.\n\nUK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said donating money through the Ukrainian Embassy in the UK was one way of helping.\n\nThe embassy has set up a special fund called With Ukraine for people to send funds via PayPal or bank transfers.\n\nThe money will be spent on providing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population and to purchase medical and military supplies for Ukraine's army, the embassy said.\n\nHundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled the country to neighbouring Poland with little more than they can carry\n\nAs well as large organisations, individuals with connections to Ukraine are collecting money independently.\n\nOne Ukrainian mother, Inna Schorr, who lives in London, has raised thousands of pounds.\n\nMs Schorr told the BBC many of her family and friends are still in Ukraine and her husband has travelled to Poland to help. The family were originally asking for private donations before realising a crowdfunding page would be more effective.\n\nShe added that she felt inspired to help the mothers and children by collecting money for activities or support in the refugee camps. \"It is as a support from mums to mums,\" she said.\n\nWith all financial contributions online, it is worth making sure you know where your money is going first - double check the organisation is real and is being shared by a trustworthy source.\n\nAs well as financial donations, grassroot groups are collecting items such as clothing, bedding, and sanitary items:\n\nPeople intending to make a donation with any community group are advised to check which items are most needed and if they are still accepting donations.\n\nSome UK businesses have offered support, like chef Damian Wawrzyniak, who wrote on Twitter that he would pay for work visas and flights of two Ukrainian chefs looking for work in Britain.\n\nMr Wawrzyniak also said he could help with accommodation.\n\nCurrently temporary visa concessions for the family members of British nationals have been introduced.\n\nLabour has said the failure to further relax visa restrictions is \"immoral\".\n\nThe Refugee Council told the BBC people living in the UK can help by volunteering with its organisation to support refugees and people seeking asylum and supporting its call on the government to \"create more safe routes\".\n\nThe UNHCR, meanwhile, has urged the government to automatically extend the visas of all Ukrainians with limited leave to remain in the UK.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson's official spokesman said: \"We think the best way we can help Ukraine right now is by ensuring Putin fails.\n\n\"There are a number of ways Brits can show their support for that, and the Ukrainian embassy in London is putting out information about how British people can support.\"\n\nIt was not immediately clear what information, other than its crowdfunding page, had been published by the Ukrainian embassy.", "Boris Johnson says allies of Vladimir Putin will have \"nowhere to hide\"\n\nThe government is to change the law to make it easier to introduce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, after criticism the UK is acting too slowly.\n\nMinisters are tabling amendments to the Economic Crime Bill which are designed to allow the UK to align with penalties imposed by allies in the EU and US.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said foreigners trying to launder money in the UK would have \"nowhere to hide\".\n\nBut Labour accused the government of making a \"U-turn under pressure\".\n\nMinisters have already imposed asset freezes on individuals and companies with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, following the invasion of Ukraine over a week ago.\n\nBut opposition parties have said the government needs to do more to tackle wealthy Putin allies who store large amounts of money in London.\n\nThere has been criticism from within the Conservative party too.\n\nSenior Conservative Tom Tugendhat said he was \"extremely concerned\" that the delays in imposing sanctions might allow people who have stolen from the Russian people for the last 20 years to hide their money in a new jurisdiction. That would be completely unacceptable, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nThe bill, which has cross-party support, is expected to be fast-tracked through Parliament on Monday.\n\nOutlining its amendments, the Foreign Office said the \"appropriateness test\" - a threshold that needed to be met when imposing sanctions on individuals - would be removed.\n\nIt is also speeding up the deadline for overseas companies to declare their true owners - from 18 months to six months. Maximum fines for non-compliance with this rule are set to increase from £500 to £2,500 per day.\n\nThe bill is expected to become law by the middle of this month.\n\nMr Johnson said these measures would ramp up the pressure on criminal elites trying to launder money on UK soil and close the net on corruption. \"They will have nowhere to hide,\" he warned.\n\nIn a video on Twitter addressed to the Ukrainian people, Mr Johnson said the UK, along with its allies, would continue \"doing everything we can to support you and impose a mountain of pressure on Vladimir Putin\".\n\nHe said they would go further with sanctions \"unless and until this aggression stops\".\n\n\"The world is turning its back on Putin and his regime,\" he added.\n\nIn a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening, the prime minister described the crisis in Ukraine as \"the worst war on our continent for a long time\".\n\nAnd, in an interview with European newspapers La Repubblica, Die Welt and El Pais, Mr Johnson said he believed Mr Putin intended to \"double down\" on the invasion because Mr Putin envisaged no way out but to \"continue with the destruction\".\n\nHe went on to describe the moment he was woken in the middle of the night to the news of the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site, the likes of which he said were \"clearly a matter of our common European health and safety\".\n\nHe said it must be made clear to the Kremlin that \"a civilian nuclear disaster in Ukraine, another Chernobyl, is a disaster for Russia as well as for everybody\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn the sanctions proposals, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy welcomed the government's \"U-turn\". But he added it was unacceptable that oligarchs with links to Mr Putin, who should have been sanctioned, had been allowed to move money around because of government incompetence.\n\nThe law should have been introduced months ago, at the same time as allies and partners had done so, he said.\n\nRecent research by campaign group Transparency International suggests £1.5bn worth of UK property has been bought by Russians accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin since 2016.\n\nSince the invasion began, the UK has announced a series of sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs and businesses.\n\nOn Thursday, two more oligarchs were sanctioned - Alisher Usmanov, who has links to Everton football club, and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov.\n\nOther measures include asset freezes on Russian banks and an export ban on technical equipment.\n• None 'Life is crumbling' - Russians on boycotts and sanctions", "Oleksandra says her mother repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV\n\nOleksandra and her four rescue dogs have been sheltering in the bathroom of her flat in Kharkiv since the shelling began.\n\n\"When I heard the first explosions, I ran out of the house to get my dogs from their enclosures outside. People were panicking, abandoning their cars. I was so scared,\" she says.\n\nThe 25-year-old has been speaking regularly to her mother, who lives in Moscow. But in these conversations, and even after sending videos from her heavily bombarded hometown, Oleksandra is unable to convince her mother about the danger she is in.\n\n\"I didn't want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying,\" she says.\n\n\"But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people.\"\n\nIt's common for Ukrainians to have family across the border in Russia. But for some, like Oleksandra, their Russian relatives have a contrasting understanding of the conflict. She believes it's down to the stories they are told by the tightly-controlled Russian media.\n\nOleksandra's dogs have been a source of support during the bombing\n\nOleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels.\n\n\"It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them,\" says Oleksandra.\n\n\"My parents understand that some military action is happening here. But they say: 'Russians came to liberate you. They won't ruin anything, they won't touch you. They're only targeting military bases'.\"\n\nWhile we were interviewing Oleksandra, the shelling went on. The internet connection was weak, so we had to exchange voice messages.\n\n\"I've almost forgotten what silence sounds like. They're shelling non-stop,\" she said.\n\nBut on Russian state TV channels on the same day, there was no mention of the missiles striking Kharkiv's residential districts, of civilian deaths, or of four people killed while queuing for water.\n\nState TV channel Rossiya 1 refers to the war as a \"special operation\"\n\nRussian media say the threat to Ukrainian civilians doesn't come from the Russian armed forces, it comes from Ukrainian nationalists using civilians as human shields.\n\nRussian state TV channels justify the war by blaming Ukrainian aggression, and continue to call it \"a special operation of liberation\". Any Russian outlet using the words \"war\", \"invasion\" or \"attack\" faces being blocked by the country's media regulator for spreading \"deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel\" in Ukraine.\n\nAnd now a new law has passed through the Russian Parliament that means people who spread \"fake\" information about Russia's military forces could be jailed for up to 15 years.\n\nSome Russians have taken to the streets to protest against the war - but these demonstrations were not shown on the main state television channels.\n\nMykhailo, a well-known Kyiv restaurateur, didn't have the time or inclination to watch Russian TV coverage of the invasion.\n\nWhen shelling of Ukraine's capital started, he and his wife were concentrating on how to protect their six-year-old daughter and baby son.\n\nMykhailo with his father before the war\n\nAt night their children woke up at the sound of explosions and couldn't stop crying. The family made the decision to move to the outskirts of Kyiv and then flee abroad.\n\nThey travelled to Hungary, where Mykhailo left his wife and children and came back to Western Ukraine to help the war effort.\n\nHe was surprised not to have heard from his father, who works at a monastery near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He called his father and described what was happening. His father replied that this wasn't true; there was no war and - in fact - Russians were saving Ukraine from Nazis.\n\nMykhailo said he felt he knew the power of Russian propaganda, but when he heard it from his father, he was devastated.\n\n\"My own father does not believe me, knowing that I'm here and see everything with my own eyes. And my mum, his ex-wife, is going through this too,\" he says.\n\n\"She is hiding with my grandmother in the bathroom, because of the bombardment.\"\n\nRussian media has been tightly controlled for many years and viewers are given an uncritical view of Russia and its actions around the world.\n\n\"The state narrative only ever shows Russia as the good guy.\" says Dr Joanna Szostek, an expert in Russia and political communications at University of Glasgow.\n\n\"Even the tales they tell about World War Two, the Great Patriotic War, Russia has never really done anything wrong. And this is why they won't believe it now.\"\n\nMost Russians, she says, don't look for other points of view. She believes the one-sided narrative that is highly critical of the West helps explain why Russians can have opposing views to their relatives in neighbouring countries.\n\n\"People who criticise Russia have for so long been presented as traitors or foreign agents; critics are all foreign agents working for the West. So you don't even believe your own daughter.\"\n\nAnastasiya's parents live in a small village 20km (12 miles) away from the rebel-held Donetsk People's Republic. The village is still under the control of Kyiv authorities, but Russian state TV channels are always on in their house. They even have the clock set to Moscow time - a throwback to the Soviet past.\n\nSo when on 24 February, Anastasiya woke up in Kyiv to the sound of sirens, she knew how her parents would react.\n\n'My mum was the first person I called when I jumped out of bed at five, disoriented. She was surprised I called and sounded really calm, almost casual,\" she says.\n\nAnastasiya, a BBC Ukrainian correspondent who moved to Kyiv 10 years ago, heard bombs exploding after waking and was worried about where would be hit next.\n\nAnastasiya - and her cat - have left home\n\n\"I called my mum again. I told her I was scared. 'Don't worry', she said, reassuringly. 'They [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv'.\"\n\nBut they are already doing it, Anastasiya replied.\n\n\"I told her there were casualties among civilians. 'But that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas!', she said, laughing. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Hearing my mum say this with such cruelty just broke my heart.\"\n\nAnastasiya believes the image Russian media has created is one of the \"glorified Russian army\" ridding Ukraine from Nazis. For years she avoided political arguments with her parents, but this time she slammed the phone down on her mum.\n\nWe spoke to Anastasiya when she was travelling away from Kyiv after four nights in a bomb shelter. Her mind was on an uncertain future.\n\n\"There are a lot of thoughts in my head now. What will happen to us all? Where is this going? Will I ever come back? Will I ever see my parents again? I still love them deeply, but something inside me has broken and I don't think it can ever be fixed.\"", "All London Underground lines have re-opened but with severe disruption reported across the network\n\nLondon Underground is returning to normal following the end of a second 24-hour Tube strike in three days.\n\nThe walkout by 10,000 RMT union members ended at 00:01 GMT on Friday, in a dispute over jobs and pensions. They had also been on strike on Tuesday.\n\nAll London Underground lines reopened by 08:00, although disruption was reported across the network.\n\nTransport bosses urged people to work from home or use other modes of transport.\n\nMost lines are running a normal service as of 12.00 on Friday. Minor delays are reported on the Circle and Hammersmith and City Line.\n\nThis week's industrial action saw all Tube lines at least part suspended and caused widespread chaos.\n\nThere have been huge queues at bus and taxi ranks as people switched to other forms of public transport to get to work\n\nAndy Lord, Transport for London's (TfL) chief operating officer, said: \"Services will be severely impacted until mid-morning on Friday because of a number of factors, including the placement of drivers and trains following a day without service.\n\n\"I apologise to customers for this and understand they will be frustrated by this strike action, but urge them not to take it out on those who are trying to help.\n\n\"We haven't proposed any changes to pensions or terms and conditions, and nobody has lost or will lose their jobs because of the proposals we have set out, so this action is completely unnecessary.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Anna O'Neill This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union's general secretary Mick Lynch said: \"The funding crisis at TfL which is at the heart of this dispute is not of our making and our members are not prepared to take a hammering to pay for it.\n\n\"This week we have seen workers fighting back across London against attacks on themselves and their colleagues from political machinations that are out of their control.\"\n\nA fourth day of interrupted Tube travel for Londoners - but at least passengers here at Kentish Town station can make their journey now that the Northern line has reopened.\n\nThe gates were open here anyway, as Thameslink trains serve the station, but it certainly feels as if the preference for working from home on Fridays has minimised the disruption this morning.\n\nIt's not unbridled joy for those heading down the escalator here in north-west London - the Northern line's Bank branch remains suspended between Moorgate and Kennington until mid-May due to engineering work - and the spectre of further strikes looms.", "A residential block in the city of Irpin, just outside the capital Kyiv, has been shelled, video footage shows.\n\nMultiple projectiles appear to hit the building, followed by dust clouds.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMasked men armed with axes have ram-raided a jewellery shop and threatened onlookers as they made their escape.\n\nThe robbery happened in Ladypool Road, Birmingham, and West Midlands Police said three vehicles had since been recovered.\n\nJawad Rana, who owns a travel agents next to the jewellers, said everyone had backed off when one of the men had started swearing and threatening to attack people with his axe.\n\nNobody was hurt in the raid.\n\nJawad Rana said he had felt the building shake when the pick-up was reversed into the neighbouring jewellery store\n\nMr Rana said he had felt the building shake when the men reversed their vehicle in to the jewellery shop.\n\n\"You do sort of panic, you know, what can you do? I was frozen and I just picked up this bag and sort of threw the bag at the vehicle,\" he added.\n\n\"This guy with an axe suddenly comes running past and sort of started swearing and said 'nobody get involved or try to help or I'm coming at you with this axe'.\"\n\nMr Rana added it was \"very shocking and it's not something you'd expect in broad daylight\".\n\nWest Midlands Police has asked for people with CCTV, dashcam, or mobile footage of the raid to get in touch.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Wales is getting to a \"steady state\" of being able to manage coronavirus, the first minister has said.\n\nMark Drakeford believes this \"stability\" means future outbreaks can be dealt with like other infectious diseases, such as measles.\n\nAt a Welsh government briefing, Mr Drakeford announced plans to end all remaining Covid measures on 28 March.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nIvan Lendl and Andy Murray are getting back together again, with the two due to start work in the United States next month.\n\nThey will spend several weeks training after this month's Miami Masters as Murray prepares for the grass-court season which starts in June.\n\nMurray had already decided to skip the clay court season from April to June.\n\nHe won two Wimbledon titles, the 2012 US Open and two Olympic gold medals while working with Lendl.\n\nMurray also became the world number one under the coach\n\nHe was distraught when they first split in 2014, having realised the eight-time Grand Slam champion was not prepared to commit to the number of weeks on tour he required.\n\nLendl returned to the team in 2016: the year Murray won his second Wimbledon title and finished the year as the world number one.\n\nThe partnership formally ended in November of the following year, with Murray unable to play much because of his serious hip injury, which later required two operations.\n\nMurray also plans to appoint an additional coach, who will travel with him and work closely with Lendl.\n\nThe 34-year-old world number 84 has been without a permanent coach since his five and-a-half year spell with Jamie Delgado came to an end late last year.\n\nHe has since had trial periods with Johanna Konta's former coach Esteban Carril and the German Jan de Witt.\n\nAnother of Murray's former coaches Dani Vallverdu has offered his assistance in recent weeks, but he is committed to Stan Wawrinka, who is due to return to the tour in April.\n\nMurray said last month in Dubai that he needs a consistent message on the practice court, and hinted that despite all of his experience he really misses a coach.\n\nAfter reaching the final of the Sydney International in January, Murray has lost in the second round of the four tournaments he has played. After an excellent five set win over Nikoloz Basilashvili in the first round of the Australian Open, he was beaten in straight sets by Taro Daniel.\n\nMurray has complained about how poor he has been mentally in recent weeks, something which Lendl - as another former world number one - was able to help him with significantly in their earlier time together.\n\nLendl spent just under a year working with Alex Zverev after his second spell with Murray, but has not been coaching on tour since that partnership came to an end in July 2019.\n\nMurray has a wildcard for this month's Masters Series events in Indian Wells and Miami, and will then have two months to train and prepare for the grass-court season.\n\nLendl will not be in Indian Wells, but is likely to be offering advice remotely, and could potentially appear in Miami as he lives nearby.\n\nIn June and July it looks likely Lendl will once again be by Murray's side on the grass courts at The Queen's Club and Wimbledon.\n• None The Fast and the Farmer-ish: Who will prove victorious and take home the tractor trophy?\n• None Every brand has a story, even the ones that don't exist...", "Sainsbury's, Aldi, Asda and Waitrose have all announced they will axe Russian products amid the war in Ukraine.\n\nSainsbury's will remove Russian Standard vodka and Karpayskiye black sunflower seeds from its shelves.\n\nWaitrose, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, will no longer sell Russian vodka either.\n\nAsda's announcement will apply to about 100 products - mostly spirits, but also includes fish and some sweets.\n\nThe supermarkets follow moves from the likes of Morrisons and Co-op, which said on Thursday that they would withdraw Russian-made vodka from sale.\n\nSainsbury's said it would also change the name of chicken Kiev to \"chicken Kyiv\" to match the Ukrainian spelling of the capital.\n\nA spokesperson for Britain's second-biggest supermarket said: \"We stand united with the people of Ukraine.\n\n\"We have reviewed our product range and have decided to remove from sale all products that are 100% sourced from Russia.\"\n\nMohsin Issa, Asda's co-owner, said: \"We stand with our customers and colleagues who are shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine - and our thoughts are with those people whose lives are affected by this crisis.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the John Lewis Partnership said that it would also remove a line of Russian-made pizza oven pellets from sale in its department stores.\n\n\"We're working with our suppliers to review products that have components of Russian origin and will be seeking to mitigate further exposure to the region,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nThe Co-op, the first supermarket chain to announce such a move on Thursday, said that its decision was \"a sign of solidarity with the people of Ukraine\".\n\nIt took Russian Standard vodka off sale with immediate effect as it is \"overtly marketed as being Russian\" and is produced in the country, a spokesperson for the Co-op said.\n\nSainsbury's confirmed on Friday that it would, however, continue to sell JJ Whitley vodka products, after the manufacturer said it planned to move all production away from St Petersburg to Chorley in Lancashire.\n\n\"We support their announcement earlier in the week that they are moving all production to Chorley in the UK by the end of this month and will therefore continue to sell those products,\" it said.\n\nAccording to reports in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Tesco is also considering renaming chicken Kiev to match the Ukrainian spelling of the capital city Kyiv.\n\nIt has not yet confirmed whether or not it will remove Russian-sourced products, but has said previously it is following UK government rules on trading with the country.\n\nElsewhere, other supermarkets in Europe have also taken action. The Netto discount chain has already stopped selling Russian products across its stores Germany, Poland and Denmark.", "David Malpass says \"it's too early to say\" if the war in Ukraine will lead to a global recession\n\nThe war in Ukraine is \"a catastrophe\" for the world which will cut global economic growth, the president of the World Bank has told the BBC.\n\n\"The war in Ukraine comes at a bad time for the world because inflation was already rising,\" said David Malpass.\n\nHe stressed his biggest concern is \"about the pure human loss of lives\" that is occurring.\n\nThousands of civilians and soldiers are thought to have been killed by the fighting.\n\nMr Malpass said the economic impact of the war stretches beyond Ukraine's borders, and the rises in global energy prices in particular \"hit the poor the most, as does inflation\".\n\nFood prices have also been pushed up by the war, and \"are a very real consideration and problem for people in poor countries\".\n\nMr Malpass points out that both Russia and Ukraine are big food producers. Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil, with Russia number two, according to S&P Global Platts. Between them they account for 60% of global production.\n\nThe two countries also account for 28.9% of global wheat exports according to JP Morgan. Wheat prices on the Chicago future exchange have been trading at 14-year highs.\n\nUkraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil but the war has stopped exports\n\nRussian supplies of these commodities are being restricted because of the widespread sanctions which make it hard for the rest of the world to buy its products. Ukrainian supplies have been stopped because fighting has closed the country's ports.\n\n\"There's no way to adjust quickly enough to the loss of supply from Ukraine and from Russia, and so that adds to prices,\" said Mr Malpass.\n\nHe says the same is true of Russian energy supplies, and it is particularly damaging for western Europe, where governments have \"neglected other aspects of how to have enough electricity\". About 39% of the EU's electricity comes from power stations that burn fossil fuels, and Russia is the biggest source of that oil and gas.\n\nAs the EU looks to accelerate its transition to other energy sources, Vladimir Putin's government \"may permanently lose some of their markets\", said Mr Malpass. Such a loss of income is just one way this war will dent living standards in Russia, so too will the fall in the value of the rouble and the inflation that brings.\n\nThe war in Ukraine will cause more problems for a global economy, David Malpass says\n\nThe World Bank has committed $7.9bn to help develop Ukraine's economy since the 2014 revolution. That money has helped the country institute wide-ranging economic reforms including privatisations in the energy and banking sectors, as well as efforts to make its farmland more productive.\n\nLess than a month before the Russian invasion Ukraine's independent central bank forecast that the $180bn economy would grow 3.4% this year, after the difficulties of the pandemic.\n\nHowever, war means \"a catastrophic impact for our economy, for the region overall\", according to Alexander Rodnyansky, who is an economic adviser to President Zelensky.\n\nHe adds: \"We've already seen massive destructions of roads and bridges and infrastructure. So that is something that will have to be rebuilt over the years when the war is over.\n\n\"It's hard to put a number on that right now, but we can already see that we've given up percentages and GDP growth just because of what happened already.\"\n\nWith hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the country or joining the fight against Russia the workforce has shrunk dramatically, which is making it difficult to keep the wartime economy going.\n\n\"Production is just collapsing\", says Mr Rodnyansky, who says there are disruptions to vital food and energy supplies.\n\nWar is having \"a catastrophic impact\" on Ukraine's economy, says Alexander Rodnyansky\n\nBig western companies, such as food manufacturer Nestle and brewer Carlsberg, have big operations in Ukraine that have been disrupted by the war.\n\nA surge of foreign investment in recent years helped to reshape the Ukrainian economy amid a corruption crackdown that was part of a deal for development support from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.\n\nMr Rodnyansky said that shift \"absolutely reflects the people's desire in Ukraine to integrate with the European Union, to be part of the European family, and to just have a democratic, strong, economically free country that's flourishing\".\n\nHe says there has been a drive to digitisation that has made it easier to do business in the country: \"It stands in stark contrast to what happens in Russia… and that's perhaps another reason why the Russian leader just so blatantly hates everything about Ukraine and what Ukraine stands for.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Malpass is concerned that the war will do long term damage to those changes that Ukraine's economy and people have benefited from.\n\nA desire to stop them unravelling is one reason why the World Bank is in the process of putting together a $350m aid package for Ukraine which is expected to be approved within the next few days.\n\n\"It will help fund the budget of Ukraine,\" said Mr Malpass. With tax revenues collapsing because of the war it will help pay for things such as government salaries, social welfare and emergency supplies.\n\nHe is conscious that as well as the risk to the lives of millions of Ukrainian, the war could \"be a lasting [economic] setback, where Russia pulls them toward Russia, under the ideas, the goals of an individual leader\".\n\n\"Their per capita income has fallen below China's because in part because of economic mismanagement, and because they really have maintained such a centralised system of decision making under Putin for now, ever since 2000.\"\n\nHe adds: \"The risk is that Ukraine is controlled by that.\"\n\nThe warnings by Mr Malpass came as the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) cut its growth forecast for the UK's economy, amid soaring inflation, tax rises, and global shocks including Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe BCC predicts the UK will grow by 3.6% this year, down from its previous forecast of 4.2%, with consumer spending expected to slow as household incomes come under pressure from rising inflation.\n\nThe new estimate is less than half the 7.5% growth rate seen last year, when the UK's economy rebounded from the Covid-induced slump in 2020.\n\nYou can watch David Malpass' full interview on \"Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst\" this weekend on BBC World News at Saturday 23:30 GMT, Sunday 05:30 and 16:30 GMT and Monday at 08:30 GMT\n\nViewers in the UK can watch the show at 0430 GMT on Sunday on the BBC News Channel", "Viktor Zhora was giving a press conference on the cyber-conflict from an undisclosed location\n\nUkraine's cyber-security authority says it is fighting a war in the digital realm, as well as on the ground.\n\nThe ministry says it is facing constant cyber-attacks against its government and infrastructure networks, with individual officials now being targeted.\n\nIt claimed that its cyber-defences are repelling most attacks.\n\nBut it added that the cyber-conflict with Russia was unprecedented, describing it as a \"hybrid war\".\n\nIn the first press conference since the war began, Viktor Zhora, deputy chairman of the State Service of Special Communications, said: \"These two wars [we are fighting] are part of this hybrid war.\n\n\"This is happening for the first time in history and I believe that cyber-war can only be ended with the end of conventional war, and we will do everything we can to bring this moment closer.\"\n\nMr Zhora said that his cyber-security teams have been working to defend critical Ukrainian web services successfully and that \"they are not afraid of Russian\" attacks on their power grids or nuclear sites.\n\nThe Anonymous hacking collective has taken up cyber-arms against Russia\n\nIn 2015 and 2016, hackers, thought to be under orders from the Kremlin, caused power cuts to Ukrainian cities.\n\nWestern intelligence services have blamed Russia for other attacks on Ukraine, such as the NotPetya one in 2017.\n\nIn the weeks leading up to the invasion, the country suffered three separate waves of low level cyber-attacks, one of which the UK and US has blamed on Russian military hackers.\n\nGovernment and financial service websites were knocked offline briefly, and some were defaced with a warning to Ukrainians to \"expect the worst\".\n\nAt the same time, authorities discovered a more serious \"wiper\" attack, which removed the data from a small number of private company networks in Ukraine.\n\nHowever, the cyber-security world has been surprised by a lack of large impactful attacks from Russia during the war.\n\nMr Zhora says they are happening but Ukraine's defences are blocking them.\n\nSince the invasion began, the ministry has also taken the highly controversial step of launching an \"IT Army of Ukraine\", which has been carrying out cyber-attacks on Russian targets. This included attempts to disrupt transport and power networks.\n\nUkraine websites were defaced with a threatening message in February\n\nThe Telegram group for the organisation now has 270,000 members, but the ministry estimates that there could be as many as 400,000 hackers fighting online for Ukraine.\n\nMr Zhora defended the formation of the cyber-army, insisting that it is a \"volunteer movement\" and that no attacks on civilian computer networks are being carried out.\n\n\"We call it a cyber-resistance and we're doing everything possible to protect our land and our cyber-space. We are trying to protect our networks and to make the aggressor feel uncomfortable with their actions in cyber-space and in Ukrainian land.\n\n\"These cyber-warriors are not targeting civil targets, they are targeting military and government targets.\"\n\nOther groups, including the hacker collective Anonymous, have joined the fight, declaring \"cyber-war\" on President Putin.\n\nThe group claims to have been taking down Russian websites, defacing them and encouraging people to \"review bomb\" Russian businesses online with messages about the war.\n\nMr Zhora says he can't condone the illegal hacking, but that normal peacetime rules don't apply.\n\n\"We do not welcome any illegal activity in cyber-space. We believe that every part should be responsible with their actions. But the world order changed on 24 February.\n\n\"We have a martial law here in Ukraine and I don't think that appealing to moral principles works, since our enemy doesn't have any principles.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nChinese rights holders have told the Premier League they will not broadcast English top-flight matches this weekend because of the league's planned shows of support for Ukraine, the BBC has learnt.\n\nChina is a close political ally of Russia, which has invaded Ukraine.\n\nThe Premier League has said it \"wholeheartedly rejects Russia's actions\" and is set to show solidarity with Ukraine.\n\n\"We call for peace and our thoughts are with all those who have been impacted,\" it added, when announcing its plans earlier this week.\n\nThat will include captains wearing special armbands in Ukrainian colours, while stadium screens will display 'Football Stands Together' in front of the country's blue and yellow flag.\n\nFans have also been encouraged to join \"a moment of reflection and solidarity before kick-off at each game\".\n\nWhen asked about the Chinese refusal to show matches, the Premier League declined to comment.\n\nThe Premier League rights in China are held by iQiyi Sports which took over last year after the collapse of a deal with PPTV.\n\nThe row comes with the Premier League reviewing its broadcast contracts in Russia.\n\nThis week Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said that, with teams demonstrating their support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion, he would \"like the Russian people to see the strength of feeling in the Premier League and in English football this weekend\".\n\nHe added: \"But we are looking at them [the contracts] very closely in terms of suspension or termination, given the current circumstances.\"\n\nIn 2019 China's state broadcaster CCTV removed an Arsenal-Manchester City game from its schedule after comments made by then-Gunners midfielder Mesut Ozil.\n\nOzil had posted on social media about the treatment of Uighur Muslims in China.", "Amid the fog of war, it can be hard to see the way forward. The news from the battlefield, the diplomatic noises off, the emotion of the grieving and displaced; all of this can be overwhelming. So let us step back for a moment and consider how the conflict in Ukraine might play out. What are some of the possible scenarios that politicians and military planners are examining? Few can predict the future with confidence, but here are some potential outcomes. Most are bleak.\n\nUnder this scenario, Russia escalates its military operations. There are more indiscriminate artillery and rocket strikes across Ukraine. The Russian air force - which has played a low-key role so far - launches devastating airstrikes. Massive cyber-attacks sweep across Ukraine, targeting key national infrastructure. Energy supplies and communications networks are cut off. Thousands of civilians die. Despite brave resistance, Kyiv falls within days. The government is replaced with a pro-Moscow puppet regime. President Zelensky is either assassinated or flees, to western Ukraine or even overseas, to set up a government in exile. President Putin declares victory and withdraws some forces, leaving enough behind to maintain some control. Thousands of refugees continue to flee west. Ukraine joins Belarus as a client state of Moscow.\n\nThis outcome is by no means impossible but would depend on several factors changing: Russian forces performing better, more of those forces being deployed, and Ukraine's extraordinary fighting spirit fading. Mr Putin might achieve regime change in Kyiv and the end of Ukraine's western integration. But any pro-Russian government would be illegitimate and vulnerable to insurgency. Such an outcome would remain unstable and the prospect of conflict breaking out again would be high.\n\nPerhaps more likely is that this develops into a protracted war. Maybe Russian forces get bogged down, hampered by low morale, poor logistics and inept leadership. Maybe it takes longer for Russian forces to secure cities like Kyiv whose defenders fight from street to street. A long siege ensues. The fighting has echoes of Russia's long and brutal struggle in the 1990s to seize and largely destroy Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.\n\nChechens during the Russian occupation of Grozny\n\nAnd even once Russian forces have achieved some presence in Ukraine's cities, perhaps they struggle to maintain control. Maybe Russia cannot provide enough troops to cover such a vast country. Ukraine's defensive forces transform into an effective insurgency, well-motivated and supported by local populations. The West continues to provide weapons and ammunition. And then, perhaps after many years, with maybe new leadership in Moscow, Russian forces eventually leave Ukraine, bowed and bloodied, just as their predecessors left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade fighting Islamist insurgents.\n\nMight it be possible this war could spill outside Ukraine's borders? President Putin could seek to regain more parts of Russia's former empire by sending troops into ex-Soviet republics like Moldova and Georgia, that are not part of Nato. Or there could just be miscalculation and escalation. Mr Putin could declare Western arms supplies to Ukrainian forces are an act of aggression that warrant retaliation. He could threaten to send troops into the Baltic states - which are members of Nato - such as Lithuania, to establish a land corridor with the Russian coastal exclave of Kaliningrad.\n\nThe square outside Kharkiv's city hall has been destroyed by Russian troop shelling\n\nThis would be hugely dangerous and risk war with Nato. Under Article 5 of the military alliance's charter, an attack on one member is an attack on all. But Mr Putin might take the risk if he felt it was the only way of saving his leadership. If he was, perhaps, facing defeat in Ukraine, he might be tempted to escalate further. We now know the Russian leader is willing to break long-standing international norms. This same logic can be applied to the use of nuclear weapons. This week, Mr Putin put his nuclear forces on a higher level of alert. Most analysts doubt this means their use is likely or imminent. But it was a reminder that Russian doctrine allows for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.\n\nMight there, despite everything, still be a possible diplomatic solution?\n\n\"The guns are talking now, but the path of dialogue must always remain open,\" said UN Secretary General António Guterres. Certainly dialogue continues. President Macron of France has spoken to President Putin on the phone. Diplomats say feelers are being stretched out to Moscow. And, surprisingly, Russian and Ukrainian officials have met for talks on the border with Belarus. They might not have made much progress. But, by agreeing to the talks, Putin seems to at least have accepted the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire.\n\nThe key question is whether the West can offer what diplomats refer to as an \"off ramp\", an American term for an exit off a major highway. Diplomats say it is important the Russian leader knows what it would take for Western sanctions to lift so a face-saving deal is at least possible.\n\nConsider this scenario. The war goes badly for Russia. Sanctions begin to unsettle Moscow. Opposition grows as body bags return home. Mr Putin wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew. He judges that continuing the war may be a greater threat to his leadership than the humiliation of ending it. China intervenes, putting pressure on Moscow to compromise, warning that it will not buy Russian oil and gas unless it de-escalates. So Mr Putin starts to look for a way out. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities see the continuing destruction of their country and conclude that political compromise might be better than such devastating loss of life. So diplomats engage and a deal is done. Ukraine, say, accepts Russian sovereignty over Crimea and parts of the Donbas. In turn, Putin accepts Ukrainian independence and its right to deepen ties with Europe. This may not seem likely. But it is not beyond the realms of plausibility that such a scenario could emerge from the wreckage of a bloody conflict.\n\nAnd what of Vladimir Putin himself? When he launched his invasion, he declared: \"We are ready for any outcome.\"\n\nBut what if that outcome was him losing power? It might seem unthinkable. Yet the world has changed in recent days and such things are now thought about. Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at Kings College, London, wrote this week: \"It is now as likely that there will be regime change in Moscow as in Kyiv.\"\n\nA man is detained by police officers during a protest in Moscow against Russia's invasion of Ukraine\n\nWhy might he say this? Well, perhaps Mr Putin pursues a disastrous war. Thousands of Russian soldiers die. The economic sanctions bite. Mr Putin loses popular support. Perhaps there is the threat of popular revolution. He uses Russia's internal security forces to suppress that opposition. But this turns sour and enough members of Russia's military, political and economic elite turn against him. The West makes clear that if Putin goes and is replaced by a more moderate leader, then Russia will see the lifting of some sanctions and a restoration of normal diplomatic relations. There is a bloody palace coup and Putin is out. Again, this may not seem likely right now. But it may not be implausible if the people who have benefited from Mr Putin no longer believe he can defend their interests.\n\nThese scenarios are not mutually exclusive - some of each could combine to produce different outcomes. But however this conflict plays out, the world has changed. It will not return to the status quo ante. Russia's relationship with the outside world will be different. European attitudes to security will be transformed. And the liberal, international rules-based order might just have rediscovered what it was for in the first place.", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a flare lighting up the site, followed by shelling and a fire.\n\nAccording to Mayor Dmytro Orlov of nearby Enerhodar, \"continuous enemy shelling of [the plant's] buildings and units\" seemed to cause a fire at the nuclear station, which is the largest in Europe.", "The royal couple met privately with Ms Murphy's parents Kathleen and Ray, sister Amy, brother Cathal and boyfriend Ryan Casey\n\nThe name of murdered Irish school teacher Ashling Murphy will not be forgotten, the Prince of Wales has said.\n\nPrince Charles expressed sympathy with the 23-year-old's family, after meeting them alongside the Duchess of Cornwall in County Tipperary.\n\nThe royal couple are on their last day of a visit to the island of Ireland.\n\nMs Murphy was attacked while jogging along a canal in County Offaly, in January.\n\nThe royals met privately with Ms Murphy's parents Kathleen and Ray, sister Amy, brother Cathal and boyfriend Ryan Casey at Brú Ború Cultural Centre in Cashel.\n\nMs Murphy, a talented folk musician, had previously performed at the centre in County Tipperary.\n\nMs Murphy's death caused shockwaves and sparked vigils across the island of Ireland and beyond, as calls were made for a change in attempts to tackle gender-based violence.\n\nThe Duchess of Cornwall has long been a campaigner on the issue of violence against women, and at an event in London last year she paid tribute to all the \"precious lives that have been brutally ended\".\n\nIn a speech at the end of the couple's latest tour, Prince Charles told those gathered that the \"responsibility to make a difference rests on us all\".\n\nFlowers and candles were laid at a Belfast City Hall vigil for Ashling Murphy\n\n\"Last year, my wife called on the entire community, male and female, to dismantle the lies, words and actions that enable so much violence against women,\" he said.\n\n\"In your country and mine, in the intervening year, we've continued to witness appalling attacks.\n\n\"Therefore, with profound sorrow and sympathy, perhaps I might be permitted to pay tribute to Ashling Murphy, whose name will not be forgotten, who was taken from us far too soon, and who I know was a friend to many here, where she performed.\n\n\"My wife and I were so enormously touched to have been able to meet her family, who I know are with us here today. And our most special, heartfelt thoughts are with them.\"\n\nIt is the final day of The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall's visit to the island of Ireland\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall are on their final day of their trip to the island of Ireland as part of the Queen's platinum jubilee celebrations.\n\nThe royal couple also visited the Rock of Cashel, once the seat of the High Kings of Munster, during their latest visit.\n\nPrince Charles and Camilla posed in front of the stone cathedral ruins before being given a short history of the site.\n\nOn Thursday Charles and Camilla visited Waterford on the first day in the Republic of Ireland after they completed a two-day visit to Northern Ireland.", "Northern Ireland's abortion laws changed in 2020 but full services have yet to be commissioned\n\nSecretary of State Brandon Lewis has said he will intervene further on abortion services for Northern Ireland after the assembly election in May.\n\nNorthern Ireland's abortion laws changed in 2020 after Westminster acted during the absence of devolution.\n\nBut the commissioning of services had been stalled due to political disagreement.\n\nMr Lewis said the collapse of the executive had created a \"further obstacle\" to progress the legislation.\n\nLast July, the secretary of state directed Stormont ministers and departments to act by March 2022.\n\nHe took powers that issued a formal direction to Stormont's Department of Health to draw up proposals and take them to the executive for approval.\n\nIn February, the DUP withdrew Paul Givan as first minister which prompted the collapse of the executive.\n\nBrandon Lewis says he has no choice but to act over abortion services\n\nOn Thursday, Mr Lewis said it was \"increasingly clear\" the Department of Health was going to miss the deadline he had set.\n\nHe also said the collapse of the executive left him with \"no choice\" but to take forward the issue himself.\n\nIn a written statement, he said: \"Two years after the Abortion (Northern Ireland) 2020 Regulations established the framework for abortion services, women and girls are still unable to access high-quality abortion and post-abortion care in Northern Ireland.\n\n\"This is unacceptable. Without access to services in Northern Ireland, women and girls are being placed at an increased risk of harm.\"\n\nHe added he was committed to making regulations and directions, \"directly following\" the election to place a duty on the Department of Health to make abortion services available \"as soon as is reasonably practicable\".\n\nHe said he would also take action that would \"remove the need\" for executive approval for legislation on abortion before services can be commissioned and funded.\n\n\"This means that the Department of Health will have no further barriers to commission and fund services,\" he added.\n\nThe secretary of state is also immediately setting up a small team in the Northern Ireland Office \"with relevant experience in reproductive healthcare and financial monitoring\" to provide expert advice and to work alongside the Department of Health.\n\nHe warned: \"If I assess the Department of Health is not complying with the duty I place on it, I am prepared to use my powers to intervene.\"\n\nThe delay around commissioning of abortion services has been the subject of several legal challenges in recent months.", "England are set for another humiliating defeat after enduring a wretched third day of the decisive third Test against West Indies in Grenada.\n\nHaving begun with hopes of pushing for victory themselves, the tourists were thwarted by the West Indies lower order before they collapsed in abject fashion in their second innings.\n\nThey ended the day 103-8, just 10 runs ahead of West Indies with two days to go.\n\nJoshua da Silva reached his maiden Test century in the morning session, frustrating England with a stand of 52 with number 11 Jayden Seales before West Indies were finally dismissed for 297.\n\nThat gave the hosts a first-innings lead of 93 and in response England's top order folded to 39-4 - captain Joe Root out for five and all-rounder Ben Stokes four.\n\nJonny Bairstow and opener Alex Lees offered some resistance with a dogged stand lasting 24.4 overs but when Bairstow was caught behind for 22, Ben Foakes followed in a calamitous run-out five balls later.\n\nLees made 31 before he was castled by Kyle Mayers - the seamer ending the day with remarkable figures of 5-9, his first five-wicket haul.\n\nHosts West Indies now look certain to complete victory, which would also see them take the series 1-0.\n• None Test may be Root's last as captain - Vaughan\n\nEngland's winless run now looks set to stretch to nine Tests. They had dark days during their 4-0 Ashes defeat but this ranks among them, given West Indies are eighth in the world Test rankings.\n\nWhen play began West Indies led by only 28 and if England had taken the final two West Indies wickets quickly they would have hoped to set a challenging target.\n\nInstead the bowling was toothless and tactics puzzling.\n\nThen, on a pitch displaying some uneven bounce but on which West Indies lower order survived for more than two hours, England's batting capitulated. As happened repeatedly in Australia they were not able to cope when the pressure was on.\n\nOnly Lees, who got a ball that kept low, was unfortunate. The rest of the batters were dismissed in disappointing fashion.\n\nRoot was one of those - he played a tired waft on five to be caught at slip off Mayers, the second time the medium-fast seamer has dismissed him in the Test. Root's position as captain will now come under serious scrutiny.\n\nEngland's 'red-ball reset' looks to be heading to a fourth consecutive series defeat.\n\nAt one stage it looked as though England would not make a fourth day.\n\nZak Crawley was the first to fall. He had already been dropped once and almost caught hitting over extra cover when he loosely drove for a third time and was caught at second slip from his 11th ball.\n\nRoot followed in the ninth over - his total of five runs across both innings is his lowest since 2015.\n\nMayers was not even picked for the first two Tests in this series but before long he had Dan Lawrence bowled for a duck when playing no shot and Stokes caught behind as he attempted to leave.\n\nLees and Bairstow showed the same calm, steady accumulation that had served Da Silva well earlier in the day. That was until Bairstow tried to swipe Alzarri Joseph off a length and was caught off an under edge.\n\nThe sight of Foakes coming up short diving through the dirt in attempt to make a unnecessary second run summed up England's day.\n\nTypically it was Mayers' throw from the deep that caused the run-out.\n\nEven before the batting collapse, England's day was poor.\n\nDespite having a ball just six overs old they showed little intent to dismiss Da Silva. As a result he was able to quietly but astutely accumulate while the match meandered.\n\nAfter Kemar Roach nicked Saqib Mahmood down the leg side for 25, Seales, whose previous high Test score was seven, survived for more than an hour alongside the wicketkeeper.\n\nEngland can point to misfortune - Seales should have been out lbw for a duck to Mahmood when the lead was just 41 and other chances did not go to hand - but to do so would be to ignore their shortcomings.\n\nWhen Seales later planted Leach for six over long-on it only heaped more misery onto a side looking increasingly frustrated.\n\nDa Silva accelerated as he neared his century, first attacking Leach and then clubbing Craig Overton for back-to-back boundaries to reach the landmark. He celebrated wildly and afterwards admitted there were tears in his eyes.\n\nA ball later came another moment emblematic of England's toil. Da Silva seemed to nick Overton behind and despite reviewing walked from the field. However, replays showed he had in fact missed the ball and as a result he and the England players had to be recalled to the middle.\n\nIn the end, Root himself ended the partnership and the innings by having Seales caught and bowled for 13 as Da Silva ended 100 not out.\n\nEngland assistant coach Marcus Trescothick, speaking to BBC Sport: \"It is disappointing - we've had a tough day. The guys are pretty despondent at the moment but we'll look at it and try to learn from the mistakes we've made and try and be better when our next opportunity comes around in the summertime.\n\n\"You can't have days like this in Test cricket when the series is going down to the wire, but unfortunately we have.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"This batting performance sits comfortably alongside what we saw in Australia. It was desperate stuff.\n\n\"England have thrown this away. Only Alex Lees can be counted as blameless in his dismissal. The rest were all either poor shots or misjudgements, or in the case of Foakes, a ridiculous second run.\"\n\nWest Indies all-rounder Kyle Mayers to BBC Sport: \"It was a brilliant day for us. Joshua and the tailenders inspired us to go out there and perform like that this evening. The momentum slid straight into the bowling.\n\n\"It would mean a lot to beat England - from the beginning people have been speaking about how historic this series is because they haven't beaten us at home for a while so to beat them would be great.\"", "Catherine was all smiles despite the torrential rain that accompanied the royal visit to Sybil Strachan Primary School\n\nThe Duchess of Cambridge told children to \"cherish\" their friends during a visit to a primary school in the Bahamas.\n\nCatherine spoke of the challenges pupils faced in being apart from classmates and teachers when schools shut for two years during the pandemic.\n\nShe said the friendships made at school were \"special\" and urged the youngsters to \"cherish... and take time for them\".\n\nHer remarks came on the last day of William and Catherine's Caribbean tour.\n\nThe royal tour has seen activists calling for the monarchy to pay reparations for the slave trade and Prince William tell of his \"sorrow\" over slavery in a speech in Jamaica.\n\nThe duke and duchess sheltered from torrential rain under umbrellas as they arrived in Nassau on Friday.\n\nThey jokingly apologised for bringing typical British weather to the Bahamas as hundreds of people gathered to see the royal couple in the capital.\n\nThe deluge did little to dampen the carnival atmosphere as the couple watched a traditional Bahamian Junkanoo parade featuring performers in elaborate costumes.\n\nThe duke and duchess watched performers in elaborate costumes in the Junkanoo carnival\n\nThe duke and duchess sheltered under umbrellas as they watched the parade in the capital Nassau\n\nEarlier, William and Catherine praised the efforts of key workers during the pandemic, with the duchess speaking to medics at the Princess Margaret Hospital about the importance of mental and physical health.\n\nThe duke met members of the Bahamas Red Cross who had dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 before being deployed to Covid-19 hubs.\n\nIn a bid to lighten the mood, he said: \"We don't want any more disasters for you, let's hope the Bahamas Red Cross has a boring few years!\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The Duchess of Cambridge tells Bahamian schoolchildren, \"I see all of you as the stars of this country\"\n\nOn their first engagement of the day at Sybil Strachan primary school, the royal couple joined an assembly, where students presented them with a portrait of the Queen.\n\nIn a speech, Catherine told pupils the pandemic had \"taken you away from your classrooms and your friends and learning from home has had its challenges\".\n\n\"That is why it is so wonderful that after nearly two years away, you have recently returned to school and been reunited with your teachers and friends again,\" she said.\n\nPalace staff must be wondering how the defining image of the Cambridges' trip to the Caribbean was not the explosion of joy and pleasure that greeted the couple in Trench Town, in the Jamaican capital of Kingston.\n\nBut instead, what looked to many as some sort of white-saviour parody, with Catherine and William fleetingly making contact with the outstretched fingers of Jamaican children, pushing through a wire fence.\n\nIt was a bad misstep for a couple who are surprisingly media-savvy. And it was not the only one on this curiously disorganised trip.\n\nThe first engagement in Belize was hurriedly cancelled following a protest by some residents. Another smaller protest popped up on the day they arrived in Jamaica.\n\nIt is worth noting that many things went well. Prince William's speeches were thoughtful and well-received.\n\nAnd at their various events, the Cambridges thanked those who so often go un-thanked and unrewarded for their efforts, drawing attention to stubbornly unfashionable causes and issues.\n\nYou can read Jonny's full analysis here.\n\nThe duchess, who has carried out extensive work on early learning and child development, added: \"The connections, the relationships and friendships that you make during school are so special.\n\n\"So please look after them, cherish them and take time for them. And be kind, understanding and loving to yourself and others.\"\n\nShe also praised the \"spectacular natural environment\" of the Bahamas and said she hoped the couple's three children, Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three, might experience its \"clear waters and beautiful beaches before too long\".\n\nWilliam and Catherine met students at Sybil Strachan Primary School in Nassau on the final day of their tour\n\nWilliam and Catherine were given a painting of the Queen during the school visit\n\nThe duke and duchess arrived in the Bahamas from Jamaica on Thursday, and were greeted by Prime Minister Philip Davis, who conveyed his best wishes to the Queen, \"and congratulations on her Platinum Jubilee\".\n\nHe added: \"I do not think we will see the same again,\" to which William nodded.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge posed for a photograph with the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Philip Davis and his wife Ann-Marie Davis\n\nThe Cambridges' week-long tour to mark the Queen's 70 years on the throne has seen them visit Belize and Jamaica before their final stop in the Bahamas.\n\nIn Belize, the royal couple got involved in some traditional dancing, visited a chocolate farm and learned about efforts to conserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nIn Jamaica, they visited the neighbourhood where reggae legend Bob Marley lived and played football with England forward Raheem Sterling, who was born on the island.\n\nThe royal tour has seen demonstrators urge the monarchy to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade. In Jamaica, there have been calls for the Queen to be removed as head of state.\n\nTheir trip comes four months after Barbados became a republic.\n\nDuring a speech at a dinner in Jamaica, William described slavery as abhorrent, saying it \"should never have happened\" and \"forever stains our history\".\n\nThe island's prime minister, Andrew Holness, had earlier told the future king his country planned to pursue its goals as an independent country.", "Eugene Shvidler (right) has been sanctioned over his ties with longstanding business partner Roman Abramovich\n\nPrivate jets owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch have been detained indefinitely by the British government.\n\nThe two jets belonging to billionaire oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler had been under investigation at Farnborough and Biggin Hill airports for three weeks.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps said [Russian President Vladimir] \"Putin's friends\" should not \"enjoy luxuries\" while innocent people die in Ukraine.\n\nMr Shvidler was sanctioned over ties with Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe government said Mr Shvidler, a former boss and shareholder in Mr Abramovich's steel giant Evraz PLC, was associated with a person benefitting from or supporting the Russian government.\n\nHis net worth has been estimated at £1.2bn, the government says, while the seized jets are believed to be worth up to $60m (£45m).\n\nMr Shapps said in a statement: \"Introducing these latest measures - detaining tens of millions of pounds worth of Russian private jets - shows this government will leave no stone unturned in depriving Putin's cronies of their luxury toys.\"\n\nA private helicopter belonging to Russian firm HeliCo Group LLC has also been detained.\n\nWestern nations opposed to the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine have introduced a raft of sanctions designed to cripple Russia's economy and hurt its wealthiest citizens.\n\nThe UK has made it a criminal offence for planes owned, operated or chartered by Russians - including private jets - to fly or land in the UK.\n\nUkraine said it had inflicted \"powerful blows\" and \"significant losses\" on the Russians.\n\nBut Russia's army said the first phase of its military campaign in Ukraine is over, and it will now focus on the eastern Donbas region.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Lateral flow tests will only be free for those showing symptoms\n\nMost people will no longer be able to access a free PCR test from 22 April, the health minister has said.\n\nLateral flow tests (LFTs) will continue to be free, but only for people displaying Covid-19 symptoms and this policy continues to be reviewed.\n\nRoutine contact tracing is also set to be phased out between the middle of April and the end of June.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said the changes reflected the \"new realities of the pandemic\".\n\n\"The risk posed by the virus at the present time does not justify testing and isolating large swathes of the population at the levels that we have seen to date in the past two years,\" he added.\n\n\"Test and trace will continue to have a key role and will be used in a more focused and targeted way to support and protect our most vulnerable. \"\n\nPCR testing will only be available to people who have \"clinical reasons\" for needing it.\n\nThe changes come into effect from 22 April\n\nDeputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Lourda Geoghegan said it showed Northern Ireland was \"moving into a different phase of the pandemic\".\n\nShe also added that whether people would have to pay for LFTs in future was not something that had been decided upon.\n\nDr Geoghegan says the changes are in line with what health risk assessments have outlined\n\n\"It could be a potential scenario but we haven't worked through that as yet,\" she said.\n\n\"We will be seeking funding for the testing programme that we're continuing, but these changes are being advised on the basis of the public health risk assessment at this point in time.\n\n\"We now have a very highly-vaccinated population, we have new and novel treatments that people are accessing every day and we also have a lot of people who have developed natural immunity, so it's right now that we move to a much more targeted approach to our testing and our tracing.\"\n\nDr Tom Black, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio Foyle the changes were possible while Omicron remains the dominant variant of coronavirus.\n\nThe emergence of any new variants may require a rethink, he added.", "Tributes have poured in from musicians after the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins\n\nTaylor Hawkins, drummer with one of the world's biggest rock bands, Foo Fighters, has died aged 50.\n\nHawkins performed with the band for more than two decades, joining shortly after they finished recording their 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.\n\nHawkins joined the group, created by Dave Grohl, in 1997\n\nDave Grohl created Foo Fighters in 1994 after Nirvana disbanded following the suicide of lead singer Kurt Cobain.\n\nGrohl, an acclaimed drummer, took on lead vocals and guitar in Foo Fighters.\n\nBBC Radio 6 presenter and former drummer Matt Everitt says Hawkins had \"to be pretty good\" to be chosen to drum for the band.\n\n\"Dave Grohl is a legendary drummer, but Taylor was no less the musician at all,\" he says.\n\n\"For a start they wouldn't have had him in the band, if he didn't have the chops.\n\n\"He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Dave Grohl. He was brilliant\"\n\nRock singer Ozzy Osbourne described Hawkins as an amazing musician\n\nEveritt, who interviewed Hawkins several times during shows in the UK, described the late drummer as having remarkable passion when playing and great taste.\n\n\"He served the song,\" he continues. \"That's what all the best drummers do.\n\n\"They understand it's not just about how great your part is, but it's about how great the whole song is and knowing when to sit back on a song.\"\n\nGrohl and Hawkins sometimes swapped roles during the band's concerts, with Hawkins taking on vocals.\n\nHawkins and Grohl \"absolutely adored each other\" BBC Radio 6 presenter Matt Everitt said\n\nThe band were on a tour of South America at the time of his death\n\nThe Texas native was introduced to music by his brother and started out playing guitar but, inspired by Roger Taylor of Queen and Stewart Copeland of The Police, he soon switched to drums.\n\nHe drew influence from UK artists, and at almost every Foo Fighters concert stepped out from behind the drum kit to sing a track by his favourite band, Queen.\n\nBrian May in a tribute described Hawkins as his \"beloved child\". He posted on Instagram: \"Taylor, you were family to us.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEveritt says: \"He loved London. A lot of the bands he really loved came from the UK.\"\n\nWhen in London he would make a pilgrimage to Trident Studios in Soho, London, where Davie Bowie and Queen recorded music.\n\nThe late drummer was a big fan of legendary band Queen\n\nBut during 2001 visit to London, Hawkins spent two weeks in a coma after taking an overdose of heroin.\n\nSpeaking about the experience in 2018, he said it had been \"a real changing point for me\".\n\nHawkins and his wife, Alison, married in 2005. They have three children.\n\nThe father-of-three was married to Alison Hawkins\n\nIn 2011, Foo Fighters replied to a protest from a fundamentalist Christian church by performing a special gig for them.\n\nMembers of the Westboro Baptist church were picketing outside the Sprint Center, Kansas City, where the band were due to perform on Friday evening.\n\nThe group were dressed up and arrived on a flat-bed truck, before performing a track called Keep It Clean.\n\nThe Foofighters turned up to perform in protest against the Westboro Baptist church\n\nWhile the Foo Fighters were on break in 2013, Hawkins formed a rock cover band called Chevy Metal.\n\nTaylor Hawkins released music, outside of Foo Fighters, with his band Chevy Metal\n\nIn 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\n\nAccording to Everitt, the stadium-fillers were not \"resting on past glories\" and still producing records.\n\n\"They weren't standing still,\" he adds. \"Foo Fighters had more to say, which just makes the tragedy even more unbearable.\"\n\nFoo Fighters are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Paul McCartney\n\nHawkins was pictured performing at Lollapalooza Chile last week\n\nFoo Fighters are currently on tour in South America.\n\nHawkins' final performance with the band was at the Lollapalooza festival.\n\nThe band had been due to perform on Friday night at the Estereo Picnic festival in Bogota, Colombia, before news of his death was announced.", "Jeanna de Waal was named worst actress for playing the title role in Diana the Musical\n\nNetflix's filmed version of Diana the Musical, a derided Broadway show about Princess Diana's life story, has swept the board at the Razzie Awards.\n\nAnnounced the day before the Oscars honour Hollywood's finest, the Razzies name and shame the year's worst films.\n\nDiana the Musical \"won\" five awards including worst picture and worst actress for Jeanna de Waal, who played the late princess.\n\nThe prize for worst screen couple went to James and \"any Warner cartoon character (or WarnerMedia product) he dribbles on\", while the film was also crowned worst remake, rip-off or sequel.\n\nJared Leto was named worst supporting actor for playing fashion designer Paolo Gucci in House of Gucci\n\nRazzies organisers describe their awards as the \"ugly cousin to the Oscars\".\n\nWhen it was released last year, Diana the Musical was panned by The Guardian as \"a right royal debacle so bad you'll hyperventilate\", by Vanity Fair as \"a shellacked lump of product born solely of cold, money-minded cynicism\", and by the Financial Times as \"a wildly crass patty of pure schlock\".\n\nThe stage show lasted for only 33 Broadway performances before it closed. Netflix streamed a film of the musical before it hit Broadway, without a live audience, as its theatres were closed and the entertainment industry was dealing with coronavirus restrictions.\n\nJudy Kaye won worst supporting actress for playing both the Queen and Barbara Cartland, while the show also won worst director and worst screenplay.\n\nJared Leto, who had been tipped by some for an Oscar nomination for House of Gucci, will have to make do with the Razzie for worst supporting actor.\n\nBruce Willis had the dubious honour of being given his own category - worst performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 movie. Of the eight films nominated, Cosmic Sin was judged most worthy of the title.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nHarry Kane moved level with Sir Bobby Charlton on 49 England goals as they came from behind to beat Switzerland in a friendly at Wembley.\n\nEngland were grateful to the excellence of goalkeeper Jordan Pickford in the first half but they still fell behind when Breel Embolo's header put Switzerland in front after 22 minutes.\n\nGareth Southgate's side were second best to the confident Swiss but were handed a route back into the game when Fabian Frei's error ended with Luke Shaw providing an emphatic finish for England's equaliser in first-half stoppage time.\n\nEngland, who gave debuts to Marc Guehi, Kyle Walker-Peters and Tyrick Mitchell, completed the turnaround with 12 minutes left when Kane scored from the spot after VAR adjudged that Steven Zuber had handled from a corner.\n\nKane scored with his usual expertise and now stands just four goals behind England's record marksman Wayne Rooney.\n• None Guehi reveals 'nervous' family were not at Wembley\n• None Player Rater: Rate the players out of 10\n\nEngland unconvincing but get over the line\n\nEngland, perhaps understandably, struggled for any rhythm over long periods as manager Southgate gave his line-up an experimental appearance for the first of two Wembley friendlies in this international break.\n\nIt was only the fine work of Pickford that prevented Switzerland establishing a more decisive advantage before Frei's error gave England an equaliser they barely deserved in the closing moments of the first half.\n\nWalker-Peters did well to stretch and intercept Frei's risky clearance, allowing the excellent Conor Gallagher to provide a pass that rolled into the path of Shaw, who made no mistake at the same end where he scored for England in the Euro 2020 Final against Italy at Wembley in the summer.\n\nUnder Southgate, England have developed a habit of getting the job done on many occasions when they have not been at their best and so it proved again as an improved second-half display ended with Kane's winner.\n\nKane has been approaching his best for Tottenham in recent weeks and he scored from the spot with power and precision as he took a step closer to the England record books.\n\nHe now stands just those four goals behind Rooney's record of 53 and it is only a matter of time before he takes top spot, currently standing on a highly impressive tally of 49 goals from 68 appearances.\n\nEngland struggled in the opening 45 minutes, Southgate's plans disrupted in the moments before kick-off when John Stones was injured in the warm-up. He was replaced by Ben White, who saw Xherdan Shaqiri's cross float over his head for Embolo to score.\n\nGallagher pressed his claims with a fine performance, although Declan Rice's absence from the starting line-up, then his appearance as a substitute, only emphasised his crucial importance to every element of Southgate's plans in this World Cup year.\n\nSouthgate will enjoy another morale-boosting victory and he can experiment further when England meet Ivory Coast here at Wembley on Tuesday.\n• None Attempt missed. Michel Aebischer (Switzerland) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Mario Gavranovic.\n• None Attempt saved. Conor Coady (England) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Raheem Sterling with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. Ricardo Rodríguez (Switzerland) left footed shot from outside the box is too high.\n• None Attempt blocked. Granit Xhaka (Switzerland) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Kevin Mbabu. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Mariia, who was volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross, tried to help those injured in the attack but her kit was inside the theatre\n\nAs the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and - within seconds - the building had been split in two and left in ruins. We still do not know how many died, but the BBC has spoken to survivors who described for the first time what happened when the bomb fell.\n\nAll morning, Russian planes had been circling the skies above the city.\n\nMariia Rodionova, a 27-year-old teacher, had been living in the theatre for 10 days, having fled her ninth-floor apartment with her two dogs. They camped next to the stage in an auditorium near the back of the building.\n\nThat morning she had got some fish scraps from an outdoor field kitchen to feed her dogs, but then realised they had not drunk any water. So at about 10:00, she tied her dogs to her luggage and made her way towards the main entrance where a queue was forming for hot water.\n\nThere was the sound of a clap, thunderous and loud. Then the sound of broken glass. A man came from behind and pushed her to a wall, protecting her with his own body. The blast was so loud that she felt intense pain in one of her ears, so intense she thought her eardrum must have split. She only realised it had not because she could hear the screams of people. The screams were everywhere.\n\nThe force of the blast threw another man against a window. He fell on the ground, his face covered with broken glass. A woman, who also had a wound on her head, tried to help him. Mariia, who had been volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross in Mariupol, gathered her senses enough to shout over, telling her to stop.\n\n\"I said 'Wait, don't touch him. I'll bring my first aid kit and I'll help you both',\" she recalled. But her kit was inside the theatre, and that part of the building had collapsed.\n\n\"There was only rubble,\" she said. It was impossible for her to get in.\n\n\"For two hours, I couldn't do anything,\" she said. \"I just stayed there. I was in shock.\"\n\nVladyslav, a 27-year-old locksmith who does not want to use his full name, had also wandered into the building that morning. He had some friends there and went to look for them. He was near the main entrance when the explosion hit. He ran with others into a basement and, 10 minutes later, heard the building was on fire and emerged to a scene of chaos.\n\n\"Terrible things were happening,\" he said.\n\nHe saw plenty of people bleeding. Some had open fracture wounds. \"One mother was trying to find her kids under the rubble. A five-year-old kid was screaming: 'I don't want to die'. It was heartbreaking.\"\n\nIt is likely to have been just one bomb that fell on the theatre that morning, bringing all that destruction with it, analysis by McKenzie Intelligence Services for the BBC has concluded.\n\n\"Due to the missile appearing to accurately hit the centre of the building, we believe it is a laser-guided bomb, likely the KAB-500L or similar variant, launched from an aircraft,\" the London-based group said.\n\n\"The nature of the explosion indicates it was armed with an instantaneous fuse, so was unable to penetrate the ground floors.\"\n\nFrom the accuracy of the strike it is very likely that the theatre was the chosen target.\n\nSatellite imagery released by the US company Maxar, from the days before the attack, show the word \"children\" in Russian was clearly painted on the lawn in front of the theatre, visible to any passing bomber.\n\nRussia denies attacking the theatre. It has also denied hitting civilian sites in Ukraine, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country and nowhere more brutally than in Mariupol.\n\nAndrei Marusov, an investigative journalist from Mariupol, had visited the theatre two days before the attack. \"Everybody knew that it was a focal point for many women and children,\" Marusov, who is a former chairman of the advocacy group Transparency International Ukraine, said. \"There were only civilians there.\"\n\nThat Wednesday, the day of the bombing, he had gone up to the top of his building at 06:00 to survey the city. The planes were still buzzing through the air. He said Russian planes had been shelling and bombarding the area where the theatre was, that Sea of Azov waterfront all morning.\n\n\"I saw that the city centre was covered by fire and constant explosions,\" he said.\n\nMariia also remembers military planes \"making circles\" near the theatre that morning, and \"throwing bombs somewhere else\". But it was not unusual for her to spot military planes flying in the area. She had got used to their sound.\n\nThere are still many details that remain unclear about the attack. It is thought that up to 1,000 people were sheltering in the drama theatre. Some appeared to have based themselves in its underground bunker or bomb shelter, according to others who hid in the building and city authorities. Mariia saw others living in crowded corridors on overground floors.\n\nOne thing which is clear from the accounts of the people the BBC spoke to, is that people would wander around the complex, its corridors and grounds, and others would come and go.\n\nThe destroyed theatre that Mariia walked away from\n\nThe day after the attack, the city council said 130 people had been rescued. A further update said it was possible that many had survived. But there has been no news since then. The city is in such a desperate state that there may never be a clear picture of how many were there and how many survived.\n\nMariia's home inside the theatre for the days she was there was in an auditorium hall with a chandelier, and she nestled right next to the stage because her dogs had drawn some complaints. She said there were about 30 people in that hall and it is her belief that they must have all perished when the bomb hit. It was sheer luck that she had stepped outside at that moment.\n\nAfter the blasts she was unable to find her dogs and it was a moment of desperation: \"For me,\" she said, \"my dogs were more important than anything.\"\n\nVladyslav said he saw many people coming out of the building, something that Mariia saw as well.\n\n\"Some were with their luggage,\" she said. \"No-one knew what to do, and the area was still being shelled.\"\n\nStanding outside the theatre, she too looked at the damage. She realised it made no sense to look for another shelter. It had been a few stunned hours and she eventually left.\n\nShe tried to stop any car leaving the city. \"People were in panic,\" she said, \"no-one took me in their car.\" She started to walk along the coast.\n\n\"I needed to get out of the city.\"\n\nFirst, she got to the village of Pishchanka. \"I met a woman,\" she said, \"who asked if I was OK. I started to cry.\" She was offered tea and food, and invited to spend the night. The next morning, she kept walking, until she reached Melekyne. A curfew meant she had to stop at 20:00. A day later, she walked to Yalta. The following one, to Berdyansk. \"I walked all that time,\" she said.\n\nMariupol has seen the worst horrors of Russia's aggression on Ukraine. The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it relentlessly for almost a month, from the air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea. About 100,000 people remain trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege. No electricity, no gas, no running water.\n\nWhen Mariia left her flat for the theatre, her grandmother, who lived with her, refused to go. \"She just said: 'It's my apartment, my home. I'm going to die here'.\"\n\nMariia is still waiting to hear whether she is alive.", "This video can not be played\n\nTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Ukraine's Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said the country is in the process of documenting thousands of incidents believed to contravene its criminal code on the rules of war.\n\nAs of 24 March, there have been 2,472 cases documented by her office. On Wednesday, Ms Venediktova outlined to the media how the country is handling these cases.\n\n\"Where we see that we will be successful in Ukrainian jurisdiction, and where the perpetrator of a crime will physically be in Ukraine, we will follow one strategy,\" she said.\n\n\"If we understand that we are not able to have success in Ukraine, we will put our resources towards the International Criminal Court, so that a specific person, an individual, suffers the punishment.\"\n\nThe following is an account gathered by the BBC of just one of the incidents that have been logged as a suspected war crime.\n\nIt was just over a week into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A group of volunteers - neighbours and friends - from the small village of Yasnohorodka, 40km west of Kyiv, had taken up their positions at a checkpoint guarding the entrance to the community.\n\nFighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was already brutally fierce. Across the country, checkpoints were springing up at the entrance to towns and villages - mostly manned by local volunteers without any formal military training.\n\nOn the afternoon of 5 March, Rostyslav Dudarenko, the village priest, was at the Yasnohorodka checkpoint. His role was to check approaching vehicles. But like all military chaplains he was also there to offer the group spiritual support. He was dressed in civilian clothes.\n\nIt is not possible to establish exactly what happened, but one survivor of the attack, Yukhym (not his real name), told the BBC he had been manning the checkpoint with Dudarenko and around a dozen others when they learned three Russian tanks had driven through the village. He says the group decided to hide in the woods, ready to confront them if necessary.\n\nAs they approached the checkpoint, the Russian troops started \"firing in all directions\", Yukhym told the BBC. \"When they realised we were hiding in the grass, they went off road to run us over with tanks.\"\n\nHe says the tanks had driven back to the road when Dudarenko decided to break cover.\n\n\"I saw Rostyslav raise the cross above his head, get up from his hideaway, screaming something and walking towards them. Perhaps he wanted to stop them. I tried to call him.\"\n\nHe says shots were then fired in the direction of the priest, and from his viewpoint at the time, they appeared to be aimed directly at Dudarenko. \"And that was it. He made just a couple of steps and fell.\"\n\nYukhym, who himself was shot and injured in the attack, believes they would all have been killed if Ukraine's armed forces had not at that moment arrived to push the Russian forces back.\n\nThe voluntary group Dudarenko, 45, had joined had no military status. A couple had some military training - having previous experience in the long-running conflict with Russia in the Donbas in the east, according to another volunteer called Eduard (not his real name). Some were simply amateur hunters. Most were over the age of 50, he told the BBC.\n\nEduard, who was stationed at a different checkpoint, arrived just as the Russian tanks were driving away to find bodies scattered on the road. He said these included Dudarenko and his assistant - who had also been unarmed - two other defence volunteers and another person he did not know.\n\nDudarenko's mother Nadiia says her only son was determined to play his part.\n\n\"He wanted to be able to protect everyone,\" Nadiia told the BBC. \"I tried to talk him out of it but I couldn't argue with him.\"\n\nDudarenko and his congregation hold a memorial service for villagers killed by Nazis in 1941\n\nThe group were armed with hunting rifles plus a small number of Russian army Kalashnikovs that had come into their possession, and had just three bulletproof vests between them. But as a priest, Dudarenko refused to bear arms, his friend and fellow priest Serhii Tsoma told the BBC.\n\nThis made him particularly vulnerable when he decided to confront the tanks, but such an action was in his nature, according to eyewitness Yukhym.\n\n\"Rostyslav was a kind and optimistic person. I think that's why he went to try and stop the Russians.\"\n\nHe was well known in Yasnohorodka as someone always ready to help others, driving round the village to collect older congregation members before Sunday mass, says his friend Tsoma.\n\nHis services themselves were also self-sacrificing, says one of his regular congregation, Tetyana Pylypchuk.\n\nDudarenko belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was finally granted independence from the Russian Orthodox Church in 2019, in a move never recognised by Russia.\n\nBefore the formal split, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine was divided between two branches, one loyal to Moscow, and one loyal to Kyiv. Although Dudarenko served in a church aligned with Kyiv, when pro-Russian former president Viktor Yanukovych took power in Ukraine in 2010 the Moscow Patriarchate began to take over Kyiv Patriarchate churches, including the one Dudarenko served in.\n\nSo rather than betray his principles, his friends say, he left the church and conducted his services out in the open - even in the rain. He later built a makeshift church in his trailer, with the help of donations.\n\n\"Our church is orphaned without you, Father,\" wrote Tetyana in a tribute on her Facebook page.\n\nAs has been the case with thousands of such incidents across the country over the past few weeks, the killings were swiftly logged by both the police and local and national public prosecutor's offices, with details published on their respective Facebook pages.\n\nThe cases - suspected contraventions of Ukraine's article 438: Violation of the rules of warfare - have also been uploaded on to a centralised website used by Ukraine's state institutions.\n\nMs Venediktova told the BBC in an interview recorded last week in English that such documentation of evidence was critical.\n\n\"In the office of prosecutor general we have a special department of war… all law enforcement agencies help us… to investigate war crimes. It's our main priority.\n\n\"Of course, we don't have enough investigators, that's why we created a common website - warcrimes.gov.ua.\" The website is used not just by the prosecutor general's office but by other state institutions such as Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice, to document all evidence.\n\n\"It's very important for us,\" she explained. \"[The evidence] should be acceptable in our Ukrainian courts, they should be acceptable in the ICC, and in other jurisdictions.\"\n\nAs for the 5 March incident in Yasnohorodka, once the investigation into the shooting has been concluded, a court indictment will be issued, says the Kyiv Oblast district prosecutor's office.\n\n\"The prosecution is doing everything to establish the circumstances of each and every war crime, and each and every perpetrator: from a soldier, to a general, to the high military and political leadership of the aggressor state,\" it said in a statement.\n\nIt added that in some cases Russian soldiers were already facing the first stage of Ukrainian prosecutions, \"so we are not just talking about prospects of sentences in absentia. In each specific case war criminals will be punished in accordance with the law of Ukraine\".", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nRed Bull's Sergio Perez beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.\n\nThe second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz beat Red Bull's Max Verstappen to third.\n\nHaas driver Mick Schumacher was taken to hospital after a high-speed accident, although the German was uninjured.\n• None How to follow the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix\n\nAnd Lewis Hamilton had his worst competitive showing in qualifying since 2009 in managing only 16th place.\n\nQualifying happened against the backdrop of a difficult weekend for F1 following a missile strike against an oil facility just nine miles from the track.\n\nThe drivers spent four hours in meetings late into the night on Friday discussing whether it was safe to continue driving before eventually deciding to follow the lead of the Saudi government, which gave them assurances the event was secure.\n\n\"We don't want to go into details of what we discussed,\" Leclerc said. \"It was more a matter of coming together as drivers to share our options because it was a tricky moment to say the least.\n\n\"It was very useful to speak about this all together. It took quite a bit of time but that's normal in those situations.\n\n\"We are here anyway and we have not listen to the people who are taking care of the situation, and trust them.\"\n\nSchumacher hit the wall at high speed during qualfiying\n\nPerez's pole was unexpected to say the least. He is not known as a great qualifier, he beat Verstappen only once in their first season together last year and this achievement came in his 220th grand prix.\n\nBut it was well deserved. He had looked closer than usual to Verstappen throughout the weekend but put in what he called the lap of his life to beat Leclerc at the very end of qualifying.\n\n\"I could do another 1,000 laps and I could never beat this lap time,\" Perez said.\n\nThe Mexican was 0.261 seconds quicker than world champion team-mate Verstappen, who was down in fourth.\n\nPerez beat Leclerc by 0.225secs, with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz third, 0.177secs behind his team-mate.\n\nMercedes driver George Russell was sixth as team-mate Lewis Hamilton could manage only 16th.\n\nLeclerc himself had saved his best for last - he improved by more than 0.2secs on his final run to leapfrog himself ahead of Sainz, who had taken provisional pole with his first lap.\n\n\"The lap felt good,\" Leclerc said. \"I was very happy with the lap. In the second lap, I just went for it. I definitely did not expect that lap time from Checo and he did an incredible job today.\"\n\nIt sets up an intriguing race, with the Ferraris sandwiched between the Red Bulls at the start, following Leclerc's win in the season-opener in Bahrain last weekend, where Red Bull suffered an agonising late double retirement.\n\nAnd it came at the end of a crash-strewn session in which there were two red flags, the second one for a massive crash involving Schumacher which caused a stoppage of nearly an hour.\n\nMercedes are not competitive at the moment as they battle with aerodynamic problems in their car but no-one would have foreseen Hamilton's struggles.\n\nHamilton was only 11th fastest in final practice although felt he had hit on a decent set-up direction, but when it came to qualifying after nightfall he complained of a lack of grip.\n\n\"It was looking good in P3,\" he said. \"I tried to progress in a similar direction and maybe went a bit too far and the car was just undriveable, so nervous.\"\n\nIt was his worst performance in terms of outright pace, disregarding technical or other problems, since the 2009 British Grand Prix.\n\nRussell was more than 0.6secs quicker than the seven-time world champion in the first session and made it through to the final top 10 shootout.\n\nBut while team boss Toto Wolff said he felt the team were still the third quickest car behind Red Bull and Ferrari, that was not the case, and Ocon snuck in front of him.\n\nThe second Alpine of Fernando Alonso, Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas, Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10.\n\nLando Norris qualified 11th for McLaren, while his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was one place behind him but given a three-place penalty for impeding Ocon.\n\nSchumacher was ahead of Magnussen early in the second part of qualifying but he pushed too hard through the fast swerves for Turns Eight and Nine, caught the kerb, spun and smashed into the wall.\n\nThe Haas was badly damaged but Schumacher was conscious throughout and the first indications were that he was uninjured, but he was air-lifted to hospital for precautionary checks.\n\nSchumacher, however, will not take part in Sunday's race after the team withdrew his car.\n\nThe accident has raised further questions about the safety of the track, about which drivers have been concerned since it made its debut last year.\n\nThe first heave accident happened in the first session, when Nicholas Latifi lost his Williams on the entry to Turn 13. The impact was less severe, and he hit crash barriers rather than an exposed concrete wall and the session was able to resume after a few minutes.", "Two men and a 17-year-old girl have been jailed for life for the homophobic murder of a doctor in a city centre park.\n\nPsychiatrist Dr Gary Jenkins, 54, was attacked in Cardiff's Bute Park on 20 July 2021, and died 16 days later.\n\nJason Edwards, 25 and Lee William Strickland, 36, will both serve a minimum of 32 years.\n\nDionne Timms-Williams, who was 16 at the time of the crime, will serve a minimum of 17 years.\n\nThe consultant psychiatrist, who was described as \"kind\" and \"compassionate\", was kicked and punched to death in the park by the trio.\n\nHe suffered multiple severe brain injuries and died at University Hospital of Wales.\n\nSentencing the three, Judge Daniel Williams said they had chosen to target gay men in Bute Park because they believed their victim would be \"less likely to report the crime\" and also \"sheer homophobia\".\n\nIn his sentencing remarks Judge Williams described the trio as a \"toxic mix\"\n\nAll three admitted to manslaughter, but were found guilty of murder after a trial at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.\n\nJudge Williams said Dr Jenkins was a \"kind and compassionate man,\" adding \"the world is the drabber for his passing, it's less kind and less colourful\".\n\nHe added: \"Why the three of you formed such a toxic mix will never be known, but you wanted to show how little you valued human life\".\n\nThe sound of the attack was captured on CCTV, lasting possibly as long as 28 minutes. The judge said there were \"no words to describe the audio recording\".\n\nJudge Williams said: \"Each of you punched, kicked and stamped on him and encouraged each other to do so.\n\n\"You ignored his desperate pleas to stop even after his pleas turned to groans as his life ebbed away,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. CCTV footage shows the moment the three defendants met, with Timms-Williams offered a can of cider by Edwards\n\nIn CCTV footage of the attack, shown to the jury during the trial, Dr Jenkins can be heard repeatedly shouting \"leave me alone\" and \"get off me\".\n\nA female voice, identified as Timms-Williams, shouts \"money\" and \"now\", then says: \"Hit him again.\"\n\nAt the end of the attack, the girl is heard saying: \"Yeah, I needed that.\"\n\nIn a statement the wife of Dr Jenkins said his death had hit the family hard, adding: \"He was such a kind soul who would never hurt anyone\".\n\n\"When the family learnt what happened our world fell apart. Gary was much loved by all who knew him.\"\n\nShe said their two daughters had been \"massively affected\" and were now \"struggling in areas where they previously were thriving.\"\n\n\"We cannot bring Gary back, there are no winners, only losers. But as a family we are relieved that justice is done and through this harrowing process we hope to restore our faith in humanity,\" she added.\n\nDr Jenkins was attacked near the Summerhouse cafe in Bute Park\n\nNathan Williams, who had been friends with Dr Jenkins since school, described him as a \"caring, sensitive and compassionate person\", and a \"whirlwind, who made life interesting\".\n\nHe said his death represented a \"deeply painful loss felt each day by colleagues, patients and friends\" with some colleagues saying that \"life has lost its vibrancy\" since the attack.\n\nHe added he had not been able to enter the park since his friend's death.\n\n\"That beautiful park will now always be the place he was taken from us,\" he said.\n\nDr Jenkins' employer, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, said he would \"remain prominently\" in the memory of all staff and patients who knew him.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Cardiff & Vale UHB This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFollowing the sentencing, senior investigating officer for South Wales Police, Det Insp Stuart Wales, said the attack was \"cowardly and senseless in the extreme\".\n\n\"The degree and duration of unnecessary violence inflicted upon him, together with homophobic abuse - all captured on audio, was both sickening and staggering,\" he added.\n\n\"He did nothing whatsoever to warrant this.\n\n\"Nothing will fill the void in the lives of those who loved Gary and have suffered the heartbreak of losing him in the most devastating circumstances.\"\n\nJudge Williams said aggravating factors in the case were that the murder had been for gain, that it happened during the course of a robbery and that the attack was homophobic.\n\nHe sentenced Edwards and Strickland to serve a minimum term of 32 years and 123 days, and Timms-Williams to a minimum of 17 years.\n\nAll three were also sentenced for offences of robbery and assault, to run concurrently with their life sentences.\n\nWhen released they will spend the rest of their lives on licence, Cardiff Crown Court heard.", "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge after taking part in the Bahamas Platinum Jubilee Sailing Regatta\n\nAny decision Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas make on their futures will be supported with \"pride and respect\", the Duke of Cambridge has said.\n\nOn the final night of the royals' Caribbean tour, he said: \"Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.\"\n\nThere have been calls in Jamaica to drop the Queen as head of state, and on Wednesday its prime minister told the duke the country was \"moving on\".\n\nIn November Barbados replaced the Queen with an elected president.\n\nThe future role of the royal family in the Caribbean has been a central topic throughout the duke and duchess's eight-day tour.\n\nAfter the couple left Belize on Tuesday, a government minister announced a new commission would begin consulting with people across the country on how the \"decolonization process\" should proceed.\n\nOn Wednesday, during a meeting with the Cambridges in front of cameras, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said his country intended to \"fulfil our true ambitions and destiny as an independent, developed, prosperous country\".\n\nBahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis has not commented on the issue, although last year said it was \"not on the agenda\".\n\nHowever, the day before the duke and duchess arrived in the Bahamas, a letter was released by campaign group The National Reparations Committee, calling for Britain to pay reparations for the slave trade.\n\nPalace staff must be wondering how the defining image of the Cambridges' trip to the Caribbean was not the explosion of joy and pleasure that greeted the couple in Trench Town, in the Jamaican capital of Kingston.\n\nBut instead, what looked to many as some sort of white-saviour parody, with Catherine and William fleetingly making contact with the outstretched fingers of Jamaican children, pushing through a wire fence.\n\nIt was a bad misstep for a couple who are surprisingly media-savvy. And it was not the only one on this curiously disorganised trip.\n\nThe first engagement in Belize was hurriedly cancelled following a protest by some residents. Another smaller protest popped up on the day they arrived in Jamaica.\n\nIt is worth noting that many things went well. Prince William's speeches were thoughtful and well-received.\n\nAnd at their various events, the Cambridges thanked those who so often go un-thanked and unrewarded for their efforts, drawing attention to stubbornly unfashionable causes and issues.\n\nYou can read Jonny's full analysis here.\n\nSpeaking at an event hosted by the Bahamian governor-general on Friday, the duke noted that the country would next year be celebrating the 50-year anniversary of its independent from Britain.\n\n\"And with Jamaica celebrating 60 years of independence this year, and Belize celebrating 40 years of independence last year, I want to say this,\" he said.\n\n\"We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future. Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.\"\n\nThe Cambridges' week-long tour to mark the Queen's 70 years on the throne has seen them visit Belize and Jamaica before their final stop in the Bahamas.\n\nIn Belize, the royal couple got involved in some traditional dancing, visited a chocolate farm and learned about efforts to conserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nIn Jamaica, they visited the neighbourhood where reggae legend Bob Marley lived and played football with England forward Raheem Sterling, who was born on the island.\n\nOn Friday the couple raced against each other as part of a regatta to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubillee.\n\nThe trip also saw the duke meet members of the Bahamas Red Cross who had dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 before being deployed to Covid-19 hubs, while the duchess spoke to medics at the Princess Margaret Hospital about the importance of mental and physical health.\n\nThey also saw a traditional Junkanoo parade featuring performers in elaborate costumes and visited a primary school, where students presented them with a portrait of the Queen.", "A P&O Ferries ship is being held in Northern Ireland because it is \"unfit to sail\", nine days after the company sacked 800 workers without notice.\n\nThe European Causeway had been held in Larne over \"failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training\", the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said.\n\nP&O Ferries said it would make changes to return the ship to service.\n\nProtests at UK ports are calling on customers to boycott the company.\n\nThey gathered in Dover, Hull and Liverpool, chanting slogans such as \"don't go P&O\" and \"seize the ship\".\n\nProtestors from the RMT Union are attempting to block access to the Pride of Rotterdam in Hull docks.\n\nMeanwhile, the Trades Union Congress tweeted a video it said showed P&O dockers in Rotterdam refusing to load freight onto a ferry set for Hull in solidarity with sacked workers.\n\nUnions have raised fears over a lack of training of new crew, after the firm replaced their members with workers whose average hourly rate of pay would be £5.50, less than the UK minimum wage.\n\nAs the company's ships operate internationally and are registered overseas, the UK minimum hourly rate of £8.91 does not apply.\n\nAt the Dover protest, RMT union national secretary Darren Procter said: \"Bringing a crew on board a vessel they're not familiar with to sail across the busiest shipping lane in the world, carrying passengers, is going to be a dangerous act.\"\n\nHe said the MCA should detain every other P&O Ferries vessel around the UK on the basis they are not fit to sail.\n\nRMT union members have been protesting at Dover, calling on customers to boycott the ferry company\n\nThe European Causeway sails between Larne and Cairnryan in Scotland. P&O Ferries told customers on Twitter that its services on this route were suspended, adding: \"It is no longer possible for us to arrange travel via an alternative operator on this route.\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves.\"\n\nThere were no passengers or freight aboard the European Causeway when it was impounded in Larne, the MCA confirmed.\n\nIt said the vessel would remain under detention until all issues were resolved by P&O Ferries.\n\nSeamus Leheny, of freight industry body Logistics UK, said rival ferry operator Stena had increased capacity through Belfast by 50% but the situation was still causing difficulties for businesses.\n\n\"It's not sustainable to have so much freight coming through Belfast... we want that Larne service back up and running as soon as possible,\" he added.\n\nOn Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson backed Transport Secretary Grant Shapps's calls for the boss of P&O Ferries to resign.\n\nPeter Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs that he broke the law by not consulting workers ahead of the job cuts - but said he would do the same again if he had to.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. ‘P&O Ferries weren’t just jobs they were our homes’\n\nMr Shapps wrote on social media that the European Causeway's detention followed an instruction from him to the MCA to inspect \"all P&O vessels\" before they entered back into service.\n\n\"I will not compromise the safety of these vessels, and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training,\" he added.\n\nLabour's Louise Haigh called for the sacked workers to be reinstated and for Mr Hebblethwaite to be \"barred\" as a director.\n\n\"The shameful misconduct of P&O Ferries has ruined livelihoods, and is harming the UK's key shipping routes,\" the shadow transport secretary wrote on Twitter.\n\nP&O Ferries said in a statement that an MCA inspection had deemed the European Causeway \"not sufficiently ready for entry into operation\".\n\n\"We shall review the findings, make any changes required and continue to work closely with the MCA to return the ship to service.\"\n\nMeanwhile P&O Ferries services between Dover and Calais remain cancelled. The firm said it would organise an alternative carrier for passengers.\n\nSaturday evening's service from Rotterdam to Hull is also suspended, the firm said - but the evening service from Hull to Rotterdam is expected to sail on time.", "Smoke as heavy as a winter fog hung over the last mile or so of the road into Irpin, just a 20-minute drive north-west of Kyiv. Trees and undergrowth in the pine forest on either side were burning, set alight by shelling. The road was almost empty.\n\nWhen our BBC team was last able to come here, about three weeks ago, the city was badly damaged. Now it is in ruins.\n\nIrpin sits in an arc of towns that also includes Bucha and Hostomel, where the most important fighting for the future of Kyiv is taking place. If it is important for Kyiv, it is important for the rest of the country. The capital remains the biggest prize.\n\nIt seems clear now that a central part of Russia's strategy when President Putin ordered the invasion was a decisive thrust into Kyiv, to replace the troublesome Zelensky government with one that would do as it was told.\n\nThe failure of that strategy is, without a doubt, a victory for Ukraine. President Zelensky's presence in the capital is as well. While the government is here, and functioning, and while Kyiv remains accessible, President Putin has a constant reminder that the start of his \"special military operation\" - it is not called a war by the Kremlin - was badly bungled.\n\nUkraine is winning another battle decisively - the war of the Twittersphere. From skilfully crafted video messages delivered by President Zelensky and world-famous Ukrainians, such as the boxing Klitschko brothers, to local journalists who suddenly have hundreds of thousands of followers, they dominate social media.\n\nIt is a clever strategy, partly managed and partly spontaneous. The information battlefield is a vital part of modern war.\n\nBut getting to the truth of what is happening in a war means being very cautious about declarations of victory or defeat by anyone.\n\nFor journalists, that requires using your own eyes and ears, which is why our BBC team - and many other colleagues - have made trips to front line areas to try to base our reporting on first-hand knowledge.\n\nA month into the war, it's harder to get to the crucial front line at Irpin. In the first days, journalists were able to drive in that direction. They were waved through roadblocks, and images went round the world of thousands of displaced civilians crossing the ruins of a road bridge blown by Ukrainian engineers to slow the Russians down if they made it to the Irpin River.\n\nPeople cross the destroyed bridge as they evacuate Irpin during heavy shelling and bombing on March 5, 2022\n\nBut as governments and military commands organise themselves in wars after the confusion of the first few days, it is always more difficult to move around. So, when the opportunity came to revisit the area it was important to take it. It is never an easy decision to go into harm's way.\n\nCommander Oleg, the leader of the unit that was going to take us in, delivered a stern briefing at their base in Kyiv. His pistol was on the desk in front of him and his Kalashnikov assault rifle was propped up against a chair. The unit was part of the volunteer territorial defence.\n\nOleg, a thick-set man in his 40s, said he had been a factory manager before the invasion. He said that shelling north west of Kyiv was constant. If we were lucky there might be a lull. If we were not whatever happened was our responsibility, and there were basements and cellars we would have to reach in a hurry.\n\nWhen displaced people were leaving Irpin, the road into the city was crowded with buses and ambulances picking them up and taking them into Kyiv. Many went straight to the railway station to head west, further from the Russians or to cross the border to become refugees in Poland, Romania and beyond.\n\nIn Irpin I could see clearly that the last few weeks of bombardment had damaged almost every building. The ruined bridge was now the route into the battlefield for groups of Ukrainian troops, heavily laden with weapons and ammunition, who were pushing forward on foot.\n\nA few civilians were still emerging from the rubble of their town, people who had tried to hang on. A man called Pavlo, who walked painfully slowly with a stick, said he was getting out because a shell had destroyed his house. A soldier was helping him, carrying a few of things Pavlo had salvaged packed into a plastic supermarket shopping bag. I asked the old man how he was.\n\n\"I'm bad,\" he said. \"Children are dying, everyone is dying. I didn't think I would make it to the bridge.\"\n\nA man and a woman were leaving with nine dogs. The animals were terrified, and Slava was dragging them on a lead. She said they had been cut off, but now had to move.\n\nThey were the exceptions. Otherwise, it was a military area, swept up by the fighting. Vehicles picked up the Ukrainian soldiers to ferry them deeper into the battleground. The sound of Russian heavy artillery rumbled constantly around the flat, boggy terrain.\n\nIrpin, Bucha and Hostomel, all now in ruins, used to be desirable places to live, an easy drive into the city, criss-crossed by waterways, with plenty of forest to walk dogs. It turns out that what was good for the residents is also good for Ukrainian defenders.\n\nAs one of the generals commanding the defence of Kyiv told me early in the war, the topography helps them. Spring is in the air, ice and snow have melted; mud and water are a nightmare for tanks. Forests are good places to conceal guns and build defensive positions.\n\nIn a cellar Commander Oleg, who had delivered the stern warning in Kyiv, was more relaxed closer to the fight.\n\nThe underground space, chosen because it had a thick concrete roof, was in a half-built house. It still had power. The lights on racks of battery chargers for walkie-talkies glowed in the gloom. Weapons were stacked in corners.\n\nAmmunition comes in metal containers painted army green, which are opened like giant cans of corn beef.\n\nLike his men, Oleg said the Russians had been pushed back. He explained that they were hitting Russian supply lines. Putin's men still had a toehold on the ground in Irpin, but the way they made their presence felt was with heavy artillery.\n\nFormer British soldier Shane Matthews is fighting with Oleg's unit\n\nShane Matthews, a former British soldier who travelled here from the UK with a Ukrainian friend, was part of Oleg's unit. Shane did not believe Nato should intervene, unlike every Ukrainian from the president down, because of the risks of a wider war. He had seen many civilians, including a family of four whose car was hit by an artillery shell. So little was left of them, he said, that their remains would barely have filled a bin bag.\n\nFirst-hand reporting helps, but it is still hard to penetrate the fog of war, especially in a place that is being shelled more or less constantly. As far as I could see, the claims made by the Ukrainian military that it is holding territory and even taking some of it back are true.\n\nWhat is also true is that Russia is using its formidable firepower and could still direct it at Kyiv. Even if most of their artillery is kept too far back to hit the city centre - a key Ukrainian objective - the Russians have destructive long range conventional missiles.\n\nSo far, apart from isolated but deadly attacks, nothing nearly as bad has happened in Kyiv. Everyone in the city knows that could change very fast.\n\nIn the city this week, more volunteers were being redeployed from quieter sectors to the battered north-western suburbs. It was quiet, a bit tense, as they waited for buses that would take them to the front line.\n\nKatrine, one of the few women in uniform, cuddled her 18-month-old son Nikita. It was going to be a brief reunion as she too was off to Irpin. Katrine said she had been a sniper since 2015 in the long war against Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Now she was back.\n\n\"I'm ready to kill,\" she said, kissing her boy, \"to protect his future\".\n\nKatrine the sniper cuddles her son before heading off to fight\n\nThe war has changed everything for Ukraine, and for Russia. The world now feels more dangerous. Whatever happens on the battlefields of Ukraine, it is clear after a month that the Russian invasion is the biggest threat to international peace and security since the end of the Cold War.\n\nIts consequences are already being felt beyond the borders of Ukraine, in the shape of European security, the politics of the Nato alliance and the growing pressure on economies and food supplies. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this week that disruption to Ukraine and Russia's agricultural exports could increase world hunger.\n\nOutside their headquarters, the younger volunteers were checking their phones as they waited for the buses. They were born when Europe was hopeful, in the 1990s.\n\nPlenty of older men, some in their 60s were there too. Two of them said they were fishing buddies. They grew up when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.\n\nNow the old drumbeat of the Cold War, the risk of confrontation between the big powers that was so familiar when Europe was divided by an iron curtain, is back for a new generation.", "Last updated on .From the section Mixed Martial Arts\n\nAs Michael Bisping walks into the room for this interview, he spills a cup of coffee on the floor.\n\nFor most, it would be an innocuous incident. For Bisping, there is a life-changing, career-defining reason behind the spillage - he is blind in one eye.\n\nThe remarkable story of how the 43-year-old lost the vision in his right eye yet still went on to become the first British UFC champion in history is told in a new documentary.\n\nHere, Bisping talks to BBC Sport about the emotional turmoil he experienced as a fighter, the steep barriers he overcame to reach the top, and how it felt watching a film about his career.\n\n'The eye injury took my identity away'\n\nWhen Bisping agreed to fight Vitor Belfort in 2013, he knew beating the Brazilian could lead to his first UFC world title fight.\n\nWhat he didn't know was the bout would be the last time he stepped inside the octagon with vision in both eyes.\n\nIn the second round, Belfort landed a fight-ending head kick which led to a detached retina on Bisping's right side.\n\nHe initially dealt with the injury privately - fearing medical professionals would prevent him fighting - and three months later beat Alan Belcher by a technical unanimous decision.\n\nBy then, though, his symptoms had worsened to the extent he couldn't put off seeing a doctor any longer.\n\nSix surgeries later, his vision remained irreparable and his fight career appeared to be over.\n\n\"The mental side was by far the hardest part,\" says Bisping.\n\n\"I'd just moved out to America. Things were going well living this new life in California, but we weren't financially secure and it all got taken away.\n\n\"I went through depression and feeling sorry for myself and drinking too much because I couldn't do anything. My entire identity had been taken away.\"\n\nDespite the loss of vision, decline in his mental health and insistence by doctors his career was over, Bisping never considered retiring.\n\n\"Physically I felt great,\" he says. \"I could still do it, but I couldn't get cleared to fight. Someone else is saying: 'No we're not allowing you to fight because of your eye.'\n\n\"I was forced for a year to not do anything which could get my heart rate up, and to allow the eye to heal, and that was in itself very challenging.\"\n\nContrary to the belief of the doctors, Bisping did end up fighting again. And again. And again.\n\nIndeed three years after going blind in his right eye, Bisping won the UFC middleweight title by knocking out Luke Rockhold.\n\nBut how did Bisping get cleared to fight, and what was it like competing with one eye?\n\nIn Bisping: The Michael Bisping Story, he tells how he \"fluked and conned\" his way through a number of tests by medical professionals, before getting the all-clear.\n\nIndeed only Bisping and his close team members knew the full extent of his problem.\n\nInside the octagon, the main adjustments he had to make were to do with depth perception, which he still struggles with today - hence the spilt coffee.\n\n\"I'd go to grab things, miss on a couple of occasions, then get it the third time,\" says Bisping.\n\n\"It was the same with punching - I'd be hitting fresh air, but then you connect and your brain kind of measures the distance.\n\n\"It was tough, challenging and definitely an adjustment period but I got there in the end.\"\n\nThroughout the documentary, Bisping shows an emotional side in contrast to the brash, outspoken character he portrayed through his fight career.\n\nWhether it's speaking about his eye injury, the problems he suffered growing up in Clitheroe, or the difficulties in coming to terms with defeat, Bisping isn't afraid to pour out his feelings.\n\nOne such poignant moment comes when he talks about meeting his wife, Rebecca.\n\n\"She never helped me, she just loved me,\" he says. \"She loved me for who I was and because of her and what we had, I wanted to do better in life.\n\n\"I never had any ambition, never wanted to be someone. I didn't care. Who cared if I didn't go to school? Who cared if I got arrested?\n\n\"My mum and dad weren't around too much so when Rebecca came along I wanted more out of life and I wanted to be a success.\"\n\nBisping says discussing his emotions in the way he did during the documentary is something he struggled with during his career.\n\n\"I had this defence mechanism, especially after a loss, of trying to play things down,\" he says. \"But inside you're crushed.\n\n\"That's one thing that would have helped me - trying to get hold of my emotions. If I could do that, my life would be so much easier because I react out of emotion all the time, and controlling those emotions and discussing those emotions and being honest would certainly have helped.\"\n\n'Everyone said the nicest things, but I'm just an idiot from Clitheroe'\n\nFollowing defeat by Kelvin Gastelum, and a scare involving his left eye, Bisping retired in 2017.\n\nHe's since built a career in the media - commentating and providing analysis for the UFC, and taking part in a number of podcasts.\n\nLooking back, he struggles to identify with the person he used to be.\n\n\"The fighter side of me ... I wouldn't say it's dead, but it's definitely suppressed,\" he says.\n\n\"But I sit cageside now, commentating on fights, and see what these guys do to each other, and I think: 'They're out of their mind - and I used to this. It's crazy.'\"\n\nAmong the other big names to appear in the documentary are MMA stars Georges St-Pierre and Rashad Evans - and both credit Bisping with being an inspiration.\n\n\"They're legends themselves - they don't get any bigger than Georges - and for them to say what they said, it's incredibly humbling,\" he says.\n\n\"Rashad Evans is actually crying because he was so proud of what I managed to do so, again, it's hard to find the right words.\n\n\"Everyone on the film said the nicest things, and I'm just an idiot from Clitheroe, do you know what I mean?\n\n\"It's amazing, it really is. Mind-blowing.\"\n• None Who were the greatest number 10s? Ranking the best players who wore the number\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the iconic role", "Passengers board the train in Lviv during the first days of the war in Ukraine\n\nTen million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. Most head west to the relative safety of cities like Lviv - and many continue onwards to neighbouring countries. Our correspondent Fergal Keane met some of those who took the 91/92 train between Kyiv and Lviv - the \"Rescue Express\"\n\nThe air raid alarm in the station tower has just started: no bombs are falling, but nerves are fraying. The guard tells us to shelter with the refugees in the tunnel under the platform.\n\nThere are several thousand people here, in a long queue.\n\nWe wait among the anxious and exhausted, the families calming scared children, the elderly woman wrapped in a blanket and pulling a suitcase. She looks as if she cannot possibly walk another step. But she will trudge forward when the all-clear is given. This is not a place of options. Go forward, or run the risk of the war catching up with you.\n\nThen a horn blares. A searchlight appears down the track to the east, a looming brilliance that grows larger as it approaches. Another horn sounds, followed by a conductor's whistle cutting through the clamour of the air raid sirens. A murmur ripples through the crowd. The all-clear is declared, and they can board a train to Poland.\n\nAfter nearly a month reporting on refugees, I have taken to calling this extraordinary evacuation the \"Rescue Express\". Millions of Ukrainians have taken trains from as far south as Odessa on the Black Sea, from Kharkiv close to the Russian border in the north-east, from the Donbas and from Kyiv, and numerous smaller stations in between.\n\nIt has come at great human cost: 33 railway staff have been killed. Tracks and stations have been bombed.\n\nThe head conductor on Train 91/92 between Lviv and Kyiv is Ievgen Propokenko, a 40-year veteran of the railways. He comes from Kharkiv, which is now under Russian siege, and where his daughter and son-in-law also work to keep the Rescue Express going. The railways, he explains, run in the family.\n\nIevgen Propokenko, head conductor on board the \"Rescue Express\" knows that his train could come under fire\n\n\"It is terrifying. My native city is being bombed,\" says Ievgen. \"I can feel it and see it, but I cannot believe it.\"\n\nHe knows that his own train runs the risk of being attacked. One of the conductor's duties is to check that train windows are covered, so its lights don't present an obvious target for Russian aircraft.\n\n\"We can see the war in the faces of the people who come onboard. It is our job. It is what we have to do.\"\n\nAlso onboard is his younger colleague, Oleksandr Shevchenko, 31, the spokesman for the railways who is heading to an awards ceremony. The Prime Minister will be handing out awards to railway staff at the station in Kyiv.\n\nThis service is heading east back towards the conflict, and has only a few passengers. Sitting in a compartment before departure I met Petro Rocharan, a 25-year-old investment banker, who has volunteered to join a battalion defending the capital. Petro is a scout. He has had just three weeks' military training and he is frank about his feelings.\n\n\"I am rather scared honestly. I know Kyiv has been through a lot so far. Including the streets where I am going, where some of my friends are living, and I am just not sure if I am ready to see those buildings destroyed,\" he explains. Petro speaks of different waves of feeling: from fear to excitement and back to fear again.\n\nThe lights of the train could make it a target in these dangerous times\n\nThe train pulls into Kyiv just after dawn, and Petro heads off in search of his battalion. New shifts of drivers, conductors and stewards start to arrive at the station. So do the buses carrying families from the embattled cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kramatorsk and the suburbs of Kyiv itself.\n\nOleg Kryvospytska, 59, comes from Troyeschchyna in the northern suburbs of Kyiv and has brought his wife, Olena, his 29-year-old daughter Olga, and his granddaughters, aged six and 12.\n\nBut Oleg will not be travelling with them. He must stay behind and care for an elderly relative who is unable to travel.\n\nOlena says that they will take the train to Lviv and stay for a few days before deciding where to go in Europe. \"I have no words for this,\" she says. \"This is something terrifying that I can't believe is happening. I'm currently taking sedatives every day to keep me calm, but even that isn't helping.\"\n\nOleg is a tall, strongly-built man and his wife Olena leans into him as the time approaches to board the train. They embrace, and sway gently from side to side. It is a portrait of fortitude and loss, rooted in the 30 years of their life together.\n\nOleg does not speak or cry. For the children's sake, he smiles.\n\nOleg says goodbye to his family, but is careful not to shed any tears\n\nEven as he walks alongside the departing train and can see Olena weeping, he keeps smiling and waving. The little girls shout: \"We love you, we love you.\" His daughter Olga calls out: \"Wait for us.\"\n\nHe will. Of course. However long it takes.\n\nThe train picks up speed. The horn blares and the carriages roll west, through the suburbs, away from the front line and out into the great immensity of Europe's second-largest country. It passes wheat fields ready for spring planting, through small and large towns, further and further from the war zone.\n\nIt is after 22:00 when the Rescue Express pulls into Lviv. Olga and Olena and the children are in the first carriage and it is dark on the platform. A conductor appears with a flash lamp and lights their way. The weary travellers gather their bags and walk towards the lights of the station.\n\nIn a day or two they will board another train, to Poland, peace and exile.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps: \"It's breathtakingly arrogant what they have done\"\n\nThe prime minister has backed calls for the boss of P&O Ferries to resign over the no-notice sackings of 800 staff.\n\nBoris Johnson supported Transport Secretary Grant Shapps in urging Peter Hebblethwaite to step down after his \"brazen\" law breaking, No 10 said.\n\nHe admitted to MPs that he broke the law by not consulting workers but said he would do the same again if he had to.\n\nA government spokesperson said it has asked for a review of P&O's actions.\n\nP&O Ferries replaced staff with agency workers paid less than the minimum wage.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite prompted further anger when he told the transport committee P&O \"did choose not to consult\" on the move and \"did not believe there was any other way to do this\".\n\nP&O's owner DP World had warned Mr Shapps that Irish Ferries was a new \"low-cost competitor\" that would pose a challenge to the business, minutes from a meeting in November revealed.\n\nMr Shapps had replied to DP World boss DP Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem: \"I'm aware of the issues relating to P&O. I recognise you will need to make commercial decisions, but please do keep us informed.\"\n\nBut the transport secretary told BBC Breakfast the first he knew of the P&O sackings was when he was \"stood at the despatch box\" in the Commons last Thursday delivering a statement on another issue.\n\nHe added that even if he had known in advance, \"it wouldn't have made any difference\", because P&O Ferries had already hired agency staff, security, and recorded the video \"behind everybody's backs\".\n\nThe BBC has seen a letter Mr Hebblethwaite sent to P&O colleagues on Friday telling them \"this type of dismissal could not and would not happen again\".\n\nHe called it a \"unique situation\" and said no criminal offence had been committed.\n\nHe wrote that there had been \"a failure to comply with the obligation to consult\".\n\nP&O Ferries had made redundancies due to pandemic pressures before the mass sackings, but had previously consulted unions.\n\nFriday's talks between union officials and P&O ended after 20 minutes without any agreement, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said.\n\nGeneral secretary Mick Lynch said: \"P&O were not prepared to listen to any scenario or develop any idea that would provide a means to create a solution to the current disastrous situation.\"\n\nIt has called for the immediate disqualification of Mr Hebblethwaite as a director. It also wants the government to reinstate sacked workers in their jobs.\n\nThe Institute of Directors has said Mr Hebblethwaite could face court proceedings under the Company Directors Disqualification Act (1986).\n\nDr Roger Barker, director of policy and governance, said this was due to Mr Hebblethwaite's suggestion that P&O knowingly broke the law by not consulting staff.\n\n\"[Mr Hebblethwaite] leaves himself and the rest of the board vulnerable to court proceedings for unfit conduct and the potential for disqualification as a director, not just of P&O but any UK company.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. ‘P&O Ferries weren’t just jobs they were our homes’\n\nLabour's shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, also called on the government to disqualify Mr Hebblethwaite as a company director.\n\nShe told BBC News: \"The government can do more than just wait for the chief executive to go. The government should be investigating action against him to disqualify him as a company director now and in the future as well.\"\n\nMr Shapps told BBC Breakfast the government would bring in measures next week to force P&O Ferries into a U-turn to re-employ staff on at least minimum wage.\n\nThese changes would also affect the operator Irish Ferries, who he said have used \"the same model\".\n\nAsked about the action government could take against P&O, Mr Shapps admitted it \"can't directly\" revoke P&O's licence but said \"we do have some mechanisms\".\n\n\"There are a whole load of other things happening including letters going out to the ports from which they sail, then, as I mentioned, different types of legislation will be forthcoming, so we are going to make sure P&O have to U-turn on this.\"\n\nHowever, Beth Hale, partner at employment law firm CM Murray, questioned the government's capacity to force through a change.\n\n\"It's not clear what mechanisms the government is proposing to rely on to force a U-turn in this matter. The dismissals of the employees have already taken effect - and some may already have signed up to settlement agreements and accepted termination payments.\n\n\"There is no mechanism in the law as it currently stands which would allow the government or unions to force an employer to re-engage employees in those circumstances,\" she said, adding that pressure could be applied in different ways such as the Insolvency Service disqualifying individual P&O Ferries directors.\n\nA government spokesperson said that it has asked the Insolvency Service to review P&O Ferries' actions.\n\n\"This will include any scope to take legal action against the company's directors. We will not hesitate to take further action if we find evidence of wrongdoing,\" they added.\n\nP&O Ferries has said its 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nMr Shapps also told Radio 4's Today programme: \"What they've done is try to pay off, or attempt to pay off, their staff with higher redundancy payments...and therefore buy their silence and we cannot have a situation where laws are being creatively used and abused in this case.\"\n\nHe said: \"The idea that you come to parliament and you admit that you deliberately set out to break the laws in order to sack your staff and bring in below minimum wage people and that you'll buy off the staff to do that is quite simply unacceptable.\n\n\"They've exploited loopholes, they've been completely disgraceful and I'm clear that is no way to behave and not the right individual to have at the top of a British business.\"", "Empty plinths and cabinets now line the large rooms of the National Museum of Lviv\n\nIn one room of the National Museum of Lviv, an enormous scaffold is bare. In another, brackets hang loosely from the walls. Plinths sit empty along the corridors and wooden pallets and cardboard boxes are strewn on the floors. The staff used whatever they could to pack away the museum's priceless artefacts in a hurry.\n\nAs Russian shelling has devastated other parts of Ukraine, the picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far. But it is bracing for war. Some preparations you can see in the open - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets - but some are taking place behind closed doors.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage. Thousands of artworks and artefacts have been carefully removed and taken to secret underground locations, or down to basement storage rooms.\n\nThe climate-controlled cabinets in Lviv's national museum now sit empty, their treasures hidden underground\n\nIhor Kozhan, the director of the National Museum of Lviv - the largest art museum in Ukraine - took the BBC on a tour of its now empty rooms, which looked as though they had been looted. Climate-controlled display cases, usually home to artworks, icons and manuscripts dating as far back as the 14th Century, were bare.\n\nNearly every one of the 1,500 artefacts on display has now been removed from the museum. The other 97% of the collection - 180,000 pieces in total - was already in storage in some form.\n\n\"Everything, everything is gone,\" Kozhan said.\n\n\"It is sad for me to be in these empty rooms,\" said Ihor Kozhan, the director of the museum\n\nDespite overseeing the operation, Kozhan was amazed by the speed with which the 17th-century Bohorodchany Iconostasis - a grouping of religions paintings measuring 10m by 8m and one of the museum's most valuable pieces - had been dismantled by his team. It had taken six months to hang, piece by piece, he said, and less than six days to pull down from its scaffold and store away.\n\nConstructed and painted over seven years beginning in 1698, the iconostasis represents the high watermark of the work of the icon painter Yov Kondzelevych. It has been in Lviv since 1924, then a Polish city, brought there by an archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.\n\nIt was dismantled and hidden from the Nazis in 1939, forbidden from display during the Soviet era, painstakingly restored in 2006, and now dismantled once more.\n\nIhor Kozhan describing the Bohorodchany Iconostasis, one of the museums largest and most valuable pieces\n\nThere was no plan in place for the evacuation of the museum's artefacts before the invasion began two weeks ago, Kozhan said - not even after Russia began months ago to mass troops along Ukraine's borders.\n\n\"There was no plan because no one could imagine this would happen,\" he said. \"We had no plan at all - not before the war, not even in December. You must understand, we did not believe it could come to this.\"\n\nTerritorial defence soldiers gathered outside a Lviv church where the statutes have been wrapped in protective fabric\n\nAround Lviv, cultural and religious officials are running complex operations to wrap up statues, seal off stained glass windows and spirit away sacred artefacts.\n\nIn the city's main square, fountains with sculptures of Greek gods and goddesses have been wrapped in flame-retardant fabric and covered with scaffolds to protect them from falling masonry.\n\n\"At first it was a bit chaotic but it has become more organised,\" said Liliya Onischenko, the head of Lviv's city council heritage protection office.\n\n\"We are photographing everything before we take it away and we are photographing all the pieces in their hidden places,\" she said\n\nGreek gods and goddesses on fountains in Lviv's town square have been wrapped and scaffolded\n\nOnischenko said the priority was protecting the stained glass windows in the city's historical old town, a Unesco world heritage site whose architecture was built over centuries by different nationalities - Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Armenians - as the region changed hands.\n\nAt the Armenian cathedral, a prized 15th-Century wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross was removed for the first time since World War Two and taken to a secret, safe place.\n\nOther artefacts besides the sculpture have been removed, the deacon, Armen Hakopian said, but he would not elaborate. \"What needed to be taken out was taken out,\" he said, with a smile.\n\nThe windows along the side of the 850-year-old Armenian cathedral are plain, because the original stained glass was blown out in the 1940s by German bombing. But above, stained glass remains in the cupola and the high parts of the church.\n\nA stained glass window in the 14th-Century Armenian cathedral in Lviv, among those not destroyed during World War Two\n\nThe institutions of Lviv have had the benefit of time to prepare. And they may yet escape the violence. But there are grave fears for the cultural, religious and architectural treasures in the parts of Ukraine under attack.\n\nThere has already been significant damage. The stained glass windows and nave of the assumption cathedral in Kharkiv were damaged by Russian shelling. Russian troops have reportedly destroyed a 19th-century wooden church in the village of Viazivka in Zhytomyr. And a museum in Ivankiv, north of Kyiv, was razed, destroying 25 works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko.\n\nThe stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals in Lviv's historic old town have been covered\n\nScaffolders in Lviv's historic old town preparing to cover more of the city's stained glass windows\n\nIhor Kozhan, the national museum director, said he feared that destroying Ukraine's cultural fabric was part of Russia's goal, and he feared greatly for Lviv.\n\n\"If the same damage is done here as in Kharkiv, Mariupol, it would be a terrible tragedy,\" he said.\n\n\"This is a place of historical memory. The museums here hold the history of the nation. They give us an understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.\n\n\"Russia wants to destroy that.\"\n\nA statue, too heavy to move underground, lies on the floor of the museum's atrium\n\nThe job of emptying the national museum was virtually complete by Wednesday - only a few cardboard boxes of manuscripts were left, near the doors, alongside a sculpture lying on the floor - one of several too heavy to move that will be protected in other ways.\n\nThe artefacts that have been moved underground are on a clock - too long there without adequate climate control and they would begin to degrade, Kozhan said.\n\nAnd they would not probably not survive a direct hit, he said, with a long sigh, because the bunkers are not designed to withstand powerful bombs.\n\nA picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary sits on an otherwise empty shelf in the National Museum of Lviv\n\n\"I hope we can bring them up soon,\" he said. \"It is difficult for me to be here in these empty rooms and hallways. We could have walked the whole day here together looking at our history and our art.\"\n\nAsked to estimate the total value of the museum's works, Kozhan declined.\n\n\"Of course there is no number,\" he said.\n\n\"If these things are destroyed they cannot be remade.\"\n\nCorrection 8 April 2022: This article has been amended after we mistakenly stated Lviv was part of Ukraine in 1924. It was in fact a Polish city at that time.", "Musicians in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv have performed an emotional concert in a metro station, which is being used as a makeshift shelter.\n\nKharkiv has been the target of intense Russian bombardment for weeks, leaving residents to take shelter in bunkers and metro stations.\n\nThe concert marked the opening day of the Kharkiv Music Festival.", "Police are hunting a prisoner who escaped wearing nothing but his underwear and socks.\n\nDorset Police said Kyle Darren Eglington assaulted security officers in Hardy Road, Poole on Saturday before making off from a prison van.\n\nThe 32-year-old had been remanded in custody after being charged with robbery, following an incident in Bournemouth on Thursday.\n\nPolice said he should not be approached.\n\nOfficers are carrying out detailed searches in the area, with the help of the police helicopter and British Transport Police.\n\nMr Eglington is described as white, 5ft 11in (1.8m) tall, of medium build, with dark brown hair and a beard.\n\nSupt Heather Dixey of Dorset Police said: \"I would like to reassure members of the public that we have a number of officers carrying out searches and other enquiries in a bid to locate Kyle Eglington as soon as possible and return him to lawful custody.\n\n\"I would urge anyone who has sees a man in the area in just his underwear and socks to report it to us. There is nothing at this time to suggest he poses a risk to the general public, however, we would urge people not to approach him and to please dial 999 immediately.\"\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the actions of the UK government were \"embarrassing\" compared to other countries\n\nThe UK should be doing \"much more\" to help Ukrainian refugees, London mayor Sadiq Khan has said.\n\nMr Khan joined a large crowd that gathered near Hyde Park ahead of a march in solidarity with the war-torn country.\n\nThe Labour mayor said the actions of the UK government compared with other European countries were \"embarrassing\".\n\nMr Khan said it needed to be made \"much more easier for those who are fleeing Ukraine to come here\".\n\nEarlier this month the government opened it Homes for Ukraine scheme, which allows UK nationals to individually sponsor a Ukrainian national's visa so that those without family connections can still come to live with a host family in the UK.\n\nThe crowd carried flags and banners as they marched through London\n\nProtesters made their way towards Trafalgar Square whilst holding Ukrainian flags and banners that said \"stop Putin's war\", \"no fly zone\" and \"solidarity with Ukraine\".\n\nThe crowd chanted \"we stand with Ukraine\" as traffic behind was brought to a standstill.\n\nAbout 10 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.\n\nAs well as the 3.6 million who have left for neighbouring countries, another estimated 6.5 million people are thought to be displaced inside the war-torn country itself.\n\nA group of children clutching balloons in the colours of the Ukrainian flag marched in the heat of the sun in central London leading today's protest.\n\nJoined by thousands of others, mini flags were being handed out for people to show their solidarity.\n\nA sea of blue and yellow surrounded Nelson's column as special guests addressed the crowd, trying to teach Ukrainian phrases.\n\nMost of the people that we stopped to speak to were either Ukrainian born or had Ukrainian links, like Olaksana. She told us that her family had just fled Kharkiv and were in Hungary and Germany.\n\nShe said: \"It is really hard to be in another country when your country is suffering.\n\n\"The least I can do is come to this protest and the least I can do is stand with Ukraine and unite as a nation and show the world they're not going to kill us as a nation.\"\n\nCheers rang out as a message from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was played in front of Nelson's Column\n\nMr Khan praised the actions of Londoners who had \"shown that we're opening our arms to Ukrainian refugees, whether it's by donating money to those charities doing a brilliant job in Ukraine or by opening our homes to those fleeing Ukraine\".\n\n\"I'm full of admiration for anybody who has the space to provide a room for those who have fled Ukraine,\" he said.\n\n\"It's really important families are not left to their own devices, the government has to step up and support them.\"\n\nThe BBC has contacted the Home Office for comment.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk", "Grohl and Hawkins performing together last month\n\nThe drummer with US rock group Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins, has died aged 50, the band have announced.\n\nThe band said they were \"devastated by the tragic and untimely loss\" in a statement on social media. No cause of death has been given.\n\nHawkins played with Foo Fighters for more than two decades, joining shortly after they finished making their 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.\n\nThe band are currently on tour in South America.\n\n\"His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live with us forever,\" Foo Fighters wrote.\n\n\"Our hearts go out to his wife, children, and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.\"\n\nFoo Fighters were formed in 1994 by Dave Grohl, after his previous group Nirvana disbanded following the suicide of lead singer Kurt Cobain.\n\nWhile Grohl drummed for Nirvana, he took on lead vocals and guitar in Foo Fighters, and so Hawkins had the daunting task of drumming in a group founded by one of the most celebrated drummers in rock.\n\n\"I was a little nervous at first, but I got over that,\" he told OC Weekly soon after joining.\n\n\"Any instance where you're auditioning for something, you're going to be nervous. But no-one can play better than Dave Grohl. He just has this vision in his head.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe two sometimes swapped roles during the band's concerts, with Hawkins taking on vocals. After news of his death was announced many fans shared clips of him singing Queen's Somebody to Love.\n\nWhile visiting London in 2001, he took an overdose of heroin and spent two weeks in a coma.\n\nSpeaking about the experience in 2018, he said it had been \"a real changing point for me\".\n\nThe band had been due to perform on Friday night at the Estereo Picnic festival in Bogota, Colombia. The US embassy in Bogota expressed its \"sincerest condolences\" to the drummer's family, friends and fans.\n\nBeatriz De La Pava from BBC Minute was backstage at the festival when the announcement of Taylor Hawkins' death was made to the crowd.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the crowd's reaction at the festival where Foo Fighters had been due to perform on Friday night\n\n\"While we were backstage, I saw the Foo Fighters team was packing up everything,\" she said.\n\n\"The organisers of the festival arrived and then they all went on to the stage after Nile Rodgers had finished and said they had some very sad news to share.\n\n\"A message was then published on the big screens that Taylor had died and everyone was silent. A few of the other stages started playing My Hero by the Foo Fighters.\n\n\"They placed candles on the stage where the Foo Fighters were supposed to play. A lot of people were crying and some DJs who were supposed to play sets cancelled, although people just wanted more and more Foo Fighters music.\"\n\nIf you're going to play drums for Dave Grohl, one of the best players in the history of rock, you'd better be good. Taylor Hawkins was that good.\n\nHe could pulverise the kit on The Pretender, play it like a song on Learn To Fly or add a funky shuffle to a track like Shame Shame. He was more than just Grohl's equal, he was his partner in crime. The star once said Hawkins was \"overly qualified\" for his band.\n\nHe wasn't just the time-keeper. He had writing credits on Grammy-winning hits like Best Of You, Learn To Fly and All My Life; and at almost every Foo Fighters concert, he'd step out from behind the kit and sing a track by his favourite band, Queen.\n\nAt his last show, a week ago in Argentina, that song was Somebody To Love.\n\nBorn in Texas but raised in California, Hawkins had the affable, easy-going demeanour of a surfer dude. He was introduced to music by his brother and started out playing guitar but, inspired by Roger Taylor of Queen and Stewart Copeland of The Police, he soon switched to drums.\n\nAt the age of 10, he sat behind a \"rickety-rackety\" kit for the first time in his neighbour's garage. \"And then,\" he said, \"my life became drums, drums, drums.\"\n\nHe first rose to prominence in Alanis Morissette's touring band and joined Foo Fighters in 1997, after a studio dispute led to the departure of original drummer, William Goldsmith.\n\nAlthough he was \"super-intimidated\", he slotted right into the band. In his autobiography, Grohl called their partnership \"a kind of love at first sight\".\n\n\"Upon first meeting, our bond was immediate and we grew closer with every day, every song, every note that we ever played together,\" he wrote. \"We are absolutely meant to be and I am grateful that we found each other in this lifetime.\"\n\nHawkins' death at the age of 50 is devastating - for Grohl, his bandmates and his fans, but most of all, his wife Alison and their three children. Rest in beats.\n\nPaying tribute, Tom Morello, of fellow rockers Rage Against the Machine, tweeted: \"God bless you Taylor Hawkins. I loved your spirit and your unstoppable rock power. Rest In Peace my friend.\"\n\nOzzy Osbourne said Hawkins was \"truly a great person and an amazing musician\".\n\nMiley Cyrus, who was part of the festival line-up, said she would dedicate her Saturday show to Hawkins.\n\n\"My favorite memory of Taylor is dancing round the drum kit while he played this song...\" she posted on Instagram, with a picture of the Pretenders song Brass In Pocket.\n\n\"Playing it on repeat, imagining us laughing forever.\"\n\nFormer Beatles drummer Ringo Starr also expressed his condolences. \"God bless Taylor,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Peace and love to all his family and the band peace and love.\"\n\nKiss member Gene Simmons said he was \"shocked and saddened\" by the news of Hawkins' death.\n\nBilly Idol shared a picture of Hawkins on Twitter with the words: \"So tragic. Rest in peace Taylor.\"\n\nOther bands paying tribute to the Foo Fighters drummer included the Smashing Pumpkins, Nickelback and the Offspring.", "About two dozen, mainly female, protesters gathered close to the Taliban's Ministry of Education on Saturday morning, calling on the group to reopen girls' secondary schools.\n\nThe Taliban have been widely condemned for issuing a last-minute U-turn earlier this week, ordering them to close, just hours after teenage pupils began to arrive for the start of the new academic year.\n\nThe protesters chanted, \"Education is our right! Open the doors of girls' schools!\" while armed Taliban members looked on.\n\nOne female teacher attending told the BBC: \"When it comes to standing up for freedom and the girls who want to go to school, I'm willing to die.\n\n\"We are here for the rights of our daughters to get an education. Without that right, we might as well be dead already.\"\n\nThe Taliban has previously broken up demonstrations and detained those involved, but on this occasion the protest was allowed to continue.\n\nSince the group took power last August, girls' primary schools in most of the country, along with all boys' schools, have remained open, but older girls have not been allowed back in the classroom.\n\nThe Taliban's Ministry of Education had said girls' secondary schools would restart on Wednesday, but the decision was overruled by the group's central leadership, who said they could remain closed until a \"comprehensive\" and \"Islamic\" plan for them had been drawn up.\n\nThe move provoked an outpouring of grief. On social media, Afghans have been sharing videos of pupils sobbing after returning home early from what they thought would be their first day back at school.\n\nA presenter on the popular Tolo TV channel struggled to hold back his tears during a discussion on the issue.\n\nOn Friday, a joint statement by officials from 10 countries, including the US and UK, described the Taliban's decision as \"profoundly disturbing\".\n\nThe US State Department cancelled meetings with the group that had been scheduled to take place in Qatar.\n\nThe chaotic policy reversal by the Taliban probably reflects divisions within the group between more hardline and moderate elements.\n\nIn some provinces, particularly in northern Afghanistan, local Taliban officials have allowed teenage girls to continue to study, but others appear to oppose the idea.\n\nCrying in frustration, one protester at Saturday's demonstration in Kabul said: \"I want our generation to be free and to flourish, not just to shed tears at home.\"", "Anna Pepper says photography \"gave me this hope that I could get better\"\n\nAbout six years ago Anna Pepper found herself in a crowded park on the brink of a panic attack.\n\nThe 34-year-old veterinary nurse from Winchester had been struggling with her mental health, experiencing panic attacks almost daily.\n\nGrabbing her phone, she started taking pictures \"and without knowing it I just got completely absorbed - the panic attack that I was on the edge of had just completely gone away\", she said.\n\n\"And that was the spark of this unexpected passion that completely turned my life around.\"\n\nMs Pepper often photographs Dorset's Jurassic Coast where she grew up\n\nShe said: \"I don't want people to think that I'm saying pick up a camera and all your problems will go away.\n\n\"Photography just sparked this whole thing in my brain that if I worked hard and got the help I needed, and used my energy to be in nature and concentrate on something creative, I realised I probably could get better.\n\n\"It gave me this hope that I would be able to get through it.\"\n\nAnna Pepper says photography \"was a spark of realising I needed some help\"\n\nThe panic attacks would come on with no real warning and \"seemed to be more volatile each time\", she said.\n\n\"I live with a fair few chronic illnesses which can affect mental health - I don't really know what triggered it, I just suddenly became very overwhelmed by life, it just came out of nowhere.\n\n\"I went to work and struggled through pretending I was OK every day, and then I would just count down the hours until I could get home and just shut myself in my bedroom.\n\n\"I felt I was trapped in this loop that I was either panicking, or if I wasn't panicking I was feeling anxious about when I might next panic. It was just taking over my whole life.\"\n\nAfter taking workshops and classes she has ended up with two diplomas in photography\n\nMs Pepper said she had not felt ready to tell her friends and family what she was going through.\n\n\"Even though they would have wanted to help me there was an element of guilt and I just didn't want the people I loved to worry about me,\" she said.\n\nThe first thing she did was call the Mind helpline, \"being able to talk to somebody that didn't know me at all who just says 'it's OK you can talk to me' - hearing those words I just released everything\".\n\nAnna Pepper says she feels grounded in \"locations where you are really in the thick of mother nature\"\n\nShe also continued to go out daily to take pictures, bought a camera a few months later and set up an Instagram page to post her photos.\n\nHer main love became \"locations where you are really in the thick of mother nature\" such as forests and Dorset's Jurassic Coast where she grew up.\n\nAfter taking workshops and classes \"it just continued to snowball and I ended up with two diplomas in photography,\" she said.\n\nMs Pepper said she hopes her story will \"help someone at a difficult time in their life too, and inspire them not to give up\"\n\n\"When I say it's changed my life - it really has. Just to be quiet, just to be alone with my camera and nature, it's like a form of medication.\n\n\"Looking back it's the thing that got me talking, got me out of the house, it's the thing that made me creative and I've learnt so much about myself.\n\n\"I don't want to simplify it for anybody else and I don't want to downplay it because I know that things can be very serious for people.\n\n\"This is my story but I just want people to know that no matter how hopeless it feels there is always hope and there's always something and there is always someone to go to.\"\n\nShe said taking pictures outside felt \"like a form of medication\"\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Joe Biden with US paratroopers deployed to Poland\n\nPresident Joe Biden hailed American military deployments to Europe as part of a struggle for democracy against autocracy during a visit to US troops in Poland.\n\nHis remarks come as the US and others have reinforced Nato's eastern flank amid the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe stop at an airbase in Rzeszow, near the Ukrainian border, was part of Mr Biden's trip to Europe to rally allies.\n\nHowever, back home Mr Biden faces scepticism over his Ukraine response.\n\nIn his remarks to the troops on Friday, the president sought to portray their deployments as part of a wider \"fight between democracies and oligarchs\".\n\n\"You are the finest fighting force in the history of the world,\" he said. \"What you're doing is consequential.\"\n\n\"What's at stake is what your kids and grandkids are going to look like in terms of their freedom,\" he said. \"What you're engaging in is much more than whether or not you can alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by President Biden This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nSince February, the US has sent about 12,000 troops to Europe, many of them to Poland to help deter Russia from threatening Nato allies and to assist with humanitarian efforts. Thousands more have been redeployed east from existing US bases in Europe.\n\nThe deployments bring the total number of US troops in Europe - including both those on temporary missions and stationed there permanently - to 100,000 for the first time since 2005.\n\nMr Biden has repeatedly made clear, however, that the troops are in Europe to defend Nato allies and not to fight Russian forces. Earlier in March, he said that a \"direct confrontation\" between Nato and Russian forces would lead to \"World War III\" - a scenario he said must be prevented.\n\nEarlier this week, Mr Biden met with Nato, EU and G7 leaders in Brussels to shore up a message of unity against Moscow's invasion of its neighbour.\n\nHe is due to hold a bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday, and deliver a major address after meeting with Ukrainian refugees.\n\nThe trip comes as polls show that a majority of US voters are worried about his handling of the crisis in Ukraine.\n\nOnly about a quarter said they had confidence in his ability to handle a crisis or effectively manage the US military, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, while 56% of Americans believe that Mr Biden's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has \"not been tough enough\".\n\nAnother poll, from NPR/Ipsos, found that 45% of Americans believe Mr Biden is being too cautious. Over 60% said they want the US to give Ukraine the support it wants, while still wanting to avoid a larger conflict with Russia.\n\nWhile no additional US troop deployments have been announced, earlier this week National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that troops levels in Europe are \"a matter of constant reassessment\" in the White House.", "Yakov Rezantsev was reportedly killed in the Kherson region\n\nUkraine's defence ministry says another Russian general, Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, was killed in a strike near the southern city of Kherson.\n\nRezantsev was the commander of Russia's 49th combined army.\n\nA western official said he was the seventh general to die in Ukraine, and the second lieutenant general - the highest rank officer reportedly killed.\n\nIt is thought that low morale among Russian troops has forced senior officers closer to the front line.\n\nIn a conversation intercepted by the Ukrainian military, a Russian soldier complained that Rezantsev had claimed the war would be over within hours, just four days after it began.\n\nUkrainian media reported on Friday that the general was killed at the Chornobaivka airbase near Kherson, which Russia is using as a command post and has been attacked by Ukraine's military several times.\n\nAnother lieutenant general, Andrei Mordvichev, was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian strike on the same base.\n\nKherson was the first Ukrainian city to be occupied by Russian forces, although there are reports that daily protests are held there against the Russian occupation.\n\nAlthough Russia has confirmed the death of only one general, Kyiv and western officials believe up to seven have been killed in fighting since the war began.\n\nHowever the death of Maj Gen Magomed Tushayev of the Chechen national guard has been disputed.\n\nIt is unusual for such senior Russian officers to be so close to the battlefield, and western officials believe that they have been forced to move towards the front lines to deal with low morale among Russian troops.\n\nThe unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance, poor Russian equipment and a high death toll amongst Russian troops are all thought to be contributing to the low morale.\n\nRussian forces are believed to be relying in part on open communication systems, for example mobile phones and analogue radios, which are easy to intercept and could give away the locations of high-ranking officers.\n\nA person inside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's inner circle told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia's officer class.\n\nSo far, Vladimir Putin has only referred to the death of one general, thought to be Maj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, in a speech soon after the start of the war.\n\nRussia says 1,351 soldiers have died since the war began in Ukraine, although Kyiv and western officials say the number is much higher.\n\nLt Gen Yakov Rezantsev was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near the city of Kherson.\n\nHe was promoted to lieutenant general last year, and was commander of the 49th combined army of Russia's southern military district.\n\nHe is said to have taken part in Russia's military operation in Syria.\n\nAndrei Mordvichev was killed by a strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near Kherson, according to Ukrainian officials.\n\nHe was the commander of Russia's 8th combined army of the southern military district.\n\nHis death was reported on 18 March.\n\nMaj Gen Oleg Mityaev reportedly died somewhere near the city of Mariupol, a city in south-east Ukraine which has seen some of the heaviest fighting so far.\n\nThe nationalist Azov regiment claims to have killed him.\n\nHe was a commander of the Russian army's 150th motorised rifle division, a relatively new unit formed in 2016, and based in the Rostov region close to the Ukrainian border.\n\nUkraine claims that the unit was created in order to take part in the conflict in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies that its military was involved in fighting there.\n\nMaj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, of the 29th combined army, was killed in fighting on 11 March, according to official Ukrainian sources.\n\nThe circumstances of his death were not given.\n\nAfter Kolesnikov became the third Russian general reportedly killed in Ukraine, one western official told the Press Association that the Russian army may be suffering from low morale, which is why high-ranking military officers are moving closer to the front line.\n\nMaj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.\n\nKharkiv, close to the Russian border, has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.\n\nUkraine's military released a recording of what it said was two Russian security service officials discussing Gerasimov's death, and complaining that their secure communication networks no longer worked in Ukraine.\n\nGerasimov was involved in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.\n\nMaj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander at the same unit as Gerasimov, was reportedly killed by a sniper on 3 March.\n\nLike Gerasimov, Sukhovetsky was part of Russia's military operations in Crimea and in Syria.\n\nUnlike the other generals, Sukhovetsky's death was reported in the Russian media and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a speech that a general had died in Ukraine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video captured by a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show Russian forces shooting at civilians", "The Harry Potter author criticised Russia's invasion of Ukraine after President Putin defended her\n\nJK Rowling has hit back at Vladimir Putin, after the Russian president cited her in a wide-ranging speech that saw him criticise \"cancel culture\".\n\nAt a televised meeting on Friday, Mr Putin compared recent criticism of the Harry Potter author to that faced by pro-war Russian composers and writers.\n\nIn response, Ms Rowling denounced the invasion of Ukraine in which she said Russia was \"slaughtering civilians\".\n\nRowling has been criticised for her views on transgender issues.\n\n\"Critiques of Western cancel culture are possibly not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians for the crime of resistance, or who jail and poison their critics,\" the Harry Potter author wrote on Twitter.\n\nIn the lengthy speech, which was given to the winners of various cultural prizes, President Putin claimed Russian composers and writers were being discriminated against.\n\n\"They are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country,\" he said.\n\nSome events featuring pro-war Russians have been cancelled since Moscow invaded Ukraine last month.\n\nA much smaller number of events have been cancelled due to their use of music by dead Russian composers.\n\nBut Mr Putin also alleged - without providing evidence - that there was a \"gradual discrimination against everything linked to Russia... in a number of Western countries\".\n\n\"They are banning Russian writers and books,\" he said.\"The proverbial 'cancel culture' has become a cancellation of culture.\"\n\nMr Putin then defended Ms Rowling, who has faced criticism for her comments on transgender issues. She denies accusations of transphobia.\n\n\"JK Rowling was cancelled because she, a writer of books that have sold millions of copies around the world, didn't please fans of so-called gender freedoms,\" Mr Putin claimed.\n\nThe writer has said her interest in trans issues stems from being a survivor of abuse and having concerns around single-sex spaces.\n\nCritics have said her views have diminished the identity of trans people.\n\nConductor Valery Gergiev, who attended Friday's meeting with the president, has been dropped by festivals, concert halls and management after he failed to condemn Russia's invasion of its neighbour.\n\nAnd earlier this month, a Welsh orchestra dropped music by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky from a concert because of the war.\n\n\"There were two military-themed pieces... that we felt were particularly inappropriate at this time,\" the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra said in a statement.\n\n\"When the humanitarian crisis is over the discussion about 'woke' and 'cancel culture' can have its place,\" it added.\n\nRussia's invasion, which is entering its second month, has sparked a major humanitarian crisis with more than 10m people displaced.", "Kyrell Matthews died after being found in cardiac arrest\n\nA man who murdered his ex-girlfriend's two-year-old son has been jailed for life after the couple's horrific abuse was captured on secret recordings.\n\nKyrell Matthews died in October 2019 with 41 rib fractures and internal injuries after weeks of cruelty by Kemar Brown and Phylesia Shirley at his south London home.\n\nBrown, 28, was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years.\n\nShirley, 24, was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 13 years.\n\nMuch of the abuse was caught on audio recordings made at the property in Thornton Heath which were played to the jury.\n\nThe toddler could be heard crying and screaming on files taken from Shirley's phone, which picked up the sound of Kyrell being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying \"shut up\" and \"you have to ruin the fun\".\n\nAnother recording played during the trial at the Old Bailey caught Shirley striking her son, causing him to break down in distress.\n\nProsecution barrister Edward Brown QC told jurors that the mother put her relationship with Brown above her own child.\n\nThe couple, who were unemployed at the time of Kyrell's murder, were both cannabis users and are understood to have been visited by social services at least once.\n\n\"She was prepared to reject what should have been motherly care in protecting Kyrell in favour of abuse by her - his own mother - and in favour of the abuse carried out by a man she knew was abusing her child,\" Mr Brown told jurors.\n\n\"The truth is that his death came when once more he was abused in that flat, once more in a very similar way, causing very similar injuries, except on this occasion it was so much more serious, the abuse and the results were catastrophic.\"\n\nPhylesia Shirley and Kemar Brown will be sentenced on 25 March\n\nPaying tribute to Kyrell outside court after the couple were convicted, his paternal step-grandmother Christine Ernest described the two-year-old as \"the most loving little boy, always smiling\".\n\nDuring the trial, jurors were not told that police had been called to an earlier domestic incident but no offences were identified and Kyrell was said to have appeared \"safe and well\".\n\nA passer-by had alerted officers on 17 July 2019 after hearing shouting and screaming coming from their flat, with a female voice saying: \"Stop hitting my face.\"\n\nIt followed an attack in May 2019 when Kyrell suffered a significant injury to the side of his face and spent five days in Croydon University Hospital.\n\nThe hospital carried out an investigation and found Shirley's explanation that the little boy had fallen off a sofa and hit his head on a highchair was \"plausible\", police said.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The property - a terraced house - was \"severely damaged\", police said\n\nA man and a woman have died in a house fire in Nottingham.\n\nNottinghamshire Police said emergency services were called to the blaze in Whittier Road, Sneinton, at 00:43 GMT on Saturday.\n\nThe property - a terraced house - was \"severely damaged\", with adjoining properties evacuated while crews tackled the fire.\n\nThe pair were pronounced dead at the scene and a joint fire and police inquiry is under way, the force added.\n\nEmergency services were called to Whittier Road in the early hours of Saturday\n\nPolice added the man and woman had not yet been formally identified.\n\nAnyone with any information has been asked to contact the force on 101.\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A man walks away from a building hit by Russian fire in Kharkiv on 25 March\n\nIn the second episode of Volodymyr Zelensky's very funny comedy series, The Servant of the People, one of the spooky bad guys says of Zelensky's character, the newly elected President of Ukraine: \"He's known for being iron clad and brave.\"\n\nThat was the point I reached for the remote, pressed pause, and took a deep breath.\n\nThe 2015 series has just starting airing here in America, and for those of us who are new to it, it's a bit surreal. Every time you catch yourself chuckling, you then start to feel sad. It's emotionally draining. I find I can't watch more than an episode at a time and I do so with a certain dread. Friends have told me they can't watch it at all.\n\nAnd it's not because it's bad. It's a good show and Zelensky is a talented actor. He's charming and self-deprecating. No, it's hard to watch, because we fear what's going to happen to the real President of Ukraine.\n\nThere's another scene in that same episode where the new president, Vasyl Petrovych Holoborodko, is introduced to his security detail body double. A smarmy political flunky turns from the double to Zelensky and says, \"He'll die from a sniper bullet for you,\" then he laughs out loud at Zelensky's look of horror. \"But,\" the flunky chortles, \"I think it won't come to that.\"\n\nAnd then your stomach turns, because right now it feels like the whole Western world is watching Ukraine and just praying that it won't indeed come to that.\n\nNo-one would wish any of this suffering on Ukraine. But for the moment Zelensky and the brave people he leads are heroes in a world that has been short of them.\n\nWe've come out of a dark period of ugly political division and tragic medical crisis and we are longing for something good to believe in. Forty four million brave Ukrainians seem to have risen to the challenge and given us cause for hope in the power of the underdog.\n\nWe root for them. We are amazed by their resilience. We long for them to survive and stay free. So it's understandable that we may fall victim to what one analyst eloquently described as Western wishful thinking.\n\nAfter the invasion one US senator told me confidently that whatever happened, the Ukrainian people would be free. It was the optimism I've come to expect, and appreciate, from US politicians. And we hope it will be true.\n\nHistory reminds us, however, that good doesn't always prevail. Not against Russia anyway.\n\nAsk the Syrians, still stuck under the boot of the Assad regime, their cities destroyed by Russian bombs. Ask the Chechens, who saw their capital flattened on the orders of Vladimir Putin. Or, ask the countless brave Arabs, Iranians, Belarusians and Myanmarese who risked their lives to protest against oppressive rulers, with little to show for it.\n\nIn the suburbs of Ukraine that have become Putin's latest battlefield, David has indeed given Goliath an almighty shock. But, make no mistake, Russia is still a daunting adversary.\n\nOne senior European diplomat who understands Putin is convinced that the Russian president has no interest in negotiating any settlement. Rather, he thinks, Putin is using this moment to regroup and resupply, ready for another, potentially more devastating assault. Were hopeful Westerners at risk of underestimating Russia's military chances, I asked? Yes, he nodded.\n\nRussia's military boasts 900,000 active duty troops and two million reservists - more than eight times that of Ukraine. It still has a massive arsenal and a satellite state in Belarus from which it can draw more troops, as well as the ability to recruit mercenaries from countries like Georgia, or Syria. It has cyber warfare capabilities it has not yet fully unleashed. It has 4,500 nuclear weapons it has threatened to use, and chemical weapons that the West has warned it might.\n\nThe Russians have performed much worse than anyone expected, but they have made some territorial gains, making slow but steady progress around Mariupol and threatening to cut off Ukrainian forces near the breakaway eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Often, this progress has come by flattening civilian neighbourhoods. Ignoring or diminishing those gains, or the remaining power of the Russian military, won't help Ukraine. Indeed it could hurt it.\n\nThe Ukrainians' success depends on two things, their own phenomenal courage, and, just as critical, the steady supply of military hardware that it's getting from Western countries. If those countries, or the public in those countries, start for a moment to think David has beaten Goliath then the flow of weapons could slow or stop. That would be catastrophic for the Ukrainian resistance.\n\nPresident Biden has spent this week in Europe shoring up the Western alliance. But there's a growing recognition this fight will go on for longer than either Russia or the West anticipated. The Ukrainians may need arms supplies for months to come. The alliance will need to keep its resolve in order to match Putin's determination.\n\nThis is no time to be unrealistic. Wide-eyed realism will help Zelensky more than wishful thinking.", "The government must do more to recover taxes that went unpaid during the pandemic, a group of MPs has said.\n\nThe Public Accounts Committee said the total UK tax debt was £39bn - more than double the amount at the start of 2020.\n\nIt said HM Revenue and Customs must pursue businesses and individuals who were choosing not to pay their taxes while supporting those still struggling with the impact of the pandemic.\n\nHMRC said it was recouping debts and would also be recruiting more staff.\n\nAfter the UK first entered lockdown, HMRC paused most debt collection activity, significantly reducing the number of letters sent and in-person collections conducted.\n\nThe move, along with the wider economic impact of the pandemic, saw the number of taxpayers in debt rise from about 3.8 million in January 2020 to 6.2 million in September 2021.\n\nThe total amount owed rose from about £16bn before the pandemic to a peak of £67bn in August 2020, before falling back down to current levels.\n\nThe Public Accounts Committee's report said HMRC had not \"articulated a clear plan or set out a detailed timescale to give us confidence it can manage the challenge it now faces\".\n\nThe cross-party committee added that the longer the tax went unpaid, the greater the risk that HMRC would never be able to collect it.\n\nIt was particularly concerned about \"rogue firms\" that have been able to profit by exploiting measures put in place as part of the pandemic response.\n\nThe report also expressed concern that HMRC was not being proactive enough in identifying and offering support to people who had been left economically vulnerable or less able to pay their debts because of the pandemic.\n\nCommittee chairman Dame Meg Hillier MP said: \"HMRC has a tricky balance to strike. Those least able to afford rising bills, including tax bills, are also the easiest collection 'targets'.\n\n\"At the same time, HMRC's challenges chasing down high-wealth individuals and companies who take advantage of every trick in the book to avoid and evade tax and outrun the law are well-known.\n\n\"Those tricks are just not available to ordinary people, now emerging from the misery of the pandemic into an exploding cost of living crisis. HMRC must push much harder at the doors - no matter where they are - of those who are not paying their fair share.\"\n\nIn a statement, HMRC said: \"We are recouping debt safely, taking into account customers' circumstances and making repayments affordable. It's in no-one's interests to push viable businesses into insolvency when they can succeed given some time to repay their tax debts.\"\n\nIt also said it would be recruiting almost 2,000 extra staff over the next year to support collection efforts.", "Protests have taken place at ports over P&O Ferries' sacking of 800 workers in favour of lower-paid replacements.\n\nUnions rallied at Dover, Hull and Liverpool, chanting slogans such as \"seize the ship\". Protests caused disruptions, and vehicles in Hull were at one stage turned away.\n\nIt comes after authorities detained P&O Ferries' European Causeway in Northern Ireland, saying it was \"unfit to sail\".\n\nP&O Ferries said it would make changes to return the ship to service.\n\nUnions have said that crews without experience of the vessels are a danger to shipping.\n\nIn Hull, protestors from the RMT union at one stage attempted to block access to P&O ferry the Pride of Rotterdam at the city's King George Dock. They want customers to boycott the company.\n\nBBC correspondent Paul Murphy, at the scene, said picketers at one stage turned away cars and lorries attempting to board Saturday's 20:30 GMT sailing.\n\nHowever, the Pride of Rotterdam ferry left Hull on schedule for The Netherlands.\n\nEarlier, the Trades Union Congress had tweeted a video it said showed P&O dockers in Rotterdam refusing to load freight onto a ferry set for Hull in solidarity with sacked workers.\n\nNiek Stam, general secretary of the Docker Workers' Union in Rotterdam, told the BBC Radio 4's PM programme they hoped the protests would make \"P&O come back to the table\", adding \"what they have done is outrageous\".\n\nMr Stam said: \"We believe in solidarity, and we will punish every employer who refuses to consult unions.\"\n\nHe added that the protests will carry on in the coming days \"if it is necessary\".\n\nProtests have been held across the UK and Ireland since P&O Ferries announced they were firing 800 members of staff on 17 March\n\nUnions have raised fears over a lack of training of new crew, after the firm replaced their members with agency workers whose average hourly rate of pay would be £5.50 - less than the UK minimum wage.\n\nAs the company's ships operate internationally and are registered overseas, the UK minimum hourly rate of £8.91 does not apply.\n\nThe company has said it had to replace crews as it was losing £100m a year, and would not be a viable business without making the changes.\n\nP&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs on Friday that the decision to sack 800 workers without notice broke the law.\n\nHe said there was \"absolutely no doubt\" that under UK employment law the firm was required to consult unions before making the mass cuts.\n\nBut Mr Hebblethwaite said no union would have accepted the plan and it was easier to compensate workers \"in full\" instead.\n\nAt Saturday's Dover protest, RMT union national secretary Darren Procter said: \"Bringing a crew on board a vessel they're not familiar with to sail across the busiest shipping lane in the world, carrying passengers, is going to be a dangerous act.\"\n\nHe said the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) should detain every P&O Ferries vessel around the UK, on the basis they are not fit to sail.\n\nThis was the scene in Dover, where protesters condemned the dismissal of P&O workers\n\nOn Saturday, the MCA said the European Causeway had been impounded in Larne over \"failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training\".\n\nNo passengers or freight were aboard, it said, adding that the vessel would remain under detention until all issues were resolved by P&O Ferries.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote on social media that the ship's detention had followed an instruction from him to the MCA to inspect \"all P&O vessels\" before they entered back into service.\n\n\"I will not compromise the safety of these vessels, and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training,\" he added.\n\nP&O Ferries said it would review the findings of the MCA's inspection, \"make any changes required and continue to work closely with the MCA to return the ship to service\".\n\nThe company's services on the route the ferry sails - from Larne to Cairnryan, in Scotland - are currently suspended.\n\nSeamus Leheny, of freight industry body Logistics UK, said rival ferry operator Stena had increased capacity through Belfast by 50% but the situation at Larne was still causing difficulties for businesses.\n\n\"It's not sustainable to have so much freight coming through Belfast... we want that Larne service back up and running as soon as possible,\" he added.\n\nP&O Ferries services between Dover and Calais remain cancelled. The firm said it would organise an alternative carrier for passengers.\n\nSaturday evening's service from Rotterdam to Hull is also suspended, the firm said - but services between Dublin and Liverpool are expected to run as usual.", "There are a growing number of reports that Russian forces shoot at civilians who are trying to escape the conflict zone in Ukraine.\n\nFootage from a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show one such incident.", "A wildfire has damaged about 73 hectares (180 acres) of land at Rhyd Uchaf, Gwynedd\n\nMore than 200 grass fires in recent weeks have left resources \"very stretched,\" one Welsh fire service has said.\n\nMany have been deliberate but legal, because during \"burn season\" controlled fire is used for land management.\n\nHowever, if firefighters do not know they are due to take place, they can waste their time by attending.\n\nNeil Evans, of Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said this was \"a significant problem\".\n\nBurn season continues until the end of March.\n\nMore than 200 grass fires in recent weeks have left resources \"very stretched\", including this at Mynydd Mawr\n\nEight fire engines and a helicopter have been fighting a wildfire which has caused \"significant land damage\" over about 73 hectares (180 acres) at Rhyd Uchaf, Gwynedd, over the past 24 hours, although it is now under control.\n\nA controlled burn which \"escalated into a wider area is suspected to have caused the fire\", according to North Wales Fire and Rescue Service.\n\nA Natural Resources Wales helicopter has been collecting water from a local reservoir and dropping it on the fire, while crews fought the fire with beaters.\n\n\"All this lovely dry weather we're all enjoying has meant we've got landowners and farmers who need to use fire as part of their land management,\" Mr Evans said.\n\n\"We're within the burn season which finishes at the end of this month.\n\n\"But if we're not informed of these controlled burns, then people dial 999, call the fire service and we have significant resources allocated to these fires.\n\n\"We wouldn't have to be there if we were informed of a controlled burn.\"\n\nMr Evans spoke to BBC Wales from the foot of the Black Mountain, in the Amman Valley, Carmarthenshire, where fire damaged common land after wind helped it spread and crews spent six hours extinguishing the blaze.\n\n\"People are being irresponsible in lighting the fires and not doing it in a controlled manner,\" he said.\n\nNeil Evans, of Mid and West Wales Fire Service, urged farmers and landowners to let them know about controlled fires\n\nBeing called out to a deliberate grass fire means diverting engines that may be needed elsewhere.\n\nMr Evans said: \"If there was a road traffic collision or a property fire, then the resource attending that would take longer than what would be locally available.\"\n\n\"[Resources] are very stretched at this point in time.\n\n\"We understand why it's happening, it is in the burn season, the weather is absolutely spot on for doing the activities that people want to do on their land.\n\n\"Yes it's legal, but they need to ensure that they inform us.\"\n\nA helicopter was also used to help put out a blaze on Mynydd Mawr, Gwynedd\n\nThe grass fire in Gwynedd comes after Mynydd Mawr was \"quite devastated\" by a blaze in the same county.\n\nMid and West Wales and South Wales fire services also tackled fires in areas including Upper Brynamman, in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, and near Crickhowell, Powys.\n\nThe service in north Wales said crews tackled fires at Rhiw, near Llanbedr in Gwynedd, and in Wrexham.\n\nIncidents in Clynnog Fawr and Penygroes were also dealt with in Gwynedd, and there was a fire at Pant Glas.\n\nIn Pembrokeshire firefighters tackled flames in the Preseli hills.", "The central hospital in Izyum, near Kharkiv, after what Ukrainian authorities say was a Russian artillery attack\n\nThere have been more than 70 separate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors in Ukraine with the number increasing on a \"daily basis\", says the World Health Organization (WHO).\n\nIt says the targeting of healthcare facilities has become part of the strategy and tactics of modern warfare.\n\nA recent casualty on 8 March was the newly refurbished central hospital in Izyum, south of Kharkiv.\n\nIt was hit by what the Ukrainian authorities said were Russian shells.\n\nVideo and photos posted online by the city's deputy mayor showed extensive damage to the main hospital building. A new reception area built last year was completely destroyed.\n\nThe footage has been verified by the BBC and other media outlets, although the exact circumstances of the attack are impossible to establish at this time.\n\n\"After the first bombing, the windows of the hospital blew out,\" the deputy mayor Volodymyr Matsokin told the BBC.\n\nA second attack destroyed the hospital's operating rooms, he added.\n\nThat day hospital staff were treating children, pregnant women and three newborn babies as well as soldiers and civilians injured in fierce fighting in the region, according to the Ukrainian authorities.\n\nThey were sheltering in the basement at the time of the attack and no-one was killed.\n\n\"The government had invested millions to provide good facilities with modern equipment,\" said Mr Matsokin.\n\n\"Patients had to climb out of the rubble on their own to escape.\"\n\nThe BBC has contacted the Russian embassy in London about the attack but has received no response, although in the past Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians.\n\nSince 24 February, the WHO has reviewed and verified 72 separate attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine causing at least 71 deaths and 37 injuries.\n\nThe central hospital in Izyum in August 2021 and after an attack on 8 March 2022\n\nMost have damaged hospitals, medical transports and supply stores, but the WHO has also recorded the \"probable\" abduction or detention of healthcare staff and patients.\n\n\"We are concerned that this number is increasing daily,\" the WHO's Ukraine country representative Jarno Habicht told the BBC.\n\n\"Health facilities should be safe places for both doctors and nurses, but also patients to turn to for treatment. This should not happen.\"\n\nBecause the war in Ukraine is an international armed conflict between two states, the Geneva Conventions apply.\n\nExpanded in the aftermath of World War Two, the conventions set out the basic rights of civilians and military personnel, and establish protection for the wounded and sick. They were ratified by what was then the Soviet Union in 1954.\n\nUnder Article 18 of the Conventions, civilian hospitals \"may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected\".\n\nA breach of that rule can be investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and, if found to be a war crime, individual perpetrators can be prosecuted and punished.\n\nThere are though exemptions to the Conventions.\n\nThe protection from attack is lost if the medical facility is placed near a legitimate military target or is thought to be committing an act \"harmful to the enemy\".\n\nAccording to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), that could include the use of a hospital as a shield for healthy fighters or the staging of a medical unit in a position which impedes an enemy attack.\n\nAftermath of a Russian air strike on a maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol\n\nNeve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London, said: \"What we have today, in effect, is a situation where hospitals and medical units have become fair game.\n\n\"If there are soldiers outside the hospital or it is simply next to a train station, it can be attacked. Or it could be that a wounded soldier has a cellphone and is calling other troops and telling them that there is someone nearby.\n\n\"All these loopholes render it possible to claim the attack was legitimate.\"\n\nThe ICRC says that, in theory, before targeting a hospital which might be in breach of those rules, the attacking side should always give a warning, with a time limit, and the other side must have ignored that warning.\n\nThere is no evidence this has happened in the Ukraine conflict.\n\nProf Gordon would like to see a far stronger blanket ban on any attack on medical facilities under international law, similar to the ban on torture adopted by the United Nations which came into force in 1987.\n\nExemptions to the Geneva Conventions have been used to justify attacks on hospitals and medical units in post-World War Two conflicts from Korea and Vietnam onwards.\n\nThe trend though appears to be accelerating rapidly, driven in part by the use of ballistic missiles, drones, and other longer range munitions.\n\nThe US advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights claims that Russian or local forces have been linked to at least 244 separate attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria since 2011.\n\nAt one point, the charity Médecins Sans Frontières even made the decision to stop sharing the GPS co-ordinates of some health clinics it operated with the Syrian government or its Russian allies, amid concerns they were more likely to become direct targets as a result.\n\nRussian officials denied deliberately attacking hospitals in Syria and suggested \"jihadists\" in the country were routinely sheltering in protected civilian buildings.\n\nA photograph released on 18 March by Ukrainian authorities showing a hospital damaged by shelling in Sievierodonetsk\n\nThe WHO is concerned that all this means attacks on medical facilities are fast becoming part of the wider \"strategy and tactics\" of modern warfare, regardless of the Geneva Conventions rules.\n\nDestroying health facilities, it warned, \"is about the destruction of hope\" and the denial of basic human rights.\n\n\"We've never seen globally... this rate of attacks on healthcare,\" its emergencies director Michael Ryan told a news conference this week.\n\n\"This crisis is reaching a point where the health system in Ukraine is teetering on the brink.\n\n\"It needs to be supported… but how can you do that if the very infrastructure that those people will go in to support is under direct attack?\"\n\nYou can follow Jim on Twitter.", "Northamptonshire Police said Nicholas Billingham's remains were found buried in a back garden\n\nA man whose body was discovered buried in a back garden died as a result of a stab wound to the neck, a post-mortem examination has found.\n\nNicholas Billingham, 42, was found at a house in Moore Street, in the Kingsley area of Northampton, last week.\n\nFiona Beal, 48, who was arrested at a hotel in Cumbria on 16 March, is accused of killing him between 30 October and 10 November last year.\n\nShe will appear at Northampton Crown Court for a hearing on 19 April.\n\nMs Beal, a teacher at Eastfield Academy primary school in Northampton, has been remanded in custody.\n\nMr Billingham's remains were taken to the Leicester Royal Infirmary, where a Home Office pathologist conducted the post-mortem examination, Northamptonshire Police said.\n\nHis body was discovered following a three-day search involving forensic officers, specialist search teams and a cadaver dog.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nWest Indies edged into the ascendency in the third Test against England by opening a slim first-innings lead in Grenada.\n\nLower-order resistance saw West Indies end on 232-8, leading by 28, despite being 128-7 at one stage.\n\nSimilar to day one when a last-wicket stand of 90 rescued England, wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva frustrated the bowlers late in the day with 54 not out, putting on 49 for the eighth wicket with Alzarri Joseph and 55 unbeaten with number 10 Kemar Roach.\n\nEngland made a disappointing start with the new ball but took 6-45 in an impressive recovery either side of lunch.\n\nAfter West Indies reached 50-0, Ben Stokes had Kraigg Brathwaite lbw with a ball that kept low while Chris Woakes took 3-48 - his best figures in an overseas Test since December 2017.\n\nThat put the tourists on course for a lead of their own but as batting became easier in the final session, wicket-taking again looked difficult.\n\nHowever, on a pitch showing signs of uneven bounce against the harder ball, both sides will still believe they can win what is likely to be a low-scoring game.\n\nA victory for either team would see them take the series with the score currently 0-0 after two drawn Tests.\n\nAny advantage West Indies gain from further building their first-innings lead is countered by the fact they will almost certainly have to bat last on a pitch on which it will be tough to chase.\n\nBut the work by Da Silva late on - he even survived six overs against the new ball with Roach and now has the highest score of the Test - nudged the day into the hosts' favour.\n\nOverall, it had an uncanny resemblance to the one previous. Like Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood did 24 hours earlier, Da Silva capitalised on a surface which seems to die once the ball goes soft.\n\nEngland must cling to the difficulty West Indies' top order had earlier in the day.\n\nTheir seamers, once they finally found their line, utilised uneven bounce rather than the lavish seam movement which resulted in the tourists' batting collapse on day one.\n\nWest Indies also helped with some poor shots - Jason Holder was caught top-edging his third ball to deep square leg and Kyle Mayers chipped Ben Stokes tamely to extra cover for 28.\n\nThe pitch and both sides' batting shortcomings mean a series which has largely been drab may end with an exciting finale.\n\nEngland's bowling effort swung from below-par to encouraging before ultimately ending with nagging disappointment.\n\nTheir inability to remove the lower order, albeit on a slow pitch, again laid bare the lack of cutting edge of this attack.\n\nGiven England had only made 204 with the bat, the start was also particularly underwhelming. Early wickets were needed but instead new-ball pair Chris Woakes and Overton bowled too many deliveries that could be left alone.\n\nNot for the first time, Stokes was the bowler to create an opening - although Brathwaite could do little with his delivery.\n\nFrom there England turned to the ploy of bowling a heavy, mid-pitch length and they improved significantly.\n\nOverton does not have express pace but he twice hit opener John Campbell on the helmet before having him caught down the leg side.\n\nWest Indies' top order found the short balls difficult to play given the uneven bounce, Nkrumah Bonner also gloving a Woakes short ball behind for four when trying to duck.\n\nHowever, when England stuck with the short-ball plan late on, tiredness in the bowlers' legs and life leaving the pitch allowed Da Silva to lap the ball into the leg side with relative ease.\n\nSaqib Mahmood was arguably England's best bowler in his second Test but his only reward in a probing 18 overs was the wicket of Shamarh Brooks, lbw at the start of the West Indies collapse.\n\nWoakes' performance was almost England's as a whole in a microcosm.\n\nHe was particularly culpable in the opening overs when 12 of his first 18 balls were left alone. The new-ball spell with Overton was one of the most innocuous from an England attack in recent memory.\n\nHowever, a three-wicket spell after lunch put England on top in the game. The wickets of Bonner and Holder were followed by Jermaine Blackwood being trapped lbw by a ball that nipped back in what felt like an important spell for Woakes' Test career.\n\nHis struggles overseas have been much talked about - he had 33 wickets at 54.42 before this Test - but his figures are now his best overseas since the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia.\n\nBut the shine was taken from Woakes' day by England's inability to take the final two wickets.\n\nThe 33-year-old was wayward in three overs with the second new ball when England needed him to wrap up the tail.\n\nEngland all-rounder Chris Woakes: \"We'd have liked to have bowled a little bit better this morning. In the first hour we'd have liked to have got the ball a little bit fuller. But when the wicket has shown there are little bits in it, we've bowled well and to get them eight down I think is a decent effort.\"\n\nWest Indies wicketkeeper Joshua da Silva: \"It is pretty flat right now so we are just trying to get as much as we can. There is the odd one that stays low. It is definitely a new-ball wicket. The old ball is a lot easier to play.\"\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "CODA is one of the most hotly-tipped films for best picture at the Oscars. Short for Child of Deaf Adults, the film features a deaf family with a hearing child who wants to sing.\n\nTroy Kotsur, one of the stars of the movie, used to teach acting at Marlton School in Los Angeles for students that are deaf or hard of hearing. After his Oscar nomination, he went back to hold an improv class.\n\nThe BBC's culture editor, Katie Razzall, spoke to Troy and writer and director, Sian Heder - who's nominated for best adapted screenplay - about the impact the movie has had on deaf culture.", "At a vantage point somewhere between the southern Ukrainian cities of Zaporizhzhia and Mariupol, next to one of the last checkpoints before Russian-held territory, Sergei scans the endless flatlands - the rich, fertile farmland that Russia now wants for itself.\n\nThe 62-year-old never envisaged taking up arms against the might of Moscow, but he knows full well what the Russian army is capable of doing.\n\n\"I'm doing this to show an example to younger people,\" Sergei tells me, barely flinching at the hollow thud of a shell landing a couple of kilometres away.\n\n\"I used to work as fire engine driver, then I took up arms to protect my homeland. We know what's happening [in Mariupol] and we must not let that happen here. These people in this town know that we're here for them.\"\n\nSergei, 62, does not want his town to have a similar fate to Mariupol which has been bombarded for weeks\n\nIn recent days, here in southern Ukraine at least, neither side has really made much notable progress on the ground. At Ukrainian defensive positions, two or three kilometres behind the front line, regular and reservist forces are dug in, with supplies and weapons, preparing for whatever Russia will do next.\n\nWill the Kremlin launch a tank and infantry-led ground offensive or, as it has done elsewhere in the south, launch intensive missile and rocket attacks against urban populations?\n\nThat is the big question.\n\nTowns across the region are targets for Russian artillery - the bombs are getting close and nowhere in the south is really safe. As things became too close for comfort near the front, we left Sergei in his foxhole and retreated to safer ground.\n\nThere are few words that can accurately describe the horrors inflicted on Mariupol and the 100,000 people trapped inside the city. Images snatched by drivers able to flee, often past unburied bodies lying in the streets, show a catastrophic landscape, shredded by Russian artillery.\n\nThere are drone images of starving residents, emerging from shelters, to queue for food. And there is new chaotic footage from last week's theatre attack, in which 300 people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials.\n\nAt a civic centre, along the road back north we found several students volunteering in a communal kitchen. What is happening in Mariupol has had a profound effect on young people in the south too.\n\n\"It's really heart-breaking because people are dying right now,\" says 18-year-old Nastia Pesco.\n\n\"I don't know how to react and process this. But I hope we can be better versions of ourselves after this is over,\" she adds, somewhat ruefully.\n\n\"There are no shortage of volunteers and reservists in this region wanting to avenge what's happening in Mariupol,\" says Major Serhiii Koba, who is in charge of a Ukrainian army unit. He spoke to the BBC as a large group of men were cleaning their rifles and kit - exhausted after almost three weeks on the front.\n\n\"Many of our fighters come from places that are currently under Russian occupation,\" Maj Koba told me - emphasising the ties and commitment that men from this region have invested in this fight, perhaps unlike their Russian foes.\n\n\"All of them have parents, wives and families there - so each one of us is determined to win back our lands as soon as possible,\" he said.\n\nThe Ukrainian forces aren't having it all their own way, despite the Russian advance having stalled on the ground in recent days.\n\nThe BBC team met a unit training underground in a location that cannot be disclosed for security reasons\n\nThere was a good reason the unit we met was training underground in an undisclosed location. Volunteers and reservists, being put through their drills and battlefield skills by the company sergeant were deliberately doing so indoors, despite there being ample room outside.\n\nOne thing they have learned over the last month is that the sky is full of Russian drones trying to spot their every move. In recent weeks, several Ukrainian military training facilities are reported to have been hit by Russian fire.\n\nAs we left, there was certainly no disguising the overwhelmingly positive mood among the Ukrainian soldiers we met - professional fighters and those who've volunteered - despite the reality of what is happening in some of those cities where Russian bombing has wiped out almost every vestige of civilisation.\n\nWe travelled back, in the other direction, on the road to Mariupol. A road fraught with dangers, but a road and a destination pivotal to how this war moves on.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nThe Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is expected to go ahead as planned after hours of meetings following a missile attack near the track in Jeddah.\n\nThe drivers spent four hours after practice on Friday discussing whether the race should be run.\n\nBut eventually at 2.30am local time on Saturday, after further reassurances from bosses, they agreed to race.\n\nAfter an extraordinary series of events, team bosses emerged from the meetings to say: \"We will be racing.\"\n• None Feature: Why is Saudi Araba's involvement in sport controversial?\n• None Saudis must 'do more' on human rights - Hamilton\n• None How to follow the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix\n\nYemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on an oil depot about nine miles from the track, according to the Associated Press.\n\nSecond practice was delayed by 15 minutes after the attack as team bosses and drivers were called to a meeting with F1 president Stefano Domenicali.\n\nThe drivers went into a meeting with Domenicali and managing director Ross Brawn about an hour after the end of practice and that meeting did not end for another four hours, as various senior figures came and went.\n\nBBC Sport has learned that a significant number of drivers had concerns about the safety of the event following the attack.\n\nBut eventually they were convinced to go ahead and race after being given further information by bosses.\n\nPart of this information involved the possible consequences of not racing, such as how easily teams and drivers would be able to leave the country if the race did not happen.\n\nThe first signs of the attack came as smoke had billowed across the track during the first practice session in the afternoon.\n\nBefore second practice, Domenicali called teams and drivers to a meeting and told them the weekend would proceed as planned and that security for the grand prix has been a priority for the authorities.\n\nHe said he would keep them updated through the weekend and met them again just over an hour after practice finished to share further information.\n\nBut the drivers continued to be concerned about the potential risks of racing so close to a missile strike on a high-profile Saudi facility. The grand prix is also closely associated with the Saudi royal family.\n\nAll the drivers' post-practice media sessions were cancelled.\n\nF1 said after practice had finished but before the drivers went into their marathon meeting: \"Formula 1 has been in close contact with the relevant authorities following the situation that took place today.\n\n\"The authorities have confirmed that the event can continue as planned and we will remain in close contact with them and all the teams and closely monitor the situation.\"\n\nMohammed Ben Sulayem, president of F1's governing body the FIA, said: \"They are targeting the infrastructure, not the civilians, and, of course, not the track. We've checked the facts and we've got assurances from the highest level that this is a secure place. Let's go on racing.\"\n\nThere was a similar attack a week before the race, while F1 was at the opening event of the season in Bahrain.\n\nThe Jeddah Corniche circuit is surrounded by coastline\n\nOnce second practice started, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc set the fastest time by 0.14 seconds from Red Bull's Max Verstappen. But the Monegasque, winner of the first race of the season in Bahrain last weekend, later hit the wall at Turn Four and damaged his car's steering.\n\nVerstappen's best time was set on the harder medium tyres while Leclerc's was on the soft, because traffic and other interruptions prevented the Dutchman completing his run on the softs.\n\nHowever, Verstappen was 0.2secs down on Leclerc's fastest time before he had to abort what would have been his best lap on the soft tyres.\n\nFerrari's Carlos Sainz was third fastest, also with a fastest time on the mediums, after he too hit the wall, this time on the exit of Turn 13 and without damaging his car.\n\nRed Bull's Sergio Perez was fourth fastest, ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The pair were just over 0.1secs apart and Hamilton was 0.4secs off the pace.\n\nThe Mercedes cars were again suffering badly from aerodynamic bouncing - or \"porpoising\" - as their main limitation.\n\nAs a result, Hamilton and Russell were 0.4secs off the pace by the time they reached Turn 13, the halfway point of the track, because of the bouncing affecting confidence through the high-speed swerves of the first sector.\n\nAfter that, they did not lose significant time to the fastest cars.\n\nThe Ferrari drivers' incidents meant they were unable to go out again in the final part of the session to do their race-simulation runs on high fuel.\n\nBehind the Mercedes, Lando Norris was seventh for McLaren, after a more encouraging showing for the team following their dismal start to the season in Bahrain, when the McLaren was the third slowest car.\n\nEsteban Ocon's Alpine was eighth fastest, ahead of Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas and Yuki Tsunoda's Alpha Tauri.\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders? Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "Thick black smoke could be seen rising from the area that was hit on the outskirts of Lviv\n\nSeveral explosions hit the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, regional officials said.\n\nThe governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said five people had been injured, and that rocket fire had hit a fuel storage facility and a factory.\n\nLviv has so far escaped much of the shelling that has come to be a part of daily life in other parts of Ukraine.\n\nIt has also become a hub for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing other parts of the country.\n\nThe alleged Russian attack came as US President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Warsaw, Poland, some 250 miles (400km) from Lviv.\n\nIn it, he addressed the Russian people on their leader, President Vladimir Putin, telling them: \"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.\"\n\nThe Kremlin responded that was not for the US leader to say. \"That's not for Biden to decide. The president of Russia is elected by Russians,\" a spokesman said.\n\nA White House official later said that Mr Biden was not calling for \"regime change\", but making the point that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours in the region.\n\nLviv's mayor, Andriy Sadoviy, said that \"with today's blows, the aggressor sends greetings to President Biden, who is in Poland,\" Reuters news agency reports.\n\nIn other developments in Ukraine today:\n\nFirst, mid-afternoon, the air raid sirens went off. Then, three powerful explosions, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen from the distance. Hours later, another attack.\n\nIt all happened a day after Russia said it was focusing its invasion of Ukraine on the east. Lviv is in the extreme opposite.\n\nAnd this distance from the worst of Russia's aggression, where people have been under unrelenting bombing and shelling, turned this city into something like a safe heaven. Displaced people, humanitarian workers, volunteers. They are all here.\n\nThat perception could be changing. Maryanna Pack, a 39-year-old economist who was near the site of the blast, gave a passionate testimony that may be a view shared by many. \"We're feeling unprotected. Nobody really cares about what's happening here,\" she said.\n\n\"We need more help now. Eastern Ukraine has been completely destroyed. It's really possible that could happen to Lviv and the west of the country too.\"\n\nMaryanna Pack, who saw the explosion, said 'we need more help now'\n\nAs bombs fell on Lviv and other cities across Ukraine, President Biden referred to his Russian counterpart as \"a butcher\".\n\nThe comment was made during a meeting with Ukrainian refugees helping with the humanitarian relief effort in Poland - where more than two million Ukrainian refugees have now fled.\n\nA spokesperson for Mr Putin, cited by Russian state news agency Tass, said the comment narrowed the prospects for mending ties between the two countries.\n\nThe two Ukrainian's ministers' trip out of Ukraine to Poland was seen as a possible sign that confidence in Ukraine's fightback against Russia is growing.\n\nDuring the talks, the US's \"unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity\" was discussed, according to a US state department spokesperson.\n\nMr Biden also stressed the \"sacred commitment\" to Nato's collective defence, after meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.\n\n\"You can count on that... for your freedom and ours,\" he told Mr Duda.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Jurors were shown footage from a police interview where the suspect said 'I killed an MP'.\n\nSir David Amess MP suspected his alleged killer was there for a sting in the moments before he was stabbed, a court has heard.\n\nSir David, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nMr Ali told police \"he knew straight away something was up\", the trial heard.\n\nSir David died at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea during a constituency surgery last October\n\nHis police interviews, seven in total, were played to the jury.\n\nIn one he told officers: \"Sat down with him. He was quick, but I think he knew straight away something was up.\n\n\"Well, it looked awkward 'cos I was holding my phone, ready to send off, like, a bunch of messages to let my family know what was up.\n\n\"Then he must've thought that it was a sting from the Labour Party, because he said to me, 'Oh, you must be very politically inclined. You're from the Labour Party, you're not recording me are you?'\n\n\"Because... Brass Eye, they did a thing on him, like, 14 years ago.\"\n\nHe claimed it was \"one of the strangest days...of my life\".\n\nIn his first interview, hours after the attack he was asked if the stabbing was a terror attack.\n\nTo which he replied: \"I mean, I guess yeah I killed an MP and I done it yeah.\"\n\nHe then laughed and said he had worded the answer \"like a Little Britain episode\", the video showed.\n\nMr Ali, who is thought to have been on the phone to his sister when he was arrested, said he was mostly worrying about his own family that day.\n\n\"The only reason I dropped the knife in front of the police officer was because my sister was on the phone crying her eyes out,\" he said.\n\nThroughout his interviews Mr Ali repeated that he was motivated by targeting MPs who had voted to carry out airstrikes in Syria, the court heard.\n\nSir David Amess was the MP for Southend West\n\nMr Ali also told police he had \"bottled\" previously planned attacks.\n\nThe court heard that he said he \"settled\" on Sir David after searching for 'MPs surgeries' on Twitter and seeing a post about a recent surgery by Sir David with contact information.\n\n\"He was the easiest. I settled on him\", he told police.\n\nMr Ali said he first thought of attacking cabinet minister Michael Gove but decided against it when the secretary of state for communities and levelling up had split up with his wife Sarah Vine.\n\nHe said he had also gone to London MP Mike Freer's surgery in Finchley.\n\nMr Ali was thought to have been on the phone to his sister when he was arrested\n\nTalking about the attack on Sir David, he said: \"It's hard. You see a man alive, and then he's dead.\"\n\nBut a few moments later he told police: \"Obviously I killed someone yesterday, there's no doubt about that, but it still doesn't really feel like it.\"\n\nMr Ali said he felt he had an allegiance to the so-called Islamic State and wanted to be seen as an \"Islamic State militant\".\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The Northern Ireland Assembly election is getting nearer and candidates have already been pounding the pavements appealing for people to vote for them.\n\nBut a few familiar faces will be missing from the election posters.\n\nSome have chosen to retire or to move on to other things, while others were not selected for another election campaign.\n\nBBC News NI looks at those who will shortly be removing the nameplate from their office door and ending their time as assembly members (MLAs)\n\nOne of Alliance's two Belfast East MLAs, Chris Lyttle is leaving the political scene after 12 years at Stormont.\n\nIt was a surprise to some commentators when the 41-year-old announced he would not run again, but he insisted he wanted to move on to new challenges.\n\nIt's not yet known what he plans to do next.\n\nHis main role has been as chairman of Stormont's education committee, which met frequently during the coronavirus pandemic to discuss the situation with the virus in schools.\n\nHis last day as an MLA saw his private member's bill pass its final hurdle - it will change laws that currently exempt the recruitment of teachers outlawing religious discrimination in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe DUP's deputy leader and most high-profile female politician announced in March that she would not be seeking re-election.\n\nMs Bradley, who was first elected to Stormont in 2011, has decided to step away to care for her mother.\n\nShe had already worked in a number of other fields before elected politics, first in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as a part-time reserve when she was 22, and for a time as a social care assistant for the Northern Health Trust.\n\nMost recently the North Belfast MLA had chaired Stormont's communities committee - a role she enjoyed.\n\nIn her final speech in the assembly she also paid tribute to the many women \"inside and outside\" the chamber who, she said, had helped her along the way - MLAs who are newer to Stormont say she returned the favour for many of them.\n\nMr Humphrey is another DUP Belfast North MLA who is stepping down after more than a decade at Stormont, citing personal reasons.\n\nHe was a councillor prior to that and served as deputy lord mayor of Belfast.\n\nIn the 2021 New Year Honours he was made an MBE for public service, particularly during the Covid-19 response.\n\nHe has served on several Stormont committees during his time as an MLA, most recently as the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.\n\nGeorge Robinson, centre, with wife Ann and son Alan after the 2016 election\n\nGeorge Robinson is another DUP stalwart who is stepping down from Stormont.\n\nMr Robinson announced he would retire as an MLA, having joined the DUP in the 1980s.\n\nThe Limavady man has represented the East Londonderry constituency at Stormont since 2003, and joked that given he was now 79, it was an appropriate time to retire.\n\nThe 76-year-old was not selected to run again, so he is retiring from Stormont.\n\nHe has been an MLA for Belfast East since 2003 and served as junior minister from 2009 until 2011.\n\nBut it was his tenure as assembly Speaker in 2016 until 2017 that saw him put in the spotlight.\n\nPolitical opponents called for his resignation after claims he misled the Northern Ireland Assembly about the true nature of his role with an Ulster Defence Association-linked community organisation.\n\nMr Newton has always rejected the suggestion.\n\nHe did not stand again as a candidate for Speaker once the assembly returned in 2020.\n\nNot to be confused with the celebrity chef, it would be odd not to mention Mr Rankin since he will technically be stepping down and not running in the assembly election.\n\nBut the councillor was only co-opted in as Edwin Poots' replacement in Lagan Valley on 14 March.\n\nHe will soon go down in the history books as Stormont's shortest-serving MLA.\n\nOne of Stormont's most recognisable faces, Jim Wells, is now stepping down - though in a manner not of his making.\n\nHaving represented South Down in the assembly since 1998, he was deselected by the DUP to run again in this election, a move that he said hurt him.\n\nBut the outspoken MLA more than once found himself drawn into controversy over his views or for comments he had made.\n\nLess than a year after he had been appointed health minister, Mr Wells was heavily criticised when he made remarks at an election hustings linking same-sex relationships to child abuse.\n\nHe stepped down soon after, saying he wanted to help his wife, Grace, who was seriously ill.\n\nHe later had the whip withdrawn by the DUP after he criticised the party, claiming it had promised to reinstate him as minister.\n\nAfter the 2017 assembly election he gained the title of father of the house - Stormont's longest-serving MLA - and at times he proved a thorn in the side of the DUP, able to cast his vote without being tied to party policy.\n\nAfter many decades on the front line, the Sinn Féin politician - and former boxer - is hanging up his political sparring gloves.\n\nHe is one of the few remaining MLAs who was first elected to the assembly in 1998, after the Good Friday Agreement.\n\nAfter Stormont returned two years ago, he was nominated to become the Speaker, chairing debates and overseeing proceedings - a role he recently described as a \"privilege\".\n\nIn 2002 he was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as the lord mayor of Belfast, and has represented Belfast South and Belfast West at various times during his career.\n\nHe was also involved in the infamous 2001 Stormont \"brawl in the hall\", which saw rival parties lose their tempers during a difficult time for devolution.\n\nIn more recent times he had argued in favour of greater civility in the chamber and for an electronic voting system to be set up at Stormont.\n\nMs Rogan was co-opted by Sinn Féin to join the assembly in 2017, to represent South Down.\n\nShe had for years been a victims' campaigner, speaking out about the murder of her father, Adrian Rogan, in the Loughinisland killings of 1994.\n\nHowever, her tenure as an MLA has been short.\n\nLast year Sinn Féin announced she had not been selected to stand in the upcoming election.\n\nShe has only been an MLA for six years but said she would not be running for re-election in 2022.\n\nPolitics runs deep in her family, as her late father PJ Bradley represented the same constituency of South Down from 1998 to 2011.\n\nShe had also helped run his election campaigns prior to getting involved herself.\n\nDuring her term as an MLA she had been both the economy and health spokesperson for the SDLP.\n\nMr Lunn has been a well-known face in Lagan Valley since becoming an MLA in 2007.\n\nFor many of those years he was an Alliance member, but cut ties with the party in 2020, citing \"internal difficulties\".\n\nHe previously described himself as a soft unionist, but has said discussions need to take place about the debate on a united Ireland.\n\nSearch below to see which elections you can vote in.\n\nA modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English, Scottish or Welsh council area or Northern Ireland constituency to find out.\n• None What are the election results in my area?", "Spotify is pulling out of Russia citing a new law that threatens jail for spreading \"fake news\" about the country's armed forces.\n\nThe music streaming company said safety concerns about staff and \"possibly even our listeners\" had pushed it to fully suspend its free service.\n\nSpotify shut its office in Russia earlier in March.\n\nBut it said it had wanted to keep its service operational to provide \"independent news\" to the country.\n\n\"Spotify has continued to believe that it's critically important to try to keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information from the region,\" Spotify said in a statement.\n\n\"Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify's employees and the possibility of even our listeners at risk.\"\n\nNew rules on what media companies can broadcast or post online mean publishing material deemed to be \"fake news\" about Russia's invasion of Ukraine can lead to lengthy prison sentences.\n\nFollowing passage of the legislation, Bloomberg, the New York Times and CNN were among the outlets that announced plans earlier this month to suspend reporting from the country.\n\nTikTok also suspended live streaming and new content from its platform following its introduction.\n\nThe BBC suspended reporting in Russia, though it has since resumed. Access to BBC websites has been restricted in Russia, and the Kremlin took BBC World News off the air earlier this month.\n\nSpotify, which launched in Russia in 2020, is best known as a music streaming platform. But it has aggressively moved into podcasting as part of its business model, with its library including many news and current affairs shows.\n\nSince the war in Ukraine, it has not been able to sell its premium subscriptions in the country because of restrictions put in place by payment providers amid international sanctions.\n\nThis latest move adds it to a list of hundreds of global firms that have exited or scaled back operations in the country, including BP, McDonald's and Netflix.", "The band's singer Taras Topolya had appealed to be able to join the fundraiser\n\nA Ukrainian band who appealed to Ed Sheeran to take part in a benefit concert have been told they cannot feature.\n\nAntytila, who are serving as soldiers, had asked to be included live from Kyiv in the fundraiser, which takes place in Birmingham next week.\n\nBut singer Taras Topolya said they had been refused a slot as the concert had a \"purely humanitarian\" purpose.\n\nOrganisers apologised, saying it must avoid association with the military.\n\n\"Because we are standing with guns and helmets, we are soldiers, and this concert is not for soldiers but for helping civilian people,\" the lead singer said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn their original appeal from Kyiv, he explained, \"in peacetime, our concerts gather at stadiums\", but now \"we are fighting with weapons against the Russian occupiers\".\n\nThe band had offered to temporarily join the concert live from the war-torn city adding \"we are not afraid to play under the bombs\".\n\nBut the singer said \"first of all we are musicians, helmets and body armour are temporary, but we understand the answer and we accept it.\"\n\nHe added: \"The main thing is the people of the United Kingdom must stand with Ukraine.\"\n\nConcert for Ukraine, which will be shown on ITV, takes place at the Resorts World Arena on Tuesday and will also feature Camila Cabello, Gregory Porter and Snow Patrol.\n\nEd Sheeran is one of the acts taking to the stage at Birmingham's Resorts World Arena\n\nIn a statement organisers said: \"On a personal level, we do of course completely understand why they are bravely fighting for their country, but for this specific concert, it would not be possible for us to feature them, as we are only able to focus on the humanitarian situation, not the politics or the military conflict.\"\n\n\"We will be featuring the voices of Ukrainians within the concert, alongside the many performers who are united with music and in the desire for this terrible conflict to end as soon as possible.\"\n\nThe statement said it sent its \"genuine thanks\" to the band for their offer.\n\nProceeds from the concert will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee's Ukraine Humanitarian appeal, which is providing food, water, shelter and medical assistance to refugees in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk", "Statistically, Coda should not have been a strong contender to win best picture at the Oscars.\n\nThe small, independent film had just three nominations but walked away from the 94th Academy Awards with trophies for each of them - including the big one, best picture.\n\nAn acronym for Child of Deaf Adults, Coda tells the story of the hearing daughter of a deaf family, who has to balance the demands of helping them in their daily lives with her own ambitions to be a singer.\n\nWelsh actress Emilia Jones, who plays the lead role in the movie, said she was \"on cloud nine\" at the film's Oscar success.\n\n\"What our movie has done, I think, it's brought people together... and I'm really hoping it opens doors,\" she told the BBC at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party.\n\nIn a touching moment, the audience applauded in sign language as the cast and crew accepted the best film prize.\n\nBackstage, Jones said she was delighted to see nominees like Andrew Garfield and Ariana DeBose signing with her co-star and best supporting actor winner Troy Kotsur.\n\n\"It's been really beautiful watching people adapt and change and learn more signs,\" said Jones, who herself learned sign language to appear in the film. \"I'm honestly so happy\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"A lot of people will be thinking about deaf actors now, thinking of ideas, scripts and collaborations,\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"It's amazing that finally our movement has been heard and we've broken through all the barriers. People are appreciating us and honouring us - it's wonderful.\n\nShe added: \"It's been a long time coming. Thirty-five years I've been waiting to tell people that there are deaf actors out there eager to work.\"\n\nNot since 1932 has a film with fewer than four nominations won best picture at the Oscars\n\nPremiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2021 and released to streaming audiences that August, the Sian Heder-directed film has slowly but surely found a devoted audience and become a word-of-mouth hit.\n\nCoda is an English-language remake of the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, directed by Éric Lartigau.\n\nFollowing its box office success in France, producer Philippe Rousselet approached Massachusetts-born filmmaker Heder about the possibility of adapting the story for a US audience.\n\nBut getting it from the early stages of development to a best picture winner was not an easy journey.\n\nAfter taking the reins, the first person Heder cast was Matlin, who was the first deaf actor to win an Oscar in 1986 for her performance in Children of a Lesser God, and has since appeared in The L Word and The West Wing.\n\nBut once Matlin was on board, producers were faced with a significant hurdle. The studio that initially agreed to finance the film asked for big-named stars to appear in it. The absence of high-profile deaf actors meant Heder was under pressure to hire hearing actors with more box office appeal.\n\nHe and Matlin refused and, as a result, the studio halted production. Months later, the team found some independent funding to go ahead and start filming.\n\nMarlee Matlin the first deaf actor to win an Oscar celebrates with Troy Kotsur winner in 2022\n\nAfter being financed independently, Heder got the cast she wanted - with Kotsur, who had appeared in Scrubs and CSI, joining to play Matlin's partner.\n\nAfter winning best supporting actor Kotsur dedicated his win to \"the deaf community, the Coda community and the disabled community\", adding: \"This is our moment.\"\n\nDaniel Durant joined the cast to play the couple's son, but Ruby - the family's hearing daughter - proved the hardest part to cast.\n\n\"To find that girl was a massive search,\" Heder told the BBC at the Baftas.\n\n\"I needed someone who was going to sign fluently, who was going to sing, who was going to act her ass off and carry every scene. At one point my casting director said I was looking for a unicorn.\"\n\nBut the search continued until the team found British actress Jones, who had been starring in Netflix fantasy horror Lock & Key (and who is the daughter of singer and TV presenter Aled).\n\nEmilia Jones took singing lessons and ASL classes for nine months in preparation for the role. \"I had so much to learn for this movie,\" she told the BBC's Colin Paterson. \"The film is about a culture and a family that's rarely seen on screen.\n\n\"And it's giving people an insight into a culture. I knew nothing about deaf culture before I went into this movie. But it's also teaching people that no matter what language you speak, or where you're from, love is love.\"\n\nAmy Forsyth (L) plays Ruby's friend, Daniel Durant plays Ruby's brother, and Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur play her parents\n\nWith financing secured and the cast finally in place, Coda was filmed in Gloucester, Massachusetts, over the summer of 2019. \"We were a very scrappy production,\" Heder recalled. \"This was an independent and low-budget movie.\n\n\"We had no resources, I think my hope with this movie was 'please let it sell, please let someone want it and distribute it and get it out in the world. And please let me make another movie'. That's where I was coming from.\"\n\nWith hindsight, Heder had nothing to worry about. Coda received its world premiere at a virtual Sundance festival, debuting to warm reviews from critics. It was quickly snapped up by Apple for $25m (£19m) - a record for the festival but a relative bargain considering what it has gone on to do.\n\n\"We have now become a part of Hollywood, but this was definitely kind of an outsider film,\" Heder reflected.\n\nCoda is one of several recent films to have featured deaf characters - following Sound of Metal, Marvel's Eternals (which has a deaf superhero) and A Quiet Place parts one and two.\n\nSian Heder was a surprise winner of best adapted screenplay at this month's Bafta Film Awards\n\nHowever, Coda wasn't loved by everyone. Deaf critic Liam O'Dell suggested viewers were being fed the narrative that deaf people \"have to settle for the inaccessible environment around them in order for a hearing individual, Ruby, to have any real sense of fulfilment\".\n\n\"Coda shines completely the wrong light on how to tackle inaccessibility, in a negligence which is both harmful and dangerous for an impressionable hearing audience,\" he added.\n\nJemina Edwards, who is part of Coda UK & Ireland and whose parents are both deaf, told Metro: \"It was never going to be a perfect film that encapsulates everyone's experiences because every Coda has got a different experience.\n\n\"Some bits I found a bit uncomfortable, it felt like it was aimed more at a hearing audience than a deaf or coda audience.\"\n\nA section where a character's \"deaf voice\" was described as ugly \"didn't sit well with me\", agrees Amy Claridge, a board member at Coda UK & Ireland.\n\nBut overall, she felt the \"representation and insight\" into the community was \"more positive than negative\".\n\n\"I watched it with a group of Codas and quite a lot of us were crying in the back aisle by the end of it.\"\n\nThe film had a similar effect on Oscar voters, who chose Coda over previous frontrunners like The Power of the Dog and Belfast.\n\nCoda's feel-good nature makes it an unusual winner - the last such dramedy to win best picture was The Artist in 2011; and you have to go back to 1932's Grand Hotel to find the last time a film took the top prize with fewer than four overall nominations.\n\nEmilia Jones plays Ruby who is struggling to choose between her family's fishing business and going to music school\n\nThere wasn't a huge amount of love for Coda within the Academy when the nominations were announced in early February. But as voters began to catch up with the best picture nominees they'd missed, suddenly it became very popular indeed.\n\nJones has described the last few months as an \"amazing ride\", adding: \"I feel very lucky and grateful that people have been so nice about the movie so it means we can keep promoting it.\"\n\nAsked by the BBC's Sophie Long what advice she had given her cast-mates going through awards season for the first time, Matlin said: \"I've said to them, to the younger cast in particular, to embrace everything that comes their way.\n\n\"People are going to be offering their congratulations, they're going to want a piece of them.... just breathe it in and enjoy the journey to the max. Because after it's all done, everyone moves on to the next thing.\n\n\"I just say, have a good time.\"", "One of President Putin’s justifications for his invasion of Ukraine is that he wants to \"denazify\" the country.\n\nRos Atkins looks at the distortions and untruths that Russia is spreading about Nazis in Ukraine - including about the role of the Azov regiment, who are based in Mariupol and are part of Ukraine's national guard.", "Protests have been held in east London over the student's treatment\n\nThe governing body of an east London school where a black pupil was strip-searched has publicly apologised for the incident.\n\nA safeguarding report found the search of the 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nIn a statement the governing board said the school \"was not aware that a strip-search was taking place\".\n\nChild Q is suing the Met Police and the school in Hackney over the incident.\n\nThe governing body said: \"The incident involving Child Q is harrowing, and we understand and share the sadness and anger that is being felt by the community.\n\n\"While the school was not aware that a strip search was taking place, we wholly accept that the child should not have been left in the situation that she was.\n\n\"For this, we have offered a full and formal apology to Child Q and her family, and continue to work with them to provide what support we can.\"\n\nLawyers acting on behalf of Child Q have asked for the school not to be named in the media.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: \"When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will\"\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers who were looking for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nNo other adult was present, her parents were not contacted, and no drugs were found.\n\nThe girl's intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review.\n\nScotland Yard has admitted the actions of the two officers were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nOn Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government was taking the matter \"extremely seriously\".\n\nIn the statement, the school's governing board said \"changes were made immediately after the incident, and continued to be made\".\n\nSince the incident, the school has changed the leadership of its governing board. However, research by the BBC shows the chair of governors was still in place six months after the search occurred.\n\nThe make-up of the board has also changed. The governing board said it would not comment on the employment status of anyone involved.\n\nThe Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said a report on the incident is being \"finalised\".\n\nThe incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, near the site of Child Q's school.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Soldiers carrying shovels walk along a pathway to the forested mountain crash site on Wednesday\n\nChinese officials have confirmed that all 132 passengers and crew died when flight MU5735 crashed on Monday in southern China.\n\nThe China Eastern flight was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it nose-dived and crashed in a heavily-forested area in Guangxi.\n\nRescue teams said they had identified 120 of the victims so far through DNA analysis, aviation officials said.\n\nState media reported that both black boxes have now been found.\n\nThe flight data recorder - which could provide crucial information about why the plane crashed an hour into its journey - was recovered on Saturday.\n\nThe first black box has already been sent to Beijing to be inspected by experts, Reuters said. That one is believed to contain the cockpit voice recorder.\n\nThough there had been little hope of finding any survivors, victims' families have been waiting for news from the search teams, which have been combing the heavily-wooded area for days.\n\nBut the search has been difficult in the remote hills near the city of Wuzhou, with rescue teams working in very muddy conditions.\n\nHu Zhenjiang, deputy director-general of China's civil aviation administration, said the search would continue for the remains of the victims and parts of plane wreckage, Chinese news website Sina reported.\n\nAircraft manufacturer Boeing - which made the 737-800 jet - said on Saturday its technical team is supporting the US National Transportation Safety Board and China's civil aviation administration with the investigation, Reuters reports.\n\nFollowing the crash, China's President Xi Jinping called for a full-scale investigation.\n\nThe crash is China's most deadly aviation incident in nearly three decades, and has prompted a national outpouring of grief.", "After Viktoriia Roshchyna was released from detention, a hostage-style video began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram channels\n\nUkrainians are being arbitrarily detained and subjected to enforced disappearances in Russian-controlled areas, the UN has told the BBC.\n\nAt least 36 cases of civilian detentions were verified by the UN, with families often denied any information about the fate of those being held.\n\nUkrainians say they fear an escalating campaign of kidnappings and intimidation, as Russia struggles to assert control over towns it captures.\n\nViktoriia Roshchyna, a journalist, was working in occupied areas in the east of the country when she was taken by unidentified men on 15 March.\n\nHer employer, Hromadske media, said she \"was probably detained by the FSB\", Russia's internal intelligence service, based on witness accounts of her being taken in the city of Berdyansk.\n\nShe was released six days later when a hostage-style video - apparently recorded under duress - began to circulate on pro-Russian Telegram outlets. In it Ms Roshchyna said Russia had not taken her captive and thanked Moscow's forces for \"saving her life\".\n\nSvetlana Zalizetskaya, a journalist in the occupied city of Melitopol, accused Russian forces of taking her 75-year old father hostage as punishment for her refusal to co-operate with the new administration.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Andrei Kurkov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs Zalizetskaya, the director of local news agency RIA Melitopol, wrote on Facebook that her father had been detained after her meeting with the Russian-installed leader of the city, where she refused to end her criticism of the invasion.\n\nShe said that she received a phone call from his captors, in which her father informed her that he was being held \"in some basement\" and said that he \"didn't know what they wanted from him\".\n\nHis captors demanded that Ms Zalizetskaya, who has pledged to \"tell the world of atrocities\" committed by Moscow's forces in Melitopol, surrender herself.\n\nUkraine's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said four journalists had also been detained and were later released in Melitopol.\n\nThe head of the Ukrainian NUJ, Sergiy Tomilenko, said the detentions were part of \"a wave of information cleansing\" which is aimed towards the \"intimidation of journalists and public figures\".\n\nMykhailo Kumko, a retired local newspaper publisher, is one of the journalists detained in Melitopol\n\nA spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHR), whose monitoring mission in Ukraine has been documenting the abductions, told the BBC that those being targeted \"are mostly representatives of local communities, journalists and people who were vocal about their pro-Ukrainian positions\".\n\nBut they said they were not able to assess whether those being detained form part of \"targeted lists reportedly drawn up by Russian security officials\".\n\nIn February, US officials sent a letter to the UN warning that Russia had drawn up a \"kill list\" of Ukrainians to be attacked or detained following the invasion of the country.\n\nSome sources have suggested that a hack of a Ukrainian digital services app in January may have helped Russia identify targets, while the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has speculated that a hack of the Ukrainian national car insurance registry may have allowed security services to identify the locations of targets.\n\nA number of officials in occupied parts of Ukraine have been detained by Russian forces in recent weeks. In the southern city of Melitopol, Mayor Ivan Fedorov was abducted from a city crisis centre by Russian troops earlier this month.\n\nDiscussing his detention with local media, Mr Fedorov alleged that other detainees at the holding centre he was taken to were being tortured.\n\n\"They didn't touch me physically but trust me, seven armed men were enough to make their position clear,\" Mr Fedorov said. \"In the next cell someone was being tortured - there were screams which generated plenty of psychological pressure.\"\n\n\"They try to accuse them of sabotage and squeeze their fingers in the door to make them say which army they're from, but they're just local residents.\"\n\nIvan Fedorov met with President Volodymyr Zelensky after his release\n\nAlleged abductions have occurred in several other cities, including Nova Kakhovka in the north, where the secretary of the city council has disappeared, and in Bucha, where the local council told the BBC that six employees were detained and later released after a Russian raid.\n\nUkrainian MP Alyona Shkrum said she believed the detentions were likely to increase as Russia faces a lack of co-operation and increased resistance in occupied regions.\n\n\"I'm sure Putin thought it will be just as it was in Crimea, they come they take over the administrative buildings and the mayor will say 'lets co-operate, I will be your mayor now, what difference does it make',\" she told the BBC.\n\n\"It didn't happen at all here... nobody, even from sort of pro-Russian parties agreed to do what Russian soldiers wanted them to do\".\n\nRussian forces have faced opposition in occupied cities like Kherson\n\nMs Shkrum, a pro-Western MP, told the BBC that she was warned by the Ukrainian security services that she was likely on a Russian hit-list and was warned to avoid her apartment in Kyiv.\n\n\"Pretty much there are two lists,\" she said. \"A list of people to be killed as members of parliament, they are mostly people who [Russia] feel they cannot co-operate with. And a list of people to be taken hostage and taken to Moscow and forced to vote on something.\"\n\n\"I also have sanctions against me in Russia, so I presume I am on the list to be killed or captured,\" Ms Shkrum added.\n\nThe abductions have not been limited to public figures, with some civilians and ex-members of the armed forces also detained.\n\nMattia Nelles, a Ukrainian political analyst, told the BBC that his uncle, a former medic with the Ukrainian army who fought in the Donbas from 2016-2018, had been targeted by Russian soldiers in the eastern city of Svatove.\n\n\"Security forces of the Russian Federation have come to his house and searched for him,\" Mr Nelles said. \"Luckily he was not at his house but neighbours confirmed that he is wanted.\"\n\nMr Nelles said it was unclear which element of Russia's forces are behind the wave of detentions, but in his uncle's case he said the troops were \"a mix of army personnel and some other security forces. We can only speculate whether it's FSB, they didn't wear insignia\".\n\nHe fears that the campaign of arrests will escalate in the coming days. He observed that in southern areas, such as Kherson, so far the \"amount of arrests seem relatively low\" and some of the lists appear to be \"drawn up on the go\" as Russian forces identify those resisting occupation.\n\n\"Locals fear we are seeing the beginning of a more sustained campaign,\" he warned.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The Met Police said footage circulating on social media \"shows only a small part of this incident\" and asked people \"not to rush to judgement\"\n\nA black man wearing a coat was stopped and searched by Metropolitan Police officers who said he was \"not dressed for the climate\".\n\nThe man was detained in what the force described as \"an area well known for drug dealing\" in Croydon on Wednesday.\n\nFootage shared on TikTok, which has been viewed more than 400,000 times, shows one officer saying to the man \"you're not dressed for the climate\".\n\nAnother officer added the man's outfit \"just seems odd\".\n\nA statement from the Met said the man was \"wearing several layers of clothing despite the warm weather\" and that he \"became hostile and refused to account for what he was doing\" after being approached by officers.\n\nHe was detained and searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act and he \"went on his way\" when nothing was found.\n\nDet Ch Supt Lee Hill said the force was aware of the footage, adding: \"This shows only a small part of this incident and we would ask people not to rush to judgement.\n\n\"In this instance a formal complaint has been received and is being handled in accordance with the Police Reform Act. This will include a review of all the available footage, including the officer's body-worn video.\n\n\"Our officers have to conduct themselves in the most challenging of circumstances and it is right their actions should be subject to public scrutiny.\"\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bohdan had to make a police statement after a neighbour reported his fairy lights\n\nSuspicion thrives on conflict and after a month of war in Ukraine, the fear that Russian saboteurs may be operating is hardening into a certainty. But how much is fact, backed up by intelligence reports and arrests, and how much is something closer to understandable paranoia, fuelled by social media rumours about mysterious lights and signs?\n\n\"It was my neighbours from this stairwell who came to see me. They were scared about security,\" said Bohdan Mylko, a 22-year-old engineer sharing an apartment on the northern edge of Odesa.\n\nFifteen minutes later, the police were at his door, asking about a red light in his bedroom window.\n\n\"It's paranoia, based on fake news about red lights being a sign to the Russians. I had to go to the police station and get my documents checked, make a statement, and get my photo taken.\n\n\"The police realised that I'm just a normal guy and let me go home. I'm not trying to help the Russians,\" said Mylko, holding up the set of flashing fairy lights that prompted the police's intervention.\n\nElderly people are among patrols at night, asking to check the documents of people they encounter\n\nMoments after we visited him, one evening shortly before curfew, we were stopped on the street outside by a group of residents who asked to see our documents.\n\n\"You could be Russians,\" said an elderly woman who gave her name as Valya.\n\n\"What are you doing here? We have small children. We don't want anything to happen to them. Maybe someone will drop a bomb here tomorrow,\" said another woman, as the wail of an air raid siren rose over the apartment complex.\n\nSuch concerns are understandable in a city, and a country, still reeling from the shock of Russia's invasion. Similar behaviour has been noted in many other conflicts, from Syria to Chechnya and beyond.\n\n\"This is not paranoia. There are Russian agents and citizens of Ukraine working against us. That's a fact,\" said Capt Volodymir Kalina from the Odesa police.\n\nBut he acknowledged there was a strong element of disinformation involved and accused Russia of deliberately trying to stir up public fear.\n\n\"They're trying to distract us, to make us pay attention to the wrong places - to clear us from one part of the city so they can carry out their work in another area,\" he said.\n\nDmitro covered a black arrow on a wall in case it was a sign for Russian troops\n\nAlong the coast, a few kilometres south of Odesa city's historic centre in an area known for its nightclubs and beach bars, retired businessman Dmitro Novak, 71, was beginning his morning shift with a neighbourhood patrol.\n\nHe pointed to a black arrow painted on a wall, and explained he had covered it in case it was a sign for Russian troops. A few minutes later, he stopped on a set of steps beside a large, empty office building overlooking the sea.\n\n\"I saw a big light there. It was directed towards the night sky. My neighbours saw it too. It was on the roof of this building. For sure it was a signal to the Russian fleet. Some kind of signal.\n\n\"We called the authorities, and they came immediately, and the light was switched off. So now we're looking carefully around for any other signals, or marks. Everybody is alert. We're changing shifts every two hours,\" said Novak.\n\nLast week, Russian naval artillery shelled the area, with some missiles landing just off the beach and several others hitting residential homes, but causing no casualties.\n\nHanna Shelest, a prominent analyst in Odesa who advises the Ukrainian parliament on security issues, backed up concerns that Ukrainians or Russians were providing information to the Russian military.\n\n\"The first aim is the storage of weapons and ammunition in town in case street fighting starts here,\" she explained. \"The second is to spread disinformation and gossip.\n\n\"The third aim is to mark directions in the city with signs for which way to go in case there is an amphibious landing by the Russians. And the fourth is to mark targets - either visually or with electronic signals - for artillery or airstrikes.\"\n\nUkrainian media has broadcast numerous videos showing police arresting alleged Russian saboteurs. President Volodymyr Zelensky was also shown handing out medals to a group of police security agents credited with apprehending suspected Russian saboteurs and reconnaissance groups.\n\nBut it is worth noting that, for all the fear and suspicion aroused by such reports, the evidence so far suggests that a few isolated Russian cells have, so far, been remarkably unsuccessful, and that Ukrainian public opinion - directly contradicting Russian propaganda - has hardened and united against the Kremlin's invasion.\n\nThe idea that partisans or \"fifth columnists\" might be activated effectively in Ukraine would appear to have been entirely fanciful.\n\n\"Ukraine's security services are definitely monitoring those under suspicion. And we already know some people have been arrested. But as for anything more serious - it is probably not their time, yet,\" said Dr Shelest.", "Covid cases have climbed by a million in a week in the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals.\n\nSwab tests suggest about one in every 16 people is infected, as the contagious Omicron variant BA.2 continues to spread.\n\nThat's just under 4.3 million people, up from 3.3 million the week before.\n\nThe figures for the week ending 19 March, are thought to give the most accurate reflection of what's happening with the virus in the community.\n\nRates were up in England and Wales, and Scotland reached a new high.\n\nInfections have started decreasing in Northern Ireland, however.\n\nThe rates across the nations were:\n\nA high number of infections means the UK can expect Covid hospitalisations to rise too, although vaccines are still helping to stop many severe cases, say experts.\n\nAccording to the latest figures, there were 17,440 patients in hospital with the virus on 24 March. About half will have been admitted for something else, rather than Covid, but tested positive.\n\nJust over 300 of them needed an intensive care bed with a ventilator to help them breathe.\n\nEngland's chief medical officer Prof Sir Chris Whitty said earlier this week that while the virus was causing pressure in the NHS, the high rates of transmission were fortunately not translating into lots of intensive care cases and deaths.\n\nStaff absences at NHS hospitals in England due to Covid have risen by 31% on the week to 13 March.\n\nAbout of 23,127 staff at hospital trusts in England - 2% of the total workforce - were absent, either because they were sick with the virus or were self-isolating.\n\nPeople aged 75 and over and those who are immunosuppressed can book a spring booster jab to top up their protection against Covid.\n\nMeanwhile, from 1 April in England, most people wanting to take a lateral flow test to check if they have Covid will have to buy one.\n\nIt is part of the government's 'living with Covid' plan.\n• None New record as one in 11 Scots had Covid last week\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A child who fled Ukraine waits outside an immigration centre office in Brussels, Belgium\n\nBritish people hoping to host Ukrainian refugees in their own homes need urgent clarity on how to do so, charities say.\n\nMore than 150,000 people have registered interest in the government's Homes for Ukraine scheme, which is due to launch fully on Friday.\n\nBut the visa process cannot be started until potential hosts have the names of specific refugees they want to help.\n\nIn the meantime charities say they have been \"deluged\" with calls from people wanting advice on finding a match.\n\nMeanwhile, the government is warning potential hosts not to link up with refugees through informal channels, such as social media.\n\n\"Our advice would be to stick to community groups and councils as they've got the expertise,\" one member of the government's Department for Housing and Communities told the BBC.\n\nThe department said details about the matching up process would be published later.\n\nDetails of the online application process for Ukrainian nationals have been published, which say it is open to those who were living in Ukraine before 1 January 2022, plus their immediate family - including spouses and long-term partners, and children aged under 18.\n\nThe government says Ukrainians should not try to travel to the UK until they have received an official permission letter, which will allow them to board a plane or other transport to cross the border.\n\nIn Scotland the issue of matching hosts and refugees can be bypassed after the Scottish government was approved as a \"super sponsor\", which can be selected instead of an individual sponsor during the visa application.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it meant refugees did not need to have a host UK family before coming to Scotland and could be housed in temporary accommodation before a longer-term arrangement is made.\n\nVadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, said he was grateful to the 150,000 Britons who expressed interest in \"opening up their hearts and sometimes homes\" to Ukrainians, and \"humbled\" by their generosity.\n\nHe estimates between 100,000 and 200,000 Ukrainians will want to seek refuge in the UK.\n\nLocal councils are expected to be leaned on heavily to help support the refugees, and the government hopes charities, businesses and faith and community groups will help the effort to match people up.\n\nAbout 120 Ukrainian families have already registered with Robina Qureshi's refugee hosting programme, Room for Refugees - which also helps people fleeing many other countries.\n\nBut she says her charity's rigorous security checks and vetting processes are being slowed down by an inundation of calls and emails they're getting from members of the public seeking clarification about how to match up with a refugee.\n\n\"Right now every day is time wasted, and that's what I find quite upsetting,\" Ms Qureshi told the BBC.\n\nShe said she had been disturbed by some specific requests to \"only host Ukrainians\" rather than refugees of other nationalities who are also vulnerable.\n\nMs Qureshi said she appreciated the \"goodwill\" of those who had registered their interest with Homes for Ukraine, but added: \"We haven't got the infrastructure to deal with inane comments and questions.\"\n\nThese people are among the millions of refugees heading from Ukraine to Poland\n\nOther organisations that work with refugees have voiced confusion and reluctance to be involved in helping with the government scheme.\n\nWest London Welcome said it was not yet referring people to Homes for Ukraine because it was \"not confident\" in the government's vetting process.\n\nAnd a spokeswoman for IMIX, working on behalf of Reset UK, said it was \"unclear currently how this matching process will work\".\n\nEnver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the Ukraine sponsorship scheme was complex and \"will inevitably be inaccessible to the most vulnerable refugees, such as unaccompanied children\".\n\nCalling for the government to waive visa requirements, he said: \"A humanitarian crisis requires a speedy and compassionate response, not one that puts bureaucratic hurdles ahead of the immediate needs of people whose lives have been ripped apart.\"\n\nHe also criticised the \"cruel and harmful\" proposals in the Nationality and Borders Bill which would criminalise Ukrainians and other refugees who arrive in the UK without a visa.\n\nLabour has welcomed the sponsorship scheme but urged the government to be more involved in the matching-up process.\n\n\"The biggest barriers are excessive bureaucracy and the DIY nature of this scheme,\" said Lisa Nandy, shadow levelling up and housing secretary.\n\n\"The government needs to cut unnecessary paperwork and play an active role in matching sponsors to refugees.\"", "More than £42.7m has been raised in Comic Relief's latest Red Nose Day broadcast, with a host of stars taking part in sketches and stunts.\n\nThe charity show was broadcast from BBC studios in Salford for the first time.\n\nHighlights included Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders visiting The Repair Shop, and Matt Lucas and David Walliams reviving their Rock Profiles sketches.\n\nBut stars Zoe Ball, Kylie Minogue and Joel Dommett had to pull out of the show after catching Covid.\n\nAt shortly after midnight, Red Nose Day announced it had raised £42,790,147 for good causes in the UK and around the world.\n\nSome of the money will benefit organisations providing aid in Ukraine.\n\nComic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis thanked the \"extraordinary public\" for their \"outpouring of generosity\". He said the charity helped 11 million people last year.\n\nThe show's presenters sent their love to Ball, who was due to be one of the hosts, with actor David Tennant saying: \"We will miss you tonight Zoe, we are sending you loads of love.\"\n\nBall said she would be \"watching & supporting from bed\".\n\nThe Vivienne, Nikki Lily, Roman Kemp, Maya Jama, Lady Leshurr and Snoochie Shy in Glow Up Does Red Nose Day\n\nMinogue told followers she wouldn't be able to take part in a planned sketch with the cast of BBC sitcom Ghosts.\n\nAnd the event's co-host Dommett said he was \"super annoyed\" to have caught the virus before Red Nose Day.\n\nDommett was replaced by Vernon Kay, while Ball said Alesha Dixon would \"work the double shift tonight\" to fill in for her.\n\n\"I owe you lady love,\" she told her on Twitter.\n\nCovid-19 infections have continued to increase in England, with about one in 20 people in private households estimated to have had the virus in the week to 12 March, according to the Office for National Statistics.\n\nRob Rinder, Claire Richards, Deborah Meaden and Ricky Hatton in a This Is My House celebrity special\n\nSir Lenny Henry, Tennant, AJ Odudu and Paddy McGuinness were Comic Relief's other presenters, and were rotated during the broadcast which lasted nearly four hours.\n\nIt was announced during the programme that Tom Daley's Hell Of A Homecoming challenge - in which the Olympic diver rowed, swam, cycled and ran for 290 miles over four days from London to his hometown of Plymouth - had raised £1,027,111.\n\nThe show also saw comedian Jack Whitehall playing England footballers Declan Rice and Mason Mount in a mini-golf challenge - with Whitehall coming in last place as West Ham midfielder Rice won.\n\nThe lifelong Arsenal fan was forced to post a photo on Instagram of himself in a West Ham shirt as a forfeit.\n\nFrench and Saunders pay a visit to The Repair Shop\n\nStrictly Come Dancing champions Rose Ayling Ellis and Giovanni Pernice performed to a rendition of How Long Will I Love You.\n\nReviving their Rock Profile comedy sketch show for a one-off special, Lucas and Walliams impersonated stars such as Adele, Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga.\n\nFrench and Saunders reprised characters from their sketch show - two overacting film extras - as they visited the Repair Shop, asking host Jay Blades and his team of skilled artisans to fix their toaster, \"a family heirloom\".\n\nThe sketch also featured Dame Judi Dench as a character who arrived at the shop to have an old doll from her childhood repaired, only for French and Saunders to smash its head to pieces.\n\nLast year, the annual event raised more than £55m for good causes in the UK and around the world.\n\nMatt Lucas and David Walliams doing a Rock Profile of Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus\n\nOther famous faces to appear during the fundraising show include Tom Holland, Courteney Cox, Lulu, Paul Rudd, Chris Kamara, Vic Reeves, Jeff Goldblum, Clive Myrie, Jamie Dornan and Gordon Ramsay.", "Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing\n\nRachael Blackmore created history as the first female rider to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, storming to success on A Plus Tard.\n\nThe pair had finished second to stablemate Minella Indo last year and Blackmore wanted to put things right.\n\nThis time, she made no mistake on the 3-1 favourite, moving ahead of Minella Indo after the last and racing clear to win for trainer Henry de Bromhead.\n\nMinella Indo (7-1) was second ahead of Protektorat (10-1).\n\nGalvin (10-3) came in fourth with Al Boum Photo - the winner in 2019 and 2020 - sixth.\n\nBlackmore's history-making run began in 2021 when she became the first female jockey to win the Champion Hurdle and Grand National, as well as taking the leading rider award at last year's Cheltenham Festival.\n\n\"I just can't believe it. I'm so lucky to be getting to ride all these kind of horses,\" she told ITV Racing.\n\n\"You can't do this without the horses and being attached to Henry's yard is just absolutely phenomenal. To give me this horse is unbelievable, I don't know what to say.\n\n\"I've had so many special days. I wouldn't swap the Grand National for anything but this is the Gold Cup.\"\n• None Relive all the drama from Gold Cup day\n\nFor all her success, Blackmore knew that last year's Gold Cup had been within her grasp before A Plus Tard faded in the closing stages.\n\nTwelve months on, in what was a closely contested race until the run-in, Minella Indo and Robbie Power made the first significant move and grabbed the lead two from home.\n\nBut his rivals were never far away and A Plus Tard waited patiently before showing a lovely turn of pace to take the lead and, once he did, there was only going to be one winner and the pair finished 15 lengths clear.\n\nIt was 32-year-old Blackmore's second feature race success of the week, after her win on Honeysuckle in Tuesday's Champion Hurdle.\n\nWhile last year's victories at Prestbury Park and Aintree had been achieved behind closed doors, this time Blackmore was roared home by a Cheltenham record crowd of 73,875, including her father and siblings.\n\nShe told BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra: \"I was happy with my position throughout the race - I had everyone in my sights that I wanted to keep an eye on. I tried to keep hold of him a bit more this year and it is great when it works out.\n\n\"I knew I had more under me this year than last year, but I didn't know he was going to go away in that fashion. He is an incredible horse.\"\n\nIt was absolutely brilliant - she gave him an absolute peach of the ride. That is what makes it sweeter. When the gap opened up round the home bend it was all over.\n\nRachael is just phenomenal. She is as cool as cucumber. It is just the decisions that she makes - she is so tactically aware. It was just an absolute pleasure to watch.\n\nIt is another big moment for women in racing, sport and business. She is an absolute star.\n\nShe got a gap at the second last and there wasn't room for a mouse to get through there but she put the horse's nose in there and he went through it like a knife through butter.\n\nShe is just an extraordinary horsewoman. She gets the horse travelling and relaxed.\n\nIt was also a day to remember for trainer Willie Mullins who had a five-timer on his way to 10 wins overall, smashing his own Festival record of eight victories.\n\nWith the Gold Cup success for De Bromhead and Joseph O'Brien's win with Banbridge, ridden by Mark McDonagh, in the closing Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle, it meant all seven winners on the day were trained in Ireland.\n\n\"I didn't realise no-one has ever trained this many winners here, but since it became a four-day Festival things changed numbers-wise,\" said Mullins.\n\n\"I'd imagine this sort of thing will happen more regularly and if they go to five days someone will do it easily.\"\n\nMullins started the day well when Vauban (6-4), ridden by Paul Townend, led home an Irish-trained top five in the Triumph Hurdle.\n\nTownend was always well placed and although his mount was less than fluid at the last, he recovered well to beat Fil Dor and Pied Piper.\n\nMullins and Townend were back in the winners' enclosure in the next courtesy of the 11-4 favourite State Man in the McCoy Contractors County Handicap Hurdle.\n\nTownend's fifth win of the Festival secured him the leading jockey honour.\n\nThe Nice Guy then assured Mullins of the top trainer's title as he led home a stable one-two in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle.\n\nRidden by Sean O'Keeffe, the 18-1 shot got the better of Minella Cocooner and the treble-chasing Townend by five lengths.\n\nBut the climax of the race was overshadowed by a fatal injury sustained by second-favourite Ginto, who was moving into contention late on. It was the fourth equine fatality of the meeting.\n\nIt was fitting that Mullins' son Patrick ensured that his father created history with win number nine, getting up in the final strides on Billaway (2-1 favourite) to deny Winged Leader in the St James's Place Hunters' Chase.\n\nMark Walsh then made it five Mullins wins for the day on Elimay (9-4) in the Mrs Paddy Power Mares' Chase.\n\n\"I'm delighted with the whole team,\" added Mullins senior. \"I'm going to accept the award with all my team because they are the ones who do it in the background, leaving me free.\"\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "UK PM pledges to do more to help Ukraine in call with Zelensky\n\nBoris Johnson pledged to do more to help Ukraine, in a telephone call with President Zelensky on Friday morning. The prime minister vowed to stand with Ukraine at a time when its people were \"facing such horror with such courage\". Mr Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky: \"We know that we must do more to help. I pledge to you that we will.\" Speaking at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, he said he told the president that he knew Ukraine was fighting \"not just for your lives and your homes, but for the cause of democracy and freedom itself\". He said the UK had \"led the way\" in providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. But he added: \"I think that we all feel that we can, and we will, do more.\"", "A dogged unbeaten century from West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood's 102 blunted England on day three of the second Test in Barbados.\n\nBrathwaite batted all day, combining with Blackwood for a stand of 183 as the hosts ground their way to 288-4 at the close, trailing by 219 runs.\n\nThat partnership thwarted England for 68.3 overs until Blackwood misjudged a leave to part-time off-spinner Dan Lawrence and was out lbw with five overs to go.\n\nAfter claiming two early wickets, England struggled to create opportunities and the tourists wasted the rare chances they created.\n\nBlackwood would have been out for a duck had England reviewed an lbw decision and on 65 he was bowled by a Saqib Mahmood no-ball, which would have been the debutant's first Test wicket. There was also a missed stumping chance when Brathwaite was on 109.\n\nIt means a second consecutive draw in this series is the most likely result with two day to play, despite Lawrence's late intervention.\n\nWhen Shamarh Brooks sliced a cut to backward point off Jack Leach for 39 and first-Test centurion Nkrumah Bonner was lbw to Ben Stokes for nine before lunch, England had a real chance to push themselves into a match-winning position.\n\nInstead, it turned into another day where an inexperienced England attack looked tame.\n\nAgain there is the caveat of a pitch that has offered little, particularly to pace bowlers. But England will still be disappointed to only claim three wickets all day.\n\nLeach, who gained credit with a good performance in the first Test, started solidly but, as the day wore on, sporadic good balls were interspersed with ones that were too easily cut for four.\n\nThe pitch is offering some slow turn but Leach did not land enough balls in difficult areas to Brathwaite and Blackwood.\n\nOn the day Mark Wood was ruled out of the series with injury, Mahmood bowled a good spell with the old ball but was largely played comfortably, while Matthew Fisher, also on debut, was unthreatening despite showing decent accuracy. Chris Woakes, England's senior seamer, was anonymous.\n\nThings may have been different, especially had England reviewed when Ben Stokes hit Blackwood on the pad with a rare ball that swung in. It was Stokes himself who immediately intimated the ball would have missed the stumps when instead the technology later suggested it would have hit leg stump flush.\n\nThe Blackwood-Brathwaite partnership was already worth 129 when Mahmood bowled the West Indies number five. It was a perfect yorker from the Lancashire seamer but he had overstepped by a couple of inches and celebrations were cut short.\n\nIn the end it took Lawrence's unconventional spin to prise out a West Indies centurion, the 24-year-old backing his dismissal of Bonner in the first Test.\n\nOnce England declared on 507-9 on day two, West Indies have always realistically been playing for a draw.\n\nThey still have further work to do on day four, but the six-hour stand between Brathwaite and Blackwood has set them well on their way to a result that will see both teams head to Grenada for the third Test with the series still 0-0.\n\nIn the series opener Brathwaite scored his fastest Test fifty but here he reverted to type. He scored his slowest Test half-century before reaching three figures from 278 balls - a knock of great application rather than flowing shot-making.\n\nBlackwood is someone who loves batting against England. His average against them is 45.77, compared with 30.66 across his career, and two of his three Test tons have come against England.\n\nHe batted quicker than Brathwaite but showed similar grit. He was also involved in a heated exchange with Stokes after which the umpires had a stern word with the England all-rounder and captain Root.\n\nWhen shouldering arms to Lawrence he thought the ball would have gone over the stumps but the technology showed it would have hit three quarters of the way up middle stump.\n\n'We are still well in this game' - reaction\n\nEngland spin bowling coach Jeetan Patel: \"A long, hard day of Test cricket. Today wasn't our day but we did a lot of good thigs. We created a lot of opportunities. We were a little unlucky at times and we made some mistakes. We are still well in this game.\"\n\nWest Indies batter Jermaine Blackwood: \"I'm very pleased. Coming into this knock I was feeling the pressure. I thought it [his lbw decision on nought] was going down but that is how it goes.\n\n\"There was a bit of banter [between him and Stokes]. That helped me to feel motivated batting. It was fun. We have to bat as long as possible tomorrow.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"Terrific effort by West Indies. It was not easy out there, and that was an excellent partnership between Blackwood and Brathwaite that clearly frustrated England, who will have wanted more than just three wickets throughout the day.\"\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nUkraine's second city Kharkiv has been the constant target of Russian attacks for three weeks. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway report from the front line where Ukrainian troops continue to repel the enemy advance.\n\nWe enter the house where the back door used to be. Now there is just a blanket flapping in the freezing wind. The owners, long gone, would have had a view across the rich farmland north of Kharkiv, but much of that is unrecognisable, too.\n\nIn the garage, beside an abandoned skateboard, are a dozen or so empty packing cases for some of the world's best anti-tank weapons. A dead Russian soldier lies face down in the front garden.\n\nThe house has become a frontline base, and the spent cases are an indication that the soldiers here have had the fight of their lives - a fight for Ukraine's independence.\n\nWe have gained rare access to the Ukrainian army, who after three weeks of hard fighting, are still holding firm on the outskirts of Kharkiv, preventing Russian forces from capturing Ukraine's second-largest city.\n\n\"Do you want to go further ahead?\" asks Yuri, a commander with the Ukrainian army's 22 Motorized Infantry Battalion, pointing at the ruins of two Russian armoured personnel carriers, and the shattered pieces of two of their tanks. The battalion was reconstituted in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea and backed Donbas separatists.\n\n\"They've used drones, aircraft, attack helicopters, everything,\" says Yuri, as Russian shells thunder overhead, striking nearby roads and apartment blocks.\n\nMoments after Russian Grad rockets - multiple rockets launched in quick succession - fell on a residential neighbourhood\n\nThe Russians have continued to attack again and been repelled many times. In their frustration at being denied entry, they bomb the city, which was once home to 1.4 million people, day and night.\n\nThe ground is churned up and thick mud sucks on your boots. A backward glance shows the ruined shells of the line of houses we just passed through. Suburban gardens have become battlefields from Europe's past.\n\n\"The first three days were the worst. It was raining, we were covered in mud, we looked like pigs,\" says Olexander, 44, who is standing nearby.\n\nBy one of the destroyed armoured personnel carriers, its Z marking already faded, is a large crater, 20ft (6m) across. On the first day of the invasion, 24 February, a Russian strike killed six Ukrainian soldiers at this exact place. Many more died here since, but official figures aren't being released.\n\nA green army boot is perched on the crater's edge, a Russian corpse beyond that. A large black crow sits nearby, untroubled by the roar of shelling and Grad rockets from Russian positions.\n\nThe men here can tell you the precise date and time they came to the front - the implication being that if you weren't here the first three days, you don't know real fighting. \"Jump in the crater if there is more shelling,\" says Uri.\n\nConstantine, 58, was a pilot in the Ukrainian air force until he retired and became a journalist. Now he's back at the front, walking with a limp and using a broken broom handle for support. Russian shrapnel wounded his leg, but he refuses to leave the front.\n\n\"This is the last line of defence for the city, if they get through here, they will enter Kharkiv. This road takes you from Russia to the very heart of the city,\" he says.\n\nOlexander, 44, who fought in Donbas - \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on\"\n\nThere is a boom and whoosh, and a wire-guided missile flies just over our heads. We scramble into the crater. It strikes along the roadside, a gas pipeline bursts into flames.\n\nWhile we shelter, a tall reconnaissance soldier with blue tape across his helmet tells us to stay down. Roman is 34 years old, though he jokes that he was 24 when the war started three weeks ago.\n\nHe says the Russians won't show themselves now. \"They are chickens. We will respond good and proper.\" He stops and asks for a selfie. Later we learn that he transported the dead bodies of his fallen comrades in his own vehicle - which was just a month old - from the front to the city morgue.\n\nAs we leave, Constantine catches something in the air - thin copper wire, which stretches for miles. It was used to guide the Russian missile which just flew over our heads.\n\nWaiting for us is Olexander, 44, from nearby Poltava region. He's been with the unit since its founding and has fought in Donbas. \"This is much worse,\" he says, adding: \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on. We were lost and we couldn't believe it was happening. But after that we got better and we are standing our ground and will hold our positions.\"\n\nI ask him why he is fighting. He gives a laugh and responds, \"For a free Ukraine, for my family, and for you guys as well. For our independence and for peace.\"\n\nYuri, the commander, drives us back to the collection of Soviet-era apartment blocks, still inhabited. Russia says it came to Ukraine to demilitarise the country, but here we see what that means for civilians. A 20-storey block is still smoking from a Russian strike - it was two days ago, according to Yuri.\n\nThe official number of civilian deaths in Kharkiv stood at 234, including 14 children, on 16 March. The past few days have been punishing - as we were reminded in an instant.\n\nA volley of Russian Grad rockets rained down on the neighbourhood, striking just metres away. The soldiers around us had taken cover and were unharmed.\n\nSvitlana. 72, and her husband sleep two hours a night in their bomb-damaged flat\n\nIn the same housing complex lives husband and wife Svitlana and Sasha. Svitlana is 72, and welcomes us into her home, saying they haven't spoken to anyone in weeks. \"We're glad you came,\" she says.\n\nTheir building has already been hit, the back windows are gone, and they sleep in a central room on sofas. They manage two hours of sleep a night, the shelling is relentless. \"When it stops, it is like a thaw in spring,\" she says.\n\nI ask if she has a message for Vladimir Putin. \"No,\" she replies, firmly. \"No, it seems to me that this man has already lost his sanity and he does not think clearly. Because a sane human can not do something like this - bomb old people, kids, kindergartens, schools, hospitals. He wouldn't understand what I say.\"\n\nBut then, when I ask about the men not far from her home who are defending the city, she cries. She says, \"Yes, I'm very grateful to them for protecting their homeland. Hold on guys. We will always support you. They are so brave, both boys and girls.\"\n\nThere are still hundreds of thousands of people living in Kharkiv, despite the shelling. If Russia and Ukraine are brothers, as the Kremlin professes, then this is fratricide.\n\nAs we leave the neighbourhood, much of it is alight. Russia's fury with this city is both seen and heard. By evening, all of Kharkiv is covered in a cloud of smoke, the relentless pounding of guns continues, but the defenders of Kharkiv still keep the enemy from the city gates.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Russia has accused Canada of \"kindergarten-level\" diplomacy in a Twitter tiff over a social media post by Canada's United Nations mission.\n\nThe diplomatic spat is over a letter seeking support for a draft Russian resolution about aid in Ukraine.\n\nCanada posted the letter to Twitter with \"suggested edits\", which led to retweets from other UN missions.\n\nAn image of the letter - annotated in red type - was posted on Canada's official UN mission Twitter account on Thursday. The letter, signed by Russian diplomat Vassily Nebenzia, had been sent to all UN members the previous day.\n\nIn it, Mr Nebenzia says he is \"reaching out with regards to an urgent matter related to the dire humanitarian situation in and around Ukraine\".\n\nCanada's annotation adds to that line: \"which we have caused as a result of our illegal war of aggression\".\n\nThe letter goes on to say that \"Western colleagues\" are \"politicising the humanitarian issue\". Canada adds \"Do you think the UN membership actually believes this? Please explain.\"\n\nDmitry Polyanskiy, first deputy permanent representative of Russia to the United Nations, responded to the tweet, saying it \"shows that your diplomatic skills and good manners are at lowest ebb\" and reminding Canada that it twice failed to secure enough support to win a non-permanent seat on the powerful UN Security Council.\n\nThe letter was meant to boost support for a draft resolution on providing humanitarian relief in Ukraine, which was scheduled for a vote on Friday at the UN Security Council. The resolution has been criticised by Western nations for its failure to mention Russia's responsibility for the war.\n\nThat scheduled vote was cancelled by Russia on Thursday. The United States' envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Russia's resolution was \"farcical\" and \"doomed to fail\", according to the AFP news agency.", "Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, right, is a former KGB agent and has close ties to the Russian president\n\nA super yacht owned by a Russian oligarch is stuck in a Norwegian port because no-one will sell it fuel.\n\nThe Ragnar is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent who has been linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is not on the EU sanctions list.\n\nThe yacht has been stranded at the port of Narvik since 15 February.\n\n\"We find the discrimination against us, extremely unjust,\" the yacht's captain, Robert Lankester, wrote in a message.\n\nThe British captain pointed out that none of the crew is Russian.\n\n\"We are a Western crew of 16,\" he told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. \"We have nothing to do with the owner.\"\n\nBut local fuel suppliers say they do not want to help entities associated with Russia.\n\n\"Why should we help them?\" Holmlund Oil Service's general manager, Sven Holmlund, told NRK.\n\n\"They can row home. Or use a sail.\"\n\nMr Strzhalkovsky is the former head of mining giant Norilsk Nickel.\n\nThe 68-metre yacht includes a room designed to resemble a British pub, while also boasting heli-skiing equipment, four ski scooters and a giant slide, according to Boat International.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by ragnaryacht This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEarlier this month French authorities seized a super yacht owned by Igor Sechin, boss of Russian state energy company Rosneft.\n• None Who are the mega-rich Russians facing sanctions?", "A Russian court has extended the detention of US basketball star Brittney Griner for another two months, reports state news agency Tass.\n\nThe 31-year-old has been held in Moscow since February when customs officials allegedly found cannabis oil in her luggage.\n\nHillary Clinton had called for her release, after re-tweeting a BBC article about the player's predicament.\n\nBut the Moscow court announced on Thursday it was keeping her in custody.\n\n\"The court granted the request of the investigation and extended the period of detention of the US citizen Griner until May 19,\" the court said, according to Tass.\n\nArguably the greatest female basketball player of all time, the double Olympic gold medallist has been called the \"Tom Brady of her sport\".\n\nMs Griner went to Russia to play during the US league's off-season.\n\nIn one of the last public sightings of her, captured on CCTV, the player is seen walking through security at a Moscow airport trailing a small, black suitcase.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Hillary Clinton This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA star centre for the Phoenix Mercury team, she had landed at the Sheremetyevo airport, there to play another season with a Russian league.\n\nBut a month after her detention, little has been known about her circumstances.\n\nEkaterina Kalugina, a member of Public Monitoring Commission, a semi-official body with access to Russian prisons, told Russian news agency TASS Ms Griner was sharing a cell with two other women with no previous convictions.\n\nShe said Ms Griner's \"only issue\" was that the prison beds were too short for her tall frame.\n\nFans have criticised the muted response to the player's arrest, but the US State Department says it is doing everything it can to help her.\n\nA spokesperson for the State Department told the BBC on Thursday that US diplomats are \"closely engaged on this case and in frequent contact with Brittney Griner's legal team\".\n\n\"We insist the Russian government provide consular access to all US citizen detainees in Russia, including those in pre-trial detention, as Brittney Griner is.\"\n\nThe official added that Russia has \"consistently\" denied access to Americans held in Russian jails.\n\n\"Russia must abide by its legal obligations and allow us to provide consular services for US citizens detained in Russia,\" they continued.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. P&O Ferries workers were told via video that it \"was their final day of employment\"\n\nP&O Ferries has sparked outrage after sacking 800 staff with plans to replace them with cheaper agency workers.\n\nStaff were told in a video call that Thursday was their \"final day of employment\", but some refused to leave their ships in protest and were removed.\n\nP&O said it was a \"tough\" decision but it would \"not be a viable business\" without the changes.\n\nBut the government called the workers' treatment \"wholly unacceptable\".\n\nAnd the RMT union is threatening legal action against the ferry company, calling it one of the \"most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations\".\n\nFurther protests on Friday are being organised in Dover, Liverpool and Hull.\n\n\"Reports of workers being given zero notice and escorted off their ships... shows the insensitive way in which P&O have approached this issue,\" said Robert Courts, parliamentary under secretary for transport.\n\n\"I am extremely concerned and frankly angry at the way workers have been treated by P&O.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Courts said the company had told him it will be suspending services for \"a week to 10 days while they locate new crew\" on the Dover to Calais, Larne to Cairnryan, Dublin to Liverpool and Hull to Rotterdam routes.\n\nOn Friday morning, the company again said on Twitter it would not run services \"for the next few days\".\n\nMeanwhile, the Department for Transport says neither the Secretary of State, Grant Shapps, nor Mr Courts, was aware of what was happening with P&O until Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sacked P&O employee Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" at losing his job after 22 years' service\n\nThe BBC has seen details of a contract for handcuff-trained security professionals which began two days before they were deployed to Dover to remove staff from ferries.\n\nTUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said P&O's \"secret plan\" to sack staff with no notice was \"reprehensible\".\n\nP&O passengers were told to use DFDS while services were suspended.\n\nRMT union members blocked traffic in Dover on Thursday in response to the 800 redundancies announced by P&O Ferries\n\nCrew on one ship docked at Larne Harbour in Northern Ireland had lifted the gangway after private security officers arrived to remove them.\n\nThe crew has now left the ship and Gary Jackson, a full time officer and RMT union member onboard the Pride of Hull, said they were \"absolutely devastated\".\n\n\"At 11am ratings and officers were informed there was going to be a pre-recorded Zoom meeting. After that two to three-minute call all the crew were made redundant,\" he said.\n\n\"I've seen grown men crying on there because they don't know where they're going to go from today.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Robert Courts says he is \"frankly angry\" at the way P&O Ferries staff have been treated\n\nJames, who has worked for P&O Ferries in Dover for around four years, said he felt abandoned by the company after all he received \"was a three minute pre-recorded message saying we are out of a job. Nothing else.\"\n\n\"It was a complete surprise. I would have understood if it was at the height of Covid, but now we're seeing the end of travel restrictions and the start of summer bookings. So this has come completely out of the blue,\" he said.\n\nMark Canet-Baldwin, from Hull, was one of the agency workers brought to Cairnryan to take over from the crew that were being sacked.\n\nBut after talking it through with his wife, he said: \"I felt I can't do it. I felt sick to my stomach. And I walked off. Two others came with me. It's just wrong.\"\n\nWorkers are reported to have been escorted off their ships while being told that cheaper alternatives will take up their roles.\n\n\"The approach adopted by P&O is not unheard of, but it is exceptional to forego appropriate notice and consultation processes,\" said Nathan Donaldson, employment solicitor at Keystone Law.\n\nHe said a government review of firing and rehiring in November 2021 did not outlaw the practice but emphasised \"that it should be a process of last resort\".\n\nRustom Tata, chairman and head of the employment group at law firm DMH Stallard, said P&O's actions would affect the brand's reputation due to the \"apparently wholly planned approach being taken to such a large proportion of its workforce ignoring some of the basic fundamentals of employee relations.\"\n\nAnn Francke, chief executive of The Chartered Management Institute, said P&O had \"got it very wrong\".\n\n\"It's shocking and appalling. It's like management behaviour from another era,\" she said.\n\nP&O said its survival was dependent on \"making swift and significant changes now\".\n\n\"We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World. This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.\"\n\nThe cross-Channel operator said on Twitter that sailings between Dover and Calais scheduled for Thursday will no longer run, and customers with tickets were instructed to sail with rival ferry company DFDS.\n\nP&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies, carrying more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and about 15% of all freight cargo in and out of the UK.\n\nHowever, like many transport operators it saw demand slump in the pandemic.\n\nThe firm claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees.\n\nP&O is owned by DP World, the multi-national ports and logistics company based in Dubai. It paid a £270m dividend to shareholders in 2020.\n\nDiane Riley has travelled to Rotterdam for a Northern Soul event\n\nDiane Riley has travelled with a friend from Hull to Rotterdam with P&O for a Northern Soul event.\n\nShe was on a day trip to Amsterdam on Thursday when she heard from her daughter in the UK that P&O had suspended its services.\n\n\"It was a shock,\" says Diane, adding: \"I thought she was joking at first.\"\n\nShe got a text from the company at around 4pm, advising her to return to the ferry to spend the night.\n\nShe says passengers have been told they may be put on a DFDS ferry to Newcastle on Friday morning, and will then be taken back to Hull by coach.\n\n\"We don't know anything for certain - we'll have to wait and see what happens when we get back to the ferry,\" she says.\n\nMeanwhile, Lauren Shaw and her husband told the BBC they were booked with P&O to travel on a ferry from Cairnryan to Larne at 4pm on Thursday.\n\n\"We had a phone call at 10am to tell us there would be no sailings today and that they hadn't been told a reason why,\" she said.\n\nThey travelled to the port in the hope getting a ferry, but said: \"It's really frustrating.\"\n\nAre you affected by issues covered in this story? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Thousands of families have been separated in the chaos of fighting in Ukraine. Power cuts and disruption to internet and mobile phone services mean many have gone weeks without hearing news of loved ones in areas hit by intense Russian shelling.\n\nSergey was sheltering with his family in a bomb shelter when he left to get food. Fierce fighting meant he couldn't get back to them, and the next day his phone went dead.\n\nDesperate for news, his brother Vladimir turned to a Telegram group set by a Ukrainian TV presenter which shares information about missing people.\n\nThe group, called Search for the Missing, has grown to more than 80,000 members since it launched earlier this month, and receives thousands of pleas for help every day.\n\nHours after he posted about his brother, and four days after Sergey went missing, Vladimir got a phone call from the family of Sergey's wife in Kyiv, who had seen the message. \"By the end of the day, they called to tell me that my brother had made his way to them,\" Vladimir said.\n\nSergey was traced via the group\n\nSergey had made it to another shelter, but with no food and water, he and the people he was with decided to surrender to Russian troops. \"They took a white flag and went out to the Russians. After a search, they were released. Then with the help of volunteers, he drove to Kyiv,\" Vladimir says.\n\nThe rest of Sergey's family eventually made it out of Bucha and to safety in Gdansk, Poland. \"I experienced feelings that I have never experienced in my life,\" Vladimir says. \"It was such welcome news in these difficult days.\" Sergey has since returned to Ukraine to join the army, he says.\n\nSearch for the Missing was started by Katya Osadcha, a former model, journalist and popular reality TV presenter. She was desperate to help when the war started, but felt she \"couldn't shoot or be a soldier\" because she has two small children.\n\nInstead, she asked friends on Instagram to help and now she and 15 volunteers run the group 24 hours a day, checking each message for details, and filtering out duplicates.\n\nKatya says they have helped about 300 people find missing relatives, each one a happy update - a flurry of red hearts, praying and crying emojis - among the channel's endless stream of desperate pleas for information.\n\n\"You receive pictures of happy people on holidays, and their friends and family are writing to us saying that they are missing and the last call was five days ago from a shelter, and there has been a lot of bombing.\"\n\nEmma Shymanovych, who helps run the channel, says the small team of volunteers has been overwhelmed: \"It's extremely painful to read enquiries about lost children, or about children looking for their parents. It's hard to express what we feel.\"\n\nWhen Yulia (left) escaped Mariupol the rest of her family stayed behind\n\nYulia, 25, left her mother, brother and sister behind when she escaped the city of Mariupol with her husband and two-month-old baby: \"The last time I spoke to them, they had not had electricity, water, heating and communications for several days.\"\n\nWhen she couldn't get through to them, Yulia contacted local authorities and friends who might still be in the city to see if they knew anything, but got nowhere, and posted on the Telegram channel.\n\n\"I push the worst thoughts away from me,\" she said. \"I really hope they're safe and they just don't have a connection. I only hope for an immediate ceasefire.\" Not long after we spoke, Yulia sent me a message to tell me her mother had finally been able to make contact, but was still in Mariupol. \"She spoke for just a minute. Thank God!\"\n\nIryna posted a picture of her friend's 23-year-old daughter Julia, after she went missing in Kyiv. \"Her mother was crying constantly,\" she says. She tried asking for news on Facebook and other Telegram channels, eventually turning to Search for the Missing.\n\nJulia had dropped her phone when she was running to a bomb shelter\n\n\"Within 24 hours I started getting responses from people who knew her. Some said they didn't know anything, but then her friends got in touch and said Julia had broken her phone and hadn't been able to make contact.\"\n\nJulia had dropped her phone when she was running to a bomb shelter and she didn't know her mother's phone number off by heart.\n\nThousands more are still trapped in Mariupol. Olga, who lives in Istanbul, posted in the channel after losing contact with her 31-year-old daughter Daria and her two grandchildren Mark, 4, and Lydia, 5, who live there.\n\nOlga has lost contact with her daughter Daria (right) and grandchildren Mark and Lydia\n\nOlga last heard from her daughter on 28 February. In a text message, Daria wrote that a shell had hit their apartment building, and there was no electricity or heating. \"I don't know what to do at all\" the message said. \"I'm scared. The children are dressed, there are a lot of blankets. Mariupol is encircled by the enemy. We have a very bad connection.\"\n\nOlga has almost given up hope of hearing from them. Monday was her daughter's birthday. \"I'm terrified of everything and I never thought that my family would be affected by war\" she says.\n\nOlga, from Bakhmut, posted in the group to try to find news of her daughter, Alice, and eight-month-old grandson, Timofey, in Mariupol. The last she heard from them, they were sheltering with neighbours in the basement of a supermarket without electricity, water or heating.\n\nAlice and Timofey were last heard of sheltering in a supermarket basement\n\nSince then, she has received a message that the building they were hiding in was bombed, and she is anxiously waiting for more news. \"Whether they are alive and where they are now - I don't know.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sala's brother Dario says his brother was the best and he still cannot believe he is dead.\n\nFootballer Emiliano Sala died instantly from \"head and trunk injuries\" when the plane he was in crashed after breaking up mid-air, a jury has found.\n\nThey also concluded he was likely to have been \"deeply unconscious\" from carbon monoxide poisoning on the unlicensed flight.\n\nSala and pilot David Ibbotson died when the plane they were flying in crashed in the English Channel in January 2019.\n\nThe 28-year-old had been flying to Wales from France to join Cardiff City.\n\nDavid Henderson, who arranged the flight, was given an 18-month prison sentence for aviation offences relating to arranging the flight.\n\nThe jury concluded Sala died in the crash having been overcome by toxic levels of carbon monoxide from the aircraft's faulty exhaust system.\n\nThe body of Mr Ibbotson, from Crowle, Lincolnshire, has never been found.\n\nThe plane disappeared from radar near Guernsey on its way to Cardiff from Nantes\n\nSpeaking exclusively to the BBC, Sala's younger brother Dario described the impact his death had on the family.\n\n\"We just couldn't believe it, we couldn't accept it. It was so shocking for us as a family. Even now we can't believe it and we'll never really believe it,\" he said.\n\n\"For me, my brother was always the best, the greatest, even before he became a professional footballer and came over here - he was my brother.\"\n\nDuring the inquest, Dorset Coroner's Court was told Henderson had been investigated for illegal public transport flights before, but he was was not monitored following the initial investigation.\n\nEmiliano Sala had just signed with Cardiff City before the crash\n\nHe arranged for Mr Ibbotson to take the footballer from Cardiff to Nantes and back again, when the plane crashed en-route to Cardiff.\n\nArgentine striker Sala (second left) had just signed for Cardiff City when he died\n\nExplaining how carbon monoxide could have entered the Piper Malibu's cabin, Brian McDermid, who works for the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, said it most likely came from exhaust gases seeping into the cabin through a heating system.\n\nBut, he added, during its last maintenance check \"there was no evidence to suggest that the aircraft was not serviceable or fit to do that flight\".\n\nThe wreckage of the plane was found a month after the crash\n\nIn a statement, Sala's family said the inquest had \"shone a bright light on many of the missed opportunities in the worlds of football and aviation to prevent his tragic death\".\n\n\"The family particularly note the jury's findings that it is likely that both the pilot and Emiliano suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning and that Emiliano was deeply unconscious at the time of the accident, and that the poisoning was caused by a failure in the aircraft exhaust system,\" they added.\n\n\"The family also welcome the coroner's decision to communicate to the relevant authorities her concerns about the safety issues arising from this inquest in order to prevent similar future deaths. No family should have to go through grief from a similar avoidable accident.\"\n\nCoroner for Dorset Rachel Griffin is recommending that the UK Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps consider giving the Civil Aviation Authority more powers to tackle the \"illegality of these flights and the risks associated with them\".\n\nShe is also sending her prevention of future deaths report to the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Nadine Dorries, interested parties and a host of other sporting organisations in order to discourage the use of illegal flights.\n\nDavid Henderson is serving an 18-month prison sentence for his role in arranging the flight\n\nFrench club Nantes and Cardiff have been in dispute over the agreed £15m fee for Sala.\n\nCardiff claimed they were not liable for any of the fee because Sala was not officially their player when he died and refused to make interim payments as they claimed the deal was not legally binding.\n\nThe case is being heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.\n\nCardiff City said it respected the verdict and hoped Sala's family would have \"a sense of peace and closure\".\n\n\"We are pleased that the truth has been firmly established in a court of law, particularly the facts surrounding the organisation of the illegal flight,\" a spokesman added.", "Protests were held over the teenager's treatment at a north London police station\n\nA black pupil who was strip-searched after being wrongly suspected of carrying drugs is suing the Met Police.\n\nThe 15-year-old, also known as Child Q, is also taking civil action against her school, the law firm Bhatt Murphy said.\n\nScotland Yard has apologised after a safeguarding report found the search was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nSpeaking via her lawyers, the girl said she wanted \"cast-iron commitments to ensure this never happens again\".\n\nIn a statement, she said: \"I want to thank the thousands of people across the world of all backgrounds who have offered me support - both publicly and through messages conveyed to my legal team - following everything I've been through.\n\nHundreds of people attended a protest organised by Hackney Cop Watch at Stoke Newington police station.\n\nThe protest started at 16:00 GMT on Friday\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nNo other adult was present and her parents were not contacted.\n\nHer intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review. No drugs were found.\n\nThe victim's mother told the safeguarding review that after the strip-search, her daughter had been \"asked to go back into the exam\" she had been sitting with no teacher asking about her welfare.\n\nHer family said the girl had changed from \"top of the class\" to \"a shell of her former bubbly self\", and she was now self-harming and required therapy.\n\nOne of Friday's protesters told the BBC \"she can't even fathom\" the \"disgusting\" treatment of the teenager.\n\nShe said: \"What they did to that child has brought tears to my eyes every day because I'm thinking 'could that have been my daughter once upon a time, could that be my granddaughter?\"\n\nThe Met Police's treatment of the pupil has provoked anger\n\nLondon's mayor Sadiq Khan has written to the head of the police watchdog urging them to consider a case of gross misconduct.\n\nHowever, the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said its investigation was complete and its report was being \"finalised\".\n\nIt added three police constables had been served with notices last year advising them they were under investigation for misconduct, \"over their roles in either carrying out the strip search or involvement in supervising it\".\n\nScotland Yard has said the officers' actions were \"truly regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nMet Police Commander Dr Alison Heydari said: \"While we await the findings of the IOPC investigation, we have already taken action to ensure that our officers and staff have a refreshed understanding of the policy for conducting a 'further search' and advice around dealing with schools, ensuring that children are treated as children.\"\n\n\"We love you Child Q… and we pray for resolve. Keep your head up\".\n\nThat was the message of solidarity from Ayesha, one mother on this march.\n\nHundreds of people stood outside Stoke Newington police station, holding placards and banners. The crowds stopped traffic and buses were diverted.\n\n\"No police in schools\" and \"schools + cops = violence\" were some of the messages people posted on the walls of the police station.\n\nAmid chants of \"protect black girls\", nearby cars beeped their horns. Hackney MP Diane Abbott spoke of a community \"confronted by brutality from police officers all over again\".\n\nSeveral other people made speeches and demanded justice. But while there's a clear sense of anger, this is also a community feeling traumatised.\n\nMany here say they are worried about the current safeguarding measures in place in schools.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Joanne Tulip was murdered by Steven Ling on Christmas Day 1997 in Stamfordham, Northumberland\n\nA bid to move the killer of Joanne Tulip to an open prison has been blocked by Dominic Raab.\n\nThe Justice Secretary rejected the transfer of Steven Ling, overruling a Parole Board recommendation.\n\nLing was jailed for life in December 1998 after he admitted to the murder of Ms Tulip in Stamfordham, Northumberland, on Christmas Day 1997.\n\nA spokesman for Mr Raab said he had acted \"in the interest of public protection\".\n\nThis is the first intervention of its kind made by the Justice Secretary after he promised to personally review requests to move high-risk offenders to open prisons.\n\nSteven Ling was jailed for a minimum of 20 years in 1998\n\nLing, 23 at the time, stabbed 29-year-old Ms Tulip 60 times at his home, having met her at a pub earlier in the day.\n\nParole Board papers said the panel assessing his case \"took account of Mr Ling's consistent good behaviour in prison over many years and his good working relationships with professional staff\", noting he had participated in programmes to address his behaviour.\n\nThey did not think he was suitable for release, but had recommended a move to \"open conditions\", which the justice secretary rejected.\n\nNow 47, this was Ling's fourth review before the Parole Board, with a similar request being blocked by Ministry of Justice officials in 2020 when his case last came up.\n\nHe will be eligible for another parole review in two years' time.\n\nLing was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court and initially ordered to serve at least 20 years in prison, However, the minimum term was reduced to 18 by a High Court judge.\n\nLast month Ms Tulip's mother, Doreen Soulsby, said she believed her daughter's killer was still \"a very dangerous man\".\n\nShe said her family felt \"terrified and devastated\" Ling was even being considered for a move to an open prison.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The American space agency has rolled out its new giant Moon rocket for the first time.\n\nThe vehicle, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), was taken to Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to conduct a dummy countdown.\n\nIf that goes well, the rocket will be declared ready for a mission in which it will send an uncrewed test capsule around the Moon.\n\nThis could happen in the next couple of months.\n\nBill Nelson was a prime mover behind the rocket when he was a US Senator\n\nUltimately, it's hoped astronauts would climb aboard later SLS rockets to return to the Moon's surface sometime in the second half of this decade.\n\nThese missions are part of what Nasa calls its Artemis programme.\n\nWatching the roll-out, agency administrator Bill Nelson said we were entering a golden era of human space exploration.\n\n\"The Artemis generation is preparing to reach new frontiers,\" he told the spectator crowds gathered at Kennedy.\n\n\"This generation will return astronauts to the Moon and this time, we will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the surface, to conduct ground-breaking science.\n\n\"Nasa's Artemis programme will pave the way for humanity's giant leap (to) future missions to Mars.\"\n\nThe Crawler Transporter is now more than 50 years old\n\nSLS is a colossus. A touch under 100m in height, it was designed to be more powerful than the Apollo Saturn vehicles of the late 1960s and early 1970s.\n\nIt will have the thrust to not only send astronauts far beyond Earth but additionally so much equipment and cargo that those crews could stay away for extended periods.\n\nThursday's rollout from Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is the rocket's debut in the sense that it's the very first time everyone has got to see all its different elements fully stacked together.\n\nThe rocket uses a lot of technology repurposed from the space shuttle programme\n\nThe SLS move from the VAB began 17:47 local Florida time.\n\nThe rocket came out attached to a support gantry known as the Mobile Launcher. This structure, which is itself 120m high and weighs 5,000 tonnes, was sitting atop the same mammoth tractor that used to move the Saturn Vs back in the day, and later the space shuttles.\n\nThe Crawler Transporter goes very slowly, with a cruising speed of just over 1km/h (under 1mph). And after engineers had stopped and started the tractor for various checks, it was 04:15 on Friday morning by the time the procession had reached Pad 39B. A total journey distance of 6.75km.\n\nSLS will now be prepared for a \"wet dress rehearsal\", likely to occur on 3 April.\n\nThis will see the rocket loaded with propellants and taken through a practice countdown all the way to a mere 9.4 seconds from the moment of lift-off. The \"scrub\" point is just before they would normally light the four big shuttle-era engines under the rocket.\n\nAssuming everything proceeds to the satisfaction of the engineers, Nasa will then be able to set a flight date.\n\nThe end of May remains a possibility, but more likely it will be June or July.\n\nThis mission, dubbed Artemis-1, will propel the rocket's Orion crew capsule on a 26-day journey that includes an expanded orbit around the Moon. There will be no-one in the capsule for the test flight. This should happen on a second mission in a couple of years' time.\n\nThe Moon is the initial target, but eventually Nasa wants to get people to Mars\n\nWhile Nasa is developing the SLS, the American rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk is preparing an even larger vehicle at his R&D facility in Texas.\n\nHe calls his giant rocket the Starship. Like SLS it has yet to have a maiden flight. Unlike SLS, Starship has been designed to be totally reusable and ought therefore to be considerably cheaper to operate.\n\nA recent assessment from the Office of Inspector General, which audits Nasa programmes, found that the first four SLS missions would each cost more than $4bn to execute - a sum of money that was described as \"unsustainable\".", "While Russian advances across Ukraine have slowed in recent days, people in the strategic port city of Odesa are preparing for an expected and imminent Russian attack.\n\nDecision-time is fast approaching in Odesa. As Russian warships circle off the coast, air-raid sirens wail over the cobbled streets, and Russian ground forces seek to advance west along the shores of the Black Sea, civilians in this historic, famously cosmopolitan port city are facing the same hard and urgent choices that millions of other Ukrainians have already confronted.\n\nSome residents have left Odesa, heading west towards the nearby border with Moldova or taking a crowded train north to Lviv. The city's elegant boulevards, with their cafes, trams, and theatres, now stand mostly empty and littered with tank traps, while protective sandbags crowd around some of the most famous monuments.\n\nBut like many Odesans, Valentin Kartashova is staying put - for now. She runs a state orphanage, looking after 90 children, including both newborns and 18 others with severe disabilities.\n\n\"These children are dependent on oxygen, on respiratory support to keep them alive. I've had many offers of help from abroad. But they want to meet us at the border. I can't take these children by train or car. How can I move them from here? Must I leave them? Must I abandon them? And only take the healthy ones?\" asks Kartashova, shaking her head.\n\nChildren at the city's state-run orphanage will remain in the city, unless they come under direct fire\n\nShe's prepared a cellar in the orphanage compound, with supplies to last a week or more, and has decided the children will be safer staying in Odesa, unless they come under direct fire.\n\nA few miles closer to the city centre, Olga Pavlova has also reached a similar decision.\n\n\"I'm afraid - and not only me. I think other people are just as afraid of the situation. But we'll stay here. We love our city and we'll stay. I've become a volunteer. Who else will feed the animals?\" says Pavlova, a veterinarian scientist who works at Odesa's municipal zoo.\n\nHundreds of families have already left pets at the zoo before fleeing, but almost all the staff have decided to remain at work.\n\n\"We've decided it is better to stay put. The animals are our responsibility. We'll win this war soon, I believe. People will return and we need to make sure the zoo is still here, and the theatres, the libraries. We need to guard all that - to protect our culture,\" says the zoo's director, Igor Beliakov. He explains that some of the more nervous animals - a 43-year-old African elephant known as Daisy, several bears, and zebras - are being kept inside in case the sound of explosions makes them panic.\n\nPlaying their regular game of chess in a park near the city's Russian Orthodox cathedral, in sub-zero temperatures, two ethnic Russian pensioners, Alexander Nikrasov and Nikolai Ivanov, describe the invasion as \"worse than the Nazis\", who occupied Odesa during World War Two.\n\n\"At least the Germans didn't destroy the city when they left Odesa, but now there's every chance it will be destroyed,\" says Ivanov.\n\n\"Mykolaiv [a city under Russian attack, to the east] is already suffering for defending us. Of course, the war will come here. People are dying in their thousands and for what? Because Putin wants to take something from us?\" asks Nikrasov, brandishing a walking stick which he calls, \"my only weapon.\"\n\nSpeaking by phone from Italy, one of Odesa's most renowned Russian-speaking poets, Boris Khersonsky, says he is \"not a refugee\", but left the city a few days earlier after receiving a literary invitation.\n\n\"It's a really difficult decision. What do you have to keep you in Odesa? What is waiting for you abroad?\" says Khersonsky, adding that he plans to return imminently, assuming the city remains under Ukrainian control.\n\n\"If the city is under Putin's rule, I won't return. If Putin succeeds in capturing Mykolaiv then he has a straight path to Odesa. It's always been a volatile city with a big cultural heritage. Over the years, many writers - who are the glory of Odesa - have left. Odesa can give birth to talent, but very often it doesn't take care of it,\" he says.\n\nAs in so much of Ukraine, many people are volunteering to join the local defence forces.\n\n\"I love my country. I want to live in a free country. Russian is my language, but now Russia is the enemy. Maybe it's a surprise, but maybe it was expected,\" says Ruslan Prihodka, who usually works in a chemist, but is now learning to assemble an AK47 in a classroom near the city centre.\n\n\"I don't know how to fight yet. But we'll have to do our best. Maybe there's something wrong in Putin's head,\" says Dima, a construction worker, standing nearby.\n\nDuring one air raid, volunteers working at a food-collection centre near the city's grand old opera house rushed to the basement, where a local singer brought out a guitar to play Ukrainian folk songs.\n\n\"Having watched how Russian forces have already destroyed other historic towns like Kharkiv, I have no hope that our Russian heritage will spare us from their bombs,\" says Alexei Kostrzhitski, an IT expert now serving as a captain in a local defence group.\n\n\"Mariupol and Kharkiv are very pro-Russian cities,\" adds a young city councillor, Petro Obukhov. \"Most citizens here speak in Russian not Ukrainian. And still Putin bombs them. It makes no sense but still I hope he will not bomb us.\"", "One of the burglaries is said to have happened at Claridge's in Mayfair\n\nA 12-year-old boy has denied carrying out a 10-month burglary spree at some of London's top hotels.\n\nThe boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is charged with 14 counts of burglary, including at Claridge's in Mayfair, the Four Seasons in Park Lane and the Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall.\n\nHis 13-year-old brother, who also cannot be named, is accused of being involved in three of the burglaries.\n\nThe pair pleaded not guilty to all charges before Westminster magistrates.\n\nDue to their age, the siblings, from west London, were joined in the dock by their mother.\n\nThe 12-year-old is also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit burglary during the alleged spree, between April 2021 and February this year.\n\nHis brother is charged with three counts of burglary between September 2021 and February 2022 and one count of conspiring to commit burglary between April 2021 and February this year.\n\nAn adult co-defendant, Shane McCarthy, 19, faces 11 charges, nine counts of burglary, one of theft and one of conspiracy to commit burglary between April 2021 and February this year. He also denies all charges.\n\nHis case was sent to Isleworth Crown Court where he is due to appear on 14 April.\n\nMagistrate Alan Elias released him on unconditional bail until then.\n\nThe boys were released on bail until 28 March when they will appear at Highbury Corner Youth Court.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Saint dropped out of football because she was the only girl\n\nTeenage girls sleep and exercise less than boys, and are three times as likely to report struggling with their mental health, a study suggests.\n\nThose are among findings drawn from the experiences of almost 40,000 teenagers across Greater Manchester.\n\nYoung people worked with academics to devise a questionnaire for the BeeWell research project.\n\nIt is thought to be the largest attempt to analyse young people's wellbeing in one region, and runs for three years.\n\nSaint, one of the Year 10 pupils who responded, wasn't surprised the first results reveal some marked differences between the experiences of girls and boys.\n\nGirls were three times as likely - at 22% - to report serious emotional difficulties, as boys at 7%.\n\nSaint, who wants to be a scientist, dropped out of football because she had had enough of feeling unwelcome as the only girl.\n\nShe said: \"I think a lot of it today is about looking good for other people, being who other people expect you to be - the perfect girl. Especially today when lots of people are questioning who they are, and their identity.\"\n\nShe said there was pressure to construct a life that looks busy, even if you don't have people you can talk to properly in reality.\n\nSocial media use was higher among girls, an average of 4.8 hours a day, and 46% reported not getting enough sleep.\n\nThe teenagers I spoke to said social media could be a source of support, but also added to the pressures on girls around body image.\n\nRuby said girls struggled more with confidence issues\n\nAcross the city, Ruby, another Year 10 pupil, said confidence was an issue.\n\n\"I think it's clear, it is more in women to struggle more. In my opinion boys can be cocky with the things they know and it puts other people down.\"\n\nSo do boys feel they have more freedom?\n\nTwo Year 8 boys told me they thought that was true, not least in sport because the choice for boys is wider.\n\nSaad thinks boys have more licence to mess around\n\nSaad said he thought boys had much more leeway to be \"mischievous\" and mess around.\n\nOverall a third of the teenagers reported being active for an hour a day, including just walking, but for girls that fell to just 26%.\n\nResearchers think it's also possible there is less space for boys to express vulnerability.\n\nAhmed, who doesn't really use social media, said: \"As boys we express our emotions less, we're expected to be stoic.\"\n\nThe research will be analysed to show the differences in wellbeing between different neighbourhoods across the city region.\n\nThat could be revealing in the contrast between wealthier and more deprived areas, but also the many different communities in a big urban area.\n\nA year 8 pupil Maria told me she was allowed to go to friends and to the shops on her own, but many other girls aren't.\n\nThe generational shift in issues around identity and gender are also apparent in the study, with 2.7% identifying as gay or lesbian and a further 7.7% as bi or pansexual.\n\nSaint said: \"I don't think it really surprises me at all. As celebrities, for example, have decided who they are, it's become easier for young people to look at the people they admire and think it's OK to express myself.\n\n\"It's more common now for people to ask themselves who they think they are at a younger age.\"\n\nAhmed, pictured with Maria, said he thinks boys may have more freedom, but are expected to control their emotions\n\nThe findings in this research suggest teenagers identifying as gay or lesbian are twice as likely to be bullied in some way.\n\nAhmed said: \"If you're LGBT you might be harassed. I think identity plays a really big part in society.\"\n\nProf Neil Humphrey, from the University of Manchester, said what made BeeWell different was the involvement of 150 teenagers in designing the research questions.\n\nInsights have already been fed back in confidence to all the secondary schools which took part to inform their welfare policies.\n\nA breakdown of the data by neighbourhoods will be used to select some for further pilot projects in which young people will have a budget to direct on improving local wellbeing.\n\n\"We are about immediate impact and insights into the lives of young people,\" he said.", "President Zelensky has accused Russia of intentionally bombing a theatre sheltering civilians in the besieged city of Mariupol.\n\nMoscow denies claims it bombed a theatre where people were hiding, with the Russian word for \"children\" written on the ground outside the building.", "The Ukrainian leader expressed outrage that some German companies were still operating in Russia\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told German MPs that a new type of Berlin Wall is being built, dividing Europe between freedom and oppression.\n\nHe thanked Germany for its support during Russia's invasion.\n\nBut it was uncomfortable listening for many MPs as he criticised German energy policy and business interests for contributing to that wall of division.\n\nOver the past week, Mr Zelensky has given a master class in how to pitch his message to allies.\n\nOn Wednesday, he addressed US Congress, referring to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terror attacks. On Tuesday he asked Canada's parliament to envisage bombs and missiles falling on Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton.\n\nLast week, his address to the House of Commons in London was partly a homage to Winston Churchill's wartime speeches.\n\nHis emotive speech to the German parliament, the Bundestag, was equally tailored to appeal to his audience with well-chosen historical parallels. Some of his audience grew up in communist East Germany behind the Berlin Wall.\n\nDuring the Cold War, Germany's dogged negotiation and engagement with Moscow contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification.\n\nSince then Germany has tried to use trade, business and energy links to integrate a peaceful Russia into the West.\n\nBut Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago has destroyed many of those aspirations. The general political consensus in Germany now is that this may have been the wrong approach with Mr Putin's increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic government.\n\nPresident Zelensky expressed outrage that some German businesses were still operating in Russia. The controversial, now cancelled, Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 was \"cement for that new wall\" dividing Europe, he said. Germany's continued reluctance to allow Ukraine into the European Union was \"another brick\" in that new wall.\n\n\"Dear Mr Scholz, tear down this wall,\" he demanded of the German chancellor, repeating US President Ronald Reagan's historic demand to the Soviets in 1987 as he stood beside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.\n\nMany German ministers listening will agree with him. The Green Party, which in the new governing coalition is now responsible for energy policy within the powerful Economy Ministry, has for years been campaigning against Nord Stream 2.\n\nEven those who once supported the pipeline have changed their minds. Until recently Mr Scholz still referred to it as an non-political business matter.\n\nBut as Russian troops gathered on Ukraine's borders, shortly before the invasion, he unexpectedly announced the newly finished pipeline would not be opening after all.\n\nUsing another German Cold War analogy, in his speech President Zelensky said that Ukraine needed an airlift, and a no-fly zone to protect it, just as Cold War West Berlin had been saved by the Allied airlift in 1948-49.\n\nHe also reminded Germany of its responsibility to make up for Nazi crimes in Ukraine, saying Ukrainian towns and cities were being destroyed for the second time in 80 years.\n\nThis was a well-judged comment - Germany does guilt well. But for now there is no time for national bouts of repentance and soul searching.\n\nPresident Zelensky's speech was greeted by long applause and standing ovations.\n\nThe main opposition party, the conservative CDU, expressed outrage that after the address the chamber went on to discuss normal parliamentary business, instead of debating the war in Ukraine. The transition certainly jarred as the parliamentary president announced, amid booing from opposition MPs, a scheduled birthday congratulation message.\n\nPressure is growing from Ukraine, and from German voters, to end German reliance on Russian energy imports.\n\nThe German government is planning to stop imports of Russian oil and coal this year, with an end to Russian gas as soon as other sources are found. Berlin argues that a sudden ban would harm Germany more than Russia, sparking mass unemployment here.\n\nGerman Economy Minister Robert Habeck is now on a whirlwind global tour to drum up energy from elsewhere. After a visit to Norway yesterday, he announced a deal to boost imports of Norwegian gas and this week he'll fly to Qatar.\n\nThis may not satisfy German voters. In polls a majority say they want an instant embargo on Russian energy. But then it may be impossible to fulfil the electorate's demands - in other surveys an overwhelming majority of German voters also say that energy costs are already too high.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Surrogate babies waiting for parents in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine", "Operations manager Glen Pearce said you could get \"lost in a landscape\" on-site\n\nA \"rare chance\" to become the sole ferry operator for a former nuclear weapons testing island has become available.\n\nOrford Ness, a spit located just off the Suffolk coast, was used as a secret military test site during the Cold War.\n\nIt is now a National Trust coastal nature reserve with testing site buildings people can visit.\n\nThe ferry operator role would involve operating the ferry, a powerboat and a rowing boat across the River Ore.\n\nThe National Trust said this \"rare chance\" was for an \"experienced\" sailor.\n\nThere is something \"special\" about welcoming people to the reserve, Orford Ness boat supervisor Guy Brown said\n\nThe National Trust said it was one of the few sites in the UK where facilities were built for the purpose of testing nuclear weapons' components.\n\nHowever, the work that was carried out on the island by the military remains secret, it said.\n\nOrford Ness was used by the military from 1918 to the 1980s, said Glen Pearce, property operations manager for the site.\n\nThe Atomic Weapons Research Establishment on the island used to test bomb casing for nuclear bombs, he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The trust says the successful ferry operator needs a \"sense of humour\" to deal with the weather\n\nIt is \"quite a dangerous site\", Guy Brown, Orford Ness boat supervisor, said.\n\nHe said Orford Ness was used for \"environmental testing for the triggers for nuclear weapons, so making sure they didn't go off when they weren't supposed to\".\n\n\"There's still a huge amount that we don't know about the site,\" Mr Brown said, and \"we'll probably never know\" the work that the buildings and infrastructure on the island were involved in.\n\nThe ferry operator would be expected to help maintain the listed buildings and scheduled monuments on the site during the winter.\n\n\"You've got to have a sense of humour to deal with the weather, keep morale up when waves are breaking into your face, but if you treat it like a rollercoaster then it's really not that bad,\" said Mr Brown.\n\nThe National Trust ferry takes visitors onto the Ness throughout much of the year\n\nThe site required the new ferry operator to be an \"all-rounder\", Mr Pearce said.\n\n\"One day you could be operating the boat, the next day you could be chasing our rare breed sheep, you could be helping repairing some of the buildings.\n\n\"You have to be prepared to work here when the wind is blowing, it's -4C, and horizontal hail in your face.\n\n\"It's a privilege to work here,\" he added.\n\nApplications for the role close on 27 March and the successful applicant will start work in April when Orford Ness reopens to visitors for the season.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Turkey has positioned itself with great care to be the go-between with Russia and Ukraine - and this seems to be paying off.\n\nOn Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.\n\nWithin half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan's leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.\n\nThe Russian demands fall into two categories.\n\nThe first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.\n\nChief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.\n\nThere are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.\n\nUkraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.\n\nThis is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nThe second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr Zelensky has already said he's prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.\n\nMr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.\n\nAlthough Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.\n\nThe other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.\n\nNevertheless, it is a fait accompli, even though Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.\n\nIbrahim Kalin was one of the few people to listen in on the phone call between Russia and Turkey's leaders\n\nStill, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction which Russia has visited on Ukraine.\n\nGiven his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory.\n\nFor Ukraine, though, there are going to be serious anxieties.\n\nIf the fine details of any agreement aren't sorted out with immense care, President Putin or his successors could always use them as an excuse to invade Ukraine again.\n\nA peace deal could take a long time to sort out, even if a ceasefire stops the bloodshed in the meantime.\n\nUkraine has suffered appallingly over the past few weeks, and rebuilding the towns and cities which Russia has damaged and destroyed will take a long time. So will rehousing the millions of refugees who have fled their homes.\n\nWhat about Vladimir Putin himself? There have been suggestions that he is ill, or possibly even mentally unbalanced. Did Mr Kalin detect anything strange about him in the phone call? Not at all, he said. Mr Putin had apparently been clear and concise in everything he said.\n\nYet even if he does manage to present an agreement with Ukraine as a glorious victory over neo-Nazism, his position at home must be weakened.\n\nMore and more people will realise that he overreached himself badly, and stories of the soldiers who have been killed or captured are already spreading fast.", "Ben Wallace and Priti Patel are leading members of the cabinet\n\nTwo UK ministers have revealed they have been targeted with hoax calls linked to the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace blamed Russian \"dirty tricks\" after revealing a man had called him earlier pretending to be Ukraine's prime minister.\n\nHe became suspicious and ended the call after the \"imposter\" posed \"several misleading questions\", he said.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel then tweeted that she had received a similar call earlier this week.\n\nThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Mr Wallace had ordered an immediate inquiry into what happened.\n\nIt was not immediately clear who was behind the call, but Mr Wallace linked the incident to Russia and President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nIn a tweet about the call, Mr Wallace wrote: \"No amount of Russian disinformation, distortion and dirty tricks can distract from Russia's human rights abuses and illegal invasion of Ukraine. A desperate attempt.\"\n\nReplying to him shortly afterwards, Ms Patel said: \"This also happened to me earlier this week. Pathetic attempt at such difficult times to divide us. We stand with Ukraine\".\n\nA Ministry of Defence source said it was a \"fairly sophisticated\" video call that was not made to Mr Wallace's own mobile phone.\n\nThe source said the call came to him via \"another government department\", which added to its credibility.\n\nIt is understood that Mr Wallace was put through to a Microsoft Teams video call which lasted about 10 minutes.\n\nThe video call was set up after an email, purportedly from an aide at the Ukrainian embassy in London, was sent to a government department and then forwarded to the Ministry of Defence.\n\nThe BBC has been told that the call to Mr Wallace involved someone posing as Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in front of a Ukrainian flag, who asked a range of \"wild questions\".\n\nMr Shmyhal later replied to Mr Wallace in a tweet, writing: \"Despite all attempts of Russian disinformation, the world can see that the truth is behind Ukraine.\"\n\nDenys Shmyhal, shown here at a press conference in January, has been Ukraine's PM since March 2020\n\nDuring the call, Mr Wallace was asked about Nato and the state of the negotiations taking place between Ukraine and Russia, the defence source added.\n\nMr Wallace was apparently asked about whether the UK would send warships to the Black Sea, and if Ukraine should get nuclear weapons.\n\nThe defence secretary was also apparently asked about the prospect of Ukraine dropping its ambition to join Nato and becoming a \"neutral\" state.\n\nThe defence source said Mr Wallace \"was asked leading questions to encourage inappropriate comments\" but he \"didn't say anything that was not factual or appropriate\".\n\nBut defence sources say they are concerned that there may be an attempt to distort or edit Mr Wallace's answers before he terminated the call.\n\nMr Wallace was on a visit to the Polish capital Warsaw when he shared the tweet about the hoax call.\n\nThe calls come at a time of sensitive peace talks between Ukraine and Russia as the war launched by President Vladimir Putin three weeks ago exacts an ever-higher human cost.\n\nThe UK government has been providing military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine while imposing punishing economic sanctions on Russia.\n\nSince the war started, there have been regular conversations between British and Ukrainian ministers, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.", "Anna Kozachenko's Milk Bar is producing 500 free meals per day to help feed people in Kyiv\n\nKyiv restaurant the Milk Bar used to charge £12 a meal, now it's producing 500 meals a day for free to help feed the citizens of the Ukrainian capital.\n\nThe restaurant has not been able to pay its staff since February but it still has 20 people working there.\n\n\"We are all just thinking about people and the community right now,\" bakery owner Anna Kozachenko said.\n\nHers is just one of the food businesses stepping up to support Ukrainians following the invasion by Russia.\n\n\"I'm not even thinking about the financial losses,\" said Ms Kozachenko.\n\nThe staff who have stayed with the firm are now working around the clock to deliver meals to the elderly and refugees from invaded areas outside Kyiv.\n\nLarge food suppliers have provided food to the restaurant for free and have promised to do so for \"as long as it is needed\". The landlord has also suspended rent for the restaurant.\n\nThe Milk Bar is one of more than 450 restaurants that have transformed their businesses to help feed anyone who needs it following Russia's invasion of Ukraine - people sheltering in bunkers, the elderly unable to leave their home, and those fighting on the front lines.\n\nOne larger firm, LaFamiglia Group, which has 14 restaurants, a catering business and 17 food markets, has also now switched to providing shelters, food and medical supplies.\n\nThe business, which made tens of millions in dollars in sales last year, is now providing more than 8,000 snacks and sandwiches and more than 5,000 hot meals each day for free.\n\nOwner Mikhail Beylin told the BBC suppliers were providing lots of food for free and the rest was being sold at cost, with them not making a profit from it.\n\nThe restaurant is using its own money to cover any additional costs.\n\nVino e Cucina restaurant in Kyiv before the war\n\nMr Beylin said the war had made getting food to and from the restaurant \"complicated\" and there are fears that they could run out of supplies.\n\n\"Now the supply we get is enough to cover the demand and create a small back-up of products in case we face a scarcity,\" he added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mikhail Beylin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"Our chefs remain in the middle of military zones to provide our people with food.\"\n\n\"It's not the time to worry about finances, profits and margins, now is the time for actions that are required of everyone in order to stop further destruction of lives.\"\n\nAnna Kozachenko at the bakery before the war\n\nPizzeria owner Ruslan Buriak has 60 volunteers working around the clock at his kitchens in the central-eastern city of Dnipro, which was first targeted by Russian air strikes last week.\n\nThe kitchens are producing about 1,000 meals each day for the local population and has been relying on free pasta, oils and meat from local farmers. Like the Milk Bar, Mr Buriak also makes deliveries to elderly people and those unable to leave their homes.\n\n\"We have around one week of stock left and the volunteer chefs need money to get buses to work,\" Mr Buriak explained.\n\n\"We're like a family now and everyone is doing their best to help.\"\n\nOne of Ukraine's biggest food producers MHP, which grows and distributes wheat, is helping restaurants to keep going and feed people during the conflict, including Mr Beylin's chain. It employs more than 30,000 workers across Ukraine.\n\nIt has delivered food to isolated communities across the country, but the invasion means some parts of Ukraine where it would normally sow wheat are now inaccessible.\n\n\"If this continues, of course our ability to sow rapidly diminishes, particularly if they (the Russian army) moves into the west of the country where a large part of our operations are based\", MHP boss Dr John Rich told the BBC.\n\nOwner of the LaFamiglia Group of restaurants, Mikhail Beylin\n\nThis would have an impact which reaches far beyond Ukraine. Some 30% of the world's wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia. The majority of Ukraine's wheat and corn exports went to the Middle East or Africa last year - and disruptions to supply could affect availability in these areas.\n\nIf grain production is hampered, analysts have warned supplies may struggle to keep up with demand, meaning wheat prices could rise across the globe.\n\nIn the meantime, the government is doing what it can to help financially. It has restarted support schemes put in place to help restaurants cope with the Covid pandemic.\n\nDr Tymofii Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics, expects the government to take a larger role in supporting the country's firms as they switch from making sales and profit to trying to help the country's people survive the war.\n\n\"Many restaurants have now run out of money but the government is providing relief and co-ordinating people's demand as we continue into a war economy,\" Dr Mylovanov said.\n\nMeanwhile MHP has also appealed for donations to its charitable foundation so it can continue to distribute food.\n\nPreparing food containers at the pizzeria in Dnipro\n\nBack in Dnipro, Mr Buriak's landlord has also halted rent, water and electricity bills to help support the pizzeria and people are continuing to volunteer their time for free.\n\nMr Buriak plans to keep feeding Dnipro for as long as stocks remain.\n\n\"We will keep going until the end of this situation but no one knows how long this will take.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nCivilians are said to be emerging alive from the ruins of a theatre that, according to Ukrainian authorities, was bombed by Russia in the city of Mariupol. Despite pictures of devastation at the scene, many who were sheltering there are thought to have survived in a basement that withstood Wednesday's attack.\n\nFor 10 days, that basement was a refuge for Kate, a 38-year-old Mariupol native, and her son, who is 17. Their own home, like many others in the besieged city, had been destroyed by Russian attacks, and they thought the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama was a place where they would be relatively safe.\n\nMother and son squeezed in the building's dark rooms, corridors and halls with dozens of other families. Some women, Kate said, carried babies that were just four or five months old.\n\n\"In the beginning, it was really tough, because we didn't have a well-organised food supply. So on the first two days, adults didn't have any food,\" Kate, who used to work at the city's zoo shop and did not want to give her full name, said. \"We gave food only to the children.\"\n\nThey slept on improvised beds made with soft parts of auditorium seats which had been put together on the floor. The seats made of wood, she said, were cut in parts and used as firewood for them to cook. \"Around the theatre there wasn't enough trees we could use, and it was too dangerous to go outside\".\n\nFor almost three weeks, Mariupol has been under constant shelling by Russian forces, which have completely surrounded the city. About 300,000 people are trapped, with no electricity, gas or running water. Food and medicine are running low, as Russia has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nFour days after she arrived, Kate said, Ukrainian forces managed to send some food supplies and a field kitchen to the theatre, and \"we [started] cooking something\". They would have soup, and sometimes oatmeal, for lunch, and tea with biscuits for dinner.\n\nThe imposing Soviet-era building in Mariupol's city centre, next to the Sea of Azov waterfront, had been designated as a shelter for civilians. Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, said up to 1,200 people had been there. Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with evacuees, put that number at between 500 and 800.\n\nAs Russia's relentless assault continued, Kate said the buildings around the theatre had been either damaged or destroyed. \"We knew we had to run away because something terrible would happen soon,\" she said.\n\nA day before the attack, Kate and her son left the site. \"We jumped in a car while the theatre and the area were being shelled,\" she said. They shared the vehicle with a family of four, who had brought four dogs and a cat.\n\n\"We asked to go with them, because we didn't have our own [car],\" she said. They were part of convoy of about 2,000 cars that escaped Mariupol on Tuesday.\n\nMariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack \"deliberate and cynical\". Russia denied it had targeted the site but, in Mariupol alone, its attacks had already hit several civilian buildings including a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks.\n\nSatellite images released by the US company Maxar taken on Monday showed that the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters in two locations outside the building, to warn Russian jets away.\n\nA convoy of cars carrying evacuees from Mariupol arrives in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nVideo of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the building's collapsed façade. But with communications with the city almost completely cut off, the numbers of survivors or possible casualties were still not clear, almost 20 hours later.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and originally from Mariupol, said the shelter in the basement of the building withstood the attack, and that teams were trying to clear the rubble which covered the entrance to the site. \"It looks like most of them have survived and are OK,\" he said.\n\nBut the rescue efforts were tricky, he said, as Russia had continued to attack the area. \"Shelling never stops and artillery never stops and airplanes are dropping bombs,\" he said, \"so it's really difficult\".\n\nThe city council estimates about 80% to 90% of the city's buildings have either been damaged or destroyed by Russia, which has attacked the city almost non-stop since it invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned into wasteland.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAfter leaving Mariupol, Kate was headed to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, a region that has been largely spared of attacks. \"The first day after we managed to get out, I couldn't talk. We all just cried\", she said. \"But now it feels like there are no tears left. I don't think this pain will ever disappear.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Wayne Couzens admitted the murder, kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard last year\n\nSarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens has been charged with four counts of indecent exposure.\n\nThe alleged offences are said to have taken place between January and February 2021, when Couzens was a serving Metropolitan Police officer.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the alleged offences predate the murder of Ms Everard, who was killed in March 2021.\n\nCouzens will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 13 April.\n\nThe 49-year-old is serving a whole-life tariff for the abduction, rape and murder of Ms Everard.\n\nMet detectives said the charges relate to a series of alleged sexual offences in Swanley, Kent, including on Valentine's Day last year.\n\nThe body of Sarah Everard was found hidden in woodland in Kent days after she was reported missing\n\nOther dates of alleged indecent exposure include between 22 January and 1 February; between 30 January and 6 February and on 27 February.\n\nRosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS special crime division, said: \"Following a referral of evidence by the Metropolitan Police, the CPS has authorised four charges of indecent exposure against Wayne Couzens.\"\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk", "Micheál Martin and Joe Biden met virtually after Mr Martin tested positive for Covid\n\nUS President Joe Biden has warned that too much \"blood, sweat and tears\" have been shed on the Good Friday Agreement to change it now.\n\nHe also praised the Irish government's response to the Ukrainian conflict in bringing in 7,000 refugees.\n\nThe president was speaking during a virtual meeting with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin to celebrate St Patrick's Day.\n\nThe talks were held remotely after Mr Martin tested positive for Covid.\n\nPresident Biden said he was disappointed the two leaders could not meet in person.\n\nIn reply the taoiseach said they met virtually last year across the Atlantic because of the pandemic and now they year were meeting virtually across the road.\n\nPresident Biden then reaffirmed his government support for the Good Friday Agreement, the deal which ended the worst of almost 30 years of violence known as the Troubles.\n\n\"I want to emphasise this administration's unequivocal support for the Good Friday accord,\" he said\n\n\"I think too much blood, sweat and tears have been shed to get that done. And this is no time to change it.\"\n\nBoth leaders also talked about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the taoiseach praised the president's \"firm and measured\" response to the war\n\nPresident Biden said he was impressed with the Republic of Ireland's response in brining in more than 7,000 Ukrainian refugees.\n\nMr Martin had to isolate after he was informed of a positive Covid test while attending the Ireland Fund dinner in Washington on Wednesday night.\n\nAt the time he was sitting alongside House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other guests.\n\nThe taoiseach had been due to receive an international leadership award at the event.\n\nHowever, when the moment arrived Ireland's Ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall, took to the stage and confirmed the positive test.\n\nHe said Mr Martin had tested negative but then was re-tested after a member of his delegation received a positive result.\n\nHe said the taoiseach had re-tested out of an \"abundance of caution\" and added that he was in \"good form\" but very disappointed.\n\n\"It is a sad thing which I have to do which is to deliver the taoiseach's speech on his behalf,\" he said.\n\nSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood, who was at the dinner, said it was a big blow for the taoiseach.\n\n\"It is very sad. This is a major event for any taoiseach, going into the White House on St Patrick's Day, and that now won't happen. I feel very sorry for him,\" he said\n\nHe said the news had left everyone \"deflated\" at the dinner and with the taoiseach's office due to be rotated later this year, he said Mr Martin would not get another chance to celebrate St Patrick's Day in the White House.\n\nThe water in the White House north lawn fountain was turned green to mark St Patrick's Day in 2021\n\nDuring the gala dinner on Wednesday, President Biden and Mrs Pelosi addressed the gathering.\n\nMrs Pelosi issued a warning to the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\nShe said that if the \"border is hardened there will be no UK-US trade deal\".\n\nShe also warned against any move which \"imperils\" the Good Friday Agreement.\n• None What is the Good Friday Agreement?", "Interest rates have increased for the third time in four months as the Bank of England tries to calm the rise in the cost of living.\n\nThe rise from 0.5% to 0.75% means rates are now at their highest level since March 2020, when Covid lockdowns began.\n\nEnergy bills and food costs are increasing and there is concern the war in Ukraine will push prices up further.\n\nThe Bank has warned inflation, the rate at which prices rise, may reach 8% and possibly higher, in the coming months.\n\nExplaining why it had lifted its forecast, it said that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia \"has led to further large increases in energy and other commodity prices including food prices.\n\n\"It is also likely to exacerbate global supply chain disruptions, and has increased the uncertainty around the economic outlook significantly,\" it added.\n\nPrices had already increased by 5.5% in the year to January, the fastest rate for 30 years and well above the Bank's 2% inflation target. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that energy and fuel prices had contributed to the rising cost of living.\n\nThe Bank's policymakers cited the rising cost of living and strong employment as the reasons for the latest rate rise.\n\nThe members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) felt that \"given the current tightness of the labour market, continuing signs of robust domestic cost and price pressures, and the risk that those pressures will persist\", an interest rate rise was justified.\n\nIt also warned that inflation could hit double-digits later in the year if energy prices push up the energy price cap.\n\nThe MPC voted by a majority of 8-1 for the move, with deputy Bank governor Jon Cunliffe the only member to vote for keeping rates unchanged. He said this was because of the impact of rapid price rises on household incomes.\n\nThe committee said that more interest rate rises \"might be appropriate in coming months, but there were risks on both sides of that judgement depending on how medium-term prospects evolved.\"\n\nThe invasion of Ukraine was likely to push prices up even faster than the Bank expected at its last meeting in February, it added.\n\n\"The economy had recently been subject to a succession of very large shocks. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was another such shock,\" it wrote.\n\nMorag Milligan is the operations manager at Milligan's Coaches\n\nMorag Milligan, the operations manager at Milligan's Coaches in East Ayrshire, said that the business had barely recovered from the shock of coronavirus-related lockdowns and travel restrictions.\n\nCiting rising fuel prices, she said: \"It feels it's just never-ending for the industry... it's crisis after crisis.\"\n\nThe company has seen an 8% increase in fuel costs which had been a drain on resources. \"The increase just makes it harder and harder to run,\" she said.\n\nAbout two million households will see an immediate increase in their mortgage payments as a result of the rise in rates, according to UK Finance.\n\nThe increase will add about £26 a month to the cost of a typical tracker mortgage, and £16 to the cost of a typical standard variable rate mortgage.\n\nThe Bank said that higher global prices for energy and other goods were responsible for the faster rise in inflation than the MPC predicted at its last rate-setting meeting.\n\nHowever, it expects inflation to \"fall back materially\" once prices stop rising and the impact of inflation on household incomes starts to bite.\n\nWhile the headline impact of a rise in rates will be felt by homeowners on variable rate mortgages, the big change today was in the mood music at the Bank of England.\n\nLast month, it indicated that the rise was the first in a series likely over the coming months. That language has been toned down and indeed there was one member of the committee who voted to keep them on hold.\n\nThis indicates that the Bank is nervous about the economic impact of the massive rise in energy and food prices. More nervous than it is about the fact that already eye-watering 30 year highs for inflation, are not just going to be even higher at 8%, but potentially breach that by the end of the year.\n\nThe Russian invasion is one of a series of so-called \"stagflationary\" shocks, that send both growth figures and inflation figures in the wrong direction.\n\nThere is not much the Bank can do to stop the energy price cap and food prices sending the increase in the cost of living to 9 or 10%. But it is signalling its concern about the overall impact on the economy of a prolonged hit to consumers, from events 1,500 miles away.\n\nBut the union Unite hit out at the Bank's decision, with its general secretary Sharon Graham saying that it comes at a time when \"millions of working people are facing the worst cost-of-living crisis for generations\".\n\n\"This rise will put even more pressure on household finances as inflation and energy bills continue to skyrocket.\"\n\nSarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, pointed out that energy bills were already set to increase in April with the rise in the energy price cap.\n\nThe British Chambers of Commerce argued that higher rates will do little to curb some of the global causes behind the surge in prices and risk intensifying the financial squeeze on consumers and businesses.\n\nSuren Thiru, its head of economics, urged the chancellor to use his Spring Statement on 23 March to tackle the \"cost of doing business crisis\" by delaying the National Insurance rise and introducing a temporary energy price cap for businesses.\n\n\"This would give firms the headroom to keep a lid on prices, protect jobs and make investment that is so vital to sustaining our economic prospects.\"", "On Thursday, staff were removed from a ship docked at Larne\n\nA protest has taken place in Larne after P&O Ferries sacked 800 UK staff without giving them any notice.\n\nIt will be another week before P&O ships can operate from the County Antrim port.\n\nThe Larne protest was organised by the RMT union, but also features representatives from a number of other unions.\n\nDanny McQuaid, from the union, who lost his job with P&O on Thursday, said he was \"shocked and saddened\".\n\nThere were also protests on Friday across the ports of Dover, Liverpool, and Hull in England.\n\nUnions are discussing possible legal action over the job cuts, and the UK government has said it is reviewing its contracts with the firm.\n\nIn a letter to the company, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move and questioned whether it was legal.\n\nP&O said its survival was dependent on \"making swift and significant changes now\".\n\n\"I have been here about eight years, but there are some of the guys who have been here 30, 35 years,\" Mr McQuaid said, at the protest in Larne.\n\n\"They have given their lives to this company and have been part of the reason they have been such a success.\"\n\nDanny McQuaid said there was no good time to lose your job but this was a particularly painful time\n\nMr McQuaid said the way staff had been treated on Thursday was \"absolutely brutal\".\n\n\"There's no good time to lose your job, but certainly this is particularly painful, not just for me, but a lot of the guys - there are some young guys with families and mortgages to pay,\" he added.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday that it was their \"final day of employment\".\n\nGale Dowey has worked for P&O since 1994, joining the company at 18.\n\nMs Dowey works on board the ship for two weeks at a time which amounts to living on board for six months of the year.\n\n\"It's my life, it's the only life I know,\" she said.\n\n\"We eat together, we're with each other 24/7 and we spend longer together than we do with our families.\"\n\nMs Dowey, who is also a RMT union official, said P&O prided itself in having employees with long service.\n\n\"I took phone call after phone call yesterday from grown men, crying, asking me how they're going to go home to their wife and children and tell them they no longer have a career.\"\n\nGale Dowey (centre) says she is worried about the rising cost of living after losing her job\n\nOn Thursday, private security officers were sent on to a ship docked at Larne to remove staff.\n\n\"They were told they would be handcuffed and removed if they didn't comply,\" she said.\n\nShe said staff were taken to their cabins and told they had five minutes to fill a bag and leave the ship.\n\n\"They left the ship yesterday absolutely humiliated, they were treated like common criminals for working for this company and being loyal, long serving employees,\" she added.\n\nMs Dowey said she had no idea what to do next and was worried about the cost of her mortgage and rising cost of living.\n\nThe temporary halting of P&O's sailings at Larne Port will affect supplies coming into Northern Ireland as other ferry operators are \"pretty near full\", Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has said.\n\nMr Poots said there was not the capacity and there would be consequences.\n\n\"There are export materials that need to get out of Northern Ireland which won't get out,\" he told BBC's The View programme.\n\n\"About 50% of our food is exported out of Great Britain, so that is a real problem for us.\"\n\nStormont's economy and agriculture committees held emergency meetings, in closed session, on Friday to discuss the implications for supply chains.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told about the job cuts via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday\n\nThe disruption to the goods supply chains was currently \"manageable\", the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC) said.\n\nHowever, as P&O sailings are a key part of Northern Ireland's retail logistics infrastructure, the matter needed to be resolved \"very quickly\", added NIRC's director Aodhán Connolly.\n\nHe said retailers had stock in large distribution centres which should last for about four or five days.\n\nRetailers were looking at alternative Irish Sea options such as using the ports of Belfast and Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, he added.\n\nWith regard to the transport of goods to and from mainland Europe, Mr Connolly said retailers were also considering using the Eurotunnel or air freight.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nP&O Ferries tweeted on Friday evening that services between Larne and Cairnryan were suspended and they were no longer able to arrange alternative travel.\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves,\" the firm said.\n\nThe ferry firm said the \"tough decision\" was made to secure the future of the business.\n\nP&O has said that its services will not operate for the \"next few days\", with passengers told to use other companies.\n\n\"In its current state, P&O Ferries is not a viable business,\" it said.\n\n\"We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World.\n\n\"This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets on the island of Ireland as St Patrick's Day events returned for the first time in three years.\n\nParades and other festivities were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nEvents returned across the globe and about 400,000 people attended the parade in Dublin.\n\nMajor events also took place in cities such as New York and Washington.\n\nCrowds gathered to watch the parade in Belfast city centre\n\nIn Northern Ireland, there were St Patrick's Day parades in Downpatrick, County Down, and Armagh, each with special connections to Ireland's patron saint.\n\nThe city's council has been hosting a series of events this year from 10-20 March, including the Beat Carnival Parade which passed through the city centre on Thursday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Belfast is set to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade since the coronavirus pandemic\n\nAfter promising the city would \"come alive with colour and performances\", Belfast Lord Mayor Kate Nicholl said \"it means so much to have St Patrick's Day back\".\n\nDuring the event on Thursday, she told BBC News NI people had deserved \"a bit of a party\" after the challenges posed by the pandemic.\n\nHowever, despite encouraging people to enjoy the day, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said \"unruly behaviour caused by people who celebrate to excess will not be tolerated\".\n\nCh Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick urged young people to \"stay away from the Holyland\" area of south Belfast, explaining it was a residential area and \"not a party or nightlife destination\".\n\nIn previous years, there have been clashes with police and antisocial behaviour in the area, which is home to many students, around St Patrick's Day.\n\nCh Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick said the Holyland area was not a party destination\n\n\"We are keen to ensure that all young people are aware of the risks associated with criminal and anti-social behaviour, for their safety and future educational and career prospects,\" Ch Insp Gavin Kirkpatrick said.\n\nHe added the warning was also \"to protect local residents who are feeling particularly vulnerable\" because of the day's events.\n\nAs legend has it, St Patrick worked on Slemish in County Antrim when he was first brought to Ireland.\n\nAnd following his footsteps on Thursday, big crowds climbed to the top to mark his feast day.\n\nCrowds gathered at Slemish on Thursday, where legend has it St Patrick worked when first brought to Ireland\n\nMid and East Antrim Borough Council expected 1,500 trekkers throughout the day.\n\nBus loads took crowds from the nearby village of Broughshane where a festival took place with traditional music and dance, street theatre and an artisan market.\n\nIn Londonderry, the city's spring carnival festival took place, with the council estimating a crowd of about 35,000 spectators.\n\nThousands watched the St Patrick's Day parade in Belfast for the first time in three years\n\nThe theme was based around rebirth and renewal.\n\nEarlier, members of the Apprentice Boys, one of the Protestant Loyal Orders, paraded for St Patrick's Day in the city.\n\nThe march is held separately from the main St Patrick's Day parade in Derry.\n\n\"For too many years people thought it wasn't something people from the Apprentice Boys or from the Protestant tradition should be engaged in, but it is a day for everyone,\" Stephen Porter from the Apprentice Boys told BBC Radio Foyle.\n\n\"It has been a great success,\" he said.\n\nDownpatrick's parade is popular because of the town's many links with St Patrick\n\nIn Downpatrick, where Ireland's saint is believed to have been buried beside the town's cathedral, there was a concert in the town.\n\nArmagh City, where historians believe St Patrick established a church in 445 AD, held a community parade, with another large parade in Newry on Thursday afternoon.\n\nLarge crowds gathered to watch the St Patrick's Day parade in Derry\n\nThe St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin also made a comeback on Thursday after a break because of the pandemic.\n\nIts parade left Parnell Road at midday and crossed O'Connell Bridge on its way to a finish in Kevin Street.\n\nMany turned out to watch the parade through Dublin\n\nA special St Patrick's Day video greeting from Ireland to the world, with Paul Brady's iconic The Island song, was published to mark Ireland's solidarity and support with the people of Ukraine.\n\nTaoiseach (Irish prime minister), Micheál Martin, is currently in Washington, but on Wednesday night tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nOn Thursday, he held a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden.\n\nNorthern Ireland ministers Conor Murphy and Gordon Lyons are also in Washington, as is former deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood.", "All remaining Covid travel restrictions have now been lifted for passengers entering the UK.\n\nAs of 04:00 GMT, unvaccinated arrivals will no longer have to take tests - the rule had already been lifted for the vaccinated - and passenger locator forms have been scrapped.\n\nIt comes almost exactly two years after the first Covid lockdown measures were imposed in the UK.\n\nTravel bosses said lifting the rules was the \"final game-changer\".\n\nAviation minister Robert Courts said: \"Everything we have worked for - every jab, every test, and the sacrifices made by the whole country means that finally, nearly two years on, we can all travel without bureaucratic restrictions.\"\n\nThe government said the change had been deliberately timed before the Easter holidays, but added that contingency plans had been drawn up to respond to any future Covid variants.\n\nDerek Jones, chief executive of Kuoni, a tourism company, said bookings had surged in recent months.\n\n\"The removal of all travel restrictions is the final game-changer - people can now go on holiday or visit family and friends overseas without all of the stress that comes with testing before they return home,\" he said.\n\n\"Finally, we've seen the back of the unpopular and ineffective passenger locator forms, which were always a hassle to complete. Travel has been in turmoil for two years but now it's back.\"\n\nHowever, UK travellers are still advised to check the rules for the countries they are visiting - as many still have restrictions and testing requirements in place.\n\nThe removal of the rules marks the end of a rapidly-changing - and often complex - set of Covid rules for people arriving in the UK.\n\nPeople were first advised against all non-essential international travel in March 2020.\n\nLater that year, passenger locator forms for arrivals were introduced, along with \"travel corridors\" - with people arriving from countries outside the corridors having to self-isolate at home for up to 14 days.\n\nOther rules have included pre-departure and post-arrival tests; hotel quarantine for some arrivals; and a \"traffic light\" system of red, amber, and green countries.\n\nThe traffic light system could often cause short-term changes to people's plans as countries moved from one colour to another.\n\nIn a further complication, all four nations could set their own rules - meaning there were sometimes different restrictions in different parts of the UK.\n\nMore recently, changes have been agreed by all governments in the UK.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Last year, people made to stay in hotel quarantine criticised their \"prison-like\" experience", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Amol Rajan explains the Ofcom decision to revoke RT's UK broadcasting licence\n\nRussian state-backed news channel RT has had its licence to broadcast in the UK revoked \"with immediate effect\" by media regulator Ofcom.\n\nThe watchdog said RT's parent body ANO TV Novosti was not \"fit and proper to hold a UK broadcast licence\".\n\nRT's coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been under investigation by Ofcom, and the channel had already disappeared from UK screens.\n\nRT, formerly named Russia Today, called Ofcom \"a tool of the government\".\n\nThe channel became unavailable on all UK broadcast platforms earlier this month as a result of a ban imposed by the European Union.\n\nAlthough the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc applied sanctions to satellite companies in Luxembourg and France, which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview.RT has also been blocked on YouTube but its website is still available in the UK.\n\nUK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who has described the channel as \"Putin's polluting propaganda machine\", said: \"I welcome Ofcom's decision and it's right that our independent regulator has taken action against RT.\n\n\"The outlets' lies and propaganda, where victims are cast as the aggressors and the brutality of Russia's actions are concealed, have absolutely no place on our screens.\"\n\nRT is a state broadcaster. It is funded by and principally - its critics would argue - serves the Russian state. This is different to a public broadcaster, which is funded by and serves the public.\n\nTV Novosti, the institution that controls RT, is funded by the Kremlin. Under Ofcom rules, TV channels can be owned by foreign states, but they must not be controlled by political bodies. This is what did for CGTN, the Chinese network. Ofcom believes the clear absence of due accuracy and due impartiality on RT, and its ultimate control by a political body, violates our regulatory code.\n\nShould liberal democracies ban state propaganda? Such moves may be ineffective: RT is still available online. They may be counter-productive: Ofcom accepts retaliation against the BBC is possible. And if the West is fighting a war for liberal democracy, free speech - while not unconditional - cannot be jettisoned lightly.\n\nAgainst all that must be weighed the harm of allowing lies to proliferate, and the importance of signalling control over our own public domain.\n\nOfcom has done its job. But what do the rest of us want that job to be?\n\nIn recent weeks, Ofcom has launched 29 investigations into the \"due impartiality of RT's news and current affairs coverage\" of the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn Friday, Ofcom said its investigation took account of factors including:\n\n\"We consider that given these constraints it appears impossible for RT to comply with the due impartiality rules of our Broadcasting Code in the circumstances,\" Ofcom's statement added.\n\nChief executive Dame Melanie Dawes said: \"Freedom of expression is something we guard fiercely in this country, and the bar for action on broadcasters is rightly set very high.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Ofcom This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina said Ofcom had \"robbed the UK public of access to information\".\n\n\"What we have witnessed over the last few days, be it comments from the President of the EU Commission or from PM Boris Johnson, is that none of them had pointed to a single grain of evidence that what RT has reported over these days, and continues to report, is not true.\n\n\"Instead, what they have said is that what RT brings to its audience is not allowed in their supposedly free media environment. When it comes to the Russian voice, or just a different perspective from theirs, it is simply not allowed to exist.\"\n\nCanada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that the country's media regulator had been asked to review RT's presence on Canadian airwaves, saying it was \"a move consistent with what many allies are doing, they banned it\".", "Higher oil prices are set to lead to a 10% increase in air fares, according to the boss of one of the world's biggest airlines.\n\nDelta Air Lines head Ed Bastian told the BBC the final impact \"really depends where fuel prices settle\".\n\nOil prices have reached 14-year highs after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nEmirates, Japan Airlines and AirAsia are among the big carriers to introduce surcharges on their tickets recently to cover the higher cost of jet fuel.\n\nBefore the pandemic, in 2019, 200 million customers flew on Delta, making it the world's second biggest airline by passenger numbers.\n\nMr Bastian said that on a domestic US flight the rise in fuel prices \"is probably about $25 on a ticket, that could be anywhere between 5% to 10% at these high levels of oil... and international [flights] will be a bit higher than that\".\n\nDelta is planning to introduce fuel surcharges on the international flights which account for about 35% of its business, and increase US ticket prices.\n\nJet fuel is one of the biggest costs for airlines. Michael O'Leary, the boss of Europe's biggest carrier Ryanair, said recently that the surge in oil prices would lead to \"materially higher\" airfares this summer.\n\nMany airlines try to protect themselves from these changes by buying fuel in advance. Easyjet and British Airways both said recently that they had done so for 60% of their fuel needs this year.\n\nDelta chief Ed Bastian says higher oil prices will mean more expensive airfares\n\nThis year has seen big fluctuations. At the start of January, Brent crude - the international benchmark for oil - was under $80 a barrel, but it recently reached as high as almost $130 as the US and UK said they would end their use of oil from the world's biggest exporter, Russia.\n\nMore price swings are likely in the short-term according to the executive director of the International Energy Agency, Dr Fatih Birol. He told the BBC: \"I think the $100 [oil] we are experiencing today may not be the highest level of prices we'll be seeing in the next weeks\".\n\nHe warns that will be felt across all areas of the global economy, because as well as higher transport costs it will lead to more expensive heating and electricity. That would exacerbate the cost of living crisis many countries are facing.\n\n\"Every single dollar for oil going to [the] Russian economy will go back as a tank or as a bullet to Ukrainian people\", says IEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol\n\nReports from India suggest it is considering tackling high prices at the petrol pumps by buying discounted Russian oil. Many won't purchase it because of western sanctions, and Dr Birol warned: \"One shouldn't forget that every single dollar for oil going to [the] Russian economy will go back as a tank or as a bullet to Ukrainian people. One shouldn't forget this moral aspect in my view\".\n\nInstead he wants Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia to increase oil production.\n\nThe latest IEA forecast says three million barrels a day of Russian oil could be removed from the market. However, that drop in supply could be offset by a fall in demand from China where Covid has led to new lockdowns.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAll this unpredictability means Delta does not try to buy its fuel in advance, Mr Bastian said. \"Sometimes you win, and often you lose.\"\n\nInstead Delta has the protection of owning its oil refinery in Pennsylvania, although it has been unsuccessful in recent efforts to try to sell it.\n\n\"We're thrilled that we have it right now\" says Mr Bastian.\n\nDelta's ownership of this oil refinery in Trainer, Pennsylvania gives it some protection from volatile prices\n\nThe Delta chief is also looking to a future where initiatives to tackle climate change by cutting aviation's carbon emissions mean oil prices are less of a concern.\n\n\"The existing fossil fuel and jet fuel technology needs to go, and we need to make those investments for the future towards a sustainable future.\"\n\nThis means moving towards sustainable fuels such as biofuels or synthetic alternatives made through chemical processes.\n\nMr Bastian says that cost is the big impediment, with the production of such substitutes costing \"three to five times what's in the marketplace today\".\n\nThe difference will need to be made by governments investing in scaling up production.\n\n\"Scale will bring costs down over time, and will bring more capital from private sources into exploration and looking for new technology. This next five years is critical that to make sure we get government support, not just in the US but around the world.\"\n\nReturning to profitability after the losses of the pandemic will also help fund the development of new technologies. According to the International Air Transport Association the industry lost more than $51bn last year with global demand 58.4% down on 2019 levels.\n\nPassengers are returning to the skies as Covid restrictions ease, but Asia is seeing a slower recovery than other regions\n\nAs Covid restrictions continue to ease, Delta had two record days of sales last week, leading Mr Bastian to be hopeful about the outlook.\n\n\"The world is returning to travel and governments have decided that Covid is done.\"\n\n\"We're seeing some of our largest bookings we've ever had in our history. And it's not just in the US, it's internationally as well.\" However, he adds that Asia is lagging behind other regions.\n\nCrucially demand for lucrative business class fares is also returning. It is currently at about 60% of pre-pandemic levels, but Mr Bastian expects this to rise to 70% by the summer.\n\nHe concedes \"there's forms of business travel that will never return, that are more efficient to handle over video technology\", but adds that leisure travellers are now showing more willingness to splash out on premium services.\n\nLast year Delta recorded a pre-tax loss of $3.4bn and the disruption caused by coronavirus at the start of this year means Mr Bastian thinks that will be added to at the start of this year.\n\n\"We will lose some money primarily because of Omicron, it's not fuel prices. But I do expect starting in the second quarter and beyond that we'll be profitable.\"\n\nYou can watch Ed Bastian and Dr Fatih Birol's full interviews on \"Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst\" this weekend.\n\nViewers in the UK can watch the show at on Saturday and Sunday at 15:30 GMT on the BBC News Channel.\n\nIn other countries it will be on BBC World News at Saturday at 12:30 & 23:30 GMT and Sunday 05:30 & 16:30 GMT.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nThomas Tuchel's Chelsea beat Pep Guardiola's Manchester City in the 2021 Champions League final, while Jurgen Klopp won the trophy with Liverpool in 2019 Holders Chelsea will face 13-time winners Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Manchester City will play Atletico Madrid, while Liverpool tackle Benfica and Bayern Munich take on Villarreal. In the semi-finals, the winner of the Chelsea v Real Madrid tie will face Atletico Madrid or Manchester City, while Benfica or Liverpool will play either Villarreal or Bayern Munich. The two-leg quarter-finals take place on 5-6 April and 12-13 April. The first legs of the semi-finals will be on 26-27 April, and the second legs on 3-4 May. The Stade de France in Paris will host the final on Saturday, 28 May after it was moved from St Petersburg after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In the Europa League, West Ham will play Lyon in their first European quarter-final since 1981. Rangers take on Portuguese side Braga, while Eintracht Frankfurt play Barcelona and RB Leipzig face Atalanta. Tuchel on drawing Real Madrid in Champions League, the importance of tickets for fans and Man Utd link The draw means Chelsea face a reunion with their former manager Carlo Ancelotti, who won the Premier League and FA Cup double during a two-year spell with the Stamford Bridge club between 2009 and 2011. The Italian is one of only three managers to win the Champions League three times, including with Real in 2014, and returned for a second spell at the Spanish giants last summer after leaving Everton. Chelsea and Real also met at the semi-final stage last season, with Thomas Tuchel's side winning 3-1 on aggregate before going on to beat Manchester City in the final. The London club have never lost in five previous meetings with Real Madrid. Atletico Madrid have the chance to complete a Manchester double after being drawn against Pep Guardiola's City, with Diego Simeone's side having beaten Manchester United 2-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals. It will be the first competitive meeting between the sides in European competition as City, who thrashed Sporting Lisbon 5-0 on aggregate to reach this stage, seek a first Champions League title. Liverpool meanwhile have played Portuguese giants Benfica 10 times in Europe, most recently a 5-3 aggregate win in the Europa League quarter-finals in 2010. Jurgen Klopp's side are seeking an unprecedented quadruple, having already lifted the Carabao Cup and still being in contention for the Premier League and FA Cup.\n• None Liverpool quadruple bid - how the Reds are already closer than ever to landing the 'Fab Four' West Ham and Rangers kept apart in Europa League West Ham's reward for beating six-time winners Sevilla is a meeting with Ligue 1 side Lyon. It will be just the second time the Hammers have faced French opposition in European competition after beating Metz in the 1999 Intertoto Cup final. Rangers meanwhile face familiar opposition in Braga having beaten the Portuguese side 4-2 on aggregate in the last 32 of the Europa League in 2020. Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side reached the last eight thanks to a 4-2 aggregate win against Red Star Belgrade of Serbia. Should West Ham reach the semi-finals they could meet Barcelona if the Catalan giants overcome Eintracht Frankfurt, while Rangers will face either German club RB Leipzig or Atalanta of Italy if they reach the last four. The draw means the earliest the two British sides can meet is in the final. The two-leg quarter-finals will take place on 7 and 14 April, the semi-finals are on 28 April and 5 May with the final in Sevilla's Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium on Wednesday, 18 May. In the Europa Conference League, Leicester's reward for beating French side Rennes is a quarter-final against Dutch side PSV Eindhoven. The first legs will be played on Thursday 7 April, with the second legs a week later. The two-leg semi-finals are on 28 April and 5 May with the final in Tirana, Albania on Wednesday, 25 May.\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - follow your team and sign up for notifications in the BBC Sport app to make sure you never miss a moment", "Covid cases have continued to rise in the UK, with an estimated one in every 20 people infected, figures from the Office for National Statistic suggest.\n\nAll age groups are affected, including the 75s and over, who are due a spring booster jab to top up protection.\n\nHospital cases are also rising, but vaccines are still helping to stop many severe cases, say experts.\n\nAn easily spread sub-variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is now causing most cases.\n\nRecent easing of restrictions and waning immunity from the vaccines could be factors behind the rise too.\n\nThe ONS infection survey, which tests thousands of people randomly in households across the UK, estimates that 3.3 million people would have tested positive in the week ending 12 March - up from 2.6 million the previous week.\n\nScotland has seen infection levels rise for seven weeks in a row. They have now reached a new record high, with 376,300 people estimated to have had Covid last week, or one in 14.\n\nInfection rates across the nations were:\n\nIt comes as the UK continues to lift previous Covid restrictions. As of Friday, people arriving in the UK will no longer need to take a Covid test, even if they haven't been vaccinated.\n\nIt is part of the government's Living with Covid strategy that relies on personal responsibility and mass vaccination to protect the public, rather than laws and limits on what people are allowed to do.\n\nScotland's rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will, however, remain in place until April due to the rise in Covid.\n\nSarah Crofts, head of analytical outputs for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said Scotland was showing the highest level of infections yet.\n\n\"It's notable also that infections have risen in all age groups, with the over-70s reaching their highest estimate since our survey began,\" she added.\n\nProf James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and Professor of Structural Biology, University of Oxford, said the high infection rates around the UK currently, with few Covid restrictions, meant that almost anyone could catch the virus.\n\nHe said: \"My main concern is for the vulnerable for whom this disease is serious.\n\n\"Every effort must be made to triple vaccinate as many people as possible, quadruple vaccinate the most vulnerable.\"\n\nPublic health expert Prof Linda Bauld told the BBC: \"Let's hope we are heading towards the peak or we are already at it in terms of infection because the problems in our hospitals are, once again, pretty acute.\"\n\nShe said Scotland might soon be reaching a new high for Covid hospital admissions.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The family of a teenager killed in a crush outside a disco have said they have been \"kept in the dark\" about what happened.\n\nIt comes as Justice Minister Naomi Long stuck to an earlier decision not to hold a public inquiry.\n\nLauren Bullock, 17, Morgan Barnard, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, died as hundreds queued outside the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown on March 17, 2019.\n\nMrs Long believes an inquiry could prejudice any criminal proceedings.\n\nThe Public Prosecution Service (PPS) is currently examining evidence gathered in two separate inquiries and has yet to decide if anyone should be charged, including police officers who attended the scene.\n\nSpeaking to BBC News NI, Morgan's father, James Bradley, said the system had \"kept us in the dark as to what happened\".\n\n\"Life is going at a snail's pace, but the next thing three years have elapsed,\" he said.\n\n\"A public inquiry would expose all the truth, the before, the during and the after.\"\n\nFour police officers who arrived at the scene withdrew for a time to await further support.\n\n\"I think there were vital minutes lost. I really believe Morgan's life would have been saved. We will find that out later down the line,\" Mr Bradley added.\n\n\"The 'what if Morgan had not gone?' has moved to 'what if things had been put in place better on the night, what if the response had been better?'\n\nJames Bradley's son Morgan Barnard died as hundreds queued outside a hotel in Cookstown\n\nCalls for a public inquiry, or a multi-agency investigation, were first made last year, amid concerns that lessons have not been learned.\n\nInitially supported by the Police Ombudsman, they were recently backed by the Police Federation.\n\nMrs Long has been reconsidering an initial decision not to hold a public inquiry and in a statement her department said she still felt \"it would not currently be appropriate\" ahead of decisions by the PPS.\n\n\"The minister is deeply aware of the pain and the anguish of the families,\" the statement added.\n\nShe said the matter would be reviewed in September.\n\nThe justice minister has also written to ministerial colleagues \"to urge them to satisfy themselves that all appropriate steps have been taken within their areas of responsibility to mitigate the possibility of a tragedy such as this occurring in the future\".\n\nThe statement also pointed out that any decision to hold a public inquiry required executive approval.\n\nA solicitor for the family says a public inquiry is needed to prevent something similar happening again\n\nDarragh Mackin, the solicitor acting for the family of Morgan Barnard, said it was likely Mrs Long's decision will be challenged by a judicial review.\n\nHe said \"a systemic investigation\", by way of a public inquiry, was necessary \"to learn lessons and prevent further incidents like this happening again\".", "RMT union members protesting the P&O Ferries redundancies in Dover on Friday\n\nAll P&O Ferries contracts across government will be reviewed in response to the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nStaff have been protesting after many were told without warning by video message on Thursday that it would be \"their final day of employment\".\n\nIn a letter to the company, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move and questioned whether it was legal.\n\nP&O said it was a \"last resort\" to save the business.\n\nPassengers have been left stranded with services cancelled since the announcement. The ferry company said it was aiming to have the first ones \"running again in the next day or two as we lose £1m a day for each day they are not moving\".\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson could not provide details on the current value of government contracts awarded to P&O Ferries, but Labour Party analysis of the public sector contracts database Tussle found the company had received £38.3m in taxpayer-funded contracts since December 2018. One government contract for freight between Tilbury and Zeebrugge for nine months was worth £10.9m.\n\nMr Shapps urged the company to pause the redundancies announced and instructed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to inspect all vessels to make sure replacement crews \"rushed through\" were safe to go to sea.\n\nHe has also asked the Insolvency Service to look at the laws around notification requirements to see if P&O followed correct and legal processes so the government \"can consider if further action is appropriate\".\n\nProtests have been staged in Dover, Liverpool, Hull and elsewhere in the UK against the P&O redundancies, while the vessels stay docked at ports and ferry cancellations cause travel disruption.\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has also written to the ferry operator's chief executive demanding answers to P&O Ferries' handling of the redundancies.\n\nMr Kwarteng's letter to its boss Peter Hebblethwaite says the company \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, which would include consulting with unions and staff representatives and notifying him through the Insolvency Service and the Redundancy Payment Service.\n\nThe letter says failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Kwarteng's questions to P&O Ferries include asking for details on the exact number of redundancies and how many of these involved any consultation, as well as the location of work for each staff member dismissed.\n\nAdditionally, he asked if staff made redundant were offered alternative roles directly for P&O Ferries or similar roles on new terms and conditions through an agency.\n\nWorkers have spoken of their \"utter dismay\" after hearing the news and of feeling abandoned by the company.\n\nAndrew Smith, who had worked for the company for 22 years, said: \"It's our lives. It's how our families have grown up, knowing that this is what we do, and it's just been turned on its head within a matter of hours.\"\n\nAnd James, who has worked for P&O Ferries in Dover for about four years, said all he received \"was a three minute pre-recorded message saying we are out of a job. Nothing else.\"\n\n\"It was a complete surprise. I would have understood if it was at the height of Covid, but now we're seeing the end of travel restrictions and the start of summer bookings. So this has come completely out of the blue,\" he said.\n\nThe business secretary also raises the company's previous application for government support when Covid lockdowns disrupted travel.\n\n\"It is particularly depressing that this should happen given the millions of pounds of British taxpayer support P&O companies received from the furlough scheme,\" he wrote.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sacked P&O employee Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" at losing his job after 22 years\n\nP&O Ferries is owned by Dubai-based DP World which also owns ports at London and Southampton.\n\nDP World recently announced £8bn in revenues last year. During the Covid pandemic the company claimed more than £15m in grants and furlough assistance.\n\nIn a new statement on Friday, P&O Ferries said: \"We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn't survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.\"\n\nThe RMT union labelled the move one of the \"most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations\".\n\nIts national secretary Darren Procter told a crowd of about 250 demonstrators in Dover: \"We're going to make sure our workers get back on board their vessels.\"", "Barricades have been built around the home of the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv\n\nLeading Ukrainian ballet dancer Artem Datsyshyn has died, almost three weeks after being injured in Russian shelling in Kyiv, according to reports.\n\nDatsyshyn, 43, a former soloist at the National Opera of Ukraine, died in hospital, friend Tatiana Borovik said.\n\nShe spoke of her \"heartache\" at the news in a Facebook post.\n\nAnatoly Solovyanenko, chief stage director at the National Opera of Ukraine, paid tribute to him as \"a great artist\" and \"a wonderful man\".\n\nThis Facebook post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Facebook The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts. Skip facebook post by Alexei This article contains content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Facebook cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts.\n\nRatmansky, a former principal dancer in Kyiv and former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, is now artist in residence at the American Ballet Theatre in New York. He said Datsyshyn died from \"wounds received on February 26 when he got under Russian artillery fire\".\n\n\"He was a beautiful dancer loved by his colleagues. Unbearable pain,\" he added.\n\nNews of Datsyshyn's death follows reports that Ukrainian actress Oksana Shvets died after a Russian rocket attack.\n\nShvets, 67, died after the attack on a residential building in Kyiv, according to the city's Young Theatre, of which she was a company member.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by KyivPost This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nShe was reported to be a veteran of stage and screen for decades in Ukraine, and the recipient of one of the country's highest artistic accolades.", "At least 31 pilot whales have died after a mass stranding at a New Zealand beach known to be a notorious spot for whale deaths.\n\nWildlife officials said the pod was first spotted on Thursday, beached across three kilometres of Farewell Spit on the South Island.\n\nOn Friday, rescuers managed to refloat five whales who had survived the night.\n\nBut just hours later, at least two had washed back up and had to be euthanised, officials told the BBC.\n\nThis beaching is just the latest in mass strandings at Farewell Spit, the northernmost tip of New Zealand's South Island.\n\nAuthorities say while whale strandings are unfortunate, they are a natural phenomenon.\n\n\"It's not an uncommon experience here in Golden Bay, given the area's topography... it's known as one of the stranding hotspots,\" rescuer Dave Winterburn from the Department of Conservation told the BBC.\n\n\"So we go through periods when we don't have any, and then we get a couple in a row - that's just the way things go.\"\n\nIt is not fully understood why the whales got stranded, but pilot whales are known to be more prone to getting beached. They are not considered endangered, although exact population numbers are not known.\n\nFarewell Spit has been dubbed a 'death trap' for whales in the area\n\nFarewell Spit, a 26km (16 mile) hook of sand that protrudes into the sea, has been a frequent site of strandings, although scientists are unclear why.\n\nOne theory is that the spit creates a shallow seabed in the bay with extensive, kilometres-wide sand flats.\n\nBut Mr Winterbottom said there weren't any plans to put in protections for whales in the area, as the vast landmass made solutions like a water barrier \"completely impractical\".\n\nA rescuer pouring water over a whale in a bid to keep it alive\n\nLast year, rescuers were able to save 28 long-finned pilot whales of a pod of about 50 who had stranded on the beach, but the rest died.\n\nThe worst stranding occurred in February 2017, when almost 700 whales beached, resulting in 250 deaths. The area has seen at least 11 pilot whale strandings in the past 15 years.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Volunteers helped push 28 whales back into the water at a similar stranding in 2021 at Farewell Spit", "In Kostroma, friends, family, and an armed guard of honour gathered for the funeral of Mikhail Orchikov\n\nIn the Church of Alexandra and Antonina lies a coffin. It is draped with a Russian tricolour. Resting on the casket: a service cap and a photograph.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was deputy commander of a motor-rifle brigade. He was killed in action in Ukraine. Armed Russian soldiers form a guard of honour.\n\nAn Orthodox priest walks around the casket reciting prayers and swinging an ornate metal vessel emitting burning incense. The pungent scent fills the chapel, mixing with the sweet cadences of the church choir. The dead soldier's widow, head covered in a black scarf, is being comforted by relatives.\n\nHow many Russian servicemen have been killed in Ukraine? It is a criminal offence in Russia to report anything other than the official figures.\n\nAccording to information released by Russia's Defence Ministry, 498 soldiers have lost their lives in what the Kremlin calls its \"special military operation\". Those are the latest figures, from 2 March. There has been no update for two weeks.\n\n\"The situation in our country isn't simple,\" the priest tells the congregation. \"Everyone understands that.\"\n\nThe Kremlin wants the public to believe that the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are heroes and that Russia's offensive there is an act of self-defence.\n\nIn a recent edition of state TV's flagship weekly news show, the anchor claimed that if Russia \"hadn't intervened now, in three years' time Ukraine would have been in Nato… with a nuclear bomb. [Ukraine] would definitely advance on Crimea, then on southern Russia.\" An alternative reality, in which Ukraine is the aggressor.\n\nOn the streets of Kostroma, many appear to believe the official Kremlin line.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was laid to rest as \"a defender of the Fatherland\"\n\nThat's partly due to the power of television in shaping public opinion. But also, at moments of crisis, many Russians instinctively rally around its leader - as if they don't want to believe that their president may have made the wrong decision.\n\n\"Nato wants to set up shop right next to us [in Ukraine] and they've got nuclear weapons,\" Nikolai tells me. \"Well done Putin. He didn't let them.\"\n\n\"Russia needs to push on till the end,\" declares pensioner Nina Ivanovna.\n\n\"How much do you trust the information you're getting on Russian TV about this?\" I ask her. \"I trust it. Why shouldn't I? It's the internet I don't trust.\"\n\nNot everyone supports Russia's offensive in Ukraine. In the village of Nikolskoye, I visit the home of Orthodox priest, Father Ioann Burdin. He recently delivered an anti-war sermon and voiced his criticism on the church website.\n\nHe was later detained and fined under a new law for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.\n\nFather Ioann Burdin says he believes bloodshed of any kind \"is still a sin\"\n\n\"I believe that any bloodshed, whatever the cause and however you try to justify it, is still a sin,\" Father Ioann tells me. \"Blood is on the hands of the person who spilled it. If an order was given, it's on the hands of whoever gave the order, supported it or stayed silent.\"\n\n\"The worst thing of all is that hatred has appeared. It will grow deeper and deeper, because we can see that the situation [with Ukraine] isn't ending. There is no political will to stop this. Hatred on both sides will strengthen and become a wall between our peoples for decades to come.\"\n\nAt a cemetery in Kostroma, eight soldiers bear Mikhail's coffin to the grave. A military band plays solemn music. Then a gun salute and, to the Russian national anthem, the casket is lowered into the ground.\n\nThere is a brief speech: \"The loss of a son, brother, father is always a tragedy, but we are proud that he died defending our people, our children, our country.\"\n\nIn Kostroma, they call Mikhail \"a defender of the Fatherland\".\n\nMikhail's coffin was wrapped in the national flag before burial\n\nAnd yet it was Russia's army that crossed the border into a sovereign nation and attacked Ukraine on the orders of President Putin. The Kremlin leader claims that the aim of his \"special military operation\" is to \"demilitarise and de-Nazify\" Ukraine, as if the Ukrainian government is overrun with fascists - which is simply not true.\n\nIn recent days Russian officials have barely concealed their wider objectives. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that what's happening in Ukraine \"…is a life-and-death battle for Russia's right to be on the political map of the world with full respect for their legitimate interests\".\n\nIn other words, this is about geopolitics, and Moscow's determination to force Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence.\n\nThat's something the government in Ukraine is determined to prevent.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nAndriy Yarmolenko scored an emotional extra-time winner as West Ham overturned a first-leg deficit against Sevilla to reach their first European quarter-final since 1981.\n\nYarmolenko has been on compassionate leave as he tried to deal with the trauma of having friends and relatives back home in war-torn Ukraine.\n\nBut after making a goalscoring return to the pitch against Aston Villa on Sunday, Yarmolenko swept the Hammers past Sevilla as he converted a rebound after Pablo Fornals' low shot had been parried into his path by visiting keeper Bono.\n\nThe 32-year-old forward, on as a substitute for Said Benrahma, looked to the skies as he marked his special moment and the London Stadium erupted in jubilation.\n\nAt the final whistle, he looked almost bewildered in the moment before spotting a fan with a Ukraine flag and handing him his shirt.\n• None 'We can write history' - West Ham into first Euro quarter-final since 1981\n\nTrailing by a single goal from last week's opener in Spain, Tomas Soucek had pulled West Ham level in the first-half when he guided Michail Antonio's cross into the far corner with a precise header.\n\nA Sevilla side that has won this tournament four times out of the last eight seasons were a major disappointment - and came no closer than Youssef En-Nesyri's early effort which was brilliantly saved by Alphonse Areola.\n• None Thursday's European action as it happened, plus reaction and analysis\n\nWest Ham manager David Moyes had billed this as the tie of the round. The Scot must now be immensely proud at the way his side have navigated their way into a draw that contains, among others, Barcelona and Rangers.\n\nThe last time Moyes managed a team in the last 16 of a European competition, he secured probably his best night as Manchester United manager, when his side came back from a 2-0 first leg deficit to knock Olympiakos out of the Champions League.\n\nAs on that night, Moyes' side had levelled the tie by the interval.\n\nWest Ham controlled the tempo of the game despite having a minority of possession.\n\nFornals and Declan Rice were outstanding in midfield, young defender Ben Johnson superb in a determined defensive display and Antonio - a doubt before the game - ran so hard up front that Sevilla could never rest.\n\nIn contrast, Anthony Martial was a disappointment on his return to England and, by the end, Sevilla Julen Lopetegui seemed to have run out of ideas as his side tried to claw their way to penalties.\n\nSevilla had not lost a European tie after taking a first-leg lead since 1981. Yarmolenko changed that history in a moment for Ukraine to be proud of, in a dark time at home.\n\nWest Ham have not had a seamless move from their beloved Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium.\n\nHowever, this game exploded the myth that there is a lack of atmosphere at the stadium solely because of the running track which, in any case, is reduced in its impact since the stands behind each goal were squared off at the start of the season.\n\nThere was no lack of atmosphere on this occasion, a game, West Ham said, was played in front of the highest number of club supporters ever to see a match.\n\nThe build-up was heightened by a pre-match light show. The bubbles floated into the night sky and when Soucek's header found the far corner in the 39th minute, the place erupted.\n\nCelebration was replaced by tension the longer the game went on.\n\nBut when Yarmolenko struck the decisive final blow in the 112th minute, the home fans turned up the volume once more.\n\nLondon Stadium has waited six years for a statement night to go alongside the memories that were left behind in the three-and-a-half mile move.\n\nNow they have one. And on this evidence, the journey might not be over yet.\n• None Gonzalo Montiel (Sevilla) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Offside, West Ham United. Mark Noble tries a through ball, but Pablo Fornals is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Gonzalo Montiel (Sevilla) right footed shot from the right side of the box is just a bit too high. Assisted by Rafa Mir.\n• None Goal! West Ham United 2, Sevilla 0. Andriy Yarmolenko (West Ham United) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal.\n• None Attempt saved. Pablo Fornals (West Ham United) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Manuel Lanzini.\n• None Substitution, Sevilla. José Ángel Carmona replaces Nemanja Gudelj because of an injury.\n• None Attempt missed. Óliver Torres (Sevilla) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Ludwig Augustinsson. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None The tale of a trillion-dollar conman who sold a dream to the oldest club in the Football League\n• None Cillian Murphy shares tracks that have been integral to the feel of the programme", "A 13-year-old was behind the wheel of a pickup truck that slammed head on into a van carrying university athletes in a collision that killed nine on Tuesday.\n\nIn a Thursday news conference, federal investigators said the truck's left tyre - which was a spare - blew out before swerving into the oncoming van.\n\nSix university golfers, including one from Portugal and one from Mexico, and their coach died in the crash.\n\nBoth the young pickup driver and his passenger were also killed.\n\nTwo students, both from Canada, survived the collision and are in a stable condition but still in hospital.\n\nTexas Department of Public Safety Sgt Victor Taylor told the Associated Press news agency that it would be illegal for a 13-year-old to be driving in the state. Children are allowed to begin classroom driving lessons at the age of 14 in Texas, and must be 15 before they can start driving with an instructor or licensed adult in the car.\n\nOfficials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in Thursday's news conference that it's still unclear how fast the vehicles were moving when they collided head-on on a two-lane highway near the New Mexico border, causing both vehicles to burst into flames.\n\nSeveral of the victims in the van were not wearing seatbelts, the NTSB said, adding that one passenger was ejected from the vehicle. The information is preliminary, officials added, and the investigation into the \"mass casualty event\" is expected to last several more months.\n\nThe victims from the University of the Southwest - a private university in New Mexico - include golf coach Tyler James, 26; Jackson Zinn, 22; Karisa Raines, 21; Travis Garcia; 19; Laci Stone, 18, as well as Portuguese national Tiago Sousa, 18; and Mexican citizen Mauricio Sanchez, 19.\n\nHenrich Siemens, 38. was named as the pickup truck passenger. The name of the boy driving the vehicle is not being released due to his age.\n\nThe accident occurred in Andrews County in west Texas on Tuesday night, just after 20:00 local time (01:00 GMT).\n\nA Ford Transit passenger van was carrying members of the both men's and women's golf teams from a golf tournament, authorities said. The other vehicle involved was a Dodge 2500 pickup truck.\n\nThe Ford had been travelling northbound on the FM1788 roadway in Texas, while the Dodge pickup was travelling southbound.\n\nThe two surviving golfers are undergoing medical treatment in Lubbock, Texas.\n\nTheir families have arrived from Canada to be with them, a university official said on Thursday, adding that one is doing well enough to be able to sit up and eat soup.", "The passage of the bill this year has seen supporters gather outside Parliament\n\nBritish Sign Language (BSL) is set to gain formal recognition after MPs backed the proposal.\n\nA bill requiring public bodies to promote the language will now go to the House of Lords, as it continues its journey to becoming law.\n\nIt will also recognise BSL as a language in its own right in England, Wales and Scotland.\n\nThe legislation, introduced by Labour MP Rosie Cooper, is being backed by the government.\n\nUp to 250,000 people in the UK use some BSL on a daily basis, according to the British Deaf Association.\n\nDisabilities Minister Chloe Smith said legally recognising it would help deliver better public services to deaf people. while creating \"a more inclusive and accessible society, improving the lives of deaf people and helping public services to do it right\".\n\nThe bill would require government departments to follow guidance on how the use of BSL can be put in place across services.\n\nAlthough it will not allocate any new funds for BSL promotion, Ms Smith argued this issue was a \"red herring\", as the Equalities Act already ensures deaf people must have access to public services.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"We need a stronger presence,\" says BSL user\n\nKelsey Gordon is currently directing an interactive performance co-produced by a theatre that specialises in plays acted in BSL.\n\nThe actor and stage director says deaf people \"need a stronger presence\" in the arts.\n\n\"We're tiptoeing our way through it at the moment, and we need to blast those doors open,\" she adds.\n\n\"BSL is our language, it is really important to have a deaf representative in the room.\"\n\nMs Cooper, MP for West Lancashire, grew up using BSL and said her bill was about \"doing what is right\" and would \"begin the process\" of giving deaf people \"equal equal access to the essential services that everyone else takes for granted\".\n\n\"No longer will they need to feel not heard, ignored and invisible,\" she added.\n\nMs Cooper has also backed an initiative under which MPs will be offered lessons to learn BSL.\n\nMPs backed the British Sign Language Bill without the need for a vote.", "The government has faced intense pressure over gatherings held in and around Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. A police investigation into several of the events has now concluded, with more than 100 fines having been issued to attendees. Here is what we know about the gatherings and the restrictions in place at the time:\n\nA photo from May 2020 showed the prime minister and his staff with bottles of wine and a cheeseboard in the Downing Street garden. When asked about it, Boris Johnson said \"those people were at work talking about work\". Boris Johnson was pictured with his wife Carrie as well as Downing Street staff Legal restrictions at the time said you could not leave your house without a reasonable excuse and government guidance was that you could meet one person outside of your household in an outdoor setting while exercising. This event was not investigated by the police. About 100 people were invited by email to \"socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening\". Witnesses told the BBC the PM and his wife were among about 30 people who attended. Boris Johnson apologised to MPs for attending the event, saying he spent 25 minutes thanking staff, before returning to his office. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering took place in the Cabinet Office to mark the departure of a No 10 private secretary. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least one fine has been issued after the government's former head of ethics admitted receiving one and apologised for attending the event. On Boris Johnson’s birthday, up to 30 people gathered in the Cabinet Room at No 10 to present the prime minister with a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday, according to a report by ITV News. No 10 said staff had \"gathered briefly\" to \"wish the prime minister a happy birthday\", adding that he had been there \"for less than 10 minutes\". Restrictions at the time banned most indoor gatherings involving more than two people. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. We know at least three attendees have received fines from the police, with the PM, his wife Carrie Symonds and Chancellor Rishi Sunak all confirming they have paid fixed penalty notices. Two gatherings are understood to have taken place in Downing Street on this date: one to mark the departure of a special adviser and one in the Downing Street flat. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the gathering in the flat where Mr Johnson and his wife live was to celebrate the departure of Dominic Cummings, the PM's former senior adviser. A spokesman for Mrs Johnson denies the party took place. Boris Johnson pictured at a party, according to ITV News Eight days earlier Boris Johnson had announced a new lockdown in England. Indoor gatherings with other households were banned, unless they were for work purposes. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. A leaving event was held for No 10 aide, Cleo Watson, where people were drinking, and Mr Johnson made a speech, according to sources. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Education has confirmed it had an office gathering to thank staff for their work during the pandemic. It says drinks and snacks were brought by those who attended and no outside guests or support staff were invited. Eight days earlier, London had been placed in restrictions which banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Conservative Party has admitted that an \"unauthorised gathering\" took place at its HQ in Westminster. It was held by the team of the party's London-mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, who has since stepped down as chair of the London Assembly police and crime committee. In December, police said they would be contacting two people who attended the party. The gathering at the Conservative Party headquarters was described as ‘raucous’ This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. Multiple sources have told the BBC there was a Christmas quiz for No 10 staff last year. A photo - published by the Sunday Mirror - shows Boris Johnson taking part and sitting between two colleagues in No 10. Mr Johnson has denied any wrongdoing. Mr Johnson was pictured in the No 10 library under a portrait of Margaret Thatcher The rules: At this time, the rules in London banned two or more people from different households from meeting indoors, unless \"reasonably necessary\" for work purposes. This event was not investigated by the police. The Department for Transport has apologised after confirming reports of a party in its offices, calling it \"inappropriate\" and an \"error of judgment\" by staff. This event was not included in Sue Gray's report. A leaving party was held at the Cabinet Office for the outgoing head of the civil service Covid taskforce - the team responsible for drawing up coronavirus restrictions. Kate Josephs, now chief executive of Sheffield City Council, apologised for the event, saying she was \"truly sorry that I did this and for the anger that people will feel as a result\". A second gathering was held in the Cabinet Office to hold an online Christmas quiz for the Cabinet Secretary’s private office. A third gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of a No 10 official The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or all of the events. Downing Street originally denied a report by the Daily Mirror that a party took place in Downing Street on this date. However, a video obtained by ITV News showed the prime minister's then-press secretary Allegra Stratton joking about reports of the event, saying: \"This fictional party was a business meeting and it was not socially distanced.\" The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. A gathering was held in No 10 Downing Street to mark the departure of two private secretaries. The police investigation determined that this event did breach the rules in place at the time. Two parties were held by Downing Street staff at No 10, the night before Prince Philip's funeral. One of the events was a leaving party for the PM's then director of communications James Slack, who has apologised for the event and acknowledged it \"should not have happened at the time that it did\". Boris Johnson was not at either party. The rules had been eased in England on 12 April, but working from home continued to be recommended and socialising indoors with people from other households was not allowed. Meeting others outdoors was limited to groups of six people or two households. The police investigation determined that an event on this date did breach the rules in place at the time but they have not confirmed whether it was one or both of the events. We know fines have been issued to some people who attended Mr Slack’s leaving party, but we do not know who they were issued to.", "Coventry is the current UK City of Culture\n\nBradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham have made the shortlist to be named UK City of Culture for 2025.\n\nA different location is given the title every four years.\n\nThe winning place will be announced in May and will be the fourth holder, after Derry-Londonderry, Hull and the current City of Culture, Coventry.\n\nThe title has brought £172m to Coventry, according to the government, as well as events like BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend and the Turner Prize.\n\n\"We have seen a huge positive impact in this year's host city, Coventry, with millions of pounds in investment and thousands of visitors,\" said Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.\n\nThe government said the finalists would have to show how they would use culture \"to transform a place through social, cultural and economic regeneration\" and recover from the Covid pandemic.\n\nFor the first time, groups of towns, areas and counties have been able to bid, as well as single urban areas.\n\nThe four locations that missed out on progressing from the longlist were Cornwall, Derby, Stirling and a bid covering Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.\n\nThe city with the youngest population in the UK, Bradford says winning would \"leave a lasting legacy of increased visitor numbers and a more vibrant, sustainable cultural sector\".\n\nIt would also increase opportunities for local people and \"bring greater community engagement across the district and celebrate our diverse communities\", the bid says.\n\nBradford 2025 organisers have already backed a string of events in West Yorkshire that they say give a glimpse of what to expect, such as a new public artwork programme, a light festival visited by more than 20,000 people in November, and mentoring network FilmMakers 2025.\n\nCounty Durham includes the towns of Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle as well as Durham. It says being UK City of Culture would attract 15 million visitors, spending £700m and creating 2,500 jobs in the creative industries and 1,800 in tourism.\n\nIt would also \"empower residents and help to improve community well-being\" and \"strengthen our reputation nationally and internationally as a place to live, work, visit and invest\", organisers promise.\n\nThe year would include spectacular opening and closing events, the bicentenary of the world's first public steam railway, a travelling fair asking \"big questions\" about the local economy, and a 12-month space programme.\n\nThe south-coast city is \"uniquely positioned, facing outwards to the world\", it boasts.\n\nIts bid organisers say the contest is \"a real chance to put our city on the map - to change perceptions, showcase our diversity and give a voice to every part of our community\".\n\nThey say: \"If our bid wins, we'll attract visitors, enterprise and trade that will boost our own homegrown businesses and cultural organisations, bring in investment and boost opportunities for young people. We'll get the support we need to tackle the challenges we face, too.\"\n\nHollywood stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds took control of Wrexham AFC in February 2021\n\nCovering Wrexham and the surrounding area, the borough would be the first Welsh UK City of Culture. It says success would allow \"communities that don't usually have a platform to share their stories\".\n\nIf it wins, it says it \"will explore how culture can reanimate our public spaces and shopping areas, and work on how we can best upgrade our civic and artistic infrastructure\".\n\nIt wants to use the bid to become known as the \"capital of play for the UK\", it pledges \"a world-class events programme\" and to use culture \"as a catalyst for improving health and well-being, local knowledge and pride, and improved educational outcomes\".\n\nClaims to fame: Wrexham AFC, owned by Hollywood A-listers Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Focus Wales music festival.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Thousands gather in Moscow to celebrate annexation of Crimea\n\nEight years after Russian troops seized Ukraine's southern region of Crimea, the event is being celebrated with flag-waving crowds in Moscow's Luzhniki stadium and special lessons in schools.\n\nState workers said they had been told to take part. In schools, teachers held lessons marking the \"Crimean spring\".\n\nThe Russian army has used its bases in Crimea to seize towns and cities on Ukraine's south coast.\n\nMr Putin has regularly used the anniversary to highlight love of the motherland.\n\nOfficials said more than 200,000 people had gathered at the stadium, although the numbers could not be verified. The stadium's official capacity is 81,000, but there were also large crowds outside.\n\nPresident Putin praised the military, who he said had demonstrated Russian unity: \"When needed, they shield each other from bullets with their bodies like brothers. Such unity we have not had for a long time.\" He also repeated the false claim that Russian troops were protecting people in areas of eastern Ukraine from genocide.\n\nWe know what we need to do next, how to do it and at what cost. And we will definitely carry out all the plans we have made\n\nBut as he spoke on stage, his address on almost every major state TV channel suddenly cut to singer Oleg Gazmanov belting out the words \"Forward, Russia\", in what the Kremlin later called a technical glitch.\n\nMoscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin also addressed the event along with top state TV journalist Margarita Simonyan and foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.\n\nI spoke to dozens of people queueing to enter the venue for the pro-Kremlin rally.\n\nMany told the BBC they worked in the public sector, and that they had been pressured into attending by their employers.\n\nOne man who works in the Moscow metro, told us that he and other employees had been forced to attend the rally.\n\n\"I'll be here for a while and then I'll leave… I think most people here don't support the war. I don't,\" he said.\n\nAmong the flags in the Luzhniki stadium were signs bearing the letter Z, a symbol of Russia's war\n\nMany people didn't want to be filmed or answer questions.\n\nStudents told us they had been given the option of a day off from lectures if they attended \"a concert\". Some of the students we spoke to didn't even know that the event was dedicated, in part, to support the war in Ukraine.\n\nThere were doubtless some people in attendance who genuinely support President Putin and the \"special military operation in Ukraine\", as the Kremlin prefers to call it.\n\nSpecial lessons on the war entitled \"My Country\" began at the start of March, for students in the final six years of school. Pupils were played a video of Mr Putin from 21 February, in which he detailed his vision of Ukraine's history, BBC Russian reports.\n\nPhotographs emerged earlier this week of children lining up to form the letter Z, a symbol painted on Russian military vehicles that have invaded Ukraine.\n\nThe education ministry then sent out lesson plans specifically geared to 18 March, the date that Russia annexed Crimea after an internationally discredited referendum.\n\nAccording to a memo sent to schools by the education ministry, lessons for children in Years 6-8 (12-15 year-olds) should focus on \"heroes of our time... to help form a stable and grounded understanding of the feeling of patriotism\".\n\nPupils were to be asked to sit in a circle to hear an explanation of how ideas of \"duty, dignity and patriotism are inextricably linked with the concepts of exploits and heroism\". Teachers would then show a video to show that people with military roles were more likely to become heroes than anyone else.\n\nA separate video was sent out to schools giving Russia's version of the events surrounding the annexation of Crimea.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the video, two uniformed teenagers from Crimea are asked if they know what happened on 18 March 2014. One says that for him, as a resident of Sevastopol in Crimea, it was a day of celebration, when the \"Crimean Spring\" was accomplished.\n\nAnother teenager, Anna, is asked why the events are known as spring: \"Spring is the start of new life. It is renewal, warmth, the sun. And of course, a cosy home.\"\n\nOne teacher in Moscow region spoke of taking the day off out of disgust.\n\n\"I don't like history being used for propaganda. I think this is dangerous, because there are a lot of children here who have relatives in Ukraine. This can provoke conflicts among children,\" said the teacher, who prefers to remain anonymous.\n\nMost of her colleagues said they were in favour of the lessons. \"Even those with relatives under the bombs approve. They say the Nazis should have been kicked out a long time ago,\" the teacher said, referring to Russia's false characterisation of Ukraine's leadership.\n\nA number of teachers have complained about the \"My Country\" lessons. One teacher from Volgograd called Svetlana said that for some of the children war was something of an adventure. \"I explained there's nothing good in war,\" she told BBC Russian.", "In the video, the actor spoke of his affection for the Russian people\n\nA video address by Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Russian people was trending on Russian Twitter on Friday and has sparked reaction.\n\nIn it, Schwarzenegger warns Russians they are being fed misinformation about their country's assault on Ukraine.\n\nAddressing Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, he says: \"You started this war, and you can stop it\".\n\nHis intervention has been praised by Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine.\n\nWriting on the Telegram app, opposition politician Lev Shlosberg said it had been filmed \"with respect towards us, Russian people\".\n\n\"Arnold Schwarzenegger has a unique ability to talk to anyone with persuasion, respect and on equal terms. Wits, power and justice. Have a listen. Think about it. Understand,\" Mr Shlosberg said.\n\nAlso on Telegram, liberal journalist Anton Orekh said his message contained no \"Russophobia\".\n\n\"We are outcasts in the world.. Arnold is one of the few people who addressed Russians not as savage orcs, but as good people who have lost their ways,\" Mr Orekh said.\n\nBut a pro-Kremlin spoof account, Barack Obmana on Twitter, derided it, saying \"the opinion of paid US talking heads\" mattered little to Russians.\n\nRussia has consistently said the war in Ukraine was a \"special operation\" to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians.\n\nBut in his video, Schwarzenegger said the Kremlin was lying to Russians when it said the invasion was intended to \"denazify\" Ukraine.\n\nUkraine did not start the war, but \"those in power in the Kremlin\" did, he said.\n\nBy 13:00 GMT the video had been viewed nearly 25m times and had been retweeted 325,000 times.\n\nSchwarzenegger is one of the few accounts followed by the Kremlin's official Russian- and English-language Twitter accounts.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Arnold This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn the nine-minute video, which also shows footage of the destruction in Ukraine, the actor-turned-politician calls on people to see through disinformation and propaganda.\n\n\"I'm speaking to you today because there are things going on in the world that are being kept from you, terrible things that you should know about,\" he says.\n\n\"Ukraine did not start this war, neither did nationalists or Nazis,\" the former California governor says, noting that the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. \"This is not the Russian people's war.\"\n\nThe Austrian-born former bodybuilding champion - whose film Red Heat was the first US film shot in Moscow's Red Square - speaks of his affection for the Russian people and talks about being inspired as a youth by Russian Olympic weightlifter Yuri Vlasov.\n\nHe also talks about his father, who was among Nazi German troops who attacked St Petersburg - then called Leningrad - during World War Two. He returned a \"broken man\" full of pain from a wound he sustained during fighting and the guilt he felt at having taken part.\n\n\"The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me,\" he says. \"That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nHe goes on to say: \"This is an illegal war. Your lives, your limbs, your futures have been sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the entire world.\"", "About 400 protesters gathered outside the Port of Liverpool\n\nP&O Ferries staff are staging protests after the firm sacked 800 employees without giving them any notice.\n\nThe RMT and Nautilus unions are calling for action across the ports of Dover, Liverpool, Hull and Larne.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' staff were told via a video message on Thursday that it was their \"final day of employment\".\n\nP&O said it took the \"difficult decision\" as a \"last resort\" to save the business.\n\nBut unions have hit out against the dismissal, saying it marked a \"dark day\" in the shipping industry.\n\nA chorus of cross-party MPs described P&O Ferries' actions as \"callous\" and \"disgraceful\".\n\nThe government is looking \"very closely\" at the action P&O Ferries has taken to see if they broke any laws after it fired its employees, planning to replace them with cheaper agency staff, it said.\n\nThe RMT union labelled the move one of the \"most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations\".\n\nIts national secretary Darren Procter told a crowd of about 250 demonstrators in Dover: \"We're going to make sure our workers get back onboard their vessels.\"\n\nP&O Ferries worker Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" after working for the company for 22 years.\n\n\"It's our lives,\" he said. \"It's how our families have grown up, knowing that this is what we do, and it's just been turned on its head within a matter of hours.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sacked P&O employee Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" at losing his job after 22 years\n\nMark Dickinson, general secretary of the maritime trade union Nautilus, told the BBC: \"It's absolutely ripped the guts out of everybody.\"\n\n\"I've seen some curveballs and some shocking developments over that time... but for a company to treat the legal process in such an underhand and callous way has shocked me.\"\n\nBoth the RMT union and Nautilus International are seeking legal advice on the dismissal.\n\nThe transport union TSSA called on the government to \"take over running vital ferry routes to safeguard trade and travel\", and \"hit [P&O] where it hurts\" over the \"shocking events\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. P&O Ferries workers were told via video that it was their \"final day of employment\"\n\nHolly Cudbill, an employment lawyer from Blake Morgan, said that P&O Ferries' actions \"were almost certainly illegal\".\n\nAlthough its boats sail around the world, she believes the firm's employees are covered by UK law.\n\nIn that instance, P&O Ferries should have consulted with unions and staff about potential dismissals and notified the government that hundreds of jobs were at risk, she told the BBC.\n\nSacked staff said the video message had referred to a \"generous severance package\" being offered, but no details were given.\n\nMaritime minister Robert Courts said he was \"frankly angry at the way workers have been treated\". He told the House of Commons P&O Ferries' actions were \"wholly unacceptable\".\n\n\"Reports of workers being given zero notice and escorted off their ships with immediate effect while being told cheaper alternatives would take up their roles, shows the insensitive nature by which P&O approached this issue,\" he said.\n\nHe added that he did not expect critical goods and services to be hit by the sudden drop in capacity, but travellers \"should expect some disruption over the coming days\".\n\nThe company has said services are unable to run over the next few days.\n\nFormer P&O workers collect their belongings after being fired on Thursday\n\nIn a letter to the prime minister, Labour's Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh described the firing as a \"despicable assault on workers' rights\".\n\n\"But British seafarers do not need meaningless platitudes - they need action,\" she added, demanding that government suspends any contracts it holds with DP World - P&O Ferries' owner.\n\nFormer transport minister Sir John Hayes also suggested the government should \"recover any monies granted to P&O during the pandemic\" in a bid to reverse their decision.\n\nP&O Ferries claimed almost £15m in government grants in 2020, which included furlough payments for its employees.\n\nThe move was also condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Dover in a joint statement, which described the sackings as \"inhumane and unethical\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Archbishop of Canterbury This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by Archbishop of Canterbury\n\n\"Ill-treating workers is not just business. In God's eyes it is sin,\" they said, calling for support for a consultation.\n\nP&O Ferries acknowledged on Friday that the redundancy came \"without warning or prior consultation, and we fully understand that this has caused distress for them and their families.\"\n\nThey added: \"We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn't survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.\"\n\nP&O Ferries is one of the UK's leading ferry companies, carrying more than 10 million passengers a year before the pandemic and about 15% of all freight cargo in and out of the UK.\n\nIt was bought by DP World, the multi-national ports and logistics company based in Dubai in 2019. At the time of purchase, its chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem described it as a \"strong, recognisable brand\".\n\nIt paid a £270m dividend to shareholders in 2020.\n\nHowever, like many transport operators, it saw demand slump in the pandemic. Just a couple of months after the dividends announcement, it said it would cut 1,100 jobs after a downturn in bookings.\n\nOn Friday, it confirmed it is losing about £1m a day for each day its services are not running.\n\nAre you affected by issues covered in this story? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Patsy Stevenson says the force \"still can't hold themselves accountable\"\n\nThe Met Police will appeal against a High Court ruling that it breached the rights of the organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard in south London.\n\nThe group had to cancel the event after the Met said it would be illegal to stage it under lockdown restrictions.\n\nHowever, hundreds of people attended an unofficial gathering to pay their respects to Ms Everard who was murdered by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens.\n\nPolice and some protesters clashed at the Clapham Common vigil last March.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Met faced severe criticism over their policing of the event\n\nActivist and co-founder of Reclaim These Streets (RTS) Jamie Klingler urged the Metropolitan Police to \"learn the law\".\n\nResponding to news of the appeal, Ms Klingler wrote in a tweet: \"I'm not going to pretend I am not furious. They want us to give up. They want to exhaust us.\"\n\nAt a two-day hearing at the High Court in January, Ms Klingler and three others argued that decisions made by the force in advance of the planned vigil amounted to a breach of their right to freedom of speech and assembly.\n\nAnna Birley, Jessica Leigh, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler brought the case against the Met Police\n\nThe judgment was described by their solicitor as \"a victory for women\".\n\nRTS had planned the socially-distanced vigil for the 33-year-old, near to where she went missing in Clapham.\n\nAlmost a year to the day on from the 13 March 2021 vigil, two senior judges released their findings that the Met's actions were \"not in accordance with the law\".\n\nThe women cancelled the vigil after being told by the force they would face fines of £10,000 each and possible prosecution if it went ahead, the court heard.\n\nThe spontaneous vigil that took place instead led to the force being heavily criticised for its actions - although it went on to be cleared by the police watchdog.\n\nCouzens, 49, was given a whole life sentence at the Old Bailey in September after admitting murder.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Marina Ovsyannikova says none of her interrogators thought her TV protest was her idea\n\nA Russian journalist who interrupted a live TV news programme to protest against the war in Ukraine says Russians are \"zombified\" by propaganda.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Marina Ovsyannikova said Russians should stop listening to state media coverage.\n\n\"I understand it's very hard... to find alternative information, but you need to try to look for it,\" she said.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova, an editor at state-controlled Channel 1, was detained after her protest on Monday.\n\nShe ran onto the set of one of Russia's most-watched news programmes, Vremya, holding a sign reading: \"No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.\"\n\nShe could also be heard repeating the words \"no war, stop the war\".\n\n\"I was aware that if I went to protest in [Moscow's] central square I would be arrested like everyone else and thrown into a police van and be put on trial,\" Ms Ovsyannikova said on Thursday.\n\n\"Half the poster was in Russian, half the poster was in English. I really wanted to show the Western audience that some Russians are against war,\" she said.\n\n\"I feel of course some responsibility lying on me. I was an ordinary cog in the propaganda machine. Until the very last moment I didn't think about it too much,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova also responded to various allegations in Russian media about her motivation for staging the protest. \"There are lots of conspiracy theories building up about me,\" she said.\n\n\"That's why I had to explain to the world what really happened, the fact that I am just a normal Russian woman, but I could not remain on the sidelines.\"\n\nBefore her protest she recorded a video in which she said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda.\n\nThe journalist said she was detained and questioned by police for 14 hours, and fined 30,000 roubles ($280; £210) for the video. The authorities had been convinced she had been acting on someone else's behalf, she said.\n\n\"Nobody believed it was my personal decision. They suggested it could be conflict at work, relatives who were angry about Ukraine or that I was doing it for Western special services.\"\n\n\"They couldn't believe that I had so many objections to the government that I could not stay silent,\" she said.\n\nRussian state television news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all the major channels.\n\nIt is also unusual for employees of state-controlled news organisations to express an opinion that differs from the official Kremlin position.\n\nBut since the war in Ukraine began, a number of journalists have resigned from top Russian TV channels: Zhanna Agalakova from Channel 1, and Lilia Gildeyeva and Vadim Glusker from NTV.\n\nState-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a \"special military operation\" and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, describing Ukraine's elected government as neo-Nazis.", "Fires in Siberia have contributed to brown carbon plumes in the Arctic\n\nThe dense plumes of wildfire smoke seen in recent years are contributing to the warming of the Arctic, say scientists.\n\nTheir study says that particles of \"brown carbon\" in the smoke are drifting north and attracting heat to the polar region.\n\nThe authors believe the growing number of wildfires helps explain why the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet.\n\nThey're concerned that this effect will likely increase.\n\nOver the past decade, smoke from raging wildfires in Australia, Portugal, Siberia and the US have changed the colour of the skies. The smoke has impacted human health, and the amount of carbon released by the burning has helped push emissions to record levels.\n\nBut now scientists say that all this burning has contributed to another serious issue - the loss of sea ice in the Arctic.\n\nResearchers have long been familiar with \"black carbon\", the sooty particles that are emitted from diesel engines, coal burning, cooking stoves and other sources.\n\nThese aerosols, which absorb sunlight and turn it into heat, are known to be the second largest contributor to global warming.\n\nThe impact of these particles on the Arctic and on clouds has been well documented.\n\nA large plume of wildfire smoke seen from an airplane\n\nHowever, the same can't be said for brown carbon - which principally comes from the burning of trees and vegetation but is also created, to a lesser degree, from fossil fuels. The warming effect of this less dense substance has been either ignored or estimated with huge uncertainty in climate models.\n\nTo develop a better understanding of the impacts, researchers travelled around the Arctic ocean on the Chinese icebreaker, Xue Long, in 2017.\n\nWhile some previous estimates had shown brown carbon was responsible for just 3% of the warming effect compared to black carbon, the scientists found that it is doing far more damage in the region.\n\n\"To our surprise, observational analyses and numerical simulations show that the warming effect of brown carbon aerosols over the Arctic is up to about 30% of that of black carbon,\" says senior author Pingqing Fu, an atmospheric chemist at Tianjin University in China.\n\nThe study found that wildfires were the main source of this brown material - contributing twice as much to the warming effect of brown carbon in the Arctic than was coming from fossil fuels.\n\nThe authors believe that while black soot has played the major role, brown carbon had a hand in the exceptional warming being felt in the Arctic region in recent decades.\n\nOver the last 50 years, the icy north has been warming at three times the rate of the rest of the planet.\n\nThe main factor driving this difference is what's termed Arctic amplification.\n\nWhat happens is that the ice and snow on the surface of the Arctic waters normally reflects most sunlight back to space, but as the ice melts the darker waters absorb much more heat, which in turn melts the ice even quicker.\n\nBut as wildfires in mid and northern latitudes have increased as the world warms, this new study finds that brown carbon from this source is having an increasing impact in the Arctic.\n\nThis is what scientists describe as a feedback loop, where the warmer world causes more fires, which in turn leads to less ice and more heat.\n\n\"The increase in brown carbon aerosols will lead to global or regional warming, which increases the probability and frequency of wildfires,\" says Dr Fu, explaining the way the feedback loop works.\n\n\"Increased wildfire events will emit more brown carbon aerosols, further heating the earth, thus making wildfires more frequent.\"\n\nAs a recent UN study has shown, wildfires are likely to increase by up to 50% by the middle of this century, so the authors believe this brown carbon trend will likely increase.\n\nThe scientists involved in the study say that their work shows that the importance of managing vegetation fires is not just about saving lives and limiting the damage done by burning - it also has a role in limiting the warming of the planet.\n\nThe study has been published in the journal, One Earth.", "The sanctioned aircraft include Boeing jets being used by Russian flag carrier Aeroflot\n\nNearly 100 planes with ties to Russia have been effectively grounded by the US government, including one owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe US Commerce Department has said the planes are in contravention of US sanctions on Russia.\n\nProviding service to these aircraft anywhere in the world - including inside Russia - may lead to heavy fines and potential jail time, it says.\n\nWhile most are Boeing aircraft, a Gulfstream private jet owned by Mr Abramovich - the current owner of Chelsea football club - is also included.\n\nThe Russian was among seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government earlier this month in response to the Ukraine war.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nIn a statement, the department said any refuelling, maintenance or repair work of any of the listed aircraft - as well as the provision of spare parts - violates US export controls.\n\nCommerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the move was in response to \"Russia's brutal war of choice against Ukraine\".\n\nShe added: \"We are publishing this list to put the world on notice - we will not allow Russian and Belarusian companies and oligarchs to travel with impunity in violation of our laws.\"\n\nThe department said violators face \"substantial jail time, fines, loss of export privileges, or other restrictions\".\n\nThe regulations apply to any aircraft which has more than 25% US-origin content that was re-exported to Russia after new controls came into effect on 24 February, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.\n\n\"By preventing these aircraft from receiving any service, for example, including from abroad, international flights from Russia on these aircraft are effectively grounded,\" the statement added.\n\nDeputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said the US government hoped the move highlighted Russia's increasing isolation from the global economy.\n\n\"Our actions aren't idle words or dead letters on the page,\" he said. \"They have real teeth and as Putin's vicious war continues, they will continue to bite harder on the Russian and Belarusian economies\".\n\nThe US, Canada and European allies have already banned Russian aircraft from operating in their airspace, forcing Russian airlines to largely abandon their international routes.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: US bans all Russian oil and gas imports\n\nThe US and UK are banning Russian oil and the EU is ending its reliance on Russian gas, stepping up the economic response to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nUS President Joe Biden said the move targeted \"the main artery of Russia's economy\".\n\nEnergy exports are a vital source of revenue for Russia but the move is also likely to impact Western consumers.\n\nMajor brands have meanwhile continued to pull out of Russia, with McDonald's and Coca-Cola the latest to leave.\n\nRussia's economy is heavily dependent on energy. It is the world's third-biggest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and the US.\n\nBefore the measures were announced, Russia warned of \"catastrophic\" consequences for the global economy and said it might close its main gas pipeline to Germany.\n\nOn the ground in Ukraine, civilians have been evacuated from two under-attack areas while the US has said up to 4,000 Russian troops may have been killed in the conflict.\n\nThe conflict has already sent petrol prices to record highs in the US and the UK and experts warn they could go even higher.\n\nHowever, Venezuela could increase its oil production to help replace Russian oil.\n\nReinaldo Quintero, president of the association that represents Venezuelan oil companies told the BBC that the country could potentially raise its production levels by 400,000 barrels a day.\n\n\"I think we can reach 1.2 million barrels per day with the infrastructure we have right now at this moment. So that will make us able to supply the need, some of the need, to the North American market,\" he said.\n\nPresident Biden's announcement followed pressure from both sides of the US political divide to do more to target the Russian economy.\n\n\"We're banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,\" he said.\n\n\"That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at US ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to [President Vladimir] Putin.\"\n\nMr Biden admitted the move was \"not without cost at home,\" adding the decision was taken \"in close consultation\" with allies.\n\nIn a similar move, the UK is to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022.\n\nThe UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, accepted that the move would not hit Russia immediately but added \"what it will do is add to the pressure we're already seeing on Russia and don't forget that the economic impact of the sanctions that the UK has led has been extreme\".\n\nAbout 8% of US oil and refined product imports come from Russia, while Russia makes up about 6% of the UK's oil imports.\n\nBy contrast, the EU is much more reliant on Russian energy, so the bloc's response stopped short of a ban.\n\nThe European Commission said it would switch to alternative supplies and expand clean energy faster to fill the shortfall, with the aim of making Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels \"well before 2030\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Five times Russians have stood up for Ukraine\n\n\"We're not standing here to say this is going to be in any way easy,\" said the European Commission's Vice-President Frans Timmermans.\n\n\"But I am also deeply convinced that even if it's not easy, even if it's very hard, it's something we need to do, because now it's also intimately linked to our security.\"\n\nRussia later announced plans to ban the exports of certain commodities and raw materials. The details are still to be worked out, but Russia is a major exporter of grain and metals.\n\nEven countries with low Russian energy imports are set to feel the impact as the measures are likely to boost already high wholesale prices. Inflation is soaring in the US, EU and the UK, adding to the pressure on households.\n\nThe move adds to a long list of economic sanctions imposed against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine - the central bank has had its assets frozen, some Russian banks have been cut off from global payment networks and Germany suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would have transported more gas from Russia to Germany.\n\nBut energy sales have continued to provide a source of cash despite the other financial restrictions.", "Petrol prices have hit another record high as oil and gas costs soar amid fears of a global economic shock from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOil jumped to $139 a barrel at one point, the highest level for almost 14 years, while wholesale gas prices for next-day delivery more than doubled.\n\nIt came as the US hinted at a ban on buying Russian energy, as it looked to other countries to increase supplies.\n\nHowever, European leaders rejected that idea on Monday.\n\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Europe had \"deliberately exempted\" Russian energy from sanctions because its supply cannot be secured \"any other way\" at the moment.\n\nAnd Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte said: \"The painful reality is we are still very much dependent on Russian gas and Russian oil and if you now force European companies to quit doing business with Russia that would have enormous ramifications around Europe including Ukraine but also around the world.\n\n\"We have to reduce our dependency. That will take time,\" he added.\n\nUK petrol prices have hit an average of 155p a litre, the AA motoring group said.\n\nThe market turmoil is fuelling concerns that the price of many everyday items from food to petrol and heating, already rising at their fastest rate for 30 years, could be pushed higher.\n\nAnalysts have already warned that UK energy bills could reach as high as £3,000 a year due to the surge in oil and gas prices.\n\nRussia is the world's second top producer of crude oil after Saudi Arabia, and supplies about a third of Europe's needs. The price of Brent crude rose by more than a fifth last week amid fears of a reduction in Russian supplies.\n\nAfter peaking at $139.13 a barrel early on Monday, the price of Brent crude - an international benchmark - fell back to around $125.\n\nThe latest rise in UK petrol prices has pushed the cost to more than £7 a gallon, the AA said. Filling up a car with a 55-litre tank now costs nearly £17 more than a year ago, rising from £68.60 to £85.59.\n\nThe boss of fuel delivery firm Portland Fuel, James Spencer, told the BBC he thought fuel prices could reach £1.70-£1.75 a litre. \"Even if we can get extra [oil] supplies on to the market, nothing will happen quickly.\"\n\nHe said that, to a certain extent, individual car drivers have options to cut their use by driving less, but added that businesses that have no alternatives were really starting to feel the squeeze.\n\nThe crisis continues to affect share markets. The main stock exchanges in France and Germany sank more than 4% in early trading before paring their losses, closing 1.3% and 2% lower respectively.\n\nIn London, the FTSE 100 dropped more than 2%, but then recovered to close 0.4% lower. Last week, the FTSE had its worse week since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.\n\nIn the US, markets ended lower with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 down 2.4% and 3% respectively. The Dow is now in a \"correction\", having fallen 10% since its last record closing level on 4 January.\n\nThe price of gold, a haven in troubled times for investors looking for security, hit $2,000 an ounce for the first time in almost 18 months.\n\nThese are massive movements in the price of commodities - the raw materials that eventually feed, warm and transport us.\n\nThe extra movements this morning arose out of talk of an embargo on Russian oil. That is very significant, because Russia is the second biggest world exporter. Anyone passing a petrol station would have seen the impact. If there was an actual embargo, the price of an average tank could head close to £100, and indeed is already there at the most expensive service stations in the UK.\n\nBut we don't need to be physically reliant on actual Russian supplies for it to feed through into the prices our suppliers pay and then pass on to us. The price for gas in international markets was already at incredible highs last week. It further increased by a third to frankly frightening levels, 10- to 15-times normal, above £6 per therm.\n\nIf in the first half of this year these prices average £3.20, then typical dual fuel bills in October could rise to £3,000 a year or £250 a month.\n\nOn Sunday, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration and its allies were discussing a ban on Russian oil supplies.\n\nThe comments came as pressure grows on the White House and other Western nations to take tougher action against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nA Russian oil embargo would be a major escalation in the response to the invasion of Ukraine and would potentially have a major impact on the global economy.\n\nHowever, some European countries are reluctant given their dependence on Russian energy supplies.\n\n\"While the US might just push through a ban on Russian oil imports, Europe can ill-afford to do the same. More worryingly, [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin, with his back to the wall, could turn off gas supplies to Europe, cutting off the continent's energy lifeline,\" said Vandana Hari at oil markets analysis firm Vanda Insights.\n\nMr Johnson said Europe could not simply shut down the use of oil and gas overnight, but that countries should move together quickly to look beyond Russia for its oil and gas supplies.\n\nOn Sunday, energy giant Shell defended its decision to purchase Russian crude oil despite the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe company said it was forced to buy oil from Russia in order to maintain timely supplies of fuel to Europe.\n\n\"To be clear, without an uninterrupted supply of crude oil to refineries, the energy industry cannot assure continued provision of essential products to people across Europe over the weeks ahead,\" a spokesperson added.\n\nA possible ban on buying Russian oil has intensified pressure to find alternative supplies.\n\nThe US is this week expected to press Saudi Arabia to increase crude production, and there is fresh impetus for a deal over Iran's nuclear ambitions that would lift sanctions on its oil exports.\n\nHowever, progress on a deal has been hampered after Russia sought a US guarantee that the sanctions it faces over the Ukraine conflict will not affect its trade with Tehran.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video shows people running to escape Russian shelling in Irpin, just outside of the capital Kyiv", "Countries such as Yemen depend heavily on Russia and Ukraine for their wheat\n\nThe head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, has warned the conflict in Ukraine could send global food prices soaring, with a catastrophic impact on the world's poorest.\n\nUkraine and Russia are both major exporters of basic foodstuffs, and the war has already hit crop production, driving up prices\n\nMr Beasley said it was putting more people at risk of starvation worldwide.\n\n\"Just when you think hell on earth can't get any worse, it does,\" he said.\n\nRussia and Ukraine, once dubbed \"the breadbasket of Europe\", export about a quarter of the world's wheat and half of its sunflower products, like seeds and oil. Ukraine also sells a lot of corn globally.\n\nAnalysts have warned that war could impact the production of grains and even double global wheat prices.\n\nMr Beasley told BBC World Service's Business Daily programme that the number of people facing potential starvation worldwide had already risen from 80 million to 276 million in four years prior to Russia's invasion, due to what he calls a \"perfect storm\" of conflict, climate change and coronavirus.\n\nHe said certain countries could be particularly affected by the current crisis, due to the high proportion of grains they currently import from the Black Sea region.\n\n\"The country of Lebanon, 50%, give or take, of their grains, come from Ukraine. Yemen, Syria, Tunisia - and I could go on and on - depend on the country of Ukraine as a breadbasket,\" he said.\n\n\"So you're going from being a breadbasket to now, literally, having to hand out bread to them. It's just an incredible reverse of reality.\"\n\nNorwegian chemical company Yara International, a major fertiliser producer which operates in more than 60 countries, told the BBC a shortage could badly hit crop yields, leading to \"a global food crisis\".\n\nUkrainian lawyer Ivanna Dorichenko, an expert in international trade arbitration, said some farmers in Ukraine have already abandoned their fields in order to take up arms against the Russian invasion.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The men who need to work on the land, they're all defending our land right now. Because if they do not defend the land, there'll be nothing to work on at a later stage, and you don't have a single person right now who's not trying to help in any way they can.\"\n\nMs Dorichenko said the war had wreaked havoc with supply lines typically used to export agricultural produce. Ukraine's military suspended all commercial shipping at its ports in the aftermath of the Russian invasion.\n\n\"The vessels cannot leave the waters, the vessels cannot get loaded. It's effectively a war zone. Sadly, there's nothing which can be potentially shipped right now from Ukraine.\"\n\nShe said it meant \"huge losses\" for businesses, but also humanitarian efforts, because Ukraine could no longer send goods to regions such as South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa, as well as to groups such the World Food Programme.\n\nWith food price inflation already at crisis point in some countries prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, South African economist Wandile Sihlobo said he was worried about the potential consequences for grain-importing nations in Africa and beyond.\n\nMr Sihlobo, chief economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, told the BBC that while steep price rises may be a problem in the short-term, shortages of essential crops could follow.\n\n\"Over time, depending on the length and the severity of this war, you could begin to see shortages of shipments that come to the African continent, and that could cause shortages. Particularly in the North African countries, and to an extent in East Africa.\"\n\nHe added: \"If you were to look at the global food price index, it was at multiple highs at the start of this year. This crisis already adds to that difficult environment for many consumers, particularly in the developing world.\"\n\nOn Monday, one of the world's biggest fertiliser companies, Yara International, warned the conflict could hit its industry, further affecting food prices.\n\nFertiliser prices had already been rising due to soaring wholesale gas prices. Russia also produces enormous amounts of nutrients, like potash and phosphate - key ingredients in fertilisers, which enable plants and crops to grow.", "A little girl clutches a doll at a checkpoint on the Ukraine-Slovakia border\n\nIn Ukraine, families are having to adapt to a terrifying new reality. How do you tell young children that you're at war?\n\nTen days ago Anton Eine, a science fiction writer in Ukraine, had been due to launch his latest book - but then the Russians invaded. Now, he says, none of that matters any more. He is hunkering down in Kyiv with his wife and their three-year-old son.\n\nThey live in a 24-storey apartment block with an underground car park, where people are sleeping on the concrete floor. It's bitterly cold, and Anton is worried about what might happen if the building collapses, so he and his family feel safer in a square concrete well between the lifts. That has become their sanctuary during the constant air raid sirens. They bring toys and their son's tablet and make sure he sits in the corner, which is the safest place.\n\nAnton says their son is worried, and asks lots of questions. \"Yesterday, my wife went downstairs and when she returned, he was asking, 'Mum, did they shoot you?' and she said 'No baby', and he said, 'Will they shoot me? I don't want them to go bang-bang'.\"\n\nAnton says some parents have sewn badges with their child's blood group on to their clothes and are teaching them their home address and parents' names, in case they are separated. And while they hide in shelters or try to board trains to safety, many parents are also talking to each other about how the war is affecting their children, and how best to protect them from trauma.\n\n\"Some parents tell the kids it's a game,\" says Anton. \"We are trying to tell our son the truth, but in a softer way, adapted to the mind of a three-year-old kid.\n\n\"We tell him that bad soldiers attacked us and the good soldiers, the ones with the Ukrainian flag, are the ones who protect us, and you don't need to worry here in this sanctuary.\"\n\nHis own son's drawings don't appear to show any signs of trauma, but some of Anton's friends have older children, and the pictures they draw clearly show they've been affected by the situation.\n\nA friend of Anton's shared her four-year-old son's drawing after spending the night in a bomb shelter - it shows people fleeing a big red devil\n\nThe parents and staff from his son's nursery stay in touch via the social media app Telegram, where they share advice about how to talk to the children about what's going on. This even included a tutorial on how to explain to the kids why it was OK for adults to swear now, while it was not OK in normal life. \"Because people are swearing right now,\" says Anton.\n\nThey have become more relaxed about other little things, too. \"Because of this situation, he has to watch much more cartoons than normal, and is eating much more sweets than normal. We need something to occupy him - he has to not pay too much attention to what's going on.\n\n\"The psychologists advise us to be gentler with kids in these times, and to love them much more than usual,\" says Anton.\n\nWhen it comes to safety, though, they have to be quite strict. Their three-year-old quickly learned that when there's a siren, the family have to run and hide. \"As soon as we hear sirens or get a notification we shout, 'To the shelter!' and whatever he's doing he leaves it and runs. He understands that the situation is extraordinary. It even surprises us how well children understand the necessity to behave properly.\"\n\nEvacuees and a child, sitting on top of a suitcase, wait for a train to Romania from Lviv\n\nAs the Russian shelling gets worse and the convoys close in, many Ukrainian parents have decided to flee their homes with their young children in tow.\n\nHanna, a scientist, left Kyiv and travelled to Poland with her two sons, who are eight and six years old. For days, they had been at home listening to explosions, the windows trembling, and she somehow had to tell them what was going on. She found it hard to strike a balance between reality and how much a child's mind can take.\n\n\"This was a challenge for me as a mother because I have to choose between how to explain the truth, but at the same time not to scare them too much,\" she says. \"So I was just telling them that we are under attack, and at the moment we are safe, but when we feel we have to move, they have to listen.\"\n\nHer parenting style had to change, too - there was no room for discussion. \"Normally I ask them to do something, but this is a time to get orders.\"\n\nA child on a swing outside a residential building in Kyiv damaged by a missile\n\nAfter a few days of shelling, Hanna felt she no longer wanted her children to hear the bombs and decided to leave Ukraine. \"It was a very, super hard decision,\" she says.\n\nHer children had to make a hard decision too - they could only take one of their toys. Her eldest chose Toothless, a toy dragon from the How to Train your Dragon series, and her youngest chose a Transformer toy car that turns into a robot. It was a huge decision for them, says Hanna - perhaps as momentous as it was for her to leave her country. \"I think that we were in the same emotional decision-taking position.\"\n\nIt took them 52 hours to reach safety in Poland. Hanna's ex-husband came with them for the first part of the car journey but then had to turn back, to fight. Hanna says travelling in a war zone with two kids was exhausting and she can understand why many of her friends are choosing to stay nearer home.\n\nNow they are safe, but the boys ask lots of questions, about their grandparents and especially their father, who has stayed behind. \"Heart-breaking questions, because they ask me every day if he is alive, or if he still has his hands and legs. They are afraid that he can get super hurt.\"\n\nHanna tells them to try and live in the present. \"All we have is just now. At the moment we are safe,\" she says.\n\nHow much to tell their children is something all parents are having to weigh up. Oksana fled her home town of Lviv, in the west, and is now also in Poland. Her six-year-old daughter is autistic and hates loud noises, so she found the air raid sirens very scary. She could tell her mother was nervous too, so Oksana told her the truth about what was happening.\n\n\"I was explaining that it's a war and we need to be safe, and that a lot of people are dead now because of all this,\" says Oksana. \"I think it is important that when children are old enough to understand they are not misled, because they can sense the atmosphere is bad.\"\n\nIryna's son is just two, and she has decided not to tell him too much. After spending three nights in a bomb shelter they left Irpin, a small city near Kyiv, and went to western Ukraine.\n\nShe told her son they were going to stay with friends, because he's too young to understand that they're in danger. \"I didn't tell him that it's a war. I'm not sure I have to when he's so young, because I think it makes this situation only worse.\"\n\nAs for Anton and his family, the Russian troops are closing in and they may have to evacuate soon. He's not sure where to. \"No-one knows which place is the safest - so it's gambling,\" he says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: A mother in Kyiv speaks to the BBC about the decision to tell her children why dad joined the war", "Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre have settled the court case\n\nThe Duke of York is paying a financial settlement to his accuser Virginia Giuffre - formally ending a civil case brought against him in the US, according to court documents.\n\nA judge in New York signed the court papers on Tuesday, marking the final stage of settling the sex assault case.\n\nThe amount being paid by Prince Andrew in the deal agreed last month has not been revealed.\n\nBut the court documents say each side will \"bear her/his own costs and fees\".\n\nThere has been speculation about how Prince Andrew might afford the settlement, which could cost millions of dollars.\n\nThere have been suggestions he could use funds from selling a ski chalet in Switzerland - but the sale has so far not been completed, according to Prince Andrew's representatives on Tuesday.\n\nA statement from the Treasury, in response to a Freedom of Information request, ruled out any public funding: \"No public money has been used to pay legal or settlement fees.\"\n\nThere have been suggestions that the Queen could help to pay, using her private funds, but Buckingham Palace had declined to comment.\n\nThe latest \"stipulation of dismissal\" court papers showed the case being concluded, following the agreement reached between Prince Andrew and Ms Giuffre in February, which stopped the prospect of a courtroom battle in New York.\n\nThe signing of the papers by US district court judge Lewis Kaplan marks the end of this high-profile legal claim.\n\nThe out-of-court settlement accepted no liability and Prince Andrew has always strongly rejected claims of wrongdoing.\n\nBut the prince agreed to pay an unspecified amount to Ms Giuffre and to her charity for victims' rights.\n\nHe also said he \"never intended to malign Ms Giuffre's character\" and he recognised she had \"suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks\".\n\nThe duke also pledged to \"demonstrate his regret for his association\" with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.\n\nIn the wake of the claims, Prince Andrew lost military titles and royal patronages as well as the use of the title His Royal Highness.", "Pressure is growing on Western food and drink giants to pull out of Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMcDonald's and Coca-Cola have been criticised on social media for failing to speak out about the attacks and continuing to operate in the country.\n\nWell-known firms including Netflix and Levi's have already suspended sales or stopped providing services in Russia.\n\nMcDonald's and Coca-Cola have not responded to the BBC's request for comment.\n\n#BoycottMcDonalds and #BoycottCocaCola were trending on Twitter on Monday and over the weekend respectively.\n\nDragon's Den investor Deborah Meaden also spoke out on social media against the fizzy drinks company, urging people to stop drinking its products.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Deborah Meaden 🇺🇦 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe criticism comes amid calls for other well-known Western firms such as KFC, Pepsi, Starbucks and Burger King to close their outlets and stop sales in Russia.\n\nHowever, most firms have stayed silent on the issue with Pepsi, Starbucks and Burger King also declining to respond to the BBC's requests for comment.\n\nFast food chain KFC did not respond initially but its owner Yum Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut, has since announced that it has suspended future investments in Russia.\n\nYum Brands is the world's second-biggest restaurant chain, and there are about 1,000 KFC outlets and 50 Pizza Hut restaurants in Russia. The company was not pulling out entirely, but Yum said that it would \"redirect all profits from operations in Russia to humanitarian efforts\". It is also donating $1m (£762,000) to the Red Cross.\n\nMany of the firms the BBC has contacted have a large number of stores in the country.\n\nIn recently-published information on its website, McDonald's said that it has 847 stores in Russia. The company also owns the majority of these outlets, whereas across the rest of the world most are typically operated by franchisees.\n\nBoth McDonald's and Pepsi, who have had a presence in Russia for decades, have also been singled out by the boss of New York state's pension fund.\n\nThe oldest Russian McDonald's branch, off Pushkin Square in central Moscow, opened in 1990.\n\nThomas DiNapoli, comptroller of the New York state common retirement fund, wrote letters to the companies, according to Reuters reports, urging them to review their businesses in Russia because they face \"significant and growing legal, compliance, operational, human rights and personnel, and reputational risks\".\n\nOften, franchise owners will be able to take the decision as to whether or not to shut chains down, depending on terms of agreements they might have with big food chains like KFC or Starbucks.\n\nIn a recent statement, Kevin Johnson, the boss of Starbucks, described attacks on Ukraine as \"unprovoked\" and \"unjust\".\n\nBut most of its sites in Russia remain open, according to its website. Most of these franchises are run by the Kuwait-based Alshaya Group.\n\nKathleen Brooks, director at Minerva Analysis, said McDonald's and Coca-Cola were \"very complicated businesses\", which would not make it easy to make a decision to leave Russia quickly.\n\nShe told the BBC's Today programme that Coca-Cola had an \"incredibly complicated structure\" with bottling plants in Russia.\n\n\"I don't think it's as simple as saying can you just pull out of Russia,\" she said. \"These are complicated businesses and there's a lot to consider, but right now the reputation risk could really hit their share prices so they may have no choice going forward.\"\n\nBut Dr Ian Peters, director of the Institute for Business Ethics, told BBC News: \"This is not a time to sit on the fence.\n\n\"The world is likely to judge companies by what they do in such circumstances, and ethical judgement will be as important as complying with any government-led regulations and sanctions.\"\n\nHe said that most firms would have what they refer to as an \"ethical compass\" they use to make big decisions.\n\n\"We would advise firms in such circumstances always to look at the bigger picture and seek to do the right thing, putting the wider interest above short-term profit,\" he added.\n\nHe cited important ethical dilemmas that might come up for companies when considering to suspend operations in Russia too: What duty of care do these companies hold to employees on the ground? Is it fair to deprive Russian citizens of basic goods?\n\nProfessor of business ethics at Henley Business School, Kleio Akrivou, suggested that these types of decisions might be more difficult to reach for food companies than, say, consulting firms.\n\n\"When it comes to sanctions which deprive the Russian population of its basic goods and dignity, firms may need to approach the situation more thoughtfully, with an appeal to practical reason.\"\n\nShe said now is the time for fast food giants to balance how real people are affected by such moves, alongside any reputational risk.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The BBC's Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee", "Sheeran said Shape of You was originally intended to be recorded by Little Mix or Rihanna\n\nEd Sheeran has serenaded London's High Court in an attempt to prove he did not copy portions of his 2017 hit Shape of You from another artist.\n\nThe star is accused of lifting his song's \"Oh I, oh I, oh I\" hook from Sami Chokri's 2015 single Oh Why.\n\nIn court, he sang elements of Nina Simone's Feeling Good and Blackstreet's No Diggity to illustrate how the melody is commonplace in pop music.\n\n\"If you put them all in the same key, they'll sound the same,\" he explained.\n\nSheeran denies having heard Mr Chokri's song and rejected the suggestion that friends might have played it to him before he wrote Shape of You in October 2016.\n\nHis upbeat pop track became 2017's best-selling single and remains the most-played song of all time on Spotify.\n\nSami Chokri performs under the name Sami Switch\n\nBut Sheeran's royalties - estimated to be about £20m - have been frozen since Mr Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue claimed copyright infringement in 2018.\n\nLawyers for the pair played the court excerpts from the Shape of You recording sessions as they built their case.\n\nIn one recording, Sheeran could be heard saying he needed to change the \"oh I\" melody because it was \"a bit close to the bone\".\n\n\"We thought it was a bit too close to a song called No Diggity by Blackstreet,\" the star told the court. \"I said that... we should change it.\"\n\nAsked whether his final melody bore a similarity to Chokri's song, he added: \"Fundamentally, yes. They are based around the minor pentatonic scale [and] they both have vowels in them.\"\n\nEd Sheeran has been giving evidence for two days\n\nAndrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue, asked: \"It was a phrase you already had in your head after listening to the chorus of Sam's song, wasn't it?\"\n\nThe singer was also accused of being an \"obsessive music squirrel\" who consumed music \"voraciously\" and would have been aware of Mr Chokri's music.\n\n\"I'm a music fan, I like music, I listen to music,\" Sheeran said. But he insisted he had \"disappeared for the whole year\" in 2016 and was \"not plugged in\" to the UK music scene.\n\nSheeran was repeatedly asked who had come up with the \"oh I\" phrase, but explained it had been a collaborative effort with his co-writers Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid.\n\n\"It was all of us three bouncing back and forth in a circle,\" he said. \"That was how it originated.\"\n\n\"Three people could not create the germ of the melody,\" suggested Mr Sutcliffe.\n\n\"Why can't three people create a melody?\" Sheeran replied.\n\nThe court also heard how Sheeran tweaked the first version of Shape of You to remove elements that were similar to the Bill Withers song Grandma's Hands and TLC's No Scrubs.\n\n\"Your approach is take it, change it and make lots of money, isn't it?\" Mr Sutcliffe asked the star.\n\n\"No,\" he replied, later adding that a \"musicologist went over the song [Shape of You] and found similarities and we changed the similarities\".\n\nSheeran pointed out that he had sought clearance from TLC's writers, although they had not responded by the time his song was released. They were later given a credit on the track.\n\nThe star disclosed that Shape of You was originally envisioned for Little Mix or Rihanna, and that he had not wanted to release it on his multi-platinum Divide album.\n\n\"I thought this song clashed with Castle On The Hill. It doesn't fit with the rest of the album,\" he said. \"I didn't want to put it out and I was subsequently proved wrong.\"\n\nThe singer briefly became irritated when a snippet of an unreleased song was mistakenly played to the court.\n\n\"That's a song I wrote last January. How did you get that?\" he asked, glancing at his lawyers. \"I want to know how you got that.\"\n\nIt was later explained that some of the music played to the court was coming from Steve Mac's personal laptop, and the wrong folder had been accidentally accessed.\n\nSheeran and his co-authors launched legal proceedings in May 2018, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue's copyright.\n\nIn July 2018, Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue issued their own claim for \"copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement\".\n\nMr Sutcliffe accused Sheeran and his co-writers of issuing what he called a \"slapp suit\" intended to \"intimidate\" his clients with the burdensome cost of a legal defence \"until they abandon their claim\".\n\n\"No I wanted to prove I was right,\" he replied. \"I'm trying to clear my name here.\"\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWomen have been speaking about shocking incidents of sexual harassment - after a BBC poll found many often still feel unsafe walking alone at night.\n\nThe new poll suggests 43% of women in the UK have experienced unwelcome touching or groping in public.\n\nThe survey - conducted by YouGov - also indicates 28% of women have experienced indecent exposure in public.\n\nThe chair of the Women and Equalities Committee said Boris Johnson must show he takes women's safety seriously.\n\nIt follows growing pressure to make public sexual harassment a crime.\n\nCaroline Nokes, a Conservative MP who chairs the committee, told the BBC changing the law would send a \"really powerful message\" and could help tackle underlying causes of violent offences against women.\n\n\"It will give women the confidence to report and sends a very clear message to perpetrators that this is criminal,\" she said.\n\nThe survey found two thirds - 66% - of women said they did not feel safe walking alone at night, at least some of the time. That compared to just 39% of men who said they felt unsafe in the same situation.\n\nThe findings come a year after the murder of Sarah Everard, who was abducted and murdered while walking home in south London.\n\nMs Everard's killer, police officer Wayne Couzens, was previously linked to allegations of indecent public exposure. Hers and other high-profile cases in the past year have led to increased awareness and campaigning around women's safety and public sexual harassment.\n\nThe BBC has also spoken to women across the UK about how sexual harassment impacts their lives.\n\nOne, a woman named Sarah, was on her way to a morning exercise class in Edinburgh last year when a man followed and groped her before running off laughing and filming her reaction.\n\n\"I was incredibly shocked. I remember I felt incredibly angry as well,\" she told the BBC. \"I also felt a real invasion of privacy, the fact he had filmed the whole incident.\"\n\nWhat happened to Sarah that day was the worst of a long history of experiences she and her friends remember going through over the years - from being groped in nightclubs as students to being shouted at by strangers in the street.\n\n\"We used to be catcalled all the time as teenagers going out. It was something we laughed off and shrugged off,\" she said. \"But as a woman now, everyone has become a lot more aware of how dangerous those things are and how hostile it is.\"\n\n\"There's an absolute entitlement to touch and to talk to you in a manner that is completely inappropriate,\" she added.\n\nSarah said the \"brazen\" assault by a stranger left her with a \"horrible feeling\"\n\nMore than half of the women surveyed for the BBC said they avoided certain areas and being out at certain times to try to keep themselves safe from possible harassment and assault.\n\nRoxanne, 26, no longer feels confident walking alone after experiencing everything from obscene comments to unwanted touching when out in public since she was a teenager.\n\nRoxanne believes a door has opened for women to \"normalise\" speaking out about their experiences\n\nShe now sticks to main roads when walking her dog and tries to only go out in daylight when she's by herself.\n\nLike 30% of women surveyed in the poll for the BBC, Roxanne says she wears flat shoes as a way to feel safer. She also carries a rape alarm, criminal identification spray and tries not to wear her hair in hairstyles such as ponytails she fears might be easier for an attacker to grab.\n\n\"I don't know who's going to harm me, when they're going to harm me - so I'm cautious of everybody,\" she said. \"And I think that's a natural and very common thing to feel with everything that's going on.\"\n\nThe latest Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated 2.2% of the population aged between 16-59 were victims of sexual assault in the year ending March 2020 - a slight decrease on the year before.\n\nPublic sexual harassment is not currently an offence in its own right. The term refers to unwanted sexual behaviour - from verbal comments to physical actions - which can leave victims feeling intimidated and degraded.\n\nThe Law Commission - an independent body that advises the government on legal changes - recommended in December that ministers should consider creating a specific criminal offence for it during a review into hate crime laws.\n\nMs Nokes believes criminalising public sexual harassment could help intervene in escalating offender journeys to ensure \"today's flasher does not become tomorrow's rapist\".\n\n\"I think the prime minister needs to step up and show that he does take women's safety seriously and that he's not interested in a few cosmetic measures like CCTV - but actually in legislative change with a cross-government approach,\" she said.\n\nCaroline Nokes told the BBC the government should do more to help women feel safe\n\nShe believes current safety initiatives and advice place too much onus on women having to take precautions to try to protect themselves.\n\n\"Of course we want women to be safe and we want them to be vigilant, but this is about men attacking them when they are just going about their daily lives,\" she said. \"Women should be safe wherever they are, whatever they're doing, however they're dressed.\"\n\nMs Nokes also supports cultural and education reforms - including with mandatory consent classes in schools, colleges and universities.\n\nNathaniel Horne works for a charity that runs workshops for boys and men aimed at tackling misogyny and encouraging healthier relationships.\n\nNathaniel Horne says \"all men can be better\" to help women feel more safe and change attitudes in society\n\n\"It's important to talk to people about this stuff early,\" he told the BBC about going into schools. \"Because I think once people are adults, and they've been out for a while, that can be entrenched in those views and those behaviours.\"\n\nThe view is echoed by April-Joy Serrant, who last year was exposed to by a man performing a sex act in public while out on a run. As a mother of three sons, she says her experience has changed how she speaks with her children about relationships and content they may be exposed to.\n\nAfter posting a video about her experience online, she was overwhelmed by other women and girls getting in touch with their own experiences of the \"day in, day out\" harassment.\n\n\"It had never crossed my mind until the incident that I experienced last year that my husband can go for a walk or for a run and it never crosses his mind,\" she said. \"And that is freedom.\"\n\nThe Home Office told the BBC that tacking violence against women and girls \"remains one of the top priorities of this government\".\n\n\"We are committed to ensuring that existing laws on public sexual harassment are effective but we continue to look carefully at where there may be gaps and how a specific offence could address those,\" safeguarding minister Rachel Maclean said in a statement.\"\n\nShe said the government last week launched a new national communications campaign and said violence against women had now been made a priority for police forces, alongside national threats like terrorism.\n\nHave you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "At least seven people are dead after three tornadoes tore through central Iowa, including two children and a family of four. The most powerful tornado generated wind gusts of up to 138 mph (222kph) and left over 50 houses damaged and destroyed.", "The World Bank has approved $723m (£551m) in loans and grants for Ukraine, as the country fights against a Russian invasion.\n\nThe bank said it is continuing to work on another $3bn package of support in the coming months for the country.\n\nIt also promised extra help for neighbouring countries that are taking in more than 1.7m refugees, which are mostly women, children and the elderly.\n\nThe financial package for Ukraine includes a $100m pledge from the UK.\n\n\"The World Bank Group is taking quick action to support Ukraine and its people in the face of the violence and extreme disruption caused by the Russian invasion,\" the bank's president David Malpass said in a statement.\n\nThe bank said the funds would help Ukraine's government provide critical services, including wages for hospital workers, pensions for the elderly and social programmes for the vulnerable.\n\nThe package includes a $350m loan, augmented by about $139m through guarantees from the Netherlands and Sweden.\n\nIt is also made up of $134m in grants from Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and Iceland, as well as $100m of financing from Japan.\n\nLast week, Mr Malpass told the BBC that the war was \"a catastrophe\" for the world which will cut global economic growth.\n\n\"The war in Ukraine comes at a bad time for the world because inflation was already rising,\" he said.\n\nHe stressed that his biggest concern was \"about the pure human loss of lives\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee.", "Successive US presidents have struggled to get the measure of Vladimir Putin but now that Brussels and Berlin have joined the fray with such resolve, it's a different story, writes Nick Bryant.\n\nIt is often tempting to look upon Vladimir Putin as the millennium bug in a human and deadly form.\n\nThe Russian president rose to power on 31 December 1999, as the world held its breath that computers would go into meltdown when the clock struck midnight, unable to process the change from 1999 to 2000.\n\nIn the 20 years since, Putin has been trying to engineer a different kind of global system malfunction, the destruction of the liberal international order. The former KGB spymaster wanted to turn back the clock: to revive Russia's tsarist greatness and to restore the might and menace of the Soviet Union prior to its break-up in 1991.\n\nThis Russian revanchist has become the most disruptive international leader of the 21st Century, the mastermind behind so much misery from Chechnya to Crimea, from Syria to the cathedral city of Salisbury. He has sought - successfully at times - to redraw the map of Europe.\n\nHe has tried - successfully at times - to immobilise the United Nations. He has been determined - successfully at times - to weaken America, and hasten its division and decline.\n\nPutin came to power at a moment of western hubris. The United States was the sole superpower in a unipolar world. Francis Fukuyama's End of History thesis, proclaiming the triumph of liberal democracy, was widely accepted.\n\nSome economists even peddled the theory that recessions would be no more, partly because of the productivity gains of the new digital economy. It was also thought that globalisation, and the interdependence it wrought, would stop major economic powers fighting wars. The same utopianism attached itself to the internet, which was seen overwhelmingly as a force for global good.\n\nAn honour guard greets Air Force One on the Moscow tarmac in 2002\n\nIn the early days especially, the same misplaced optimism and wishful thinking coloured the west's approach to Putin - a figure, it is now obvious, who was trying to buck history and thwart democratisation, however many lives were lost in the process.\n\nSuccessive US presidents have played into his hands. Bill Clinton, the occupant of the White House when Putin came to power, handed this ultra-nationalist a popular grievance by pushing for the expansion of Nato right up to Russia's borders. As George F Kennan, the famed architect of America's Cold War strategy of containment, warned at the time: \"Expanding Nato would be the most fateful error of America policy in the entire post-Cold War era.\"\n\nGeorge W Bush completely misjudged his Russian counterpart. \"I looked the man in the eye,\" Bush famously said after their first meeting in Slovenia in 2001. \"I found him very straightforward and trustworthy… I was able to get a sense of his soul.\" Bush mistakenly thought he could mount a charm offensive with Putin, and gently cajole him further down the democratic path.\n\nBut even though Bush visited Russia more than any other country - including, as a personal favour, two trips in 2002 to Putin's home city, St Petersburg - the Russian leader was already displaying dangerously despotic tendencies.\n\nIn 2008, Bush's final year as president, Putin invaded Georgia - what he called a \"peace enforcement operation\". The Kremlin argued then - and has continued to argue ever since - that it was hypocritical for Washington to complain about this violation of international law after Bush had invaded Iraq.\n\nBarack Obama sought to reframe US-Russian relations. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, even handed her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a mock reset button (which was mistakenly labelled with the Russian word for \"overloaded\"). But Putin knew that America, after its long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no longer wanted to police the world.\n\nWhen Obama refused in 2013 to enforce his red-line warning against Bashar al-Assad when the Syrian dictator used chemical weapons against his own people, Putin saw a green light. By helping Assad carry out his murderous war, he extended Moscow's sphere of influence in the Middle East when the United States wanted to extract itself from the region. The following year, he annexed Crimea, and established a foothold in eastern Ukraine.\n\nDespite being told by Obama to \"cut it out,\" Putin even sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in the hope that Hillary Clinton, a long-time nemesis, would be defeated and that Donald Trump, a long-time fan boy, would win.\n\nThe New York property tycoon made no secret of his admiration for Putin, a sycophantic approach that seems to have further emboldened the Russian president. Much to Moscow's delight, Trump publicly criticised Nato, weakened the US post-war alliance system and became such a polarising figure that he left America more politically divided than at any time since the Civil War.\n\nArguably, then, you have to reach back 30 years to find a US leader whose approach to the Kremlin has stood the test of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, George Herbert Walker Bush resisted the temptation to rejoice in America's Cold War victory - much to the astonishment of the White House press pack, he refused to travel to Berlin for a victory lap - knowing that it would bolster hardliners in the Politburo and military seeking to oust Mikhail Gorbachev.\n\nThat magnanimity in victory helped when it came to bringing about the reunification of Germany, which was arguably Bush's greatest foreign policy success.\n\nPutin is obviously a more formidable adversary, harder to deal with than even Leonid Brezhnev or Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But since the turn of the century no US president has truly had his measure.\n\nBill Clinton pushed for the expansion of Nato which some said was a mistake\n\nJoe Biden, like George Herbert Walker Bush, is a Cold War warrior, who has dedicated his presidency to defending democracy at home and abroad. Seeking to re-establish America's traditional post-war role as the leader of the free world, he has sought to mobilise the international community, offered military aid to Ukraine and adopted the toughest sanction regime ever targeted against Putin.\n\nAs Russian forces amassed at the border, he also shared US intelligence showing that Putin had decided to invade, in ways that sought to disrupt the Kremlin's usual misinformation campaigns and false flag operations.\n\nHis State of the Union address became a rallying cry. \"Freedom will always triumph over tyranny,\" he said. And while Biden does not speak with the clarity or force of a Kennedy or a Reagan, it was nonetheless a significant speech.\n\nWhat's been striking since the Russian invasion started, however, has been the assertion of forceful presidential leadership from elsewhere. Volodymyr Zelensky has been lauded and lionised, as he has continued this extraordinary personal journey from comedian to Churchillian colossus.\n\nIn Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been another commanding presence. This former German politician has been a driving force behind the decision, for the first time in EU history, to finance and purchase weapons for a nation under attack, a commitment that includes not just ammunition but fighter jets as well.\n\nHer compatriot, the new Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, has also shown more resolve in dealing with Putin than his predecessor Angela Merkel. At warp speed, he has overturned decades of post-Cold War German foreign policy, an approach so often predicated on caution and timidity towards the Russian leader.\n\nBerlin has sent anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine (ending the policy of not sending weapons to active war zones), halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, withdrawn its opposition to blocking Russia from the SWIFT international payments system, and even committed to spending 2% of its GDP on defence spending.\n\nThe biggest assault on a European state since World War Two has stiffened European resolve. But so, too, it seems has the relative weakness of America. Mindful of the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan and possibility of a Trump 2.0 presidency, European leaders seem to have realised that they can no longer lean so heavily on Washington to defend democracy in this hour of maximum peril. Leadership of the free world has, in this crisis, become a common endeavour.\n\nEven since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been calling upon European nations to do more to police its own neighbourhood, something they failed to do when the break-up of the former Yugoslavia sparked the Bosnian war. Historians may well conclude that it took a combination of Putin's aggressiveness, America's fragility, Ukraine's heroic resolve and the fear that Europe's post-war stability is truly on the line to finally make that happen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: What Americans think of Biden's Ukraine response\n\nIt would be naive to be swept away by the romanticism of Zelensky's speeches or to succumb to the dopamine high of watching the seizure of Russian-owned super-yachts unfold on social media. Putin is intensifying the war. But the last week has sent a message to Moscow - and to Beijing as well - that the post-war international order still continues to function, despite the deployment of the Russian war machine to bring about its collapse. Just as history never ended, nor has liberal democracy.\n\nAs Joe Biden put it in his State of the Union, during a passage in which rhetoric served also as sober analysis: Putin \"thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of resistance he never imagined\".\n\nNick Bryant is the author of When America Stopped Being Great: a history of the present. He is the former New York correspondent for the BBC and now lives in Sydney.", "Catching Covid may cause changes to the brain, a study suggests.\n\nScientists found significant differences in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans before and after infection.\n\nEven after a mild infection, the overall size of the brain had shrunk slightly, with less grey matter in the parts related to smell and memory.\n\nThe researchers do not know whether the changes are permanent but stressed the brain could heal.\n\nThe study is published in the journal Nature.\n\nLead author Prof Gwenaelle Douaud, from the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, at the University of Oxford, said: \"We were looking at essentially mild infection, so to see that we could really see some differences in their brain and how much their brain had changed compared with those who had not been infected was quite a surprise.\"\n\nThe UK Biobank project has followed the health of 500,000 people for about 15 years and has a database of scans recorded before the pandemic so provided a unique opportunity to study the long-term health impacts of the virus.\n\nBut the researchers do not know whether the changes are reversible or truly matter for health and wellbeing.\n\n\"We need to bear in mind that the brain is really plastic - by that we mean it can heal itself - so there is a really good chance that, over time, the harmful effects of infection will ease,\" Prof Douaud said.\n\nThe most significant loss of grey matter was in the olfactory areas - but it is unclear whether the virus directly attacks this region or cells simply die off through lack of use after people with Covid lose their sense of smell.\n\nIt is also unclear whether all variants of the virus cause this damage.\n\nThe scans were performed when the original virus and alpha variant were prevalent and loss of smell and taste a primary symptom.\n\nBut the number of people infected with the more recent Omicron variant reporting this symptom has fallen dramatically.\n\n'Your mind is what is being exercised'\n\nPaula Totaro lost her sense of smell when she caught Covid, in March 2020.\n\n\"When it was gone, it was like living in a bubble or a vacuum - I found it really isolating,\" she told BBC News.\n\nBut after contacting the charity AbScent, which supports people who have lost their ability to smell and taste, she began smell training.\n\n\"What smell training does - particularly if you do it twice a day, regularly, religiously - is it forces you to take the smell, allow it to go back into your nose and then to think about what it is that you're smelling,\" she said.\n\n\"And that connection between what's in the external world and what goes into your brain and your mind is what is being exercised.\"\n\nMs Totaro has now recovered most of her sense of smell - although she still has trouble identifying what different smells are.\n\n\"It's a mix of joy that the sense has come back but still a little bit of anxiety that I'm not quite there yet,\" she said.\n\nUK Biobank chief scientist Prof Naomi Allen said: \"It opens up all sorts of questions that other researchers can follow up about the effect of coronavirus infection on cognitive function, on brain fog and on other areas of the brain - and to really focus research on how best to mitigate that.\"\n\nProf David Werring, from the University College London Institute of Neurology, said other health-related behaviour could have contributed to the changes seen.\n\n\"The changes in cognitive function were also subtle and of unclear relevance to day-to-day function,\" he said.\n\n\"And these changes are not necessarily seen in every infected individual and may not be relevant for more recent strains.\"", "Consumer giants including McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Starbucks have joined the list of firms halting business in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMcDonald's said it was temporarily closing its roughly 850 restaurants in Russia, while Starbucks also said its 100 coffee shops would shut.\n\nOn Wednesday, Heineken stopped beer production and sales in Russia.\n\nAnd Mothercare said all business in Russia, which represents 20% to 25% of its global sales, had been stopped.\n\nElsewhere, tobacco company Imperial Brands - the group behind brands including JPS and Davidoff cigarettes - said it was pausing production at its factory in Volgograd in a move impacting about 1,000 employees.\n\nIt has already suspended its operations in Ukraine over staff safety concerns.\n\nRussia and Ukraine together accounted for 2% of Imperial's net revenues last year - about £656m.\n\nMeanwhile, British American Tobacco has halted investment in Russia, but said its business in the country continues to operate.\n\nThe moves by McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Starbucks come after mounting pressure on companies to act over the war in Ukraine. All three firms said they would continue to pay their staff.\n\nAnna MacDonald, a fund manager at Amati Global Investors, told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that firms who were joining the wave of firms leaving Russia were doing so because \"shareholders and wider stakeholders wouldn't stand for continued generation of revenues and profits\" from the country,\n\n\"It was affecting their share prices and the feeling was that it was just utterly inappropriate to continue to do so,\" she said.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Steve Rosenberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMcDonald's established a presence in Moscow in 1990 as the Soviet Union was opening its economy, and it drew thousands for its burgers and fries. Its closure now carries similar symbolic weight, and could influence other firms.\n\nHowever, fast-food chain rival Burger King is currently keeping its Russian stores open. It committed $3m (£2.3m) to support Ukrainian refugees and said people fleeing to European nations could get free Whopper meal vouchers.\n\nRestaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, said it would redirect its profits from more than 800 franchised operations in Russia to humanitarian efforts.\n\nThe company told the BBC its Russian outlets were operated by franchisees with which it had \"long-standing legal agreements\" that were not easy to change currently.\n\nMcDonald's chief executive Chris Kempczinski said it was \"impossible to predict\" when it would reopen in Russia.\n\nMcDonalds has also temporarily closed its 108 restaurants in Ukraine.\n\nCollectively the countries account for about 9% of the firm's revenue and about 2% of global sales.\n\nCompanies have been under pressure to act as Russian violence against civilians has escalated.\n\n#BoycottMcDonalds and #BoycottCocaCola had both been trending on Twitter over recent days.\n\nDozens of well-known firms including Netflix and Levi's have already suspended sales or stopped providing services in Russia amid severe sanctions imposed by Western allies.\n\nCoca-Cola on Tuesday said it was suspending operations in Russia, which accounted for roughly 2% of the firm's operating revenue and income. It also has a roughly 20% ownership stake in a bottling and distribution business in Russia.\n\n\"Our hearts are with the people who are enduring unconscionable effects from these tragic events in Ukraine,\" the company said.\n\nPepsi, which has a much larger presence in Russia than rival Coca-Cola, said it was halting the production and sale of Pepsi and other global brands in Russia and suspending capital investments and advertising, citing \"horrific events\" in Ukraine.\n\nBut the company, which started operating in Russia during the Cold War and now employs 20,000 people there, said it would continue to offer other products.\n\n\"As a food and beverage company, now more than ever we must stay true to the humanitarian aspect of our business,\" boss Ramon Laguarta said. \"That means we have a responsibility to continue to offer our other products in Russia, including daily essentials such as milk and other dairy offerings, baby formula and baby food.\"\n\nStarbucks' plans to stop business in Russia include stopping shipments of its products.\n\nThe coffee chain's licensee in the country Kuwait-based Alshaya Group will continue to pay its roughly 2,000 staff members.\n\nOther major global brands joining the backlash on Tuesday included the world's largest music company, Universal Music Group, which said it was suspending all operations in Russia and closing its offices there.\n\nUnilever, maker of Marmite, Dove beauty products and PG Tips, among other brands, also said it had suspended trade with Russia and planned to halt its advertising and media spending and investment in the country.\n\nIt said it would continue to supply \"everyday essential food and hygiene products\" that are made in Russia.\n\nL'Oreal, the world's biggest cosmetics company, is also shutting its stores and concessions in Russia and suspending online sales.\n\nIn response to the number of firms packing up, Russia has warned that it may nationalise production plants or factories where work has temporarily been suspended.\n\nAndrei Turchak, secretary of the ruling United Russia party's general council, said on Monday evening: \"United Russia proposes nationalising production plants of the companies that announce their exit and the closure of production in Russia\", during what he described as a \"special operation\" in Ukraine.\n\nSome firms have also defended plans to continue operating in Russia, including Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing, whose founder told Japan's Nikkei newspaper that \"clothing is a necessity of life\".", "A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial has told a hearing it was an \"inadvertent mistake\", not a lie, to fail to disclose on a questionnaire that he was an abuse victim himself.\n\nMaxwell was convicted of trafficking girls and her lawyers want a new trial, arguing the jury were not impartial.\n\nHer case was thrown into disarray when this juror told the media he had told other jurors about his own abuse.\n\nThe hearing in New York will establish whether or not Maxwell is retried.\n\nMaxwell, the daughter of a late British media tycoon, was convicted in December of grooming teenage girls for abuse by the late Jeffrey Epstein.\n\nShe faces up to 65 years in prison but maintains her innocence. Epstein killed himself in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.\n\nThe juror in question, who asked to be identified by his first and middle name, Scotty David, was given immunity from prosecution earlier on Tuesday.\n\nWhen asked why he failed to disclose his past in the jury questionnaire when explicitly asked, he said it was an \"inadvertent mistake.\"\n\n\"This is one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life,\" he added, saying he \"flew through\" the document and was \"super-distracted\" by everything going on around him in the jury room.\n\nAfter the conviction of Maxwell he had told reporters that he had shared his own experience of sexual abuse with jurors after some had questioned the recollections from two of Maxwell's accusers.\n\nThey argued that him sharing his experience with other jurors could have made them more sympathetic to her accusers and meant she never got a fair trial.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nTens of thousands of Sydney residents have been told to evacuate their homes as floods ravage eastern Australia.\n\nIn the past fortnight, New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland have been pummelled by heavy downpours that have caused floods and killed 20 people.\n\nThe threat has now intensified in Sydney, which has been hit by widespread flash-flooding.\n\nTwo bodies - believed to be of a woman, 67, and her son, 34 - were found in a Sydney canal on Tuesday.\n\nPolice said their deaths would be investigated, but noted the canal had risen \"from ankle-deep to above neck height in a matter of minutes\".\n\nNSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said 40,000 residents in the state had been ordered to evacuate, and another 20,000 people were on standby.\n\nHe added that a dam in the suburb of Manly had begun to spill, and a flooded river was threatening lives in the city's southwest.\n\nThere was also a \"substantial catastrophe\" in the state's north, where more than 800 people had been placed in temporary accommodation.\n\nThe State Emergency Service said more than 2,500 people had requested help in the past 24 hours. Australian Defence Force soldiers have also been deployed.\n\n\"The best thing you can do right across our state is follow those instructions and please do not drive through flood waters,\" Mr Perrottet said.\n\nAuthorities warn rain is likely to cause more flooding\n\nHe warned flash-flooding was likely to continue on Wednesday.\n\nExperts say the flooding emergency has been worsened by climate change and a La Niña weather phenomenon. A La Niña develops when strong winds blow the warm surface waters of the Pacific away from South America and towards Indonesia. In their place, colder waters come up to the surface.\n\nIn Australia, a La Niña increases the likelihood of rain, cyclones and cooler daytime temperatures.\n\nThe wailing sirens can just about be heard above the incessant drumbeat of rain on the roof and an angry wind.\n\nRoads have become rivers as Sydney is battered by another mammoth storm. For 16 consecutive days, it has rained, and more is on the way.\n\nOn the Northern Beaches, friends ask for sandbags to protect their home as a reservoir overflows, but hundreds of people have been told to leave.\n\nImages posted online show high school children watching in disbelief as cars float away outside. Bookended by the Pacific Ocean on one side and the harbour on the other, parts of the seaside suburb of Manly have been swamped.\n\nAustralia's biggest city had had its wettest summer in 30 years. About 4,000km away, Perth - the Western Australian state capital - has been sweltering through its hottest summer on record.\n\nThis is a vast country that's well used to nature's extremes, but many Australians will be asking: what will happen next?", "Keeping Bulb Energy running will potentially cost taxpayers billions of pounds more than has currently been set aside, government officials have said.\n\nBulb, which has 1.6 million customers, was quasi-nationalised in late November when it was put into special administration as it buckled under rising wholesale gas prices.\n\nIn November, wholesale prices were around £2 per unit.\n\nSince then, prices have been consistently higher than that.\n\nThey hit peaks of £4.70 in December and as high as £8 on Monday - 20 times the prices seen last year - during extreme volatility.\n\nAt the time Bulb was placed in special administration, the Treasury set aside £1.7bn to purchase the gas required until the end of the tax year in April 2022 by which time it was hoped a buyer would be found for the business.\n\nGovernment officials have conceded that the prospect of offloading the business to a private buyer seems remote in this environment and that means that taxpayers will be on the hook for a gas bill that energy analysts believe could run to billions of pounds.\n\nA spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: \"The Special Administrator of Bulb is obligated to keep costs of the administration process as low as possible, and we continue to engage closely with them throughout to ensure maximum value for money for taxpayers.\"\n\nThe extreme volatility in energy markets has seen some customers prepared to pay £3,500 a year to fix their energy bills for two years, according to another large energy operator.\n\nThat is well above the energy price cap of £1,971 that comes into effect in April but that cap is subject to potential further increases every six months.\n\nIndustry analysts estimate the next energy price cap could be set at £3,000 or more from October.\n\nOther energy retailers are reluctant to offer or recommend customers lock in at such high prices as they fear they could be trapped on high tariffs if and when prices return to more normal levels.\n\nSome may be prepared to pay a high price for the peace of mind conferred by knowing what their outgoings will be. Millions of customers will simply be unable to afford energy bills later this year - despite the government's two-stage £9bn energy bill support package.\n\nThis will offer consumers a £150 council tax rebate in April and a £200 loan in October to be repaid at £40 a year for the next five years.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Tuesday morning.\n\nThere is no link between Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines and deaths that were recorded after people had their jabs, according to a major study. The US research looked at the side effects of the jab and found no unusual patterns in death rates.\n\nSignificant differences to the brain before and after a Covid infection have been found by scientists. MRI scans showed that catching the virus, even a mild form, had shrunk the size of the organ slightly, with less grey matter in the parts related to smell and memory. It's not known if the change is permanent but the brain can heal.\n\nA trial of four men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan's Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer over Covid rules she imposed is due to begin. The alleged plot was foiled by the FBI 17 months ago and involves four men. The jury is being selected later for the trial, in the city of Grand Rapids, which is expected to last about six weeks.\n\nThe first wave of Covid in India \"was about saving lives with minimal resources,\" says Dr Sangram Kapale. Since then the Indian government has ramped up its spending on healthcare and there's hope the devastating impact of the pandemic was a turning point, with a future focus on technology and innovation. So, can technology help revive India's health system? Find out here.\n\nCaitlin Rich has cystic fibrosis - an incurable condition that causes a build-up of thick sticky mucus in the lungs, digestive system and other organs. Before the pandemic she would often self-isolate over fears of catching infections. The 25-year-old, from Derbyshire, says the requirement for millions to self-isolate during the pandemic now means more people can relate to her everyday life Here's her story.\n\nYou've got Covid, so what next in terms of self-isolation? Find out here.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "The UK and EU said they remain determined to find \"durable solutions\" to the issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol.\n\nThe two sides issued a joint statement after a meeting of senior officials.\n\nThe negotiators met in a body known as the Specialised Committee.\n\nIt deals with technical issues and can make recommendations to the lead negotiators, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.\n\nThe statement said: \"Both parties underlined their ongoing determination to ensure that outstanding issues in the context of the protocol are addressed, and durable solutions are found as soon as possible for the benefit of people and businesses in Northern Ireland.\n\n\"In addition, the EU and the UK reiterated the importance of further engagement with business groups, civil society and other stakeholders in Northern Ireland and committed to further joint engagements.\"\n\nOfficials representing the NI Executive attended the meeting as part of the UK delegation.\n\nBritish Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and European Commissioner in charge of Brexit negotiations Maroš Šefčovič\n\nThe protocol is the Brexit deal which prevents a hard Irish border by keeping Northern Ireland inside the EU's single market for goods.\n\nThat also creates a new trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, something the EU accepts is causing difficulties for many businesses.\n\nThe EU has agreed in principle that GB goods which are going to stay in Northern Ireland should be subject to fewer checks and controls than those which are due to travel onwards to the Republic of Ireland and the wider EU.\n\nBut there is still a big difference between the UK and EU about how that should be implemented and what should be considered a reasonable level of risk to the EU single market.\n\nAt that time Mrs Truss and Mr Šefčovič said they were determined that outstanding issues would be addressed.\n\nA senior EU official suggested that the talks would happen in a more \"discreet\" way in the run up to the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in May.\n\nIt is not yet clear if, or how, the war in Ukraine will affect the negotiations.\n\nMrs Truss and Mr Šefčovič have previously made a joint statement expressing a wish for \"a positive EU-UK relationship\" which would allow for \"co-operation on common global challenges\".\n\nLast week, Mrs Truss was a guest at an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels alongside the US secretary of state and Canada's foreign minister.\n\nHowever, EU and UK sources have both played down the prospect that the changed environment could unlock rapid progress.", "The four-piece group said they \"didn't think it would really go anywhere\"\n\nUK band Glass Animals have gone to number one in the US with their sleeper hit Heat Waves, setting a new record for the longest time to reach the top.\n\nThe Oxford indie group's song spent 59 weeks on its slow ascent to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100.\n\nThe previous record was held by Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, on 35 weeks.\n\n\"I absolutely can't believe it,\" singer Dave Bayley said. \"For it to do this means the absolute world.\"\n\nHe added in a Twitter message to fans: \"This song came out at the beginning of the pandemic and we didn't think it would really go anywhere because of that, and it has because you guys have embraced it so much.\"\n\nThere are slow-burning hits, then there's Heat Waves - a song that took longer to reach room temperature than an ice age mammoth.\n\nThe song's 59-week trek to the top of the US Billboard chart eclipses the previous record-holder, Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, by a massive 24 weeks. With just one song, Glass Animals have spent 27 more weeks on the chart than The Prodigy have managed in their entire career.\n\nThe Oxford band also became the first UK group to break into Spotify's global top 10 since Clean Bandit in 2018 (Coldplay have since made the chart, too).\n\nThe song had all the right ingredients for a sleeper hit. Glass Animals were well respected in the industry, with a Mercury Prize nomination for their second album How To Be A Human Being - but they weren't big enough to have their song automatically added to radio station and streaming service playlists. It took months for Heat Waves to cross over from alternative radio to pop stations, building up a bigger head of steam as it went.\n\nStreaming also played a crucial part in its success. Songs tend to have a longer half-life now than 10 years ago, as fans continue to play their favourite tracks, keeping them afloat for months on end.\n\nGlass Animals were also given a late boost by TikTok, where creator Juliette Cullen used Heat Waves to soundtrack a viral video about a lack of curly fries in certain branches of McDonald's.\n\nThe band have joked its success is all down to Bayley's mum streaming it on a loop… but given that the song's been played 1.3 billion times on Spotify alone, she'd had to have started 9,900 years ago.\n\nIn reality, it's just a great song - one whose vibey production and low-key hooks reveal new treasures on each listen. Hopefully its success will encourage people to seek out the rest of the band's equally-rewarding back catalogue.\n\nThe song, which was originally released as a single in June 2020, first snuck into the US singles chart in 100th place in January 2021.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by GlassAnimalsVEVO This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nMost weeks ever to reach US number one:\n\nHeat Waves peaked at number five in the UK in October 2021.\n\nBayley, who wrote and produced the grower, told the BBC it had its genesis as far back as May 2018.\n\n\"We were winding down from touring our second album and I hired a studio in north London called The Church,\" he explained last year.\n\n\"I was in the little basement room, which used to be the kitchen - and I've recently found out that's where Bob Dylan used to sit and write. He only wanted to be in the kitchen, apparently.\n\n\"Anyway, I spent all day there… but I was fishing and catching rubbish. At the end of the day, I was ready to go home, but I just picked up a guitar to try one more time, and I just played those chords.\"", "Many of the Sumy evacuees so far have been foreign students\n\nOn day 13 of the invasion, some civilians were finally able to leave areas under bombardment, after several days of ceasefire talks and failed evacuations.\n\nA convoy of buses carrying mostly foreign students left the northern city of Sumy, and dozens left Irpin, near the capital Kyiv.\n\nBut human rights activists in Sumy said few local residents were willing to go, fearing that Russia would shell the humanitarian corridor that had been set up.\n\n\"Now I'm deciding whether or not to leave my family, because [my] grandparents decided not to go and my mother cannot leave them, and now I need to decide to leave them alone, or to stay.\"\n\nAn evacuation route was opened in Mariupol once again on Tuesday, only to fail again, with Ukrainian officials accused Russia of shelling the route.\n\nTuesday also saw coordinated efforts from the UK, US and EU to - in the words of President Joe Biden - hit \"the main artery of Russia's economy\": its energy sector.\n\nThe US has announced a complete ban on Russian oil, gas and coal imports, the UK is phasing out Russian oil by the end of the year, and and the EU is reducing its demand for Russian gas by two-thirds.\n\nRussia's economy is heavily dependent on energy. It is the world's third-biggest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and the US.\n\nHassan was given food and drink by volunteers and his relatives were then contacted in Bratislava\n\nAccording to the United Nations two million people have already left Ukraine as of Tuesday.\n\nBut among so many stories of courage in the face of huge suffering, one in particular stands out.\n\nDays ago Hassan, 11, left his home in Zaporizhzhia, saying goodbye to his mother and elderly grandmother, to travel some 1,200km (750 miles) to the Slovakian border.\n\nCarrying no more than two small bags, a passport and his relatives' phone number, he was finally helped across the border by customs officials.\n\nThey said he was a true hero and had won over everyone with his smile, his fearlessness and his determination.\n\nWhile many Ukrainians are trying to leave, the BBC's Clive Myrie has been reflecting on those staying behind to defend their country.\n\nOur correspondent, who is now in Romania, mentions a woman he saw in Kyiv risking bombs and missiles to feed the pigeons.\n\n\"For me, she represents strength and courage - the indomitability of an independent state, not the cowering fear of the colonised,\" she says.\n\nMaj-Gen Gerasimov, deputy commander of the 41st Russian Army, is reported to have died\n\nUkrainian military sources have reported the death of a senior Russian commander in fighting near Kharkiv.\n\nMaj-Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army, would be the second officer of this rank to be killed during the invasion - if confirmed by Russia.\n\nThe news came to light, apparently, via the interception of some phone calls between Russian intelligence officers.\n\nAn analyst suggests it is unusual for senior Russian officers to be so close to the front line, and that this has been necessitated by the intensity of the war.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky received a standing ovation after addressing the UK's House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon.\n\nThe embattled president invoked the words of Winston Churchill, telling the gathered MPs: \"We will not surrender, we will not lose, we will go to the end.\n\n\"We will fight at sea, we will fight in the air, we will protect our land.\n\n\"We will fight everywhere… and we will not surrender.\"\n\nYou can learn more about the man who went from a TV star to Ukraine's war time leader in the video below:\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This video, shared by Ukrainian armed forces, shows a Russian helicopter being shot down by a missile\n\nUkraine's military has released several videos showing Russian helicopters being shot down by surface-to-air missiles.\n\nOne, from last week, shows a Russian helicopter flying low, just above the tree line - in the hope of avoiding what's about to happen next. Tracking its path is the smoking trail of a surface-to-air missile. In a matter of seconds the missile has found its target. On impact the Russian helicopter crashes to the ground, before bursting into a fireball\n\nRussian aircraft are being shot down by Ukrainian forces - as well as the video above, this video shows a jet hit near Kharkiv - and military analysts believe there's evidence that recently supplied weapons by the West are already being used.\n\nJustin Bronk, a research fellow on airpower at the Royal United Services Institute, says there's been visual confirmation of at least 20 Russian aircraft shot down in Ukraine so far - both helicopters and jets. That's significantly fewer than claimed by Ukraine's ministry of defence, which says it has downed 48 Russian planes and 80 helicopters. Yet even the lower number shows Russia's struggled to gain supremacy in the skies.\n\nUkraine has suffered losses too. But UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the BBC that Russia had so far not been successful in destroying the country's air defences and air force.\n\nBefore the war began, Ukraine's military aircraft were outnumbered at least three-to-one by those that had been amassed on the border by Russia.\n\nMr Wallace said Ukraine's ability to keep some of its air defences intact was already forcing Russian aircraft to fly at night to avoid detection.\n\nShoulder-launched air defence missiles, also known as Manpads (man-portable air defence systems) are just one of the weapons that Western nations have been supplying to Ukraine. They include the infamous US-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles - scourge of Soviet aircraft during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.\n\nExact numbers are hard to come by. Last week Mr Wallace told the BBC the West had now delivered \"thousands\" of anti-tank weapons and \"over a thousand\" Stingers. CNN, quoting a US defence official, put the total at 17,000 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 Stingers, sent by the US and Nato allies.\n\nBritain and America had provided weapons to Ukraine before the invasion began on 24 February, with the UK delivering 2,000 light anti-tank missiles (Nlaws). Commenting on reports that they were already being used to destroy Russian armoured columns, Mr Wallace said \"we've got anecdotal evidence to verify that\".\n\nMost countries, though, only started to send weapons in response to the Russian invasion. In all, 14 nations have supplied arms. They include Sweden and Finland, both of which have a long history of neutrality and are not members of Nato. But both have sent thousands of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.\n\nGermany has supplied 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles. The Baltic states have also delivered thousands of weapons including Stingers and Javelin missiles, one of the world's most effective anti-tank weapons with a range of 2.5km (1.5 miles). Ukraine says it has already successfully destroyed several Russian T-72 tanks.\n\nRecent weapons deliveries also include tens of thousands of assault rifles and machine guns, anti-tank mines and hundreds of tonnes of ammunition, as well as body armour and helmets, and medical supplies.\n\nA blown-off tank turret near Kharkiv - the West has supplied anti-tank weapons to Ukraine\n\nHow are the weapons getting through?\n\nThe UK says it is helping \"facilitate\" the deliveries of these weapons. Western officials, though, are not giving details of how the supplies are getting through.\n\nBut it's no secret that while Russia's military operations have been focused in eastern Ukraine, the flow of people and supplies from the west of the country has continued via neighbouring European states. The BBC has spoken to the defence ministries of Estonia, Sweden and Denmark, all of whom confirmed their weapons supplies had been tracked and successfully reached Ukraine in recent weeks.\n\nSo, how much difference are these weapons consignments making?\n\nWeapons supplied by the West can make a difference, but only if Ukraine continues to have armed forces capable of using them.\n\nMr Bronk says Ukraine's ability to retain some of its older, Soviet-era, air defence systems - which have a longer range - has forced Russian aircraft to fly lower. But that makes them more vulnerable to the shorter-range surface-to-air missiles being supplied by the West.\n\nWithout those longer-range air defence systems, Russian aircraft could fly higher to avoid the dangers of shorter-range air defences.\n\nMeanwhile, America and European allies are looking to increase their arms supplies to Ukraine. There may be a limited opportunity before Russia tries to target any supply lines of weapons.\n\nThe US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has said he's had talks with Poland about it supplying Russian-made Mig fighter jets to the Ukrainian Air Force. But even if that happened, Ukraine would still need trained pilots to fly them.\n\nThe supply of Western weapons helps, but you still need an army that knows how to use them.", "John Bercow was a \"serial bully\" while House of Commons Speaker, and would be banned from getting a parliamentary pass, a report has said.\n\nThe Independent Expert Panel said \"his behaviour fell very far below that which the public has a right to expect\" from an MP.\n\nIt also said his evidence showed he had been \"a serial liar\".\n\nHowever, Mr Bercow said the inquiry into the complaints was \"amateurish\" and based on \"tittle-tattle\".\n\nMr Bercow was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019 and presided over a turbulent period during which the House of Commons debated the UK's exit from the European Union.\n\nA report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone found that Mr Bercow had displayed \"threatening conduct\" towards staff, including verbal abuse, and displays of anger.\n\nIt said he had \"shouted at and mimicked\" a member of staff and was responsible for \"intimidating, insulting behaviour involving an abuse of power\".\n\nShe also found he had subjected Lord Lisvane - a senior clerk in the House of Commons - to \"repeated unfounded criticism… often made at length and at volume and included derogatory inferences about [his] upbringing and background\".\n\nMr Bercow appealed but the Independent Expert Panel upheld all 21 findings of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.\n\nThe panel said it agreed with the commissioner's findings that Mr Bercow had been \"a serial bully\".\n\nIt added that Mr Bercow's conduct \"was so serious that, had he still been a Member of Parliament, we would have determined that he should be expelled by resolution of the House\", and that he would be banned from getting a pass giving him access to Parliament's buildings.\n\nHowever, in a strongly-worded statement Mr Bercow called the report \"a travesty of justice rooted in prejudice, spite and hearsay\".\n\nHe said claims of misconduct were \"upheld even when eyewitnesses testified that they had not taken place\", and said he'd been targeted by three former staff members, because he had set out to reform the House of Commons.\n\nMr Bercow, who resigned as an MP in 2019, said he had never applied for a Parliamentary pass and does not want one, but could still go to Parliament as a guest of another pass holder.\n\nAsked on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme if he had apologised, Mr Bercow said he had not bullied anyone and that he \"didn't believe in faux apologies\".\n\nHe called the Independent Expert Panel a \"kangaroo court\" which he said had ignored \"large volumes of evidence\".\n\nMr Bercow began his political career in the Conservative Party but later switched to Labour telling the Observer newspaper: \"The conclusion I have reached is that this government needs to be replaced. The reality is that the Labour Party is the only vehicle that can achieve that objective.\"\n\nMr Bercow is understood to have been administratively suspended by the Labour party while it investigates.\n\nThe investigations came after complaints from three people who worked for Mr Bercow - Lord Lisvane, the former clerk of the Commons, and private secretaries Kate Emms and Angus Sinclair.\n\nOne of the complainants, Ms Emms, said: \"I am supremely glad to be vindicated by the report of the Independent Expert Panel.\"\n\nShe said her time working for Mr Bercow had been \"the one and only genuinely horrible, undermining and consistently upsetting period of my career\" which had led to \"stress, anxiety and a loss of confidence\".\n\nShe said Mr Bercow had failed to show remorse and had instead \"blamed the process for being flawed, amateurish and unjust and not even applicable to him\".\n\nResponding to the report, the prime minister's spokesman said the government hoped it would give \"all those in Westminster confidence to come forward and report their cases and that they'll be fairly heard\".\n\nJohn Bercow during a debate in the House of Commons in October 2019\n\nDuring his decade-long stint as Speaker, Mr Bercow made several changes to Parliament to fulfil his aim to make the House of Commons \"less stuffy\".\n\nFor example, he allowed MPs to speak in the chamber without wearing ties, and removed the requirement for clerks to wear wigs.\n\nHe won praise from some MPs for giving backbenchers more opportunities to question ministers.\n\nHowever, his style drew criticisms from others, and some Conservatives accused him of bias, breaching the requirement that the Speaker stays neutral.\n\nDuring the fierce Brexit debates, Mr Bercow gained international recognition for his attempts to control Parliament, particularly his loud cries of \"order order\".", "The owner of Uniqlo has defended its decision to keep its Russian shops open, saying that clothing is a \"necessity of life\".\n\nUniqlo has 49 stores in Russia and while it will \"monitor the situation\" it has no plans to suspend trading.\n\nA number of Western firms such as Zara and H&M, have halted operations in Russia because of the war with Ukraine.\n\nBut Fast Retailing's founder Tadashi Yanai said Russia's people \"have the same right to live as we do\".\n\nMr Yanai told Japan's Nikkei newspaper: \"There should never be war. Every country should oppose it,\"\n\nBut he said: \"Clothing is a necessity of life. The people of Russia have the same right to live as we do.\"\n\nUniqlo is not alone in its decision to continue its operations in Russia, despite a number of firms exiting the country in reaction to its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMany international firms that rely on production plants and customer bases in Russia have chosen to stay in the country.\n\nThough, food and drink giants McDonald's and Coca-Cola have announced plans to close operations in Russia after being criticised, Burger King and KFC restaurants remain open.\n\nYum Brands, the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, said it had suspended all investment in Russia \"while we continue to assess additional options\".\n\nThe company - which has about 1,000 KFC outlets and 50 Pizza Hut restaurants in Russia mostly run by franchisees - is not pulling out of the country, but says it will \"redirect all profits from operations in Russia to humanitarian efforts\".\n\nMeanwhile, Restaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, said it would redirect its profits from more than 800 franchised operations in Russia to humanitarian efforts.\n\nIt has also committed $3m (£2.3m) to support Ukrainian refugees and said people feeling to European nations could get free Whopper meal vouchers.\n\nThe world's largest yoghurt maker, French firm Danone, has said it will not commit new investment to Russia but will continue to sell dairy, water bottles and baby food in the country.\n\n\"It is very easy to get drawn into black-and-white thinking and demagogic positions, but in the end our reputation is about our behaviour,\" chief executive Antoine de Saint-Affrique told the Financial Times.\n\nDanone dairy production at one of its biggest plants in the Russian town of Chekhov\n\n\"We have a responsibility to the people we feed, the farmers who provide us with milk, and the tens of thousands of people who depend on us.\"\n\nDanone has 8,000 workers across 10 sites in Russia.\n\nTobacco giant Philip Morris International was the leading foreign company by revenue in Russia in 2020. It has suspended operations in Ukraine but not Russia.\n\nJapan Tobacco, which has a 37% share of the Russian market and 4,500 employees in the country, also continues to operate in Russia. Its tax payments in 2020 accounted for 1.4% of the Russian Federation state budget according to the company's website. Japan Tobacco says it is \"fully committed\" to complying with national and international sanctions.\n\nBritish American Tobacco (BAT) has 2,500 workers across 76 offices in Russia and continues to sell cigarettes in the country where it has operated for more than 30 years.\n\n\"BAT always complies with relevant regulation and legislation wherever we operate, and we are aligned with all international sanctions,\" a spokesperson told the BBC. \"We continue to closely monitor the situation as it evolves.\"\n\nRussia is carmaker Renault's second-biggest market and accounts for around 12% of Renault's revenue, about $5.5bn (£4.2bn). The French government currently has a 15% stake in Renault and is its most important investor in terms of voting rights.\n\nThe French company has not made any statements on the issue and has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.\n\nAnglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has suspended all imports and exports of products into and out of Russia, and has stopped all new investment, media and advertising in the country. However, the firm said it will continue to supply its \"everyday essential food and hygiene products made in Russia\" to people in the country.\n\nOperations at the firm's sites in Moscow, Omsk, Saint-Petersburg, Ekaterinburg and Tula remain open. Unilever - whose brands include Marmite, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Domestos and Dove - employs 3,000 people in Russia.\n\nNestle, which made $1.7bn from Russian sales in 2020, has six factories in Russia making snacks and drinks. The firm says it has \"business continuity plans in place that can be activated as needed\".\n\n\"The safety and protection of our employees remains our highest priority. We will not speculate on any potential sanctions.\n\nResponding to Ukrainian deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov's letter and tweet calling on the company to leave Russia, Japanese conglomerate Hitachi said it \"continues to monitor the situation closely\". It said it had paused \"operational activity in the affected areas\". It did not specify whether these areas related to production in Russia or its plants in Ukraine.\n\nMr Fedorov has tweeted: \"Day 13 of the bloody Russian invasion of Ukraine! I urge @HitachiGlobal to stop supplying products and providing services in Russia when their tanks and missiles kill peaceful Ukrainians!\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn a statement, Hitachi said: \"Right now, our top priority is the safety and health of our staff and their families. As a result of the current situation, operational activity in the affected areas has been paused.\"\n\nThe Carlsberg Group has decided to immediately stop new investments into Russia as well as exports from other Carlsberg Group companies to Baltika Breweries in Russia. Carlsberg took control of Baltika, Russia's largest beer brand, in 2008 and it will continue to employ around 9,000 staff in the country.\n\n\"We will respect all applicable sanctions being put in place and continue to assess the situation in relation to our business in Russia,\" the firm said.", "The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline was inaugurated just over a decade ago\n\nRussia has said it may close its main gas pipeline to Germany if the West goes ahead with a ban on Russian oil.\n\nDeputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said a \"rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market\", causing prices to more than double to $300 a barrel.\n\nThe US has been exploring a potential ban with allies as a way of punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut Germany and the Netherlands rejected the plan on Monday.\n\nThe EU gets about 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia, and has no easy substitutes if supplies are disrupted.\n\nWhile the UK would not be directly impacted by supply disruption, as it imports less than 5% of its gas from Russia, it would be affected by prices rising in the global markets as demand in Europe increases.\n\nIain Conn, the former boss of British Gas owner Centrica, said natural gas was \"less freely\" traded compared to oil, and it would be \"much more difficult\" to replace Russian gas if supplies are affected as it is transported through fixed pipelines from country to country.\n\nThe price of Brent crude - the global benchmark for oil prices - rose to around $130 a barrel on Tuesday following reports that the US and UK will announce its own ban on Russian oil imports.\n\nIn an address on Russian state television, Mr Novak said it would be \"impossible to quickly find a replacement for Russian oil on the European market\".\n\n\"It will take years, and it will still be much more expensive for European consumers. Ultimately, they will be hurt the worst by this outcome,\" he said.\n\nPointing to Germany's decision last month to freeze certification of Nord Stream 2, a new gas pipeline connecting the two countries, he added that an oil embargo could prompt retaliation.\n\n\"We have every right to take a matching decision and impose an embargo on gas pumping through the [existing] Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline,\" he said.\n\nRussia is the world's second largest gas producer and third largest oil exporter, and any move to impose sanctions on its energy industry would badly damage its own economy.\n\nNathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at Investec, said although imposing sanctions on Russia's oil and gas exports was attractive, \"practically it is challenging\".\n\nHe said both the global oil and gas markets were tight ahead of the war in Ukraine \"with limited spare capacity to replace any disrupted Russian volumes\".\n\n\"The question is now whether US and European leaders are prepared to endure high oil and gas prices to add energy exports to the sanctions list,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"The threat of this action is almost the worst of both worlds, forcing prices up but doing nothing to limit Russian volumes or the revenues flowing to Moscow.\"\n\nAnalysts at Capital Economics have forecast oil prices could rise to $160 a barrel if the West imposed sanctions on Russian exports, but David Oxley, senior global economist at the consultancy, told the BBC it was disruption to Russian gas that would hit countries harder, describing it as a \"completely different kettle of fish\".\n\nHe said energy intensive industries across Europe could be hit, with \"vast swathes of heavy industry being switched off\" as it is much harder finding replacement gas suppliers compared with oil.\n\nEU countries heavily reliant on Russian gas, such as Germany, could switch from gas to coal, he said, but that would run counter to the bloc's climate ambitions and would not be a long-term solution.\n\nThe energy markets have been supremely volatile over the past week, and understandably so. There are genuine fears that supplies of oil and gas from Russia could be cut off or disrupted.\n\nYet the response to Russia's suggestion it could close a major pipeline, depriving northern Europe of a large chunk of its gas supplies, has been pretty muted so far.\n\nThere are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, Russia is threatening a tit-for-tat embargo - cutting off its gas exports if the West goes ahead with a ban on Russian oil.\n\nBut despite pressure from the US, such a ban is unlikely. European leaders have already poured cold water on the idea - so Russia's counter-threat carries relatively little weight.\n\nAnd then there's the fact that Russia is still making huge sums from sales of oil and gas to Europe every day, helping to fund its war.\n\nMoscow has everything to gain from exploiting traders' nerves to push up energy prices; but a great deal to lose if it were to carry out its threat.\n\nUkraine has implored the West to adopt an oil and gas ban, but there are concerns it would send prices soaring. Investor fears of an embargo drove Brent crude oil to $139 (£106) a barrel at one point on Monday - its highest level for almost 14 years.\n\nMeanwhile, wholesale gas prices rose to 565p per therm early on Tuesday, but fell to 480p in the afternoon.\n\nUK stock markets rose slightly in early trading after a volatile Monday caused by the US's discussions over a potential Russian oil and gas ban.\n\nEarly on Tuesday, nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange more than doubled to rise above the $100,000-a-tonne level for the first time, before trading in the metal was suspended.\n\nRussia supplies the world with about 10% of its nickel needs, mainly for use in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries.\n\nQuoting unnamed sources, Reuters news agency reported that the US might be willing to move ahead with an embargo without its allies, although it only gets about 3% of its oil from Russia.\n\nHowever, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed the idea of a wider ban, saying Europe had \"deliberately exempted\" Russian energy from sanctions because its supply could not be secured \"any other way\" at the moment.\n\nEuropean powers have, however, committed to move away from Russian hydrocarbons over time, while some Western companies have boycotted Russian shipments or pledged to sell their stakes in Russian energy companies.\n\nMr Novak said that Russian companies were already feeling the pressure of US and European moves to lower the dependence on Russian energy, despite fulfilling all its contractual obligations to deliver oil and gas to Europe.\n\n\"We are concerned by the discussion and statements we are seeing regarding a possible embargo on Russian oil and petrochemicals, on phasing them out,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee.", "The chart-topping rapper had denied assault by beating\n\nGrime artist Dizzee Rascal has been found guilty of assaulting his former partner.\n\nThe rapper, whose real name is Dylan Kwabena Mills, attacked Cassandra Jones at a property in Streatham, south London, in June 2021.\n\nThe 37-year-old, of Sevenoaks, Kent, \"barged\" his way into the house, put his forehead against Ms Jones' and \"pushed her to the ground\".\n\nThe couple had two children before they split up in February 2021.\n\nAt Wimbledon Magistrates' Court on Monday, the musician - whose chart-topping singles have included Bonkers and Dance Wiv Me - had denied assault by beating.\n\nThe court heard Mills \"barged\" his way into the property on 8 June, with his son under his arms before \"screaming and shouting\" and banging his own head on the fridge three times.\n\nHe then approached Ms Jones, \"put his forehead against hers and pushed her around the room\" and then \"pushed her to the ground\", the court heard.\n\nHe had accused her of causing injuries to his arm.\n\nThe grime artist was made an MBE for services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2020\n\nThe court heard how Ms Jones began filming him but he took her phone from her and then took the phone from her mother, Dawn Kirk, who was there.\n\nThe shouting became so loud it alerted two neighbours and police were called.\n\nWhen they arrived, Mills said \"I'm the aggressor\", but later gave a prepared statement in a police interview, denying the allegations and claimed he had been assaulted by Ms Jones, the court heard.\n\nDelivering her verdict, District Judge Polly Gledhill said Mills had lost his temper in an argument over child contact and finances.\n\nShe added he was \"abusive and aggressive\" and \"assaulted her as outlined by the Crown\".\n\nFollowing the verdict, Mills took a camera from a Press Association photographer outside the court and threw it into a road, smashing it.\n\nA Press Association photographer said Mills smashed his camera outside court\n\nPhotographer, James Manning, said: \"He came out of the court, I was taking his picture, just standing still on the corner.\n\n\"He then pushed my camera into my face, which then caused it to fall to the floor, at which point he then picked it up and then threw it across the road. It smashed into a lot of pieces.\n\n\"He was angry, he came straight out of the door, didn't say anything, didn't say anything until the point at which he pushed my camera.\n\n\"I think he said something like 'get away' or 'get out of my face' or something along those lines.\"\n\nDet Con Hannah Barton said she wanted to \"praise the woman who Mills assaulted - she has shown immense strength throughout this investigation\".\n\n\"No woman should be subjected to violence of any form and I would urge anyone who finds themselves in this position to trust police - we will investigate and you will be provided with the support you need to help you through,\" she added.\n\nMills released his debut album, Boy In Da Corner, in 2003, and is due to release his seventh album later this year.\n\nIn 2020, he was made an MBE for services to music in the Queen's Birthday Honours.\n\nHe will be sentenced at Croydon Magistrates' Court on 8 April.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Members of a Ukrainian family wait for paperwork to be completed at the ferry terminal in Calais, France\n\nAlmost 300 Ukrainian refugees trying to reach the UK have already been turned back at the French border by British Border Force officials, the Calais authorities have said. Hundreds more are trying to complete paperwork for the visa that will allow them to cross the Channel by tunnel or ferry.\n\nOn Monday, one family followed by the BBC was sent from building to building across Calais to track down promised British support. When they eventually found the right place, the Home Office representation amounted to three men at a trestle table in a deserted departure hall at the port, with bags of ready salted crisps and Kit Kats.\n\nThe family were advised to make an appointment for 15 March, about 200 miles away in Paris.\n\nThe British staff offering water and snacks at a deserted Calais port building\n\nHaving promised a Home Office \"surge team\" would be available in Calais to support people fleeing the war and looking to come to Britain, the government now says there is no visa application centre (VAC) in the city and refugees should go elsewhere.\n\nThe Home Secretary Priti Patel has said she has decided not to set up a VAC in Calais because refugees might be exploited by the criminal gangs of people traffickers. The government is worried about a \"pull factor,\" encouraging desperate people to risk their lives by attempting to cross the channel in small boats.\n\nThe Home Office now says it has set up a VAC centre in Lille, around 70 miles from Calais.\n\nIn Calais yesterday, a Home Office presence at a local administrative building disappeared, a sign at the hostel instead advising people to go to Brussels where there are now walk-in appointments, or try to get an appointment in Paris.\n\nThe UK has retained controls on the entry of refugees from Ukraine\n\nCalais regional administrator Veronique Deprez-Boudier told us it was important that the UK build a more organised team to help people in Calais. \"Ideally they would get their visas here, and not have to take the train to get a visa,\" she said.\n\n\"We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people from Ukraine,\" a Home Office spokesperson told the BBC. \"We have worked closely with Ukrainian partners to ensure our measures respond directly to their needs and asks and the government's Ukraine Family Scheme will help tens of thousands of people to join their family members in the UK.\"\n\nUnlike the European Union - which is allowing Ukrainians three-year residency without a visa - the UK has retained controls on entry, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying it was \"sensible\" to \"have some basic ability to check who is coming in and who isn't\".\n\nThere are two main routes to a visa for refugees, requiring them either to have family in the UK, or a British sponsor for their application.\n\nThe experience of Misha, his wife and children, is typical. A British citizen with a home in north-east London, he drove 2,000 miles to Poland to rescue his Ukrainian wife Maria and two children, 17-year-old Gabrielle and six-year-old Misha Jr. They had walked 45 miles to escape the war and reach the border.\n\nHe drove them to Calais where they have been now for six days, having been turned back by Border Force officers at the ferry terminal because they did not all have visas.\n\nMisha, a scaffolder by trade, is now close to despair, his daughter in tears, as they try to navigate the bureaucracy. Maria has a vacant look in her eyes that speaks of a nightmare journey still without a final conclusion.\n\n\"I feel left out,\" Misha told the BBC. \"Who else is going to help me if not my own government?\"\n\nMisha, a scaffolder from north-west London, drove 2,000 miles to pick up his family - at Calais he was redirected to Paris\n\nWe followed Misha, who was among other desperate refugees - including many children, babies and elderly people, as he returned from a fruitless trek to the building, unsure what to do or where to go. What \"shoulder to shoulder\" actually meant.\n\nEventually, Misha spoke to a Border Force official who advised him to head across town to a port building - where he was met with the chocolate and crisps.\n\n\"Another week stuck here,\" he lamented. \"I have never claimed a benefit in my life and the first time I ask my government for their help, this is how they treat me. I am gutted.\"\n\nFor the hundreds of refugees in Calais, there appears to be a gap as wide as the English Channel between the supportive rhetoric of ministers in London and the reality on the ground.", "Pasha Lee was a rising star on Ukrainian TV but was already well known on the big screen there\n\nTalented Ukrainian actor and TV presenter Pasha Lee has been killed in battle as Russian forces bombarded the town of Irpin outside the capital Kyiv.\n\nLee, 33, had signed up for Ukraine's territorial defence force in the first days of the war.\n\nA resident of Irpin, he appeared in several films and his voice featured in the Ukrainian versions of The Lion King and The Hobbit.\n\nHe is one of a number of public figures killed in the Russian invasion.\n\nInvestigative journalist Viktor Dudar was killed on the front line during a battle with Russian troops near the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian reports said.\n\nPavlo Li, as the actor was formally known, was born in Crimea in 1988 and had recently begun presenting a show on Dom TV, a Ukrainian channel originally aimed at audiences in the eastern areas seized by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.\n\nChannel head Yulia Ostrovska told Ukraine's national union of journalists that he was the \"most cheerful and sunny\" of the presenters on the show.\n\nLee starred in TV talent shows Star Factory and X-Factor as well as a number of films including the 2016 release SelfieParty, involving four students who wake up in a police station after a night on the town, unaware of how they got there.\n\nAs a young actor in 2006 he starred in a teen-horror movie called The Pit but more recently featured in the comedy Meeting of Classmates.\n\nIrpin, the town 20km (12 miles) north-west of Kyiv where he lived, has been bombarded for days by Russian artillery, with shocking scenes of death, destruction and families rushing to escape.\n\nResidents of Irpin have been fleeing the Russian assault on their city, which is half an hour's drive from Kyiv\n\nResidents were able to get out of Irpin as well as the north-eastern city of Sumy on Tuesday as part of a Russian evacuation corridor, heading for the central city of Poltava.\n\nDays before Pasha Lee was killed he posted a link to a Ukrainian refugee charity, urging people either to approach them for help or to volunteer.\n\nIn his final Instagram post he posted a photo showing him and a colleague with the cheerful message that they were smiling because \"we'll be ok and everything will be Ukraine\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by pashaleeofficial This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Fergus Drake is overseeing aid heading to Ukraine from Poland Image caption: Fergus Drake is overseeing aid heading to Ukraine from Poland\n\nUkraine's health ministry is calling out for medical trauma kits to stem shelling wounds, desperately needed oxygen for patients, and protective armour for doctors and nurses.\n\nBut a key supplier says bringing those much-needed essentials across the border is being hindered by a lack of Ukrainian drivers.\n\nMany of them have been called up to fight - and those that remain face the threat of Russian attacks on aid convoys, and have no easy routes into besieged cities, like Kharkiv and Mariupol.\n\nBut Fergus Drake, who is overseeing around £1m worth of humanitarian aid into Ukraine for a medical supplies distributor, says there has been \"a tidal wave of humanity we haven’t seen since World War Two\".\n\nHis non-profit company has been working in Ukraine for 25 years and he describes seeing \"astonishing acts of kindness\" from people at the Polish border.\n\nHis Ukrainian staff who have left their homes have been offered accommodation, food and phone credits and welcomed, as Drake puts it, \"using language like ‘you are Polish now'\".", "The Queen posed in front of blue and yellow flowers, the national colours of Ukraine, as she held her first in-person meeting at Windsor Castle since falling ill with Covid.\n\nOn whether this was a symbolic show of support, a Royal source indicated it was unlikely to be accidental.\n\nThe 95-year-old monarch was pictured smiling warmly at the Canadian PM as he held her right hand in both of his.\n\nJustin Trudeau was visiting for talks with the UK PM about the Ukraine war.\n\nThe monarch, who is also Queen of Canada, tested positive for Covid-19 on 20 February and has carried out only \"light duties\" since then, cancelling several events.\n\nShe carried out her first virtual engagements on 1 March before Monday's face-to-face meeting.\n\nDuring the audience at Windsor Castle's Oak Room, Mr Trudeau was also pictured laughing as the Queen gestured towards herself.\n\nThe Queen was not seen with the walking stick which she has been using recently.\n\nAsked later at a Downing Street news conference about his meeting with the monarch, Mr Trudeau said: \"She was as insightful and perspicacious as ever, very interested in what is going on, asked me all sorts of questions about Canada.\n\n\"We had a really useful - for me anyway - conversation about global events, as we always do.\"\n\nAs well as this gesture of support for Ukraine at the meeting, the Queen previously made a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal to help people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nShe has two high-profile events scheduled in the coming weeks: the Commonwealth Service on 14 March and the Duke of Edinburgh's memorial service on 29 March, both at Westminster Abbey.\n\nLast month, she reached her Platinum Jubilee after 70 years on the throne.", "The Ukrainian president - pictured here with Boris Johnson in February - will make a statement to the Commons by video link\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address British politicians via video link later, as his country battles the Russian invasion.\n\nMr Zelensky's speech will be broadcast to MPs in the Commons at 17:00 GMT using TV screens being installed in the chamber.\n\nMembers of the House of Lords are also expected to watch from the public gallery.\n\nMPs will be able to follow a live translation over special headphones.\n\nAfter Mr Zelensky's speech, Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will respond.\n\nMeanwhile, the prime minister is hosting meetings in London with the leaders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.\n\nThe series of meetings will be to discuss the UK's support for security in central Europe.\n\nCommons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: \"Every parliamentarian wants to hear directly from the president, who will be speaking to us live from Ukraine, so this is an important opportunity for the House.\n\n\"Thanks again to our incredible staff for working at pace to make this historic address possible.\"\n\nHis counterpart in the House of Lords, Lord McFall of Alcluith, said: \"Today we are not members of the House of Lords or Commons, we are parliamentarians, united in solidarity with Ukraine.\"\n\nMr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor, has been the figurehead of Ukraine's struggle since Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces invaded the country last month.\n\nLast week, he received a standing ovation when he spoke, via videolink, to the European Parliament.\n\nBoris Johnson pledged support for European countries as he opened the meetings on Tuesday\n\nMr Zelensky has also spoken frequently to Prime Minister Boris Johnson since the conflict started.\n\nOn Monday, the president promised to punish anyone who commits atrocities against the Ukrainian people.\n\n\"There will be no quiet place on Earth for you, except for the grave,\" the president said.\n\nOn Monday evening, Mr Johnson spoke with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with the four leaders agreeing to maintain pressure on Russia to isolate Mr Putin diplomatically and economically.\n\n\"The prime minister stressed that our goal must be ensuring Putin's failure in this act of aggression against Ukraine,\" said a No 10 spokeswoman.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions last week, MPs stood to applaud Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, who watched parliamentary proceedings from the Commons gallery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The Raminishvili family are stuck in Calais\n\nMisha Raminishvili was close to despair, his daughter in tears, as the news came through. His wife Maria had a vacant look in her eyes that spoke of a nightmare journey still without a final destination.\n\n\"No visa for at least another week,\" he said, simply. \"No-one can help us in Calais.\"\n\nI met Misha, with his Ukrainian wife Maria and two children, at a hostel in the French port which is accommodating 137 Ukrainian refugees.\n\nMisha has a house in Hornchurch, east London, but lives between there and Kyiv.\n\nHe and his son, Misha Jr, have UK passports. But his wife Maria, and daughter Gabrielle, do not - and therefore need visas to enter the UK, which require biometric checks.\n\nMisha has been stuck in Calais for five days, unable to get his family across the Channel, in what would be the last leg of a journey that began on 24 February.\n\nAt the start of that journey, Maria walked 45 miles to Ukraine's border with Romania before Misha reached her.\n\n\"I feel left out,\" Misha told me in Calais. \"Who else is going to help me if not my own government?\"\n\nMisha Raminishvili and his son can enter the UK, but his wife and daughter can not\n\nMore than 500 Ukrainian refugees are currently in Calais, hoping to get to the UK.\n\nAmong them are families with small children and babies, as well as elderly women who have fled the war and crossed a continent.\n\nMany tell of having attempted to reach Britain, only to have been turned back by Border Force officials because they didn't have the right paperwork.\n\nDespite Home Secretary Priti Patel saying she had \"surged a Home Office team\" to help people on the ground in Calais - and denying that anyone had been turned back at the border - there is frustration and despair among those trying to navigate the bureaucracy.\n\nA Home Office presence at a local administrative building disappeared this morning, a sign at the hostel advising people to go to Brussels or Paris to apply for a visa.\n\nDesperate refugees returned from the building to say they didn't know what to do - or where to go.\n\nEventually, Misha spoke to a Border Force official who advised him to head across town to the old port building.\n\nHe has a car and was able to drive there. But when he arrived, the Home Office representation amounted to three men at a table in a deserted departure hall with bags of ready salted crisps and chocolate bars.\n\nWhen Misha asked them how he could get home to England with his family, he was told he could have an appointment in Paris on 15 March.\n\n\"Another week stuck here,\" Misha lamented. \"I have never claimed a benefit in my life and the first time I ask my government for their help, this is how they treat me. I am gutted.\"\n\nThe Home Office had promised refugees arriving in Calais there would be support available to help them complete the final leg of their long journeys.\n\nHowever, a Home Office statement today announced: \"There is no visa application centre in Calais and people should not travel there.\n\n\"Anyone wishing to make an application under the Ukraine Family Scheme should apply online and then to travel to their nearest visa application centre.\n\n\"The only visa application centre in France is in Paris.\"\n\nA charity worker from Care4Calais has become the focal point for many of the refugees in the hostel, but she too is frustrated by the lack of information and support from the UK authorities.\n\nThe prime minister has said the UK government will be \"very, very generous\" in its approach to helping Ukrainian refugees come to the UK, but in Calais people fleeing the war and looking for sanctuary in Britain spoke of a different attitude from those at the border.", "BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg reported from Moscow on the Six O'Clock News on BBC One on Tuesday\n\nBBC News journalists in Russia have resumed their English-language broadcasts, days after putting their work on hold after the introduction of a strict new media law.\n\nThe law threatens anyone deemed to have spread \"fake\" news about Russia's armed forces with up to 15 years in jail.\n\nNumerous other Western news media also suspended their operations.\n\nThe BBC has decided to resume work after \"careful deliberation\", it said.\n\nA statement said: \"We have considered the implications of the new legislation alongside the urgent need to report from inside Russia.\n\n\"After careful deliberation we have decided to resume English language reporting from Russia this evening (Tuesday 8 March), after it was temporarily suspended at the end of last week.\n\n\"We will tell this crucial part of the story independently and impartially, adhering to the BBC's strict editorial standards. The safety of our staff in Russia remains our number one priority.\"\n\nIn their first broadcasts since the suspension, BBC correspondents Steve Rosenberg and Jenny Hill reported from Moscow on Tuesday.\n\nOther news outlets to suspend their work in Russia at the end of last week included US news network CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Bloomberg News, Spanish news agency EFE, Italian channel RAI and Germany's ARD and ZDF. Days later, the New York Times said it was pulling its staff out of the country.\n\nOn Friday, BBC director general Tim Davie said he was not prepared to expose staff \"to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs\".\n\nThe BBC's resumption of broadcasting came as the New York Times announced its withdrawal.\n\nA spokesperson for the newspaper said: \"Russia's new legislation seeks to criminalise independent, accurate news reporting about the war against Ukraine.\n\n\"For the safety and security of our editorial staff working in the region, we are moving them out of the country for now.\n\n\"We look forward to them returning as soon as possible while we monitor the application of the new law.\"\n\nAccess to BBC websites has been restricted in Russia, and the Kremlin took BBC World News off the air in the country at the weekend.\n\n\"We regret that our Russian audiences are being denied access to trusted and impartial news at a time when they need it most,\" a BBC spokesperson said at the time.\n\nThe corporation has provided information for people in Russia about how to continue to access BBC News.", "War in Ukraine will push up energy prices and see UK families squeezed even further, a think tank has warned.\n\nThe Resolution Foundation forecasts that a typical household's income will fall by about £1,000 this year once the effect of inflation is accounted for.\n\nThat would be the biggest real-terms fall in incomes since the mid-1970s, it added.\n\nA government spokesperson said it recognised the pressures households are facing.\n\nMany families were already expecting their monthly spend to go up when the energy price cap jumps in April, and National Insurance contributions rise.\n\nBut in a new report, the Resolution Foundation said the Ukraine conflict would push up living costs even further as the prices of fuel and other goods surged.\n\nIt expects inflation, which measures how the cost of living changes over time, to peak in April at 8.3%. That is much higher the Bank of England's forecast of 7.25% back in February.\n\n\"The crisis in Ukraine has increased both the scale of price rises but also the degree of uncertainty about their levels and duration,\" the Foundation's report said.\n\n\"The UK's post-Covid economic recovery is well under way, but a deep living standards downturn is just getting going,\" it added, also warning that wages are not forecast to grow particularly fast either.\n\nThis spring was always going to be a crunch moment.\n\nAt the start of April, spikes in global oil and gas prices from last year start to feed through to our energy bills and the energy price cap jumps up. You should have had a message from your provider by now explaining what's happening to your particular bill and warning about an increase to your direct debit.\n\nThat will be hard enough for many households, but we're also now seeing record prices at petrol stations due to the war in Ukraine. The Resolution Foundation is also warning the conflict will bring more price rises, with inflation peaking at the same point as the price cap goes up.\n\nThe only saving grace is the time of year. At least if the weather improves (and that's a big \"if\"), we can start using less energy and leaving the car at home becomes easier for many. That could help people to divert cash to cover the rising prices in shops, which we will have to pay whatever the season.\n\nIts principal economist, Adam Cortlett, said soaring bills would hit low and middle-income families the hardest.\n\nHe also suggested poorer households would face a \"living standards rollercoaster\" because of the way that benefit payments are set months in advance.\n\nFor example, most working age benefits and the state pension are due to rise by 3.1% in April - a time when the increase in the cost of living could be as high as 8%. But high inflation in 2022 should lead to bigger payments next year.\n\nThe think tank called on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to announce fresh support for struggling families at his Spring Statement.\n\nTorsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: \"While the economic fallout from the war will feel trivial compared to the suffering experienced by millions of Ukrainians, it will still have a significant impact in Britain.\"\n\nHe suggested that surging gas and oil prices would worsen the \"cost of living crisis\", causing a \"painful squeeze on family incomes\".\n\nMr Bell told the BBC's Today programme the country was heading into a \"living standards recession\".\n\n\"We could see income falls of 4% in the financial year that's about to kick off, we never see that outside of significant recessions,\" he said.\n\n\"Given it will take us quite a few years to claw our way back from that, it may well feel like our living standards during the pandemic were as good as it got during the first half of the 2020s.\"\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"We recognise the pressures people are facing with the cost of living, which is why we're providing support worth around £20bn this financial year and next to help.\"\n\nThey said this includes freezing fuel duties to keep costs down, as well as launching energy bills rebate programme.\n\n\"We have also boosted the minimum wage by more than £1,000 a year for full-time workers and our £500m Household Support Fund is helping the most vulnerable with essential costs,\" they added.", "Ambulance crews summoned police to Ostler's Plantation, in Lincolnshire, on Sunday night\n\nA three-month-old girl has been killed in a suspected dog attack at a beauty spot.\n\nParamedics were called to Ostler's Plantation, near Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, at 23:13 GMT on Sunday.\n\nThey called police to the scene, who arrested a 40-year-old woman and a 54-year-old man on suspicion of being in charge of a dog which was out of control. Both remain in custody.\n\nOfficers have not released information about how the baby died.\n\nCh Supt Andy Cox said Lincolnshire Police was doing \"everything we can\" to establish the circumstances.\n\n\"This is an exceptionally sad incident, and one that we know will impact the local community, or indeed anyone hearing about it,\" he said.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The conflict in Ukraine continues to affect the cost of oil and gas, putting a further squeeze on the cost of living.\n\nWorld oil prices have jumped to $139 (£106) a barrel, the highest level for almost 14 years.\n\nThe Northern Ireland Consumer Council has found 500 litres of home heating oil costs £559.50 - an increase of 75% since 23 February.\n\nAnd petrol and diesel prices continue to soar.\n\nPetrol prices of £1.65 per litre have been reported in parts of Northern Ireland, with diesel prices close to £1.80 per litre some places.\n\nThose compare to around the £1.20 per litre mark a year ago, and prices are unlikely to fall any time soon.\n\nThe owner of a County Fermanagh fuel company is predicting that diesel prices could hit £2 per litre by the end of this week.\n\nGarry Jennings, from Jennings Fuels and Lubricants in Kesh, said as well as volatility in oil market, there are issues with supplies coming into Northern Ireland.\n\n\"We are selling the fuel we've bought in on Friday, tonight it looks like there's going to be another 10p on oil and that's going to come to us tomorrow morning.\n\n\"We buy on the day and try and sell on the day so this is fuel we bought in on Friday, tomorrow's fuel is going to be 10p up, what's going to happen Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday?\"\n\nThe Northern Ireland Oil Federation (NIOF) have said there is no issue with supplies, but they are dealing with a 10-day backlog of orders due to mass panic-buying.\n\nWhile some drivers may be able to travel less or use public transport, that is not an option for transport companies.\n\nStephen Anton, from taxi company Fonacab, said rising fuel prices are felt directly by taxi drivers as they are self employed and account for all of their income and costs individually.\n\nStephen Anton, from taxi company Fonacab, said rising fuel costs may encourage drivers to leave the industry\n\n\"In other words, they fuel their vehicles, the cost of doing so an expense against their booking income,\" Mr Anton said.\n\n\"While drivers can offset fuel costs against their taxable income, the increased fuel costs affect what they take home on a day-to-day basis.\"\n\nHe added: \"If this continues to be a problem, it has the potential to impact negatively on taxi driver numbers across Northern Ireland.\n\n\"Many drivers left the industry for various reasons during Covid and a substantial number have not returned, instead taking early retirement or remaining in other jobs they secured during lockdowns.\n\n\"A sustained high fuel cost may encourage some other drivers to do the same.\"\n\nMr Anton said the company was conscious that customers are feeling cost of living increases in their pockets too and did not want to increase fares unnecessarily.\n\n\"There is a balancing act to ensuring that prices remain competitive and affordable for our customers and are also sufficient to allow drivers to make a living and work to provide the services that customers need,\" he said.\n\n\"The current fuel price increases make this a more difficult exercise than ever.\n\n\"From our perspective, anything that can be done to reduce fuel costs for drivers' vehicles is a priority.\n\n\"A temporary decrease in fuel duty would be welcome, and there are other tools that local government can employ to reduce overall costs for drivers - for example, reducing the cost of an annual PSV for a taxi to that of an MoT.\"\n\nPaul Stewart said some form of price cap would be beneficial\n\nPaul Stewart, from courier firm NI Parcels, said fuel prices had been increasing \"slowly but surely\" over the last year.\n\n\"However, in the last six weeks the increases have been huge,\" he said.\n\n\"It has been the largest increase I have ever seen in our business.\n\n\"We have been absorbing some of the increases ourselves, but there is only so much you can absorb, so this has now resulted in some of the increased costs onto our customers.\n\n\"As the fuel prices change so regularly, it is difficult to keep changing your prices and this could make our business look unprofessional.\n\n\"It is a very difficult time to absorb the costs or increase prices, we have done a blend of both for now.\"\n\nMr Stewart said the full costs have not been passed onto customers, meaning a reduction in profits for the company.\n\n\"The main issue is the constant price changes making it difficult to set prices, some form of price freeze or price caps would be hugely appreciated,\" he said.\n\n\"As the fuel price increases so does the revenue collected on the duty on the increased prices. Duty on fuel could be reduced to help with these increases.\"", "Hassan was given food and drink by volunteers and his relatives were then contacted in Bratislava\n\nA boy has arrived safely in Slovakia after travelling some 1,200km (750 miles) from eastern Ukraine with no more than two small bags, a passport and his relatives' phone number.\n\nHassan, 11, left his home in Zaporizhzhia because his mother could not leave her elderly mother.\n\nShe put him on a train and when he finally got to the border he was helped across by customs officers.\n\nOfficials said he was a true hero and had won over everyone with his smile.\n\nThe boy arrived at the border carrying a plastic bag, a small red backpack and his passport. He was taken in by volunteers who gave him food and a drink while border officials got in touch with relatives in the Slovak capital Bratislava.\n\nHis mother, in a video posted by Slovak police, thanked everyone for taking care of her son and explained why he had travelled across the country when it was in the grip of a Russian invasion.\n\n\"Next to my town is a power plant that the Russians are shelling. I couldn't leave my mum - she can't move by herself - so I sent my son to Slovakia,\" said Julia Pisecka, who is a widow.\n\nThe nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia is the biggest in Europe. It was seized by Russia's military over the weekend after an attack that President Volodymyr Zelensky warned could have caused destruction on a scale far bigger than the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.\n\nHassan is one of more than two million people who have fled Russia's war in Ukraine. More than 1.2 million have arrived in Poland, while 140,745 have reached Slovakia, according to the latest UN figures.\n\nJulia Pisecka thanked everyone who had looked after her son\n\nOn the verge of tears, his mother pleaded for Ukraine's children to be given a safe haven.\n\nA Slovak interior ministry official said Hassan had won over everyone at the border with his smile, fearlessness and determination.\n\nThe official said he had used a phone number written on the boy's hand, as well as a piece of paper he had in his pocket, to contact relatives in the Slovak capital who came to pick him up.\n\nInterior Minister Roman Mikulec met Hassan on Monday and said he and his siblings had already asked for temporary protection in Slovakia.\n\nSlovak officials urged people who were keen on helping the boy's mother and grandmother to donate to Slovak Christian youth association ZKSM.\n\nHassan had his relative's phone number in Slovakia written on the back of his hand\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "Antonina Kolodii, 79, is trying to get to the UK to join her daughter, Marianne Kay\n\nThe daughter of a Ukrainian refugee has warned of the anger and frustration of people waiting for visas at an \"understaffed\" UK application centre.\n\nMarianne Kay from Yorkshire says if delays continue much longer \"it does feel like there will be riots\".\n\nShe has travelled to Rzeszow in Poland to help her 79-year-old mother Antonina Kolodii to safety in the UK.\n\nPeople were gathering outside the centre in freezing temperatures from the early morning, she says.\n\nMPs have criticised the Home Office for a slow response to the flight of more than two million people from Ukraine, saying those seeking sanctuary are being held up by bureaucracy or turned away.\n\nAbout 500 visas have been granted under the Ukraine Family Scheme, with more than 10,000 people having applied to join relatives in the UK. A second visa route, requiring a British sponsor, is also being set up.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson told broadcasters the \"huge and very generous\" visa programme could eventually help \"hundreds of thousands\" of refugees enter the UK.\n\nThe government has rejected the European Union's approach of a three-year residency without a visa, however, claiming officials had seen people in Calais with false documents claiming to be Ukrainian. Mr Johnson said: \"To have a system of simply uncontrolled immigration isn't right.\"\n\nIn addition to long waits at visa centres, hundreds of Ukrainians are stuck in Calais trying to complete paperwork, with French authorities saying almost 300 Ukrainian refugees have been turned back by the UK Border Force, and repeating their criticism of the UK's \"lack of humanity\".\n\nAt the Rzeszow visa application centre, Marianne says the situation is \"desperate\" and tense, with people \"shouting at each other all the time\".\n\n\"It's quite clear that this place is understaffed quite severely so that there is absolutely no way that people who work here can process so many applications,\" she says.\n\nMarianne left her job and children at home in Yorkshire on Friday to travel to Poland and help her mother get to the UK.\n\nAmid conflicting advice about whether refugees should apply online or walk in to the centre, she was initially told the next available appointment was 14 March. But after waiting at the centre for two days, her mother's application was finally processed.\n\nNow they will need to see if the application is approved and attend another visa centre in Warsaw before they can finally travel to the UK.\n\nMarianne says there is no order or queuing system for visas, with many people waiting from the early morning\n\nTory MP Tracey Crouch said in the Commons that some people had been told there were no appointments until the end of April.\n\nMarianne says crowds including elderly people and young children gather from the early morning, with some people left outside in freezing temperatures.\n\n\"It's really inappropriate to treat people who haven't slept for days and nights for a long time,\" she says.\n\n\"They have crossed the border in the cold, in the dark, in difficult conditions. And they can't cope with the situation very well.\"\n\nShe says she understands the need for security checks, but refugees have been grappling with contradictory advice.\n\n\"You can't tell people that they can apply for something and then make it completely impossible to do so and change rules every day,\" she says.\n\nShe adds that there is only one biometrics machine in Rzeszow. Other refugees have told the BBC they arrived in Lviv, western Ukraine, only to find the biometrics machine had been removed and the visa centre closed due to the increasing dangers of the war.\n\nTwo million people have fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says, mostly into neighbouring countries such as Poland and Romania\n\nResponding to an urgent question in the House of Commons, Home Office minister Kevin Foster told MPs that a new visa processing centre would be established in the northern French city of Lille.\n\nUkrainians without their own transport will be allowed to travel on the Eurostar free to get to the Lille centre, as well as those in Paris and Brussels.\n\nMr Foster insisted ministers would \"not take chances with the security of this country and our people\" - citing the Salisbury Novichok attack in 2018 - where Russian nationals used a nerve agent in an attempt to murder the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.\n\n\"A crucial part of the application process is providing biometrics so we can be sure applicants are who they say they are\", he said.\n\nMeanwhile, the government has created a new minister for refugees in the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.\n\nRichard Harrington, who stood down as an MP in 2019, will be made a life peer.\n\nCriticising the absence of Home Secretary Priti Patel in the Commons, Labour's Yvette Cooper called for visa centres to be established at all major travel points, on-the-spot security checks and for Ukrainians to be given emergency visas.\n\n\"The government should not be continuing to change this in a chaotic way, rather than opening the system properly,\" she added.\n\nMs Cooper criticised the apparent lack of clarity over the locations and operation of visa centres.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Yvette Cooper calls for emergency visa centres for Ukrainians over UK's \"chaotic\" response\n\nShe said: \"Yesterday the home secretary told the House twice that a visa centre en route to Calais has now been set up but it still doesn't exist.\n\n\"The foreign secretary just said it might be in Lille - nearly 72 miles from Calais.\n\n\"The Home Office said this morning that no decision had been taken. Well, which is it? Has it? Where is it? Can people get there yet?\"\n\nDowning Street said the Lille centre is expected to be set up \"in the coming days\".\n\nA string of Conservative MPs joined opposition politicians in demanding further and faster action from the government in helping Ukrainian refugees enter the UK.\n\nFormer Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told LBC radio: \"This is a big area of failure where I think we've misjudged the public mood.\"\n\nConservative Mark Harper, a former immigration minister, said even if security checks were needed, the government needed to \"grip the pace of this\" and called for a minister to set out the details of the humanitarian sponsorship route within days - not weeks or months.\n\nTory MP Alec Shelbrooke said the speed of response was a \"disgrace\".\n\nThis report is based on an interview by BBC special correspondent Lucy Manning.", "The funeral in Moscow last week for a Russian sergeant killed in Ukraine\n\nPresident Putin has directly addressed the mothers of soldiers serving in Ukraine, telling them: \"I know how worried you are\" and trying to reassure them. But some mothers, grandmothers, sisters and girlfriends have been telling the BBC they are desperately anxious about loved ones in the military - young men who appear to have had little idea what they were being sent to do.\n\nAll names have been changed\n\nWhen Marina hadn't heard from her grandson for more than a week, she started making calls. In his final message to her, he said he was on the Belarus-Ukraine border and would be home soon. But with no news since, she fears the worst.\n\n\"I phoned his military unit, they said he hadn't left [Russia]. 'I said - are you joking? He contacted me from Belarus. Do you not know where your soldiers go?' They hung up and didn't talk to me any more.\"\n\nMarina's grandson Nikita was originally a conscript. Men in Russia aged 18-27 who do not have an exemption - such as studying or looking after young children - are drafted into the military for a year.\n\nBut Marina says in Nikita's first few days of service, representatives of military units arrived in their region, hoping to get conscripts to become contracted soldiers in order to lengthen their military service and earn a salary. Contractors make up the bulk of Russia's junior service personnel.\n\nThey \"convinced him\"... \"[They told him] you can retire early, you will have a steady salary, you will learn how to drive.\"\n\nNikita became a driver in a mechanised infantry division, but his earnings did not translate into a comfortable standard of living. His monthly salary of 18,000 roubles - $240 (£180) before the rouble crashed - was just enough to get by on in rural Russia. And, he told his grandmother, he was expected to pay for uniform and petrol out of that salary. He had free accommodation in barracks but could not bear the freezing conditions - there was no heating or hot water - so had to pay for rent as well, she says.\n\nIt is difficult to establish how common Nikita's experience is, but the scores of Russian companies who help young men find loopholes to avoid the draft suggest the army is not seen as an attractive prospect.\n\nIn mid-February, Nikita told his grandmother he was moving to the Ukraine-Belarus border \"to guard it\". He also told her he had heard they would soon be returning home.\n\nThere has been no word from him since he last texted her on 23 February - a Russian public holiday - to say he was at a concert.\n\nShe is certain her grandson had no idea he would be sent into combat in Ukraine.\n\n\"He said, 'It's drills and more drills and then we go home',\" a line repeated by many Russian soldiers' relatives we spoke to.\n\nMilitary drills in Belarus just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine - many families thought that was all their son or partner was going to be doing\n\nAnother woman, Galina, says she only realised her son Nikolai was in Ukraine when her sister spotted his photo on the Facebook page of Ukraine's armed forces' chief as a POW.\n\nA US Pentagon briefing on Friday suggested that a significant number of the men fighting in Ukraine are conscripts, and that might account for their inexperience and lack of awareness about what they were expected to do.\n\nBut it appears the men's belief - that they were simply on drills rather than being sent into combat - was not unique to conscripts. Like Marina's grandson Nikita - and many of the other men whose relatives we spoke to - Galina's son Nikolai began as a conscript, but was now a contracted soldier.\n\nGalina says she last heard from Nikolai the day before her sister spotted his photo, when he told her his unit was near the Ukrainian border.\n\n\"I don't know what to do. The media is silent about the fact that our guys were captured. Or they don't know.\"\n\nNikolai's girlfriend says he became a contract soldier last December to \"provide for his future family\", despite her efforts to dissuade him. His mother adds that there are no other opportunities to earn decent money locally.\n\n\"My child did not go [to Ukraine] of his own free will, the commander-in-chief sent him there,\" she says.\n\n\"To be honest, I don't understand what it's all for,\" she says. \"In our country, some people have nothing to eat. I don't understand any war or any military action.\n\n\"Whose door should I knock on to get my child back?\"\n\nThis sense of impotence is shared by another mother the BBC spoke to, whose son also worked as a contract soldier and was sent away on \"drills\".\n\n\"If I knew where he is now, I would have packed up myself and gone to these people and begged them for mercy,\" she says.\n\nHistorically, soldiers' mothers in Russia have been outspoken about how the military has been deployed and treated, and have agitated for the authorities to be more open about casualty figures.\n\nThey played a particularly significant role in agitating against both of Russia's Chechen wars, waging a widely publicised campaign.\n\nMothers of soldiers deployed in Chechnya waged a powerful campaign to bring their sons home\n\nBut a new law passed in the country last week threatens anyone seen to be spreading what the government deems \"fakes\" about military action in Ukraine with 15 years in jail.\n\nThe Russian public has also been exposed to powerful anti-Ukraine propaganda from Russian state-run media. The sister of one man she believes is missing in Ukraine said she thought there must be a good reason for the invasion.\n\n\"And now we are called to rallies. To me it looks like they [Ukraine] have destroyed their [own] country, and now they want to destroy another.\"\n\nUkraine has sought to counter that propaganda with a powerful campaign of its own. A helpline called \"Look for your own\" (Ishchi Svoikh in Russian) was first advertised on day three of what Russia was describing as a \"special military operation to demilitarise and denazify\" the country. A companion Telegram channel carries photos of Russian POWs and casualties, and encourages worried relatives to get in touch. The Washington Post has highlighted concerns about the publication of the graphic images.\n\n\"This is our gesture of good will to the Russian mothers,\" Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych announced.\n\nA flyer carried on the Ukrainian interior ministry Facebook page goes even further, making a direct call to Russian mothers to come and collect their sons, and gives specific instructions about what to do.\n\n\"We, Ukrainian people, in contrast to [Russian President] Putin's fascists, do not make war with mothers and their captured sons,\" it says.\n\nDespite these appeals, all the relatives we spoke to had no view on the legitimacy of Russia's action in Ukraine or supported it.\n\nBut the text exchange of one woman with her soldier fiance - which she showed to the BBC - suggested that in his case he did not buy into the Russian rhetoric that they were entering Ukraine to \"liberate\" the population.\n\nIn it, he tells his fiancee that he is off on \"a tour around some countries\" - possibly referring to Russia's ally and neighbour Belarus - before saying he is going to \"defend the defenceless, LOL\".\n\nWhen she asks \"Are you joking?\" he simply replies: \"No. I am going to war.\"\n\nRussia finally published death toll figures for its combatants in the invasion last week, saying that as of 3 March 498 Russian troops had been killed and a further 1,597 injured. But Ukraine says that more than 11,000 Russian military have been killed, though this cannot be verified.", "Nicola Sturgeon said the Witchcraft Act prompted \"injustice on a colossal scale\"\n\nNicola Sturgeon has offered a formal apology to people accused of witchcraft between the 16th and 18th centuries, many of whom were executed.\n\nThe Scottish first minister said she was choosing to acknowledge an \"egregious historic injustice\".\n\nIt is thought 4,000 Scots, most of them women, were accused of breaking the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736.\n\nMs Sturgeon also told MSPs that parliament could choose to legislate to pardon those convicted under the law.\n\nThe Witches of Scotland campaign had urged the government to offer a public apology, saying it would send a \"powerful signal\".\n\nWitch hunts took place in many countries during that period, but academics say Scotland's execution rate was five times the European average.\n\nConfessions were regularly secured under torture, with those condemned strangled and burned at the stake.\n\nIn a statement at Holyrood, the first minister said those accused under the act \"were not witches, they were people and they were overwhelmingly women\".\n\nShe said: \"At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as witnesses in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different, vulnerable or in many cases just because they were women.\n\n\"It was injustice on a colossal scale, driven at least in part by misogyny in its most literal sense, hatred of women.\n\n\"Today on International Women's Day, as first minister on behalf of the Scottish government, I am choosing to acknowledge that egregious historic injustice and extend a formal posthumous apology to all of those accused, convicted, vilified or executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563.\"\n\nThe Witches of Scotland group has been petitioning Holyrood to pardon those convicted under the act, with QC Claire Mitchell saying it would correct as far as possible a \"terrible miscarriage of justice\".\n\nSNP MSP Natalie Don was already planning a member's bill extending a formal pardon, and Ms Sturgeon noted that parliament may choose to legislate in due course.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose, we will fight to the end... whatever the cost\n\nVolodymyr Zelensky has invoked the words of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill as he appealed to MPs for more help at home.\n\nThe Ukrainian president spoke to the Commons via video, thanking the UK for its support since Russia's invasion, and receiving a standing ovation.\n\nBut he called for Russia to be named a \"terrorist state\" and for allies to \"make sure our skies are safe\".\n\n\"We will not surrender, we will not lose, we will go to the end,\" he added.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said the leader had \"moved the hearts of everybody\" watching, and pledged to \"press on with tightening the economic vice\" around Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer also praised \"the bravery [and] the resolve\" of the president and his people, adding: \"He has shown his strength and we must show him - and the Ukrainian people - our commitment and support.\"\n\nSpeaking to MPs and peers in the Commons, President Zelensky gave a day-by-day account of the invasion by Russia, which began a fortnight ago.\n\nHe described how it was a war Ukraine \"didn't start and we didn't want\", but his country now had to fight.\n\n\"We do not want to lose what we have, what is ours... just the same way as you once didn't want to lose your country when the Nazis started to fight your country and you had to fight for Britain,\" he added.\n\nThe president also spoke of the 50 children \"that could have lived\" but were killed by Russian forces, along with those of his people dying from dehydration where their cities had been blockaded by Russia.\n\nMPs and peers gathered in the Commons to listen to the address through headsets and watch the president on large screens\n\nIn a nod to one of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's famous speeches from 1940, the president said he wanted to \"remind you of the words Britain heard already, which become current again\".\n\nHe said: \"We will not surrender, we will not lose, we will go to the end.\n\n\"We will fight at sea, we will fight in the air, we will protect our land.\n\n\"We will fight everywhere… and we will not surrender.\"\n\nHe also turned to a William Shakespeare quote in his address.\n\n\"To be or not to be,\" said President Zelensky. \"You know the Shakespeare question very well.\n\n\"Thirteen days and that question still could have applied to Ukraine.\n\n\"But now, already, it is obvious it is 'to be' - it is obvious it is to be free.\"\n\nAlongside his British cultural references, President Zelensky also hinted towards his previous appeal for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying: \"We still have the sky open, it is still open to Russian missiles planes and helicopters.\"\n\nHe also called for allies to \"strengthen the sanctions against the terrorist state [Russia], finally classify it as a terrorist state [and] find a way to make our Ukrainian skies safe\".\n\nThe leader concluded his speech by saying: \"Do what you can, do what you must, because greatness obliges greatness, of your state and your people.\n\n\"Glory to Ukraine and glory to Great Britain.\"\n\nMPs crammed into every corner. Members of the House of Lords packed the public galleries high in the chamber. Parliamentary staff huddled close to peer through the stone arches, almost in the roof, to watch.\n\nAfter a few minutes of chatter, with MPs fiddling with their headsets to ensure they would be able to hear the translation of the speech, there was hush.\n\nThen alone at his desk, only a Ukrainian flag for company, President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared on screens to speak to MPs and, of course, to the country.\n\nUkraine's leader told of his country's pain as each day, a war \"we did not start\" progressed. Bombs falling on schools. Churches destroyed. Children's hospitals attacked. Food and water running low in some parts.\n\nHe thanked the UK for its support, urging the government to tighten sanctions still further, to protect Ukraine's skies, even though enforcing a no-fly zone is a step - a risk - that the UK and its allies just aren't willing to take yet.\n\nYet the message that brought tears to some MPs' eyes was Mr Zelenksy's utter defiance.\n\nLeaders of the main political parties in the Commons then made speeches to praise President Zelensky's efforts against the Russian Invasion.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"At this moment, ordinary Ukrainians are defending their homes and their families against a brutal assault, and they are by their actions inspiring millions with their courage and their devotion.\n\n\"And I think today, one of the proudest boasts in the free world is, 'Ya Ukrainets' - 'I am a Ukrainian'.\"\n\nSir Keir added: \"Invading troops march through [President Zelensky's] streets, shells reign down on his people, and assassins seek his life.\n\n\"No-one would have blamed him for fleeing. But instead, he has stayed in Kyiv to lead the Ukrainian people and to fight.\n\n\"Labour stands with President Zelensky, with Ukraine, with democracy. Slava Ukraini.\"\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford also said he saluted the Ukrainian leader, adding: \"We stand with the people of Ukraine on the basis of the act of aggression, on the act of war of Putin.\n\n\"We must do all that we can to send support to Ukraine, to send the weapons that they need to defend themselves, to make sure that we sanction the regime in Moscow, that we deliver the clearest message to President Putin - that this will end in failure for him, that he will face justice at the international court.\"", "The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was an early casualty of Germany's change of heart over Russia\n\nYou know that feeling when you're running downhill, going so fast that you seem to lose control of your own feet?\n\nThat's where the EU appears to be at the moment.\n\nOnce dismissed as impossible - or at least, hugely improbable - from one day to the next, EU revolutions, provoked by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, have been happening thick and fast.\n\nThe next seismic change bubbling in Brussels? A looming energy revolution, provoked by a simple question: What's the point of punitive financial sanctions if Vladimir Putin's war chest is refilled on a daily basis with oil and gas revenues?\n\nThe EU depends on Russia for 40% of its natural gas and a quarter of its oil imports.\n\nEU countries pay about €1bn a day to Moscow for those supplies, according to Bruegel, the Brussels-based think tank.\n\nThe US - which is far less reliant on Russian energy supplies than Europe - says it's considering banning Russian oil imports as part of its sanctions against the Kremlin.\n\nOn Monday, standing next to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lithuania's foreign minister agreed. \"We cannot pay for oil and gas with Ukrainian blood,\" he said.\n\nAlong with other eastern European Nato and EU members, Lithuania views Vladimir Putin - with his ambitions to change Europe's geopolitical order in Moscow's favour - as an active security threat.\n\nThe West must fight Russia \"with all means available\", said Lithuania's president. \"To avoid World War Three.\"\n\nBut other EU countries, such as big powers Germany and Italy - far more reliant on Russian energy than most - feel more threatened by the prospect of skyrocketing energy prices that would surely follow any sanctions on Russian oil or gas imports.\n\nEnergy prices are already painfully high across the continent.\n\nUntil Russia's attacks on Ukraine, the majority of Germans supported Nord Stream 2, their new gas pipeline direct from Russia.\n\nThe pipeline has been frozen as part of EU sanctions against Russia, but Berlin fears public opinion could turn if Germans suddenly can't fill their cars with petrol or afford to heat their homes.\n\nGermany's Federation of Industries, the BDI, has warned that soaring prices could crush the EU's largest economy, forcing factory and other German business closures, with a rippling effect across the single market.\n\nAnti-nuclear sentiment has always been strong in Germany\n\nFrance's Emmanuel Macron is nervous too. He hopes to be re-elected president next month.\n\nThe last time he was blamed for petrol price hikes in France, it sparked months of massive street protests by the \"gilets jaunes\", the yellow jackets, so-called because of the high-visibility vests they wore.\n\nSo, while on the world stage, President Macron presents himself as the European champion of carbon neutrality, energy prices are such a sensitive issue in France that he introduced €100 bonuses for the poorest voters this winter, to mitigate fossil fuel prices as part of his re-election bid.\n\nIt's notable, too, that French energy giant Total says it's staying put in Russia for now, despite the Kremlin's onslaught against Ukraine, while competitors BP and Shell have voluntarily pulled out.\n\nSo are energy sanctions against Russia just the latest example of an \"EU impossible\" that will suddenly become reality?\n\nThe issue will be discussed in the European Parliament on Tuesday and among EU leaders at their Thursday summit.\n\nWhen I speak to EU naysayers, they talk defensively, not only about the dangers of domestic blowback, but also potential aftershocks in the global energy market.\n\n\"At the moment, we're speaking with one voice alongside Latin America, regarding Russian aggression,\" one diplomat told me.\n\n\"But what would happen if the Argentine economy implodes as a result of energy price hikes and scarcity and the EU and the West is blamed for that?\"\n\nSo for the moment, the EU is clinging to what it views as safer ground.\n\nOn Monday, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would be speeding up efforts to wean itself off Russian energy.\n\nRussia's actions in Ukraine mean Brussels now views the Climate Question as a question of security. Energy security.\n\nGermany's new chancellor took the world's breath away a week ago by reversing his country's defence policy, sending weapons to Ukraine and announcing a €100bn investment in the German military.\n\nHis finance minister has also announced a €200bn investment in renewable and alternative energy sources. Germany's need is acute, as it has all but phased out nuclear energy, as well as phasing out coal.\n\nBut those plans for renewable energies, alternative suppliers and a clean energy divorce from Russia will take time.\n\nSomething Ukraine just does not have.", "Ros Atkins takes a look at the UK's response to refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, and the family visa scheme it has set up.", "They had been travelling for thirty hours already. There were many hours ahead. The bus to the Polish border was a capsule of exhaustion, grief and tender mercies. Carers hugged the frightened children and whispered soothing sounds. It was not a time or place for words. There were none that could have explained the madness engulfing the world of the children from Kharkiv's Hippocrates Care Centre. They were aged between one and three and all were disabled, with serious medical conditions.\n\nBefore the bus there had been the train across the land from east to west, and before the train a journey in cars through stricken Kharkiv. Shells were falling close by and the noise sparked terror in the children. The dash to the station was their first trip outside of a bomb shelter since the Russian invasion began.\n\nThe city of Kharkiv is only 54 kilometres from the Russian border and was one of the first places targeted in the invasion. Hundreds of thousands of its residents have since fled for neighbouring countries, the majority to Poland. One of the young carers on the bus, Iryna Miroshnichenko, said that when the bombardment began staff had to make an urgent decision: hide in the basement shelter of the centre or to try to leave immediately. Either way they ran the risk of death or serious injury.\n\nIt was an agonising dilemma for people who had never known war and for whom the care of the children is something like a sacred responsibility. It can be seen in the gentleness with which they treat their young charges.\n\nKharkiv, where the children's centre is based, was one of the first places bombed during the invasion\n\n\"It's very deplorable. It is really, really bad. We are being bombed from morning till night. We've been in the bomb shelter all this time. We were there with all of the kids, all of them hiding,\" said Iryna.\n\nThe director of the centre, Valentyna Shlyahova, went back and forth through the crowded bus reassuring children and encouraging her staff. She has a disabled daughter who has already been evacuated to safety. Another older daughter and her family have also left Kharkiv. They are all among the 1.5 million people forced out of their homes by President Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.\n\nValentyna gestured towards a pair of children who were crying relentlessly.\n\n\"We are tired ourselves and the children are tired. You hear how the children behave? They also want calm, silence, cosiness and warmth,\" she said.\n\nUnicef estimates that 7.5 million children in Ukraine are in danger from the conflict and require urgent assistance. Shelling has hit hospitals, restricted the work of emergency services and is creating a major wave of trauma among the young. Half a million children have fled out of Ukraine with their families.\n\nA week ago, Unicef's executive director, Catherine Russell, called for respect for the laws of war to protect children.\n\n\"We renew our call on all parties to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure - and to abide by all legal and moral obligations to keep children out of the line of fire. We must protect all children in Ukraine. Now. They need peace,\" she said.\n\nIn the week since she made that statement Russia has escalated the conflict.\n\nTo those of us witnessing the exodus of refugees the most striking feature is the huge numbers of children of all ages who are on the move. Most are travelling with their mothers. All men of fighting age are being ordered to stay behind unless they have a medical or job exemption. The demands of the war supersede those of families.\n\nUnicef estimates that 7.5 million children in Ukraine are in danger from the conflict\n\nOne of the most powerful images of this conflict is that of mothers and carers patiently shepherding children through the chaos that has ruptured family lives. It is an inspiring counterpoint to the obscenity of this war.\n\nI asked director Valentyna Shlyahova what the children meant to her. She smiled. \"Many people ask me why I do it. I would say that twenty years ago fate took a turn and I took this job. Let me say to you that I feel that I am needed here.\"\n\nValentyna has no idea when she or the children will be able to return to Ukraine or what kind of country they will find when that moment comes. But she will be with them, whatever lies ahead.", "President Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed the House of Commons and pledged to keep on fighting against Russia.\n\nTwo weeks after the invasion of Ukraine began, Mr Zelensky quoted William Shakespeare and Sir Winston Churchill, he thanked Boris Johnson and called for an increase in sanctions.\n\nThe leader spoke virtually from Kyiv in Ukraine - it's the first time a foreign leader has addressed MPs in the chamber.", "The Amazon contains between 90 and 140 billion metric tons of carbon\n\nThe Amazon rainforest is moving towards a \"tipping point\" where trees may die off en masse, say researchers.\n\nA study suggests the world's largest rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from damage caused by droughts, fires and deforestation.\n\nLarge swathes could become sparsely forested savannah, which is much less efficient than tropical forest at sucking carbon dioxide from the air.\n\nThe giant forest traps carbon that would otherwise add to global warming.\n\nBut previous studies have shown that parts of the Amazon are now emitting more carbon dioxide than can be absorbed.\n\n\"The trees are losing health and could be approaching a tipping point - basically, a mass loss of trees,\" said Dr Chris Boulton of the University of Exeter.\n\nThe findings, based on three decades of satellite data, show alarming trends in the \"health\" of the Amazon rainforest.\n\nThere are signs of a loss of resilience in more than 75% of the forest, with trees taking longer to recover from the effects of droughts largely driven by climate change as well as human impacts such as deforestation and fires.\n\nA vicious cycle of damage could trigger \"dieback\", the scientists said.\n\nAnd while it's not clear when that critical point might be reached, the implications for climate change, biodiversity and the local community would be \"devastating\".\n\nThe more trees cut down, the less the forest can soak up emissions\n\nOnce the process begins they predict it could be a matter of decades before a \"significant chunk\" of the Amazon is transformed into savannah - a vastly different ecosystem made up of a mixture of grassland and trees.\n\n\"The Amazon stores lots of carbon and all of that would be released into the atmosphere, which would then further contribute to increasing temperatures and have future effects on global mean temperatures,\" Dr Boulton said, adding that stopping deforestation would go some way to addressing the problem.\n\nAround a fifth of the rainforest has already been lost, compared to pre-industrial levels, they said.\n\nThe research was carried out by the University of Exeter, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Technical University of Munich.\n\n\"Deforestation and climate change are likely to be the main drivers of this decline,\" said Prof Niklas Boers of PIK and the Technical University of Munich.\n\nCommenting, Dr Bonnie Waring of the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and Environment, Imperial College London, said: \"These latest findings are consistent with the accumulating evidence that the twin pressures of climate change and human exploitation of tropical forests are endangering the world's largest rainforest, which is home to one out of every 10 species known to science.\"\n\nThe findings, based on satellite data from 1991 to 2016, are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.", "A building on fire after a strike near the centre of Mariupol\n\nA ceasefire, and a chance for civilians to leave, was announced on Saturday morning in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where an estimated 200,000 people are trapped under heavy bombardment by Russian forces.\n\nThe city arranged 50 buses, and many people travelled to the city centre to get them. But after less than two hours, Russia's army began shelling residential areas again, trapping civilians who had begun their escape.\n\nThe city is now in its fifth day with no running water, no power, no sanitation, and food and water are fast running out.\n\nMaxim, a 27-year-old IT developer who is caring for his grandparents in their sixth-floor apartment, spoke to the BBC on Saturday night to describe a day that began with hope and ended in despair.\n\nWe tried to escape today, during the planned time of no shooting. We heard we could get out.\n\nAs fast as I could, I packed four bags for me and my grandparents with warm clothes and food, and all of our remaining water, and I packed them into my car.\n\nMy grandparents are in their eighties, they cannot help. I carried everything down six flights of stairs to my car. There is no lift now.\n\nRight when I was ready to drive, the shelling started again. I heard explosions near to us. I carried everything back upstairs as fast as I could to the apartment. From there, I could see smoke rising from the city and smoke rising from the highway to Zaporizhzhia where people were supposed to escape.\n\nSo I am still in my grandparents' apartment and the shelling and bombing has continued all day. But now instead of three of us here, there are nearly 20.\n\nMany people came into the city centre because they heard there was a ceasefire and buses to take them out, and to flee the shelling there. Then they could not get back to their shelters when it started again.\n\nSo we have taken many people into the apartment. They are from the left side of the city, they say it is destroyed. All the houses are burning and no-one can put out the fires. There are many dead bodies lying in the streets and no-one can carry them.\n\nI know three of the people from before, from my neighbourhood, but the rest I do not know. The oldest is a woman in her late 70s, the youngest is a small child. We also have two cats, a parrot and a dog.\n\nWe have tried to make space for the women and children to sleep on the floor. We don't have any extra mattresses but we have put some spare carpet and clothes on the floor for them to lie on.\n\nWe have run out of bottled water. We are down to the water that I filled in the bath before the taps went off. The gas is the only thing still working - we can use it to boil the bath water to drink.\n\nToday the police opened the stores and told people to take everything, because the people here have no food and drink. Our neighbours managed to take some candy, some fish and some fizzy drinks.\n\nThe ceasefire was a lie. One side never planned to stop firing. If they say there is a ceasefire tomorrow [Sunday] we will have to try to go, but we don't know if it will be real. Maybe now we are better to hide.\n\nYou can keep calling me as long as I have some battery left in my phone, but I don't know how long that will be. After today I am without hope. From now on we do what we have to each day only to survive and for our neighbours to survive.\n\nAfter that I don't know what comes next. We are very tired and we do not see a way out.\n\nAre you in the Mariupol area? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Lynda Baron, Ronnie Barker and David Jason starred in in Open All Hours\n\nActress Lynda Baron, best known for her role as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in BBC TV sitcom Open All Hours, has died at the age of 82.\n\nThe hit show about a Yorkshire corner shop, which starred Ronnie Barker and Sir David Jason, ran in the 1970s and 80s before being revived in 2013.\n\nBaron also appeared in children's show Come Outside and EastEnders.\n\nHer agent said her \"iconic roles\" were \"loved by all generations\", adding that she was \"a leading light of our world\".\n\nBaron and Auntie Mabel's dog Pippin were known to a generation of children for the show Come Outside\n\nBaron told The Sunday Post in 2020 that although she loved playing Nurse Gladys and Auntie Mabel in Come Outside, she \"couldn't name my favourite of the different characters I have played\".\n\nShe told the newspaper: \"Working with Ronnie Barker and David Jason was unbelievable - two great actors in a brilliantly scripted sitcom. There was never a day when we did not have a great laugh ourselves and that carried on when Still Open All Hours became a series.\"\n\nIn Roy Clarke's Open All Hours, she played the long-suffering Nurse Gladys, who resisted the amorous attempts of shop owner Albert Arkwright, played by Barker, to woo her.\n\nSir David played Arkwright's equally long-suffering nephew, who went on to run the shop with his son when the show returned as Still Open All Hours in 2013.\n\nBaron played Linda Clarke in EastEnders on and off over a decade\n\nBaron was nominated for a Bafta Award in 2011 for her role in The Road To Coronation Street, a one-off drama about the early days of the soap. She played actress Violet Carson, who portrayed Ena Sharples in the long-running series.\n\nIn BBC soap EastEnders, she played Linda Clarke, the mother of Jane Beale. She also appeared in Doctor Who, Last of the Summer Wine, Down To Earth, Dinner Ladies and Barbra Streisand's 1983 film Yentl.\n\nBernard Cribbins and Lynda Baron appeared in Down To Earth in 2005\n\nActress Sally Lindsay, who appeared in Still Open All Hours, paid tribute: \"I loved Lynda Baron. She was funny and clever and a joy to work with, and she once gifted me a pair of beautiful red shoes. This has made me very sad. RIP Lynda darling x\"\n\nEastEnders and The Bill actor Stuart Anthony said: \"She was the nicest person and what a legend.\"\n\nLisa Riley, who played Baron's daughter in ITV's Fat Friends, wrote: \"We ALWAYS laughed together.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by LISA RILEY This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by BBC EastEnders This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBaron's agent Donna French said: \"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved client Lynda Baron.\n\n\"She was a wonderful actress and a great friend. Her iconic roles of Nurse Gladys in Open All Hours and Aunt Mabel in Come Outside were loved by all generations.\n\n\"Renowned for her leading roles in West End musicals and dramatic productions alike, we have lost a leading light of our world.\n\n\"We extend our deepest condolences to her daughter Sarah, her son Morgan and all her family.\"\n\nJames Baxter, Sir David Jason and Linda Baron starred in Still Open All Hours\n\nBaron's other credits included The Two Ronnies, 1970s sitcom Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt, plus long-running drama The Bill and soap Crossroads and various Carry On films.\n\nIn 2020, she was in the film Dream Horse, about a race horse breeder, which starred Damian Lewis and Joanna Page. She was also in Woody Allen's 2006 romantic crime comedy film Scoop, and 2005's Colour Me Kubrick, about a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during production of the film Eyes Wide Shut.\n\nOn stage, she featured in the 1987 musical Follies in the West End, the stage version of 2007's In Celebration alongside Orlando Bloom, plus theatre shows including An Inspector Calls, Stepping Out and The Full Monty.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Adil Ray OBE This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 4 by Bagel Chipz This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBaron told The Sunday Post she originally trained as a dancer, saying: \"I was with the Royal Academy of Dance so I must have been of some use.\n\n\"I went into rep then and learned so much about acting. It was hard work because you were constantly doing one drama, rehearsing the next one and learning the lines of the one after that. It was a great education and I am so glad to have gone through that.\"\n\nHer first professional job was in panto at Liverpool Empire when she was 16.\n\n\"It was certainly a start and I have been quite busy ever since,\" she said. \"You get your lulls in work and that makes you all the more grateful when the next job comes along and all the more determined to give it your best.\"\n• None The return of Open All Hours", "The BBC's Clive Myrie, who has left Ukraine, reflects on the indomitable locals he met in Kyiv - convinced they would defeat the Russians.\n\nI didn't really see her face, but at her feet were several cooing pigeons. Every now and again, a shower of birdseed would tumble from her hand. She was wearing a heavy-looking grey coat, keeping out the late morning winter chill. I motioned to my colleague, cameraman David McIlveen, to try to take her picture - but she sensed he was approaching, emptied the brown paper bag of birdseed and briskly walked away.\n\nIt was the first time in 48 hours that I had left our lodgings - a basement car park in the heart of Kyiv which had become a make-shift bomb shelter. A weekend-long curfew had been imposed after Russian troops had invaded the country. There was a real fear foreign saboteurs were moving among the population and anyone caught outdoors would have been arrested.\n\nYou could see the nervousness on the faces of the soldiers and partisans manning checkpoints, despite the black balaclavas shielding them from the cold. Their eyes told stories of apprehension, concern, worry and existential threat. Russian spies might be plotting routes for incoming troops, or smuggling weapons into the Ukrainian capital, or simply there to somehow sow seeds of discord among ordinary people to break local unity.\n\nThe city was awash with rumour and dread. Who might that be in the bomb shelter next to you, who is listening in to your conversation in the bread queue? Best stay indoors and observe the curfew.\n\nThe woman feeding the pigeons would have spent the past two days in her own basement as well, and I thought it was interesting that one of the first things she did was to feed the pigeons - as if nothing was awry. An ordinary day out, a bit of fresh air, with no threat of death from above.\n\nA few other people were on the streets, queuing outside a supermarket which had little on its shelves. Most people were shuttered at home. Villages, towns and cities across the land saw a vanishing, as citizens descended underground to subterranean worlds of refuge.\n\nVladimir Putin professes to know what the 40 million-plus population of this land want. A few days among these people would have told him much more than he seems to understand.\n\nIn an elegant apartment block in the centre of Kyiv, one flat has become a sort of commune for young people who have just moved to the city from the sticks and need a place to crash while they find their feet. It is clean and tidy with a mattress for a sofa in the main room - but still the paraphernalia of student life is on show. There are several guitars lying around and posters on the wall. Giorgy, our local fixer and driver, introduces us to some of his friends. All are in their early 20s and have been waiting tables or studying at college. Oleksiy, 22, a waiter in a local bar, also plays in a rock band.\n\nNow, all that's on hold. He may have to fight the Russians.\n\n\"I am prepared to die for my country, for what I love,\" he told me in perfect English. \"Putin doesn't understand we don't want his authority - his world. All of us here know what we want - the right to live our own lives, the right to choose who leads us. That's our right, not Moscow's.\"\n\nI had met other reserve army volunteers who'd put themselves forward to fight while I was in Ukraine. They all displayed the same patriotism and love of their country that Vladimir Putin didn't think existed. They were firm in their convictions and convinced they would prevail - despite the Russian military's greater numbers.\n\nWhile speaking to Oleksiy, there was a commotion outside with the sound of police sirens in the street below. A long convoy of Ukrainian military vehicles was heading up the road and bystanders were applauding the troops. It was clear the Kremlin thought these people would be cowed by Moscow's ostentatious display of might, with Russian troops stationed on the Ukrainian border for several weeks to intimidate.\n\nNot a chance. These people will fight.\n\nThe teenage Russian conscripts in their tanks and armoured personnel carriers who had crossed the border to the north, south and east, have quickly become disabused of Putin's jaundiced view of Ukraine. After the invasion, video footage began to emerge of Ukrainians berating the foreign army, yelling at them \"Go home\" and \"We don't want you here.\"\n\nAnd this was happening even in Russian-speaking parts of the north-east. There were pictures of people lying in the road to block the movement of Russian tanks. Others were throwing bicycles beneath tank tracks - there were no flowers or garlands of welcome. Pictures of Ukrainian men urinating on Russian vehicles, and a dog cocking a hind leg on the tail fin of a missile sticking out of the ground, went viral. On Twitter, one person quipped \"give piss a chance!\"\n\nOn a visit to the magnificent St Sophia Cathedral - a stunning riot of frescoes and gold - I watched an interfaith prayer service for peace, as the war raged across the country. Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim - all were united. A little later, Ukraine's interior minister Denys Monastyrskyy in a bullet-proof vest turned up seeking divine guidance. Four heavily armed Ukrainian army soldiers were protecting him. I asked him if faith was what underpinned the Ukrainian belief that they could defeat the second-largest army on the planet.\n\nSpeaking softly, he was unequivocal and clear-eyed - just like the young Ukrainian reservists I had spoken to days earlier. \"God is on our side,\" he told me with deep conviction. \"We will win.\" And to drive home the point, he repeated those words in Ukrainian: \"My vyhrayemo\".\n\nAlso attending the prayer service was military chaplain Oleksandr Mishura. He had a yellow armband on his right bicep, the insignia of the volunteer brigades - or the citizen soldiers. He said morale was high among the troops he ministered to, and that the soldiers had no choice but to fight to defend and protect the country. He took my arm and looked straight at me. He shared a sentiment that I suspect many in Ukraine believe - \"We all know what the Bible says, when the enemy is wicked, God will always intervene.\"\n\nShortly before my assignment in Kyiv ended, I began to think about the people I would leave behind to an uncertain fate. They included a mother and her 18-year-old daughter who shared our underground shelter. One morning, the daughter's crying woke me up. She had got word that her father, who had been living near the Chernobyl nuclear plant, had apparently been harmed by a group of Russian soldiers. They had ransacked his house looking for cigarettes and alcohol. The teenager feared the worst.\n\nThroughout the day she tried to call her father, but he wasn't picking up the phone. All of us in the shelter prayed he was still alive. When word finally came from his neighbour, that he was safe and unharmed, it felt like a tiny victory for all of us. I thought about the other dwellers of the underground shelter. The woman with a very large white fluffy cat and the children who had run around playing games oblivious to the madness of adults above ground.\n\nI am writing this from a hotel in Romania having left Ukraine via Moldova a couple of days ago. I can't get the image of the woman feeding the pigeons out of my head. She was risking bombs and missiles to feed the pigeons. For me, she represents strength and courage - the indomitability of an independent state, not the cowering fear of the colonised.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Clive Myrie This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Residents of Irpin are fleeing the Russian assault on their city, which is half an hour's drive from Kyiv\n\nThey came on foot, in an endless stream - trying to outpace the Russian shells laying waste to their hometown. There were families with children in strollers clutching stuffed toys, young mothers with babes in arms, and the elderly moving as fast as their years would allow. Most were silent. Some were weeping. At the edge of Irpin there was urgency, panic, and anguish. It felt like we were witnessing the death of a city.\n\n\"Everything is bombed,\" said Valentina, as she rushed past us, fleeing her home and her life with just a single bag over her shoulder. \"There are no lights,\" she said, \"there's been no electricity, no gas, and no internet for two to three days. People are sitting in the basements and kids are sick there.\"\n\nRussian forces are already inside the city.\n\n\"Part of Irpin was captured by Russian invaders but part of the city is fighting and not surrendering,\" said the mayor, Oleksandr Markushyn, in a video he posted on social media.\n\nThose trying to flee are still being targeted, as the mayor himself saw yesterday. \"The Russian invaders fired on our local civilians,\" he said. \"A family died. This shell, this mine hit, and in front of my eyes two children and two adults died.\"\n\nIt seems clear that the Russian strategy is to terrorise the residents of Irpin into submission and empty the city - a tactic Moscow has used elsewhere from Grozny to Aleppo. The residents who remain have endured days and nights of relentless bombardment. We could hear the assault during an earlier visit on Saturday. The soundtrack was the same today, except maybe louder. And this time we could also hear grad rocket fire, and occasional gunshots.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jeremy Bowen was on the frontline in Irpin, as residents came under Russian fire while trying to flee.\n\n\"Tell everyone to close the skies, urgently, we need it,\" said Andrei as he dashed past - with his pet poodle - pleading for a no-fly zone. \"Close the skies - please. It's hell, it's really hell. The Russian soldiers are bombing civilian houses. The Russians are not fighting the army. They are fighting anyone.\"\n\nHe knew it was time to go when the Russians arrived on his street. \"We saw the armoured vehicles near our house. They passed by. Then the tank stopped and blew up a house near me. So, I think we are lucky, we are all really lucky that we are here.\"\n\nAndrei says Russian tanks blew up a house close to his\n\nThe 36-year-old is - or was - an events manager. 'I make the people laugh, with shows, concerts. But I think I have no work now in Ukraine,\" he said. Then he joined the crowds heading for minibuses that are screeching to and from the edge of the city, ferrying people, and pets, to the railway station in Kyiv - a lifeline for those trying to escape to western Ukraine.\n\nGetting out of Irpin means picking your way over a mass of rubble, and jagged boulders and metal bars that now litter the bed of the Irpin river. This is the remains of a bridge blown up by Ukrainian forces to block - or at least slow - Russian armour reaching the capital. Planks of wood are balanced precariously on the wreckage. One elderly man almost tumbled from a plank into the water. Then he summoned his courage and shuffled forward. Nearby a woman lay flat on the ground on the riverbank - conscious but immobile. We were told she had fallen. No one knew how to try to move her.\n\nUkrainian forces blew up the bridge themselves, hoping to slow the Russian advance\n\nAs we filmed a gunshot rang out. A Ukrainian soldier took a screaming young boy by the hand and ran with him to cover. Two others grabbed a buggy. Another helped a woman on a crutch, who was breathless with exertion.\n\nA blackened building was still smouldering, neatly framed by the golden onion domes of the church directly behind (which appeared to be intact). This was an image of Ukraine, past and present, of war and peace.\n\nThe golden domes of a church rise just behind a damaged building\n\nThe country's future is painful to imagine, but it's already being sketched out in cities under bombardment from Kharkiv to Mariupol, where cold, frightened civilians cower in basements, or try to run for their lives.\n\nAnd what we witnessed in Irpin could be a chronicle of the capital foretold. Kyiv lies straight down the road, about half an hour's drive away - a distance of 26km or 16 miles. That's why Irpin matters so much to both sides.\n\nThere's no doubting the fighting spirit here, and the determination to resist. But military experts say a broken bridge won't be enough to stop the Russians, and there is no doubt that they have Kyiv in their sights.", "There are two questions regarding China and the war in Ukraine.\n\nDoes it have enough leverage to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to call off the invasion?\n\nAnd, more crucially, how much does Beijing want to use its standing with Russia to stop the war?\n\nEvery year here in the Chinese capital, the foreign minister holds a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress.\n\nIt is a highly scripted event, with questions screened beforehand so you know the answers have been approved at the highest levels of the Party.\n\nToday Wang Yi was asked if China was disappointed with Russia’s behaviour and whether its own international standing had been diminished by Beijing's refusal to describe what is happening in Ukraine as an \"invasion\".\n\nThe foreign minister didn't respond regarding the word \"invasion\", but did say that his government was \"willing if needed, together with the international community, to be part of a mediation\" process to resolve the crisis.\n\nSome analysts say Beijing is using this conflict to achieve geopolitical advantage and point to the economic lifeline it's now offering Russia to keep Putin afloat, while blaming the US for the war.\n\nAsked about sanctions by a Russian reporter, Wang said China and Russia jointly opposed \"attempts to revive a cold war mindset\".\n\nFor the Chinese government to be part of any solution to the Ukraine war, it will also have to be a solution that is approved by the Kremlin.", "Ed Sheeran gave evidence at the High Court on Monday\n\nEd Sheeran has told the High Court he does not \"borrow\" ideas from unknown songwriters without credit.\n\nThe singer-songwriter has been accused by two other songwriters of copying parts of his 2017 hit Shape Of You.\n\nSami Chokri and Ross O'Donoghue's barrister suggested Sheeran treated lesser-known songwriters differently from famous ones.\n\nSheeran denied this, telling the court he had cleared parts of songs with \"lots\" of unknown artists.\n\nShape of You was number one for 14 weeks in the UK in 2017, becoming the best-selling song of the year around the world.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Ed Sheeran This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nChokri and O'Donoghue claim the song's \"Oh I\" hook is \"strikingly similar\" to part of their track Oh Why, which was released by Chokri under the name Sami Switch in 2015.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by Sami Switch This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nOn Friday, their barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC claimed Sheeran \"borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won't\".\n\nBut Sheeran denied the claim that he is a \"magpie\" who lifts other people's work without acknowledgment, pointing out that he has often shared credit with lesser-known artists, including Shivers and Visiting Hours, and a song that sampled an \"unknown composer's\" work from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.\n\n\"All those examples are not famous artists that we've cleared songs with and that's what I have to say on that,\" he told the court.\n\nSami Chokri performs under the name Sami Switch\n\nSheeran created Shape of You with co-writers Steve Mac - real name Steven McCutcheon - and Snow Patrol's Johnny McDaid, both of whom were also in court.\n\nAfter its release, Sheeran added the team behind TLC's 1999 single No Scrubs to the song's writing credits after some commentators pointed out similarities.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Sutcliffe told the star: \"The evidence is overwhelming that at the time of writing Shape of You, your songwriting process involved collecting ideas.\"\n\nSheeran replied: \"You say it's overwhelming, I don't agree with that.\"\n\nIn written evidence, the singer said the contested element of Shape of You was \"very short\", and the relevant parts of both songs were \"entirely commonplace\".\n\nHe said: \"Even so, if I had heard Oh Why at the time and had referenced it, I would have taken steps to clear it.\"\n\nHe added: \"I have always tried to be completely fair in crediting anyone who makes any contribution to any song I write.\n\n\"I do refer to other works on occasion when I write, as do many songwriters. If there is a reference to another work, I notify my team so that steps can be taken to obtain clearance.\n\n\"I have been as scrupulous as I possibly can and have even given credits to people who I believe may have been no more than a mere influence for a songwriting element. This is because I want to treat other songwriters fairly.\"\n\nDressed in a sharp black suit, Ed Sheeran is firm, determined and just a little bit irritated on the stand as lawyers for Chokri and O'Donoghue deconstruct his songwriting process, looking for hints that he might take inspiration from outside sources.\n\nSheeran testifies that he mostly works in collaboration with other writers, and that it's often hard to identify who has written each individual part of a song once it's finished.\n\nReferencing his Shape of You co-writer Johnny McDaid, he says: \"My and Johnny's writing partnership is very much like a game of tennis. He'll say something and I'll say something back. We're quite quick when we go back and forth.\"\n\nAsked repeatedly whether he is responsible for the chorus to his 2015 song Photograph, Sheeran replies tersely: \"I honestly couldn't tell you. I don't know. We wrote the song together.\" It's a phrase he returns to several times throughout the morning's questioning.\n\nPhotograph is relevant because it was the subject of a separate copyright claim from Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, who wrote Matt Cardle's 2011 single Amazing. The duo were eventually given a share of the song's royalties and a £4m lump sum in an out-of-court settlement.\n\nSheeran says he settled the claim because it was a \"nuisance\" and \"more trouble than it was worth\". Asked why he would pay out such a \"substantial\" sum instead of taking the case to court, he says he did so on the advice of his lawyers.\n\nMr Sutcliffe said Sheeran had known about Chokri before Shape Of You was written because the grime artist had tweeted Sheeran directly, and the singer had given a shout out to Sami Switch on stage in 2011. But Sheeran replied: \"This isn't stuff that's true.\"\n\nChokri had also appeared on YouTube channel SBTV at around the same time as Sheeran, who described its founder Jamal Edwards as his \"best friend\".\n\nBut he said the music entrepreneur, who died last month, didn't share songs like Oh Why with him. Instead, the pair would \"talk about football, talk about his mum, talk about theatre\", he said.\n\nSheeran was also asked about his role as a talent-spotter for his own label Gingerbread Man Records. He denied being aware of Oh Why, saying he had just signed Jamie Lawson to the label and \"wasn't looking for anyone else\" to work with.\n\nThe musician told the court he quit social media in 2015, adding that for \"the whole of 2016\" he was \"off\" social media and was using a \"flip phone from Tesco\".\n\nIn May 2018, Sheeran and his co-writers issued proceedings asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Chokri and O'Donoghue's copyright.\n\nThe pair then issued a counter claim for copyright infringement. The trial is expected to continue for about three weeks.", "US doctors say a young boy called Easton has made medical history by becoming the first person in the world to receive a combined heart and thymus transplant.\n\nThe pioneering procedure was done to save his life, but could also revolutionise the field of organ transplantation, they hope.\n\nThe donated thymus tissue should help stop his body rejecting the new heart.\n\nMonths on from the surgery, tests reveal Easton is progressing well.\n\nThe thymus tissue is working, meaning his body is building critical immune cells which might ultimately reduce or even eliminate the need for him to take lifelong anti-rejection drugs.\n\nOne of his doctors, Joseph Turek from Duke University Hospital, said: \"We are very excited about it. This concept of tolerance has always been the holy grail in transplantation, and we are now on the doorstep.\n\nThe thymus gland is located in the chest, near the heart\n\n\"This has the potential to change the face of solid organ transplantation in the future.\"\n\nThe thymus gland helps the development of T-cells, which fight foreign substances in the body. It teaches these immune cells what is \"self\" and what isn't, and therefore what can be attacked.\n\nGiving Easton cultured thymus tissue from the same donor who gave him a heart, should help his body adopt the new tissues, his doctors believe.\n\nEaston was born with a weak heart as well as problems with his immune system. He spent his first seven months in hospital - some of it on life support - and needed numerous heart operations. as well as treatment for recurrent infections that his body was unable to fight on its own.\n\nHis mother, Kaitlyn Sinnamon, recalls: \"It helped some, but it was basically a band aid for us to make it through transplant.\"\n\nHis doctors applied to the medical regulatory body, the FDA, to carry out an experimental type of transplant that hadn't been done in combination before, as far as they knew.\n\nSince Easton needed a new heart and, independently, a new thymus gland, the FDA granted approval for the procedures that went ahead in August 2021, when Easton was six months old.\n\nEaston at home with his sister\n\nDr Turek said: \"This was very serendipitous. We had the expertise to do both.\n\n\"The work we had done in the laboratory was based around using thymus along with heart transplantation in order to develop tolerance - so basically retraining the immune system and having the thymus of the same donor and heart grow up together.\n\n\"We thought this was an opportunity for Easton. This could be applied to all solid organs down the road potentially if this works.\"\n\nMuch more research is needed before then, including checking if it is viable to remove and replace the thymus in people who have one that is already fully functioning.\n\nThe medical team plan to wean Easton off the immunosuppressive drugs at some point, to see how he progresses.\n\nKaitlyn said: \"I hope that as he gets older he gets to be proud of his scars, and know that he not only got to save his own life, but got to save other people's lives as well.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "James Brittain-McVey told MPs about his struggle to conform when starting out with his band, The Vamps\n\nThe Vamps' lead guitarist, James Brittain-McVey, has told MPs pressure to conform led him to have liposuction to remove breast tissue, aged just 20.\n\nAt a committee discussing the impact of body image on physical and mental health, the musician said he wished he had opened up to friends at the time.\n\nAnd he said no doctor had ever asked if he was sure he wanted to have surgery.\n\nConcerns over weight or body shape can often lead to eating disorders, which are particularly common in teenagers.\n\nTwo leading medical organisations have told BBC News GPs are not receiving the right support to treat eating disorders.\n\nDoctors said they needed more time with patients and more specialist units.\n\nBrittain-McVey, 27, said he had started worrying about how his body looked aged 14-15.\n\nAt school, he struggled to feel he fitted in - and that led him to the gym, prompted by what he saw advertised on social media and by \"big American surf style companies\".\n\n\"I had one of their shopping bags in my bedroom, of a guy ripped on a beach in Malibu, and I think unconsciously every morning I would think that is what I need to look like,\" the musician said.\n\n\"Social media encouraged me to fall further down that rabbit hole.\n\n\"The first thoughts I would have when I woke up in the morning was, 'Should I be eating that, am I going to be able to get to the gym?\"'\n\nHe described worrying about what he ate aged 15-16 - and by the time The Vamps started, he decided to have surplus natural breast tissue in his chest, a condition called gynaecomastia, removed.\n\n\"People presume it was me striving for vanity - but it was pressure to conform to stereotypes and gender constructs,\" Brittain-McVey said.\n\n\"And before I realised it, my whole life was controlled by this chase to look a certain way.\"\n\nHis family was supportive of his decision but he was too embarrassed to tell many of his friends or bandmates.\n\nThe government should be \"clamping down on advertising\", he said, so \"bodies represent society and not unachievable bodies\".\n\n\"How on earth are they meant to feel comfortable within their skin if you go on apps now and you scroll and see another person that looks a certain way?\"\n\nCosmetic-surgery adverts are to be banned from targeting children in the UK, from May.\n\nAsked if any doctors had discussed with him why he wanted liposuction, Brittain-McVey said: \"Before surgery, I don't think anyone said, 'Are you sure?'\"\n\nIn 2018, he joined ITV's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! and came out of the Australian jungle having lost 4-5kg (11lb).\n\n\"My wife was shocked how ill I looked - but I was happy I had a six-pack again,\" he said.\n\nThe programme had been \"brilliant\" - but it had made him focus on the way he looked \"more than ever\".\n\n\"I still feel a pressure to look a certain way and that's why I worry for a lot of our fan base,\" he told the MPs.\n\nThe committee is considering whether NHS training on body-image issues should be changed and whether there is enough support, advice and regulation to ensure patient safety.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak is facing disciplinary proceedings by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for displaying the letter \"Z\" on the podium next to a Ukrainian rival in Qatar. But what does the symbol mean?\n\nIn Russia, the \"Z\" is fast becoming seen as a staunchly pro-war symbol of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine. It has been sported by politicians, seen on the sides of cars, vans and advertising hoardings - as well as daubed on bus shelters. It has even been used by Serbs at pro-Russian demonstration in Belgrade. Photographs have been widely shared on social media.\n\nIt has become a social media conversation, says Aglaya Snetkova, a lecturer in international politics at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at UCL. \"In many ways, this shows the extent to which Russia is, or has been, very much part of the global world.\"\n\nWhile zed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet is written differently - and looks like a 3 - most Russians recognise Latin letters. Emily Ferris - Russia and Eurasia research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) - says the \"Z\" is a powerful and easily recognisable symbol.\n\n\"Often with propaganda the simplest things catch on the quickest,\" she says. \"It looks rather intimidating and quite stark. From an aesthetic perspective, it's a very powerful symbol.\"\n\nIt has taken less than a fortnight for the \"Z\" to spread among those supportive of President Putin's invasion.\n\nIn the central Russian city of Kazan, about 60 children and staff at a hospice were photographed outside in the snow forming a giant \"Z\" in front of their building.\n\nSeveral theories have circulated as to what the \"Z\" symbol actually means. It first caught attention on social media after Russian tanks with \"Zs\" on the side were spotted en route to Ukraine.\n\nInitially, it was thought that the \"Z\" was in fact a number \"2\" - representing the 22 February (22/02/2022). That was the day Russia ratified an agreement on \"friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance\" with the self-proclaimed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine - Donetsk and Luhansk.\n\nBut it is now believed the symbol is simply a way for Russia's military to identify its own forces.\n\nLast week, viewers to a news programme on Russia's state-controlled Channel One were told that a \"Z\" was a common marking on Russian military equipment. The Orthodox Christian pro-Putin website Tsargrad told readers the simple marking could \"avoid friendly fire\" and couldn't be \"mixed up with anything else\".\n\nRussian special forces veteran Sergey Kuvykin told the Russian magazine website, Life, that different symbols signified different military units. \"Symbols like these are used - a 'Z' in a square, a 'Z' in a circle, a 'Z' with a star or simply 'Z' on its own.\" He said the markings helped make sure that troops, who might not be in contact with other comrades, were where they should be.\n\nRussian warplanes fly too quickly to see the daubed white markings, says US Air Force Lt Col Tyson Wetzel - a senior Air Force fellow with The Atlantic Council think tank. But, in an interview with the Task and Purpose website, he agrees the \"Zs\" are a \"de-confliction measure to help prevent fratricide\" - friendly fire from Russian attack helicopters or artillery.\n\nThe spread of \"Z\" in Russia has not only been because of social media spontaneity - cautions Aglaya Snetkov from UCL.\n\n\"It has also been pushed by the regime.\"\n\nOne Russian politician, Maria Butina, shared a video of how to write the \"Z\" insignia on a business jacket - she explains - \"so you can go into work and show it to everyone without shouting about it.\"\n\nBut Ms Snetkov says the symbol shouldn't be seen as fascist. \"There are lots of memes transforming the 'Z' into a swastika, but that's done by people who want to push back against the regime.\"\n\nAnd there are other symbols appearing, too.\n\nThe letter \"V\" for instance - also not in the Cyrillic alphabet - appears in posts on the official Instagram account of the Russian department of defence, alongside images of \"Zs\".\n\nThere are written captions. \"Za PatsanoV\" reads one, meaning \"for the lads\" - while another says \"Sila V pravde\", which translates into English as \"strength in truth\".\n\nOne theory is that the two Latin letters might stand for \"vostok\", meaning east, and \"zapad\", meaning west. But on social media, it has also been suggested that the Ukrainian military believes the \"Z\" refers to Russia's \"Eastern Forces\" - and the \"V\" to the \"Naval infantry\".", "Russia has banned western social media platforms including Facebook, but in Ukraine people have been showing the rest of the world what’s happening to them via social media - including TikToker Valerisssh.\n\nValeria lives in Ukraine and has been posting videos showing the situation in her city.", "Women and children queue at Lviv station for a train to Poland. Hundred of thousands are passing through the station every day\n\nWhen Svitlana Maksymenko's train pulled into the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, about halfway through her 800-mile journey from home to safety, people pushed onto every part of the carriage, she said, grasping for their own escape route west. Some abandoned their luggage. Some begged to get on.\n\n\"They were on their knees on the platform,\" Maksymenko said. \"There was no room. There were people standing in every space, in every gangway, there were five people on every bed.\"\n\nMaksymenko's journey began in Kharkiv, an eastern city that has been heavily shelled by Russian forces, and stopped, for now, in Lviv, a picturesque western city about 50 miles from the Polish border with a grand central station that has become a waypoint for hundreds of thousands of refugees.\n\nIn almost every corner of the station concourse over the weekend, in the waiting rooms, the underpasses and all along the platforms, there were people taking shelter, sleeping, anxiously waiting, rushing for trains. There were tense moments as volunteer stewards tried to hold back the crowds of people massed at entry gates, fearful of missing their chance to escape. Women with children wept with the stress, clutching their passports and family birth certificates in one hand and their children in the other. Outside the station, there were tearful goodbyes as fighting-age men, banned from leaving Ukraine, stopped and let their families go, unsure if they would ever see them again.\n\nThere were tense moments as stewards attempted to hold back crowds anxious to make the trains\n\nBy the time she reached Lviv, Maksymenko had been on the train with her parents-in-law and three-year-old daughter for 26 hours. Some reported longer journeys. Maksymenko was a drop in a river of people that began flowing into Lviv when Russia invaded and swelled over the past few days as Russian forces escalated their campaign of bombing against Ukrainian civilians.\n\n\"We estimate 30,000 people arrived on Thursday, 100,000 people on Friday and at least a 100,000 more on Saturday,\" said Viktoria Khrystenko, a Lviv city council official helping to manage the influx of refugees.\n\n\"We are doing our best to cope but we have never seen anything like this,\" she said. \"We are expecting more people. It might be millions. It's a disaster. These people have nothing, just one bag because they had only three minutes to run and save their lives.\"\n\nLviv station was heaving with people on Friday night, thinning only slightly as trains departed for Poland before filling again with new arrivals from the bombed-out cities in the north, east, and south of Ukraine.\n\nOutside, Kolya, 46, was standing with tears streaming down his face, watching his wife and two teenage daughters walk away from him.\n\n\"I hope they will make it safely to Europe, I want so badly to be with them,\" he said. \"This is as far as I can go.\"\n\nUkraine has banned men aged 16-60 from leaving the country, unless they have a disability or three children under 18. They are stopped in document checks at the station or at border crossing points further west. Kolya had stood for 10 hours on the train from Kyiv to ensure his family reached Lviv safely, he said, and now he would make the same journey back to join his 19-year-old son and his brothers in the fight against Russia.\n\n\"I will go back to Kyiv and defend my city. It is my home,\" he said. \"How, I don't know - I have asked them for a gun, but how will I protect my city from missiles with a gun?\"\n\nPoland's government began sending buses over the weekend to bring Ukraine's refugees over the border to safety.\n\nKolya's wife and children would press on to Poland, whose government has sent trains and buses to bring people from Ukraine into its country, sparing tens of thousands of refugees traumatic journeys to the border and long waits to cross by foot.\n\nBy Sunday, more than 1.5 million Ukrainians had crossed into Poland, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands more were on the move inside Ukraine.\n\nAmid the chaos in the station at Lviv, volunteers and fellow travellers helped the very young and the very old, carrying pushchairs and suitcases up and down the stairs to the platforms, marshalling children to rooms upstairs where they could get a hot meal, and helping the elderly wherever they could.\n\n\"Physically it was very hard for me of course, people were pushing very hard,\" said Dusia Kostiuk, 91, who boarded a train in Kharkiv at 9pm on Friday, arrived in Lviv at midnight on Saturday, and spent the next 15 hours in a queue at the station to move on Poland.\n\n\"Our house was still there when we left but shelling was happening all around and we were told that terrible shelling is happening there now,\" Kostiuk said.\n\n\"We didn't take anything with us, I took two dresses and that's it.\n\n\"I was born and raised in Kharkiv. I didn't really travel before, I don't like to travel. I never thought I would leave my home like this.\"\n\nDusia Kostiuk, 91, spent 27 hours on a train from the heavily bombed city of Kharkiv to Lviv.\n\nMany of those arriving in Lviv, like Kostiuk, stay in the station until they can board a train to Poland - some bedding down for a night or longer in any free corner. The air inside the grand waiting rooms and gangways was thick with the heat and odour of a mass of people who have been on the move for many days.\n\nThose who cannot move straight on to Poland head out into the city looking for temporary shelter. At a small theatre in Lviv's historic old town, 20 beds had been arranged for those who needed to spend up to three nights in the city before they can leave.\n\nOlha Adamenko, 32, arrived there on Sunday evening with her husband and sick two-year-old daughter. They had driven over four days from Kyiv, stopping in shelters along the way. But the shelter in the theatre was already at capacity and it was not clear whether there was going to be a bed there for her that night, the staff said.\n\nIt was a problem many would face that night, according to Khyrstenko, the city official, who said all of the roughly 20,000 temporary beds in the city were already taken.\n\nAt the theatre, Adam Yemchenko, a volunteer, was preparing to turn people away. \"Most people arrive later than this but people getting to us tonight won't get a bed, we will have to send them somewhere else,\" he said.\n\n\"Some will carry straight on to the border but they face an eight hour wait there in the cold.\"\n\nRefugees rest in a shelter in a small theatre in Lviv. By early evening on Sunday the shelter was full and turning people away.\n\nThis was the choice facing Adamenko, as she sat down inside the small theatre foyer looking tired and stressed. She stopped to breastfeed her daughter, who was restless and tearful. Her husband would soon have to leave them here in Lviv and travel back to Kyiv to join the territorial defence forces.\n\nShe asked the volunteers at the shelter how to reach the Polish border by bus and which were the best border crossings.\n\n\"Maybe we will go tonight,\" she said. But she was worried, there were long queues at the crossing points and it was the depth of winter.\n\n\"I heard people are queuing outside there during the day but at night locals take them into their homes, but I don't know if it is true,\" she said. \"I am worried about the baby, she is sick and tired.\"\n\nAdamenko was also starting to worry more about her husband. She thought their local defence battalion on the outskirts of Kyiv would be relatively safe, but heavy fighting surrounded it over the weekend in the districts of Bucha and Irpin.\n\n\"Maybe that means the Russians will go through our neighbourhood next,\" she said.\n\nA young boy leaves Ukraine on a bus bound for Poland. Thousands of children have spent hours away from home.\n\nAs night fell, Adamenko and her husband left the theatre and walked into Lviv with directions to another shelter, where if she could find a bed they would part - one on to safety abroad, one back to danger at home.\n\nLater on Sunday night, at the station, many thousands more people were still arriving and departing. They formed queues that were as orderly as possible under the circumstances and continued to help each other. Volunteers bustled through the crowds with trays made from cardboard boxes, handing out tea and snacks in plastic cups.\n\nAt the same time, Viktoria Khrystenko, the city council official, was driving her own three children to the Polish border. They had left on Sunday morning and by early Monday morning they had been in the car nearly 24 hours through the bitterly cold night.\n\nEventually they crossed in to Poland and Khrystenko left her children with relatives and began the long return journey to Lviv. As she drove, she wept.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I'm emotional because I didn't sleep at all,\" she said. \"I had a task to take my kids to a safe place across the border and I have done that, so now I need to go back to Lviv and continue to help.\"\n\nKhrystenko was born here in Lviv. She had never been more proud of its people, she said. They were \"ready to give away their last package of buckwheat or can of food\" to help others. \"We have only one Ukraine and we need to save it,\" she said.\n\nShe hung up and drove on, headed for her three-room apartment in the city, where there were 17 women and children from all over Ukraine resting after long journeys to Lviv. She had taken home as many people from the station as she could, she said.\n\nOutside Lviv station fire barrels were lit during the night to keep the crowds warm\n\nOrysia Khimiak and Svitlana Libet contributed to this report. Photographs by Joel Gunter.", "William has been at the centre of a treatment dispute with Royal Manchester Children's Hospital\n\nA mother has won a legal battle to ensure her teenage son has the right to a potentially life-saving transplant.\n\nAmi McLennan, from Lancaster, had argued a transplant was 17-year-old William's only chance and without it he would have just 12 months to live.\n\nRoyal Manchester Children's Hospital had claimed his autism would make the operation and aftercare too risky.\n\nBut a judge has ruled the teenager should be given the chance of having the operation.\n\nPresiding over the case in the Court of Protection, sitting in Liverpool, Mrs Justice Emma Arbuthnot said she had put herself in \"William's shoes\".\n\n\"I have no doubt he wants to live a life with the support of his family and that he wants to continue playing 'kerbie' long into the future,\" she said.\n\nShe added that even though there were many risks involved in a transplant it was the only way of potentially securing William's long-term survival.\n\nAmi McLennan asked for help to find a living donor for her son\n\nHer decision came after a four-day hearing which heard evidence from clinicians involved in William's care as well as experts representing both the hospital and his family.\n\nThe court heard how William, who has autism, ADHD and learning disabilities, was not deemed to have the capacity to make such a complex decision about his future.\n\nBut his mother said they should never have had \"to fight this\" but added \"now we have got a chance\".\n\n\"William's situation is critical. It could mean the difference between life and death,\" she said.\n\n\"All we have ever wanted is for him to be added to the transplant list and treatment continued until a donor is found.\"\n\nShe believes, with the right care, her son could cope with the complexity of such a procedure, as well as having various lines for dialysis and other treatment post operation if needed.\n\nThe hospital argued the only way of ensuring a successful transplant would be to put William under sedation and ventilation for an extended period of time, which could cause huge psychological trauma.\n\nDespite these risks, William, a keen golfer, gave evidence to the judge in a private hearing in which he said he wanted the operation and that it would \"make him better\".\n\nHe told Justice Arbuthnot that while he was scared about the operation he wanted the chance to live longer.\n\nHe told her how he loved his jobs at his local respite centre, making tea, mopping, making picture frames and laminating documents.\n\nThe judge told the court: \"It is very clear he enjoys the life he leads, playing games and doing odd jobs, going to school and being at home with his family.\"\n\nKim McGowan believes William should have the same chance as any other child\n\nThe health trust had argued that, post operation, William would be unable to cope with the number of tubes in his body - there could be five in total after the operation - and there was a risk he could pull them out and cause damage to his new kidney.\n\nActing for Ms McLennan, Victoria Butler Cole disputed that saying that with the right care and reasonable adjustments - such as having relatives or a carer present to stroke his hand and calm him - he had proven that he could manage such complex treatment.\n\nSince BBC News supported his mother to lift reporting restrictions, several altruistic donors have come forward, willing to donate one of their kidneys if they are found to be a match.\n\nKim McGowan is among them. Her son, also called William, is autistic with ADHD and she believes strongly that William should have the same chance as any other child.\n\nShe said: \"I think when you're a parent of a child with any additional need you will be very familiar with the feeling of having to fight. [Their] fight is unimaginable and I will do anything, anything I can do to help.\"\n\nMs Toli Onon, joint medical director for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: \"We welcome the clarity which this decision brings for William, his family and our clinicians.\n\n\"The trust asked the Court of Protection to make today's judgment because of how unusual, complex and risky the situation is.\n\n\"William, his family and our staff have all worked really hard together to support his dialysis; and we will now be liaising with William and his family regarding how best to progress his treatment.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Shell has pledged to stop buying oil from Russia as it apologised for its purchase of cheap Russian crude at the weekend.\n\nThe energy giant also said it would close all its service stations in the country and stop all current work there.\n\nShell came under huge criticism at the weekend after it purchased a cargo of Russian crude at a discounted price.\n\nIts boss said on Tuesday, however, that it was wrong to buy Russian oil.\n\n\"We are acutely aware that our decision last week to purchase a cargo of Russian crude oil... was not the right one and we are sorry,\" Mr van Beurden said.\n\nThe company said it will immediately stop purchasing Russian crude oil and will shut about 500 service stations there, as well as halting its aviation fuel and lubricant operations in the country.\n\nThe rest of the company's exit from Russian oil and gas is expected to take some time.\n\nThe Ukrainian foreign minister had hit out at the firm on social media after it emerged Shell had bought crude.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Dmytro Kuleba This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"Changing this part of the energy system will require concerted action by governments, energy suppliers and customers, and a transition to other energy supplies will take much longer.\"\n\nWhen Shell was forced to defend its purchase of Russian crude over the weekend, it insisted that it had \"no alternative\" in order to maintain timely supplies of fuel to Europe.\n\nRussian oil currently makes up about 8% of Shell's working supplies. One of the firm's refineries, which produces diesel and petrol and other products, is also among the biggest in Europe.\n\nCargoes from other sources would not have arrived in time to avoid disruptions to market supply, it said.\n\nIt still remains unclear, however, how exactly Shell will replace the volume of energy produced by Russia.\n\n\"These societal challenges highlight the dilemma between putting pressure on the Russian government over its atrocities in Ukraine and ensuring stable, secure energy supplies across Europe,\" said Mr van Beurden.\n\n\"But ultimately, it is for governments to decide on the incredibly difficult trade-offs that must be made during the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nHe added that the firm would continue to work with governments on how to manage any potential impact on energy supplies.\n\nAnd any profits it generates from remaining Russian oil will go to dedicated funds aimed at helping people affected by the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe move follows previous announcements by the company, which set out its plans to end all of its joint ventures with the Russian energy company Gazprom following the invasion.\n\nThat will involve the company selling its 27.5% stake in a major liquefied natural gas plant and a 50% stake in two oilfield projects in Siberia.\n\nIt will also end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany. The 1,200km pipeline under the Baltic Sea had already been put on hold by German ministers.\n\nShell said that it expected the move would cost about $3bn (£2.2bn) and followed on from BP announcing it would offload its 19.75% stake in Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft, which it has held since 2013. BP's stake in Rosneft is valued at around $25bn.\n\nExtracting a company like Shell from the Russian energy market is a complex business.\n\nUnlike BP, which owns a 19.75% financial stake in Rosneft which it intends to walk away from, Shell has complex operations with thousands of employees on the ground. Extricating itself from long-term supply contracts will take months.\n\nBuying a cargo of Russian crude at knock-down prices as other companies shunned Russian supplies drew outrage on social media and, according to Shell sources, dismay from its own employees in Ukraine.\n\nThe company insists it had to buy the cargo to avoid disruptions to operations at its huge refinery in Pernis, Rotterdam, and was not \"trying to make a quick buck\".\n\nBut that explanation drew scepticism in some quarters and the chief executive apologised today, saying it had been the wrong thing to do. The company also said that phasing out Russian oil and gas would need to be done carefully to minimise the damage done to the rest of the world.\n\nA reminder that the tougher the sanction, the greater the collateral damage on those imposing them.\n\nShell's plans emerged as a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that it would close its main gas pipeline to Germany if the West goes ahead with a ban on Russian oil.\n\nDeputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said a \"rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market\", causing prices to more than double to $300 a barrel.\n\nThe US has been exploring a potential ban with allies as a way of punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, but Germany and the Netherlands rejected the plan on Monday.\n\nThe EU gets about 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia, and has no easy substitutes if supplies are disrupted, as Shell has pointed out.\n\nWhile the UK would not be directly impacted by supply disruption, as it imports less than 5% of its gas from Russia, it would be affected by prices rising in the global markets as demand in Europe increases.", "Coins discovered by Mark Pallett (left) and Andy Carter have been sold at auction\n\nAn \"extremely rare and important\" Edward III leopard gold coin found by a metal detectorist has sold for £174,600 at auction.\n\nThe florin, which dates from 1344, was discovered in Reepham, Norfolk, in 2019 by Andy Carter who said it was a \"life-changing amount of money\".\n\nIt was expected to sell for £140,00.\n\nAt the same auction, an Anglo-Saxon gold coin found in a Cambridgeshire field sold for £18,600, more than £8,000 over its expected auction price.\n\nThe Edward III coin was minted at the Tower of London in January 1344\n\nThe 23-carat Edward III coin, which features a leopard sitting upright wearing a banner, had a face value of three shillings or 36 silver pennies, auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb said.\n\nIt was in circulation for just seven months before it was withdrawn making it \"extremely rare and important\", it added.\n\nIt was bought by a private collector from the UK.\n\nMr Carter, 65, from Norwich, said: \"This is a life-changing amount of money and I will share with the landowner, but my partner would like a new kitchen and I have always dreamt of getting a Land Rover Defender, not sure where I will park it though!\"\n\nThe Anglo-Saxon gold coin was expected to sell for between £8,000 to £10,000 and went for £18,600\n\nThe Anglo-Saxon gold shilling, which dates from AD650-670, was bought in the sale room by a member of the trade for a client, the auctioneers said.\n\nOnly eight examples of this 'Crispus' type have been recorded on the Early Medieval Coins database at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, it added.\n\nMark Pallett, from Brentwood, Essex, discovered it in a field in Haslingfield, South Cambridgeshire, on 3 January.\n\n\"I am truly overwhelmed by the price that the coin achieved and am pleased for myself and the farmer who will get half of the proceeds,\" he said.\n\n\"I did think about buying a new detector with the money but I don't think that there's anything wrong with my current one as it helped me find this wonderful coin!\"\n\nAn 11th or 12th Century gold cross found in Lincolnshire in April 2019 is up for sale later this month\n\nA medieval pendant discovered in a muddy field by a Norwich detectorist, James Willis, will be sold by the same auction house on 15 March and is expected to sell for £8,000.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A major study of vaccine side-effects in the US found no link between two Covid jabs and the number of deaths recorded after vaccination.\n\nThe Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 92% of reported side-effects after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were mild.\n\nAbout 4,500 people died after being vaccinated, in the US, up to June 2021.\n\nBut no unusual patterns in the data were detected that might suggest a link to the vaccine itself.\n\nStudy author Dr Tom Shimabukuro said: \"[It's] reassuring that reactions to both mRNA vaccines are generally mild and subside after one or two days - confirming reports from clinical trials and post-authorisation monitoring.\"\n\nResearchers looked at \"adverse events\" from nearly 300 million vaccine doses given in the US between December 2020 and June 2021.\n\nMembers of the public, healthcare providers and drug companies can report any possible side-effect, using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), run by the CDC and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).\n\nA second method, V-safe, allows individuals to fill out a survey on their smartphone in the months after vaccination.\n\nBoth systems rely on individuals deciding to self-report an adverse event.\n\nThe results of the study are published in the Lancet medical journal:\n\nOther serious events, including a form of heart inflammation known as myocarditis, have already been identified following both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccinations, although that side-effect is very rare.\n\nBecause Covid jabs were originally authorised in the United States under emergency-use provisions, healthcare providers are required to report all deaths following vaccination, whether a doctor suspects a \"plausible\" link or not.\n\nAbout 4,500 deaths were recorded in the six months to June 2021, more than 80% among people aged 60 and over.\n\n\"The rapid pace at which Covid-19 vaccines were administered under emergency use, especially among older populations, was unprecedented,\" the CDC's Dr David Shay said.\n\n\"Due to their age, this group already has a higher baseline mortality rate than the general population and our results follow similar patterns of death rates for people in this age group following other adult vaccinations.\"\n\nThe researchers said less than 1% of people who filled out the V-safe survey had sought any medical care following vaccination.\n\nDr Elizabeth Phillips, a professor of medicine, at Vanderbilt University, who was not involved in the study, said: \"Reassuringly, the six-month VAERS data supports that - although approximately one in 1,000 individuals vaccinated may have an adverse effect, most of these are non-serious.\n\n\"For adverse events of special interest, it is reassuring that there were no unexpected [safety] signals other than myocarditis and anaphylaxis, already known to be associated with mRNA vaccines.\"", "The UK, EU, and US governments have responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with devastating sanctions against the billionaire businessmen perceived to be in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.\n\nMr Putin has warned his allies for many years they should protect themselves against such measures, particularly as relations soured with the US and EU countries after the annexation of Crimea.\n\nBut while some of those closest to him took his advice and remained invested in Russia, others kept their money in palatial properties overseas and football clubs, and their companies remained listed on foreign stock exchanges.\n\nThey now find themselves scrambling to hold on to their assets amid the most comprehensive economic penalties imposed in the modern era. Here's what we know about some of them.\n\nSaid to be one of Mr Putin's favourite oligarchs, Alisher Usmanov is also one of the richest, worth an estimated $17.6bn, according to Forbes. A former professional fencer, the EU describes him as a \"businessman-official\" who helps the president solve his business problems.\n\nBorn in Uzbekistan while it was still part of the Soviet Union, he runs USM Holdings, a huge conglomerate that involves mining and telecoms, including Russia's second biggest mobile network MegaFon.\n\nThe EU announced sanctions against him on 28 February, and the US and UK have followed suit. He has called the sanctions unfair and said all the allegations against him were false.\n\nUSM Holdings appears to be hoping to avoid EU sanctions as he owns just under 50% of the shares. His superyacht Dilbar, named after his mother, is undergoing a refit in Hamburg and is at risk of being seized.\n\nIn the UK, his main visible investments are in property. In London he owns Beechwood House, a £65m country house with grounds in the heart of the city, and just outside London in Surrey, he owns a Tudor mansion, Sutton Place. Both have been frozen by UK authorities.\n\nHis business partner Farhad Moshiri owns Everton, and Mr Usmanov's companies USM, MegaFon and Yota have been key sponsors at the club, with suggestions his involvement was even closer. Everton suspended the sponsorship deal last week, and Mr Moshiri quit as a USM board member.\n\nOne of the most high-profile Russian billionaires because of the phenomenal success of his football club Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich was sanctioned later than some others, possibly because he is less obviously influential than other Putin allies.\n\nHow influential he is in the Kremlin is much debated. Some suggest he is merely tolerated by Mr Putin, but the UK believes the two are close and that Mr Abramovich has made money out of the relationship, being awarded lucrative contracts for the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia, for example.\n\nMr Abramovich strongly denies having close ties to Mr Putin or the Kremlin, but the UK portion of his estimated $12.4bn fortune is now frozen. Just before the UK sanctions were announced, he put Chelsea up for sale for £3bn. His £150m house in London's Kensington Palace Gardens in London was also reportedly up for sale.\n\nMr Abramovich made his money in the 1990s and was one of the original oligarchs during Boris Yeltsin's presidency. His biggest break was buying the oil company Sibneft at a knockdown price. His assets include the third-longest yacht in the world, Eclipse, which recently left the British Virgin Isles, heading east across the Atlantic. His other mega-yacht, Solaris, is in the Mediterranean.\n\nHe had started to withdraw from the UK in recent years. In 2018 he decided not to apply to renew his UK visa, and has instead been using his newly acquired Israeli passport to visit London. And while he used to go to every Chelsea home game, in recent years he was rarely seen at Stamford Bridge - and now he is banned from entering the UK.\n\nWhen President Putin came to power, Oleg Deripaska was immensely rich, his wealth peaking at about $28bn - but he is now thought to be worth a mere $3bn.\n\nOleg Deripaska, right, with Mr Putin in 2017\n\nHe fought his way to a fortune in the 1990s, coming out on top in a vicious battle for the aluminium industry. The US said he was involved in money laundering, bribery, extortion and racketeering, and reported allegations that he had \"ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group\". He denies the allegations.\n\nHe suffered badly in the 2008 financial crisis and needed Mr Putin to bail him out. In 2009, President Putin humiliated him by suggesting publicly that he had stolen a pen. Since then, he seems to have worked himself back into favour and was described in the Mueller report - a US investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election - as being \"closely aligned\" with the president. When it announced its sanctions, the UK also described him as closely associated with Mr Putin.\n\nHe founded a green energy and metals company, En+ Group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, but reduced his stake in it to below 50% when he was subjected to US sanctions in 2018. At the time, one of Mr Deripaska's companies, Basic Element, released a statement calling the sanctions \"groundless, ridiculous and absurd\".\n\nHe owns a vast art deco property, Hamstone House in Weybridge, Surrey, which he has been trying to sell for £18m but has now been taken off the market. He also owns a yacht, Clio, which was recently seen in the Maldives.\n\nUnlike many sanctioned oligarchs Mr Deripaska has been vocal about his view on the war, taking to social media to call for peace. \"Negotiations need to start as soon as possible!\" he wrote.\n\nIgor Sechin's connections to Vladimir Putin run long and deep, according to the EU which announced sanctions against him on 28 February. He is said to be one of Mr Putin's most trusted and closest advisors, as well as a personal friend, and the two are thought to be in daily contact.\n\nHis progress was made through ruthlessly pushing aside opponents - his nickname in the Russian press is Darth Vader. A leaked US embassy cable from 2008 described him as \"so shadowy that it was joked he may not actually exist but rather was a sort of urban myth, a bogeyman, invented by the Kremlin to instil fear\". The US imposed sanctions on him in 2014, which he called \"totally unjustified and illegal\". They announced new sanctions against him on 24 February.\n\nMr Sechin has spent his career alternating between jobs in politics and business, sometimes holding senior jobs in both at the same time. When Putin was prime minister, he was a deputy prime minister, and now runs the state oil giant Rosneft.\n\nMr Sechin worked with Mr Putin in the mayor's office in St Petersburg in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have been in the much-feared intelligence service, the KGB, although has never openly admitted it.\n\nBased in Russia, no-one knows how much money Mr Sechin has, but the French have seized a yacht called Amore Vero that was linked to him after his second wife Olga Sechina kept posting photographs of herself on board. They have since divorced.\n\nBeyond that there is little sign he has substantial wealth overseas that could be easily uncovered, and it may be hard to track down and freeze any more of his assets.\n\nAlexey Miller is another old friend of Vladimir Putin's. Something of a grey man, he too has built his career on loyalty to the president, starting when he was Mr Putin's deputy on the foreign relations committee of the St Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s.\n\nAlexey Miller, right, with Mr Putin in February this year\n\nHe has run the immensely powerful state-owned gas company Gazprom since 2001, but it was a surprise appointment and it is widely assumed that he is just carrying out the orders of his old boss. The US ambassador to Moscow in 2009 described Gazprom as \"inefficient, politically driven, and corrupt\".\n\nMr Miller was not sanctioned after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but when he was added to the list in the US in 2018, he said he was proud. \"Not being included in the first list. I even had some doubts - maybe something is wrong? But I am finally included. This means we are doing everything right,\" he said.\n\nHe does not appear to have easily traceable assets outside Russia and there is no information about his net worth.\n\nThe EU describes Pyotr Aven (pictured on the left) as one of President Putin's closest oligarchs, and Mikhail Fridman as an enabler of Putin's inner circle. Together the two men created Alfa-Bank, the largest private bank in Russia.\n\nThe Mueller report said Mr Aven met with Putin in the Kremlin about four times a year, saying he \"understood any suggestions or critiques Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through\".\n\nThey were warned by Mr Putin in 2016 to protect their interests from future sanctions. This week the pair stood down from the London-headquartered LetterOne investment group they founded almost 10 years ago because their shares were frozen by EU sanctions on 28 February. Mr Aven also stood down as a trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.\n\nThe two businessmen said they would \"contest the spurious and unfounded basis for the imposition of these sanctions - vigorously and through all means available to them\".\n\nMr Fridman, thought to be worth around $12bn, lives in London in a house next to Lord's Cricket Ground and also owns a huge property, Athlone House in north London, that he paid £65m for in 2016.\n\nAt a London press conference on 1 March, he said the Ukraine war was a \"huge tragedy\" but would not criticise the Kremlin directly saying to do so could put the jobs of hundreds of thousands of employees at risk.", "Sgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting the woman in 2016\n\nA police officer has been jailed for 10 years for raping a woman who went on to give birth to his child.\n\nSgt Ben Lister, of West Yorkshire Police, attacked the woman at a mutual friend's house in Bradford in 2016 after a night out.\n\nLister, 36, from Bradford, was found guilty of rape and sexual assault after a retrial at the city's crown court.\n\nPassing sentence, Judge Jonathan Rose said the officer carried out a \"disgusting and persistent\" attack.\n\nProsecutor Richard Woolfall told the jury that Lister, who was off duty at the time, and the woman had both fallen asleep on separate sofas after drinking \"a large amount of alcohol\".\n\nHe said the woman was later woken by the defendant grabbing her legs and pulling her to the floor, where he raped and sexually assaulted her.\n\nMr Woolfall said the victim, who cannot be named, \"didn't consent\" and had \"no recollection\" of having sex with the defendant.\n\nThe court was told the woman approached the police in 2020 after having a \"breakdown\" at work and confiding in a colleague about the assault.\n\nIn a statement read to the court, the woman said although she \"loved her little girl to bits\", she had \"always struggled since she was born\".\n\n\"I really didn't cope well throughout the pregnancy and felt like I shouldn't have kept her, because I knew deep down what had happened to me and how she was conceived,\" she said.\n\n\"I look at her and feel she is a constant reminder of what he has done to me.\n\n\"She is such a lovely, funny, caring young girl and I already dread the future. I don't want her to grow up to hate me even though I have done nothing wrong.\"\n\nLister was jailed for 10 years after being found guilty at Bradford Crown Court\n\nJudge Rose told Lister: \"You took advantage of her, knowing she couldn't physically fight you off.\n\n\"The consequences will extend for many, many years and there are difficulties yet to come when the child asks 'who is my daddy?\"'\n\nHe added: \"You were a police officer. That carries with it a requirement that you behave in an upright, decent and proper manner at all times, whether on or off duty.\n\n\"Every woman of any age is entitled to go out and enjoy themselves and to do so knowing they will be safe throughout the evening and when they return to the comfort of a home.\"\n\nWest Yorkshire Police said Lister, who worked in the Bradford district, was suspended from the force when he was charged with the offences in December 2020.\n\nDet Supt Mark Long praised the \"bravery and courage\" of the victim for coming forward.\n\n\"I hope this conviction demonstrates that no-one is above the law,\" he said.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Emergency services in the aftermath of a strike on a TV tower in Kyiv on Tuesday that killed five\n\nThe key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was \"near to a humanitarian catastrophe\" on Wednesday after more than 15 hours of continuous bombardment by Russian forces, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC.\n\n\"The Russian army is working through all their weapons here - artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, airplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city,\" Serhiy Orlov said.\n\nMr Orlov said Russian forces were several kilometres from the city on all sides and had launched strikes on key infrastructure, cutting water and power supplies to parts of the city. One densely populated residential district on the city's left bank had been \"nearly totally destroyed\", he said.\n\n\"We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies. My father lives there, I cannot reach him, I don't know if he is alive or dead.\"\n\nRussian forces had targeted strikes against pump stations and electrical transformers, Mr Orlov said, and there were food shortages in parts of the city - raising fears of an approaching humanitarian crisis.\n\nMariupol is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine's army has resisted Russian forces so far in key parts of the country but the increased aerial bombardment of cities has raised fears Russia is shifting tactics.\n\n\"The Ukrainian army is very brave and they will continue to defend the city but the style of the Russian army is like pirates - they do not fight with their army, they just destroy entire districts,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"We believe in our Ukrainian army, but we are in a terrible situation.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine took a heavy toll on civilians on Wednesday as residential neighbourhoods in several large cities were bombed. Ukraine's emergency services said more than 2,000 civilians had been killed so far during the Russian invasion, though the BBC was not able to independently verify the figure. The UN said on Tuesday that at least 136 civilians had been killed, but it estimated that the actual number was higher.\n\nThere were fears on Wednesday that the death toll would rise dramatically as Russian troops appeared to surround the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the port city of Kherson.\n\nUkrainian forces said Russian paratroopers had landed near Kharkiv on Wednesday, leading to street fighting on the outskirts of the city. Local officials said a cruise missile hit a city council meeting, blowing off the top of the building and wounding three. At least 18 people have been reported killed in the city in the past day.\n\nA fire at the a Kharkiv university building after it was hit by a Russian missile on Wednesday\n\nResidents in Kharkiv told the BBC they were experiencing heavy aerial bombardment. \"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" said Iryna Ruzhynska, 40, who was sheltering with her family in her second-floor apartment on Wednesday.\n\n\"We have put Scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ms Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nThe Russian defence ministry claimed its forces were in control of Kherson, a city of nearly 250,000 people just north of Crimea, but local authorities said the city was still under Ukrainian control, despite being surrounded. Video footage verified by the BBC appeared to show Russian troops in the centre of Kherson.\n\nLarysa Pavlovska, a 58-year-old paramedic in Kherson, told the BBC her part of the city was quiet on Wednesday but other parts were smouldering after intense overnight shelling, adding that some residential districts had been \"bombed out\".\n\n\"Local residents say Russian armoured vehicles can be seen moving in the city, people say about 50 units,\" she said. \"They have been spotted by the state regional administration building.\"\n\nInesa Chamlai, the deputy head of the emergency aid centre in Kherson, said Russian troops had prevented them taking a wounded 55-year-old man to hospital. The man had stepped on a mine and lost his leg, Mr Chamlai said.\n\n\"Our ambulance team was dispatched but was then prevented by Russian troops from taking the man to hospital,\" he said. \"The soldiers ordered to bring him back to his house where he will definitely die.\"\n\nThere were also growing fears in the capital, Kyiv, over a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles just 15 miles north of the city, though US officials said on Wednesday the column was barely moving.\n\nIn Irpin, close to Kyiv, residential buildings have been destroyed\n\nRussia's air force struck a television mast in the capital on Tuesday, killing five people at the site of a Nazi massacre which killed more than 33,000, mostly Jews, while a missile strike west of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, killed four people including a child, a Ukrainian official said.\n\nIn a video message on Wednesday, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, condemned the strike at the site of the massacre, accusing the Russians of trying to \"erase\" Ukrainians.\n\n\"They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,\" he said.\n\nA UK government spokesperson said Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Mr Zelensky on Wednesday \"to condemn the abhorrent attacks on Ukraine in the recent hours and days\".\n\nIn an address on Tuesday, the US president Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a \"dictator\" and promised \"robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia's economy\".\n\nNearly a week after invading, Russia is facing increasing economic turmoil at home as it is hit by increasing sanctions. The Moscow Stock Exchange remained closed for the third day in a row on Wednesday as authorities tried to limit the impact of the sanctions.\n\n\"The Russian economy has suffered a serious blow,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, insisting that it was \"still standing\".\n\nHave you been affected by any of the issues raised here? Do you have family in Ukraine? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ken Smith's extraordinary life has been documented by filmmaker Lizzie MacKenzie. Video courtesy of Glasgow Film Festival.\n\nA hermit who has spent 40 years living in isolation in the Scottish Highlands has made a surprise appearance on the red carpet of a film festival.\n\nKen Smith left his cabin in Lochaber to attend the premiere in Glasgow of a documentary about his life.\n\nThe 74-year-old normally lives without electricity or running water beside Loch Treig - the \"lonely loch\".\n\nHe described Glasgow as a very changed city and added: \"I've never seen so many people.\"\n\nKen, who is originally from Derbyshire, began a life of wandering after being beaten up during a night out, leaving him unconscious for nearly a fortnight.\n\nWhile travelling in Canada, he became interested in the wilderness - and on his return, he sought out what he felt was the \"most isolated place in Britain\" and built himself a log cabin.\n\nHis extraordinary story has been told by Lizzie MacKenzie who spent two years filming a documentary for BBC Scotland.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Hermit of Treig Ken Smith finds sustenance in nature\n\nKen had to get up at 04:00 so he could make the two-hour walk to the nearest road for his journey to the premiere in Glasgow.\n\nHe said he wasn't nervous - but his first trip away from the Highlands in decades made a big impression on him.\n\n\"The last time I was in Glasgow was 30 or 40 years ago - it's changed so much from what it used to be,\" he said.\n\n\" I don't know any of the places or anything like that, in the past I did.\n\n\"It's certainly a different form of life - I've never seen so many people. From where I am, where I live I can go weeks and never see anybody and I just carry on with my jobs.\"\n\nKen had to get up at 04:00 in order to make the long journey to the red carpet in Glasgow\n\nLizzie first met Ken a decade ago while she was working in a café in the Highlands, after hearing stories from deer stalkers about an old man who lived in the forest.\n\n\"I got curious and ended up going to meet Ken and we wrote letters for years and years - and I slowly learned how to make films so I could tell his story,\" she said.\n\nShe made regular visits with her camera, recording how he lived off the land, facing struggles as he grows older but also enjoying his close relationship with nature.\n\n\"The most challenging one was when Ken did his 50-mile or whatever round trip to town and we got up at 03:00 and walked around in the dark.\n\nKen with his log cabin soon after it was built in the mid-1980s\n\n\"I was trying to keep up with him with the camera and I struggled to keep up - I thought I was fit until I tried to follow Ken with a camera.\"\n\nOver the years they have become friends, and Lizzie was able to help Ken when he needed hospital treatment after a fall.\n\n\"She was the one that kept coming in and doing my shopping while I was in hospital. I was quite grateful for that,\" he recalled.\n\nThe Hermit of Treig will be available online via Glasgow Film at Home from 8 - 11 March and then released in cinemas across the UK from 25 March.", "Facebook has hit out at a ban on its platforms introduced in Russia on Friday amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.\n\nRussia's communications regulator said the ban was a response to restrictions placed on its media there.\n\nIt said there had been 26 cases of \"discrimination\" against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020.\n\nThere were also reports that the use of Twitter had been restricted by the Russian regulator, Roskomnadzor, on Friday evening.\n\nFacebook's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said that \"soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information\".\n\nFacebook had previously been limited in the country, along with platforms including Twitter.\n\nAlthough its use was restricted, Facebook had not been blocked entirely in the country.\n\nOn Friday Russian media quoted the regulator as saying that Twitter had been restricted following a request by the prosecutor general from 24 February, the day of the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTwitter did not immediately respond to the BBC's request for comment on the reports.\n\nMeta, the company that owns Facebook, said last week though that it had restricted Russian-backed outlets across the European Union and was globally demoting content from state-affiliated media.\n\nIt had also refused to stop fact-checking several Russian state media outlets, including RT and Sputnik.\n\nRussia's media regulator said in a statement: \"Since October 2020, 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook have been recorded.\"\n\nThe statement says the block on Facebook platforms has been introduced \"to prevent violations of the key principles of the free flow of information\".\n\nIn response Meta said: \"We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nick Clegg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe White House said it was \"deeply concerned\" by Russia's decision to block the US company, and said the move was part of a broader effort to \"choke off information\".\n\n\"This is part of their effort ... to cut off a range of information from their public,\" White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said, adding that the US was also \"concerned about the threat on freedom of speech in the country\".\n\nThe ban comes after Russia's Parliament passed a new law this week imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally \"fake\" news about the military.\n\nThe BBC also said it would temporarily suspend the work of all its journalists and support staff in Russia following the introduction of the law.\n\nOther technology and social media giants have faced pressure to respond to the crisis in Ukraine from investors and their users.\n\nApple, for example, has halted all product sales in Russia, and limited other services such as Apple Pay and Apple Maps. Its retail stores in the country have closed as well.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko has thanked the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport about the Russian invasion of his homeland.\n\nThe 25-year-old Manchester City left-back was named captain for the midweek FA Cup win over Peterborough and carried out the Ukraine flag before the match, having sat out the previous two league games.\n\nSince Russia invaded Ukraine a little over a week ago, about a million Ukrainians have fled to safety while many others have stayed to fight.\n\nThe international community has almost universally backed Ukraine, in many cases sending weapons or imposing sanctions on Russian companies or individuals.\n\nZinchenko, who has family and friends in Ukraine, spoke to Gary Lineker about \"his mission\" to tell the world what is happening in Ukraine.\n\nYou can watch the full interview on Football Focus from 12:00 GMT on Saturday on BBC One.\n\nOn discovering the news and crying in the car\n\n\"At midnight UK time, my wife woke me up and she was crying,\" the Ukraine international says of how he discovered the invasion had started.\n\n\"I was in shock. She showed me the videos, the pictures, what's going on now in Ukraine.\n\n\"Maybe the most closest feeling is when someone from your circle is dying. You know, this feeling like you feel so bad inside. But this is even much more worse.\"\n\nNine days into the war and he says the emotion keeps hitting him.\n\n\"I'm just crying. So already a week, I'm not counting, but even I can drive the car from the training ground, or it doesn't matter where, I can just cry from nothing,\" he said.\n\n\"It's everything in my head. Imagine the place where you was born, where you was growing up. And there is just empty ground.\"\n\nOn his pride in Ukrainians who won't give up\n\nMany Ukrainians - including Zinchenko's friends - have stayed to fight Russia, with some who live abroad returning home for the war.\n\n\"I'll be honest, if not for my daughter, my family, I would be there,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm just born like that. I know the people from my country, the mentality of them, and all of them, they think exactly the same.\n\n\"I'm so proud to be Ukrainian, and I will be forever for the rest of my life. And when you're watching the people, how they fight for their lives.\n\n\"I know the people, the mentality of my people from my country, they prefer to die, and they will die. But they're not going to give [up].\"\n\nOn the world standing by Ukraine\n\nHe said he had been overwhelmed by support he had received from football fans, from people in the street and also form seeing donations from the British public.\n\n\"I'm so grateful,\" he said. \"I'm so grateful to all these people for the support I'm getting here. I didn't realise it's going to be like that in this way. So I would like to say all of them big thanks. I appreciate it.\n\n\"I'm getting a lot of messages from a lot of guys in Ukraine and they are asking me about the videos of support [from the UK].\n\n\"So people are watching TV, the people are still watching football, and they can see all these things, and I guess it helps a lot for them\n\n\"It's like, the people who are supporting Ukraine, they are trying to push them - don't give up. And I know my people they won't.\"\n\nOn his mission to let the world know what is happening\n\nZinchenko feels his \"mission is to show that the rest of the world the real truth, what's going on now in Ukraine\", especially amid Russian propaganda.\n\n\"I spoke with many people who are on our side. And they said that the way Russian TV is showing us is ridiculous.\n\n\"My mission is to show the rest of the world what's going on in this moment.\n\n\"There are few cities in the lowest part of Ukraine where the civilians, Russian people, are coming and they do fake protests that like 'we want to be with Russia' and stuff like that.\n\n\"I can show you one million pictures. I can show you one million videos, what they are doing now. I can show you every city in my country, which they destroyed.\n\n\"The people are starving there. The people are just surviving, sleeping on the ground, in bunkers, they cannot live a proper life.\"\n\nZinchenko revealed that was the reason he wanted to do the interview.\n\n\"I was thinking a few days about this interview. Should I do it? Should I not?\" he said. \"But I just want to send the message to all the people that please don't ignore this. We need to stop the war.\"\n\nOn his disappointment in Russian footballers\n\nZinchenko has said he is really disappointed that no Russia internationals have spoken out against the invasion.\n\nRussia captain Artem Dzyuba even spoke out against his country's suspension from international tournaments by Fifa and Uefa and said \"I am proud to be Russian\".\n\nZinchenko said: \"I was surprised that no-one, not one of them, from all of them [has said anything].\n\n\"Most of them play in the national team and they have a lot of followers on Instagram, Facebook, wherever.\n\n\"And they can, they can at least they can do something to stop this war. Because the people can hear them.\n\n\"I already know that they scared. But they're scared of what? They're not gonna do anything with them.\n\n\"At least they can say their positions, but they don't they just ignore it. I don't know why.\"", "Russian President Vladimir Putin has described sanctions imposed by Western nations over his invasion of Ukraine as \"akin to a declaration of war\".\n\n\"But thank God it has not come to that,\" he added.\n\nMr Putin also warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be seen as participation in the armed conflict.\n\nAnd he rejected suggestions that he would introduce a state of emergency or martial law in Russia.\n\nMr Putin made the remarks while speaking to a group of women flight attendants at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow.\n\nSince the start of Russia's invasion 10 days ago, the West has imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of Mr Putin's foreign assets and the exclusion of a number of Russian banks from the Swift international payments system.\n\nIn addition, many multinational firms have ceased operations in Russia, On Saturday, Zara, Paypal and Samsung became the latest global brands to suspend trading there.\n\nThe economic measures have already caused the rouble to plunge in value and forced the Russian central bank to double interest rates.\n\nIn his latest comments, Mr Putin sought to justify the war in Ukraine, repeating his assertion that he was seeking to defend Russian speaking communities there through the \"demilitarisation and de-Nazification\" of the country.\n\nResponding to Western defence analysts' allegations that the Russian military campaign was going less well than expected, he said: \"Our army will fulfil all the tasks. I don't doubt that at all. Everything is going to plan.\"\n\nHe added that only professional soldiers were taking part in the hostilities and there were no conscripts involved, despite reports to the contrary.\n\nThe Russian leader said efforts to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be considered by Russia to be a step into the military conflict and those responsible would be treated as enemy combatants.\n\n\"The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,\" he added.\n\nFor his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned Nato for ruling out the no-fly zone. However, Western leaders say introducing the measure would be an escalation.\n\nMr Putin also said he had no plans to declare martial law in Russia. adding that such a step would only be taken in \"instances of external aggression, in defined areas of military activity\".\n\n\"But we don't have such a situation and I hope we won't have one,\" he said.\n\nThere had been rumours that Mr Putin was planning to declare martial law, which is when normal civil law is suspended or the military takes control of government functions.\n\nHe said there were other special emergency states which could be used in the case of a \"large-scale external threat\", but that he had no plans to introduce these either.\n\nMeanwhile, diplomatic moves have continued on the sidelines of the conflict.\n\nIsraeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Mr Putin in Moscow on Saturday and had a three-hour discussion on the war.\n\nMr Bennett then headed to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. As an Orthodox Jew, he broke Shabbat in order to travel, which is allowed under Jewish law if human life is at stake.\n\nAlthough Israel is a key ally of the US, Mr Bennett has tried to preserve a good relationship with Russia. Ukraine's President Zelensky, who is Jewish, has called on Israel to mediate in the crisis.\n\nAnd the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has met Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, telling him he was in awe of his courage in standing up to Russia.\n\nThe two men met on the Polish-Ukraine border. Mr Kuleba reiterated his desire and optimism for more military backing from Nato, including a no-fly zone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Locals clear out a shopping mall in Mariupol as the city remains under siege by Russian forces", "Russia's 86 Zara stores are to close from Sunday, including this one in St Petersburg\n\nZara, Paypal and Samsung are the latest international firms to suspend trading in Russia after it invaded Ukraine.\n\nThe clothes retailer's owner, Inditex, will shut all 502 stores of its eight brands, including Bershka, Stradivarius and Oysho, from Sunday.\n\nPayment giant Paypal cited \"violent military aggression in Ukraine\" as the reason to shut down its services.\n\nSamsung - Russia's top supplier of smartphones - is suspending shipments over \"geopolitical developments\".\n\nOther global brands, including Apple, H&M and Ikea, have already stopped selling in Russia.\n\nThe clothes store closures are expected to hit more than 9,000 of Inditex's employees who work in Russia.\n\nThe Spanish-owned business told the BBC it was drawing up a plan to support them.\n\n\"In the current circumstances Inditex cannot guarantee the continuity of the operations and commercial conditions in the Russian Federation and temporarily suspends its activity,\" the Zara owner company said.\n\nAdam Cochrane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, told Reuters that logistical difficulties and the weakness in the rouble - resulting in large price increases for the Russian consumer - would make \"operations difficult for all retailers importing into Russia\".\n\nRussians rush to buy furniture and household goods in Ikea before the store closes in St Petersburg\n\nOther brands that have halted their business in Russia include:\n\nOnline payments company Paypal has also shut down services in Russia but said it would support withdrawals \"for a period of time\".\n\nThis would ensure that account balances were dispersed \"in line with applicable laws and regulations\", it said.\n\nThe Ukrainian government had been calling on Paypal to quit Russia and help its officials with fundraising.\n\nFashion and technology. Some of the biggest interests for young people around the world.\n\nBut today, young Russians are having their choices and access to them severely restricted, as huge global businesses continue to turn their backs on Russia.\n\nSamsung sells the most popular smartphones in Russia, but when current stocks sell out, there'll be little option to get an upgrade because Samsung is stopping its shipments.\n\nAnd Zara, known for its up-to-date and on-trend fashions, will be unavailable for fashion-conscious Russians as the shutters stay down in its shops and the website closes.\n\nWe don't know how they'll respond, but the Ukrainian deputy prime minister thinks restricting access to tech will motivate young Russians to object to the invasion.\n\nAnd as more Western retailers close, what reasons are these business owners giving to their Russian employees about the reasons?\n\nSamsung, the leading supplier of smartphones in Russia ahead of Xiaomi and Apple, will suspend shipments to the country. It is unclear whether Samsung's shops will close.\n\nReports suggest that Ukraine's vice-prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who is responsible for digital operations, wrote to Samsung's vice-chairman to urge them to temporarily cease supplying services and products to Russia.\n\n\"We believe that such actions will motivate the youth and active population of Russia to proactively stop the disgraceful military aggression,\" Mr Fedorov said in the letter posted on his Twitter account on Friday.\n\nIn a statement, the South Korean company said it would \"continue to actively monitor the complex situation to determine its next steps\".\n\nIn other developments, Russia's national airline, Aeroflot, has cancelled nearly all international flights from 8 March, because of what it called \"additional circumstances\" impeding its operations.\n\nDomestic routes and flights to neighbouring Belarus will continue unchanged, the airline said.\n\nThe EU, UK, US and Canada have all banned Russian airlines from their airspace - severely restricting the number of destinations available, and making other routes more difficult.\n\nRussia has reciprocated with airspace bans of its own.\n\nInternational sanctions have also been directed at Russia's airline industry, making it difficult for Aeroflot and other Russian airlines to operate normally.\n\nEarlier, the Foreign Office advised all British nationals who did not need to be in Russia to leave the country using the remaining commercial routes", "The BBC's Sarah Rainsford reports from a metro station in Kharkiv, where some residents have been sheltering from attacks for more than a week.\n\nShe says families have been making life as \"normal\" as possible for children, bringing toys underground to the shelter.", "Many roads and buildings in Ukraine have been damaged and littered with debris after fighting\n\nA British journalist covering the war in Ukraine has been shot and wounded after coming under fire in Kyiv.\n\nSky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his four colleagues were driving back to the Ukrainian capital when they were ambushed.\n\nAs they tried to escape from the car, a bullet hit Ramsay in his lower back while camera operator Richie Mockler took two rounds to his body armour.\n\nThey were told a Russian reconnaissance unit was behind the attack.\n\nRussian forces have stepped up their bombardment in recent days, with heavy shelling and attacks on high-rise apartment buildings, a clinic and a hospital on Friday.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson praised the Sky News crew's bravery and said they were risking their lives so \"the truth is told\".\n\nHe said in a tweet: \"Free press will not be intimidated or cowed by barbaric and indiscriminate acts of violence.\"\n\nThe attack on the Sky journalists took place on Monday, as they returned to Kyiv after calling off a trip to another town because it was unsafe.\n\nAlongside Mr Ramsay and camera operator Richie Mockler were producers Dominique Van Heerden, Martin Vowles and Andrii Lytvynenko.\n\nThe team fled the car while still under fire and hid inside a factory building before being rescued by Ukrainian police.\n\nRecalling the events, Ramsay said there was a small explosion out of nowhere, the car came to a stop and rounds of bullets began smashing into the car.\n\n\"We knew we had to get out to survive, but the incoming fire was intense,\" he said.\n\nTwo of the producers got out first, followed by another producer and then Ramsay and the camera operator.\n\n\"I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful. And then I was hit in the lower back. 'I've been hit' I shouted.\n\n\"But what amazed me was that it didn't hurt that bad. It was more like being punched, really.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sky News This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRamsay, who is now back in the UK, added: \"It was strange, but I felt very calm. I managed to put my helmet on, and was about to attempt my escape, when I stopped and reached back into a shelf in the door and retrieved my phones and my press card, unbelievably.\n\n\"Richie says I then got out of the car and stood up, before jogging to the edge of the embankment and then started running. I lost my balance and fell to the bottom, landing like a sack of potatoes, cutting my face. My armour and helmet almost certainly saved me.\"\n\nRamsay said: \"The point is we were very lucky. But thousands of Ukrainians are dying, and families are being targeted by Russian hit squads just as we were, driving along in a family saloon and attacked. This war gets worse by the day.\"\n\nOn Friday, it was announced that the BBC was temporarily suspending its journalists' work in Russia, in response to a new law which threatens to jail anyone Russia deems to have spread \"fake\" news on the armed forces. CNN and Bloomberg News went on to do the same.\n\nAccess to BBC websites had already been restricted in Russia - but BBC News in Russian will still be produced from outside the country.\n• None Day nine of Russia's war in Ukraine explained", "Elizabeth Hurley has paid tribute to former fiance Shane Warne as her \"beloved lionheart\", after the cricket legend's death aged 52.\n\nThe model and actress posted a series of photos of them together, saying: \"I feel like the sun has gone behind a cloud forever\".\n\nThe couple were engaged between 2011 and 2013, with their relationship attracting significant media attention.\n\nHer son also said the Australian was \"one of the best men I've ever known\".\n\nDamian Hurley, who was aged nine when his mother became engaged to Mr Warne, said on Instagram that he had been \"a father figure for most of my formative years\", adding that \"my heart is broken\".\n\nHis mother split from the former cricketer in 2013.\n\nMr Warne, a spin bowler who has been hailed as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died of a suspected heart attack on Friday at his villa in Thailand.\n\nCelebrity friends of Mr Warne also paid tribute, including Sir Elton John, who said he was \"a magical bowler and such fun\", calling it \"a tragic day for Australian cricket\" with former wicketkeeper Rod Marsh dying on the same day.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by elizabethhurley1 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger also said Mr Warne \"brought such joy to the game and was the greatest spin bowler ever\".", "Ukraine's president has attacked Nato leaders over their refusal to implement a no-fly zone around the country.\n\nIn a fiery speech, Volodymyr Zelensky said the West's reluctance to intervene had given Russia \"a green light\" to continue bombarding towns and villages.\n\nNato has argued that a no-fly zone will result in confrontation with Moscow.\n\nAnd Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, said on Saturday that any such move would be seen \"as participation in an armed conflict by that country\".\n\nReferring to sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, the Russian leader said they were \"akin to a declaration of war, but thank God it has not come to that\".\n\nIn his speech from Kyiv, Mr Zelensky said he disagreed that direct action could \"provoke Russia's direct aggression against Nato\".\n\nIn angry comments, he said the argument reflected the \"self-hypnosis of those who are weak, under-confident inside\" and that Western reservations indicated that \"not everyone considers the struggle for freedom to be Europe's number one goal\".\n\n\"All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you. Because of your weakness, because of your disunity,\" a furious Mr Zelensky added.\n\nOn Friday, Nato's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, warned that the introduction of a no-fly zone could lead to a \"full-fledged war in Europe involving many more countries and causing much more human suffering\".\n\nThe only way to impose a no-fly zone would be \"by shooting down Russian planes,\" Stoltenberg said\n\nUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken also ruled out the introduction of a no-fly zone, but told the BBC he was convinced Ukraine could win its war with Russia.\n\n\"I can't tell you how long this will go on,\" America's top diplomat said. \"I can't tell you how long it will take. But the idea that Russia can subjugate to its will 45 million people who are ardently fighting for their future and their freedom, that does not involve Russia having its thumb on Ukraine, that tells you a lot.\"\n\nAs Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its 10th day, Moscow's forces continue to heavily shell many cities.\n\nIn the south-eastern port city of Mariupol, the city's mayor has said that residents are under a \"blockade\" after days of \"ruthless\" attacks from Russian forces which has seen power and water shut off to the city's 450,00 strong population.\n\nVadim Boychenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the city was \"simply being destroyed\" and said officials were prioritising \"the establishment of a ceasefire so that we can restore vital infrastructure and set up a humanitarian corridor to bring food and medicine into the city\".\n\nIn Kyiv, a massive convoy stretching out over 40 miles (64km) remains stalled outside the city, but the Ukrainian capital has come under renewed assault, with explosions caused by intense shelling audible in the city centre.\n\nThere have also been unconfirmed reports of fresh fighting on Saturday in the north-eastern city of Sumy and of rocket attacks on the train station in Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, above a metro station where city residents are sheltering from shelling, and in the northern city of Chernihiv.\n\nAnd the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has warned that Russian troops have advanced within 20 miles (32km) of Ukraine's second biggest nuclear facility.\n\nRussian forces have been shelling the city of Kharkiv for over a week\n\nHer comments follow Friday's attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which she said reflected a \"dangerous new escalation\" in Russia's invasion. Moscow's ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, dismissed reports that Russian troops attacked the plant as \"lies\" and \"disinformation\".\n\nMeanwhile in Russia, a new law signed by President Vladimir Putin that would impose prison terms of up to 15 years on people charged with spreading \"fake news\" about the war in Ukraine has seen several western media outlets, including the BBC, suspend operations in the country.\n\nTim Davie, the BBC's director-general, said the legislation \"appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism\" in Russia, while the Washington Post said it would remove bylines from pieces written by its reporters in Russia.\n\nIt comes as Sky News released dramatic footage of their correspondent Stuart Ramsey coming under fire outside Kyiv.\n\nMeanwhile, Mr Zelensky addressed massive rallies in support of Ukraine in several cities across Europe, including the Czech capital, Prague, and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.\n\nHe warned demonstrators: \"If Ukraine does not survive, the whole of Europe will not survive.\"\n\nBut in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, some 4,000 people have taken part in a pro-Russian rally that marched from a monument of Russian Tsar Nicholas II to the Russian embassy.\n\nDemonstrators sang the Serbian and Russian national anthems and carried Russian flags and pictures of President Vladimir Putin.\n\nElsewhere, in a sign that Western sanctions are starting to have a tangible impact, Italian police have seized the yachts of two of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs.\n\nOfficers seized a 213-ft (65-m) yacht worth $27m (£20m) owned by Alexey Mordashov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and Russia's richest man, in the northern port of Imperia, officials told local media.\n\nAnother yacht, owned by Gennady Timchenko, another oligarch with close ties to Putin, has been impounded in Imperia, officials said.\n\nMordashov is worth an estimated $29bn and built his wealth around the Russian steel producer Severstal, while Timchenko is said to hold around $17bn of assets and made his fortune in oil trading.\n\nAre you in the affected region including Mariupol and Volnovakha? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says the US does not seek regime change in Russia\n\nUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told the BBC that he is convinced Ukraine can win its war with Russia.\n\nHe could not say how long the conflict would last, but insisted that Ukraine's defeat was not inevitable.\n\nMr Blinken praised the \"extraordinary resilience\" of the Ukrainian people.\n\n\"If it's the intention of Moscow to try somehow to topple the government and install its own puppet regime, 45 million Ukrainians are going to reject that one way or the other,\" he said.\n\nThe war has already not gone as Russian President Vladimir Putin might have planned, he added.\n\nStiff resistance by Ukrainian forces continued to hamper Russian advances across the country on the ninth day of the invasion.\n\nIn the south, Russian forces captured areas along the Black Sea coast, and the port city of Mariupol remained surrounded. But the governor of Mykolaiv said Russian troops had been driven out of the city.\n\nUkraine's second city of Kharkiv, in the north, also remained under siege.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Sarah Rainsford reports from a metro station in Kharkiv where people have been sheltering from attacks\n\nMr Blinken spoke to BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale after meeting his European Union counterparts in Brussels at the start of a six-day trip to Europe.\n\nHe said the international community was committed to doing everything it could to help Ukraine and also to put \"excruciating pressure on Russia to end this war of choice that Vladimir Putin started\".\n\nAsked if he was convinced Ukraine could win, he said: \"Over time, absolutely.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you how long this will go on. I can't tell you how long it will take. But the idea that Russia can subjugate to its will 45 million people who are ardently fighting for their future and their freedom, that does not involve Russia having its thumb on Ukraine, that tells you a lot.\"\n\nMr Blinken also said he was concerned about escalation.\n\n\"It's something we care about and are focused on because the only thing worse than a war which is contained to Ukraine is one that escalates even further and goes beyond it.\"\n\nHe warned that Russian forces were using \"increasingly brutal\" methods against civilians in Ukraine, and that there had been tremendous human suffering as a result.\n\n\"We're seeing Russia go after critical infrastructure that's denying Ukrainians water, denying them electricity, denying them heat,\" he said. \"Those methods are, unfortunately, tragically, part of the Russian playbook under President Putin. And I think we're likely to see more of that.\"\n\nAsked if the US would seek a change in Moscow's leadership to bring an end to the invasion, he replied: \"We don't seek that, and in any event it's not up to us. The Russian people need to decide their leadership.\"\n\n\"What I would say to the Russian people is: How in the world is this war of aggression... advancing your interests, your needs?\" he added.", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nSkier Millie Knight defeated her demons as she won Great Britain's first medal of the Beijing Winter Paralympics.\n\nThe 23-year-old suffered a number of crashes and concussions which left her questioning her future in the sport.\n\nBut Knight and guide Brett Wild claimed bronze in the women's visually-impaired downhill.\n\n\"At the start I was just thinking, find the seconds, do anything you can do to go faster, it doesn't matter if you're scared, keep going,\" Knight said.\n\nKnight and Wild, who took silver four years ago, put in a solid run on the opening day of competition at the Yanqing National Alpine Centre to finish in one minute 23.20 seconds.\n\nSlovakia's Henrieta Farkasova won her third gold in a row in a time of 1:19.50.\n\nChina's Zhu Daqing took silver (1:21.75) on her Paralympic debut, earning the host nation's first-ever individual Winter Paralympic medal.\n\nMenna Fitzpatrick, Britain's other competitor, was fifth with guide Gary Smith in what is one of her weaker events.\n\nKnight, who is competing in her third Games, added: \"This bronze is something very special. It ranks above our silver four years ago in Pyeongchang.\n\n\"We have gone through some tough things and it has changed us.\n\n\"Brett's belief and confidence in me has very much inspired me and made me want to do it not just for me, my family friends and sponsors but for him.\n\n\"Crossing the line with a smile on my face was our number one goal. We genuinely didn't believe we were at the level that would get us a medal, especially with the standard at the moment.\n\n\"I feel like I'm on cloud nine and I just genuinely can't believe that this is happening to us.\"\n\nThe pair will next race in Sunday's super-G.\n\nIn the men's visually-impaired event Neil Simpson, guided by his brother Andrew, finished seventh in a race won by 16-year-old Austrian Johannes Aigner, with only 0.65 seconds separating the top three finishers.\n\nIn his third Games, James Whitley had a best finish with ninth in the men's standing division.\n\nGreat Britain's mixed wheelchair curling team came back from their opening match defeat to beat the United States.\n\nThe team triumphed 10-6 after narrowly losing 7-5 to Norway earlier in the day.\n\nAt the Zhangjiakou Biathlon Centre, Scott Meenagh, at his second Games, claimed his first Paralympic top-10 finish with ninth in the men's sprint seated event.\n\nMeenagh was one minute and 43 seconds behind gold medallist Liu Zixu of China while Callum Deboys, on his Games debut, was 17th.\n\nHowever, Steve Arnold was unable to take part in the event after testing positive for Covid-19 prior to his departure for China.\n\nUnder Games rules, participants must return two negative Covid tests within 96 hours of departure of their flight and the 32-year-old, who was set to make his Games debut in China, will remain in the UK and work with the ParalympicsGB medical team while all options are assessed.\n\nThe former Army sergeant, who lost his legs while serving in Afghanistan in 2011, was entered in six events across biathlon and cross country at the Games.", "Boris Johnson says allies of Vladimir Putin will have \"nowhere to hide\"\n\nThe government is to change the law to make it easier to introduce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, after criticism the UK is acting too slowly.\n\nMinisters are tabling amendments to the Economic Crime Bill which are designed to allow the UK to align with penalties imposed by allies in the EU and US.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said foreigners trying to launder money in the UK would have \"nowhere to hide\".\n\nBut Labour accused the government of making a \"U-turn under pressure\".\n\nMinisters have already imposed asset freezes on individuals and companies with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, following the invasion of Ukraine over a week ago.\n\nBut opposition parties have said the government needs to do more to tackle wealthy Putin allies who store large amounts of money in London.\n\nThere has been criticism from within the Conservative party too.\n\nSenior Conservative Tom Tugendhat said he was \"extremely concerned\" that the delays in imposing sanctions might allow people who have stolen from the Russian people for the last 20 years to hide their money in a new jurisdiction. That would be completely unacceptable, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nThe bill, which has cross-party support, is expected to be fast-tracked through Parliament on Monday.\n\nOutlining its amendments, the Foreign Office said the \"appropriateness test\" - a threshold that needed to be met when imposing sanctions on individuals - would be removed.\n\nIt is also speeding up the deadline for overseas companies to declare their true owners - from 18 months to six months. Maximum fines for non-compliance with this rule are set to increase from £500 to £2,500 per day.\n\nThe bill is expected to become law by the middle of this month.\n\nMr Johnson said these measures would ramp up the pressure on criminal elites trying to launder money on UK soil and close the net on corruption. \"They will have nowhere to hide,\" he warned.\n\nIn a video on Twitter addressed to the Ukrainian people, Mr Johnson said the UK, along with its allies, would continue \"doing everything we can to support you and impose a mountain of pressure on Vladimir Putin\".\n\nHe said they would go further with sanctions \"unless and until this aggression stops\".\n\n\"The world is turning its back on Putin and his regime,\" he added.\n\nIn a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening, the prime minister described the crisis in Ukraine as \"the worst war on our continent for a long time\".\n\nAnd, in an interview with European newspapers La Repubblica, Die Welt and El Pais, Mr Johnson said he believed Mr Putin intended to \"double down\" on the invasion because Mr Putin envisaged no way out but to \"continue with the destruction\".\n\nHe went on to describe the moment he was woken in the middle of the night to the news of the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site, the likes of which he said were \"clearly a matter of our common European health and safety\".\n\nHe said it must be made clear to the Kremlin that \"a civilian nuclear disaster in Ukraine, another Chernobyl, is a disaster for Russia as well as for everybody\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn the sanctions proposals, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy welcomed the government's \"U-turn\". But he added it was unacceptable that oligarchs with links to Mr Putin, who should have been sanctioned, had been allowed to move money around because of government incompetence.\n\nThe law should have been introduced months ago, at the same time as allies and partners had done so, he said.\n\nRecent research by campaign group Transparency International suggests £1.5bn worth of UK property has been bought by Russians accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin since 2016.\n\nSince the invasion began, the UK has announced a series of sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs and businesses.\n\nOn Thursday, two more oligarchs were sanctioned - Alisher Usmanov, who has links to Everton football club, and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov.\n\nOther measures include asset freezes on Russian banks and an export ban on technical equipment.\n• None 'Life is crumbling' - Russians on boycotts and sanctions", "The helipad was opened in 2015\n\nA woman in her 80s has died after an incident involving a helicopter that was landing at a hospital.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said two people were injured as a HM Coastguard helicopter was landing at Derriford Hospital's helipad in Plymouth earlier.\n\nOne person is being treated in hospital while the second person, a local woman in her 80s, has since died.\n\nThe Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the helicopter was flying a patient to hospital at the time of the incident.\n\nThe Air Accidents Investigation Branch said it was aware of the incident and had deployed a team to investigate.\n\nAn initial investigation is being conducted by Devon and Cornwall Police assisted by a number of partner agencies.\n\nThe force said it was \"believed that two members of the public were injured as a HM Coastguard helicopter was landing at the helipad at Derriford\".\n\nPolice said the family of the woman who died had been contacted.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said: \"Our deepest sympathies go out to those affected by the incident at Derriford Hospital.\n\n\"It would be inappropriate to comment while the incident is investigated by Devon and Cornwall Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a HM Coastguard helicopter was flying a patient to Derriford Hospital and \"as it landed, there was an incident which is now being investigated by the police and Air Accidents Investigation Branch\".\n\n\"Our thoughts are with all those affected by today's incident,\" she added.\n\nDerriford Hospital opened the helipad in 2015 to accommodate larger helicopters.\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.", "Buildings in Kharkiv in ruins after sustained Russian bombings\n\nAs I write this, the centre of Kyiv and much of its suburbs are largely untouched. Sirens and alerts punctuate the day.\n\nEveryone here knows that could change, very quickly. By the time you read this, it might have.\n\nUkraine's second city, Kharkiv, has already felt some of the force of the Russian way of war. So have Mariupol and other cities in the east.\n\nRussia answers resistance with firepower. Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.\n\nKharkiv and the other cities and towns have suffered grievous damage, and as far as we know many civilian casualties. The seat of Kharkiv's local government was badly damaged in a missile strike that was filmed. Russian President Vladimir Putin might be sending a message to Kyiv - look to the east, because this could happen to you.\n\nThe depressing conclusion I've drawn from other wars in which I have seen Russians in action is that it could get much worse.\n\nSo far, Mr Putin has not given the order to inflict the kind of damage that Russian forces brought down on Grozny, when the Russian republic of Chechnya rebelled in the 1990s, and in Syria since Mr Putin intervened in force in 2015.\n\nI covered the first Chechen war when it started in the winter of 1994-1995. Just as in Ukraine, the Russian army made serious military blunders in ground operations. Armoured columns were ambushed by Chechen rebels in narrow streets and destroyed. Many conscript soldiers did not want to fight and die.\n\nBefore the invasion of Ukraine, military analysts assessed that Russia's forces were now much more professional. Perhaps they are, but Russia's invasion has once again been slowed by logistical bottlenecks, tactical mistakes and terrified teenagers who had not been told they were going to war - as well as resistance as fierce as anything the Chechens offered in 1995.\n\nChechnya declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and in 1994 Russian forces invaded. The bombing of Grozny was intense\n\nIn the second Chechen war from 1999-2000, Russian forces again laid siege to Grozny, and intense fighting lasted weeks\n\nJeremy Bowen (left) with colleagues Scott Hillier and Steve Lidgerwood reported from Grozny in January 1995\n\nIn Chechnya, Russia's answer was to use its firepower. In a few weeks, artillery and air strikes reduced the centre of Grozny, a typical concrete and steel Soviet city, to rubble. I was in Minutka Square, a centre of Chechen resistance, on a day when it was hit by repeated air strikes. Civilians were mostly in cellars, risking death every time they went out to find water or food.\n\nIn Minutka Square that day, Chechen fighters were killed by cluster bombs, and buildings set on fire. Twenty-four hours later, the entire main avenue of the city was hit by missile strikes and enveloped in smoke and flame. The ground was shaking where we were filming.\n\nThe most devastated places I have seen in years of war reporting, apart from Grozny, were in Syria. The connection is the destructive power of the Russian military.\n\nMr Putin's decision to intervene in Syria saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad and took a big step towards his objective of restoring Russia as a world power. Two decisive victories over rebels in Syria, vitally important for the regime, were delivered by the ruthless use of Russian firepower.\n\nThe first was in Aleppo at the end of 2016. The eastern side of the city, which had been held by a variety of rebel factions throughout the war, fell after it was pulverised by shelling and air strikes. The Assad regime did not need any encouragement to shell Syrians, but the Russians brought a much greater level of destructive power. Strategic bombers based at home and in Iran delivered devastating strikes.\n\nThe tactic used in Syria was to encircle and besiege rebel-held areas, pound them from the air and from artillery batteries, and in the end exhaust the defenders and any civilians who had not managed to escape. Many of them were killed.\n\nIn a devastated street in Aleppo in January 2017\n\nIn Eastern Ghouta in Syria in June 2018, with BBC cameraman Nik Millard\n\nWhen I was able to drive through Eastern Aleppo a few weeks after it fell, destruction went on for mile after mile. I couldn't see a building that was untouched. Entire neighbourhoods were left in ruins. Streets were blocked with mountain ranges of rubble.\n\nI saw the same tactics work in Eastern Ghouta, a string of rebel held towns and farmland on the edge of the Syrian capital. Its capitulation in 2018 was the end of the battle for Damascus, that had looked at first as if it could go the rebels' way. That changed after the US decided in 2013 not to strike the Assad regime when it used chemical weapons in Douma, one of the area's towns. The long fight turned decisively in the regime's favour after Russia entered the war in 2015.\n\nEastern Ghouta's defenders dug an underground tunnel city to escape the air strikes and shelling. But siege and overwhelming firepower wins battles. That is because defenders get killed and exhausted, and civilians, however defiant, are subjected to such fear and misery that they welcome the respite that surrender brings.\n\nIn Kyiv, one of the big questions on everybody's minds is whether they are going to get the treatment meted out not only to Kharkiv, Mariupol and the rest, but also to Chechnya and Syria.\n\nWill the sanctity of Orthodox shrines create the restraint that was absent in attacks on Muslims in Chechnya and Syria? Putin himself has written about Ukraine's significance in Russia's history. Will he be prepared to destroy Ukraine to regain it? If sanctions and Ukrainian resistance threaten his regime's stability, will he take more extreme measures?\n\nThe record shows that the Russian military compensates for weaknesses in the capabilities of its ground forces by turning to the big guns. Ukrainians are praying that will not happen here.\n\nKharkiv residents told the BBC that attacks on civilian targets made them feel like they were living in hell", "Oleksandra says her mother repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV\n\nOleksandra and her four rescue dogs have been sheltering in the bathroom of her flat in Kharkiv since the shelling began.\n\n\"When I heard the first explosions, I ran out of the house to get my dogs from their enclosures outside. People were panicking, abandoning their cars. I was so scared,\" she says.\n\nThe 25-year-old has been speaking regularly to her mother, who lives in Moscow. But in these conversations, and even after sending videos from her heavily bombarded hometown, Oleksandra is unable to convince her mother about the danger she is in.\n\n\"I didn't want to scare my parents, but I started telling them directly that civilians and children are dying,\" she says.\n\n\"But even though they worry about me, they still say it probably happens only by accident, that the Russian army would never target civilians. That it's Ukrainians who're killing their own people.\"\n\nIt's common for Ukrainians to have family across the border in Russia. But for some, like Oleksandra, their Russian relatives have a contrasting understanding of the conflict. She believes it's down to the stories they are told by the tightly-controlled Russian media.\n\nOleksandra's dogs have been a source of support during the bombing\n\nOleksandra says her mother just repeats the narratives of what she hears on Russian state TV channels.\n\n\"It really scared me when my mum exactly quoted Russian TV. They are just brainwashing people. And people trust them,\" says Oleksandra.\n\n\"My parents understand that some military action is happening here. But they say: 'Russians came to liberate you. They won't ruin anything, they won't touch you. They're only targeting military bases'.\"\n\nWhile we were interviewing Oleksandra, the shelling went on. The internet connection was weak, so we had to exchange voice messages.\n\n\"I've almost forgotten what silence sounds like. They're shelling non-stop,\" she said.\n\nBut on Russian state TV channels on the same day, there was no mention of the missiles striking Kharkiv's residential districts, of civilian deaths, or of four people killed while queuing for water.\n\nState TV channel Rossiya 1 refers to the war as a \"special operation\"\n\nRussian media say the threat to Ukrainian civilians doesn't come from the Russian armed forces, it comes from Ukrainian nationalists using civilians as human shields.\n\nRussian state TV channels justify the war by blaming Ukrainian aggression, and continue to call it \"a special operation of liberation\". Any Russian outlet using the words \"war\", \"invasion\" or \"attack\" faces being blocked by the country's media regulator for spreading \"deliberately false information about the actions of Russian military personnel\" in Ukraine.\n\nAnd now a new law has passed through the Russian Parliament that means people who spread \"fake\" information about Russia's military forces could be jailed for up to 15 years.\n\nSome Russians have taken to the streets to protest against the war - but these demonstrations were not shown on the main state television channels.\n\nMykhailo, a well-known Kyiv restaurateur, didn't have the time or inclination to watch Russian TV coverage of the invasion.\n\nWhen shelling of Ukraine's capital started, he and his wife were concentrating on how to protect their six-year-old daughter and baby son.\n\nMykhailo with his father before the war\n\nAt night their children woke up at the sound of explosions and couldn't stop crying. The family made the decision to move to the outskirts of Kyiv and then flee abroad.\n\nThey travelled to Hungary, where Mykhailo left his wife and children and came back to Western Ukraine to help the war effort.\n\nHe was surprised not to have heard from his father, who works at a monastery near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He called his father and described what was happening. His father replied that this wasn't true; there was no war and - in fact - Russians were saving Ukraine from Nazis.\n\nMykhailo said he felt he knew the power of Russian propaganda, but when he heard it from his father, he was devastated.\n\n\"My own father does not believe me, knowing that I'm here and see everything with my own eyes. And my mum, his ex-wife, is going through this too,\" he says.\n\n\"She is hiding with my grandmother in the bathroom, because of the bombardment.\"\n\nRussian media has been tightly controlled for many years and viewers are given an uncritical view of Russia and its actions around the world.\n\n\"The state narrative only ever shows Russia as the good guy.\" says Dr Joanna Szostek, an expert in Russia and political communications at University of Glasgow.\n\n\"Even the tales they tell about World War Two, the Great Patriotic War, Russia has never really done anything wrong. And this is why they won't believe it now.\"\n\nMost Russians, she says, don't look for other points of view. She believes the one-sided narrative that is highly critical of the West helps explain why Russians can have opposing views to their relatives in neighbouring countries.\n\n\"People who criticise Russia have for so long been presented as traitors or foreign agents; critics are all foreign agents working for the West. So you don't even believe your own daughter.\"\n\nAnastasiya's parents live in a small village 20km (12 miles) away from the rebel-held Donetsk People's Republic. The village is still under the control of Kyiv authorities, but Russian state TV channels are always on in their house. They even have the clock set to Moscow time - a throwback to the Soviet past.\n\nSo when on 24 February, Anastasiya woke up in Kyiv to the sound of sirens, she knew how her parents would react.\n\n'My mum was the first person I called when I jumped out of bed at five, disoriented. She was surprised I called and sounded really calm, almost casual,\" she says.\n\nAnastasiya, a BBC Ukrainian correspondent who moved to Kyiv 10 years ago, heard bombs exploding after waking and was worried about where would be hit next.\n\nAnastasiya - and her cat - have left home\n\n\"I called my mum again. I told her I was scared. 'Don't worry', she said, reassuringly. 'They [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv'.\"\n\nBut they are already doing it, Anastasiya replied.\n\n\"I told her there were casualties among civilians. 'But that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas!', she said, laughing. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Hearing my mum say this with such cruelty just broke my heart.\"\n\nAnastasiya believes the image Russian media has created is one of the \"glorified Russian army\" ridding Ukraine from Nazis. For years she avoided political arguments with her parents, but this time she slammed the phone down on her mum.\n\nWe spoke to Anastasiya when she was travelling away from Kyiv after four nights in a bomb shelter. Her mind was on an uncertain future.\n\n\"There are a lot of thoughts in my head now. What will happen to us all? Where is this going? Will I ever come back? Will I ever see my parents again? I still love them deeply, but something inside me has broken and I don't think it can ever be fixed.\"", "The Ukrainian city of Mariupol has come under heavy shelling\n\nWhile Russian troops in the north and east of Ukraine have struggled to seize important targets, including the capital Kyiv, their advance into southern Ukraine appears to be more successful.\n\nRussia sees the south as vital to the success of its invasion, and has been laying siege to several southern cities and captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is Europe's largest.\n\nThe operation in the south was launched from Crimea, which was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 and is home to a sizeable Russian military presence.\n\nOn Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that Russia has a \"sophisticated and healthy architecture\" there.\n\nA look at the map below shows how crucial the peninsula is as a base to the assault on southern Ukraine.\n\nRussian troops are moving into Ukraine from Crimea, spreading east towards Mariupol and west towards Odesa, threatening to cut off Ukraine's maritime access which would inflict huge economic damage on the country.\n\n\"Strategically, there are major ports in that region that really allow Putin's forces to strangle any ability for Ukraine to be supplied via sea,\" Karl Qualls, professor of history and Russia specialist at Dickinson College, told the BBC.\n\nTo the east of Crimea, Russian forces are pushing to Mariupol, a city of 450,000 people, which is encircled and coming under heavy shelling. Water and power supplies have been cut off, and residents have told the BBC that they are terrified.\n\nIf Mariupol falls, it would give Russia control of one of Ukraine's biggest ports and create a land corridor between Crimea and the Russian-backed regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.\n\nConnecting Crimea with mainland Russia via the rebel-held areas would make it much easier for Russia to move goods and people to and from Crimea. Russia has wanted this since 2014, when the conflict in the east began.\n\nCurrently the peninsula is connected to the Russian mainland only via a single bridge, built at great expense after the Russian annexation.\n\nNorth-west of Mariupol, Russia has seized the Zaporizhzhia power plant. In normal times the plant produces around 20% of Ukraine's electricity, so by taking it Russia controls a significant portion of Ukraine's possible power supply.\n\nThe Russian military has also occupied the city of Kherson which is located where the Dnieper river meets the Black Sea, a important location for troops to move further into Ukraine.\n\n\"We're seeing them exploit the capture of Kherson,\" Dr Jack Watling from the Royal United Services Institute told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. \"They're now on the western side of the Dnieper and able to push both further up the river and towards Odesa.\"\n\nRussia says its forces have surrounded Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant\n\nIf Russia is able to move further west, to Odesa and beyond, it would not only cut off Ukraine's access to the sea but also surround the country on three sides.\n\n\"If they take Odesa, they have a key city to create a strategic arc around Ukraine. With Belarus in the north and Donbas to the east, they've all but encircled the country,\" Catherine Wanner, professor of history and Russia and Ukraine expert at Penn State University, told the BBC.\n\nThere is also a historical context to Russia's southern invasion. The region of Ukraine stretching from Odesa in the south to Luhansk in the east was taken by the Russian Empire in the 18th Century after a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire. It became known as Novorossiya, or New Russia.\n\nUnder the Soviet Union, most of Novorossiya was part of the the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic which later turned into modern-day Ukraine.\n\nIn 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that although Russia lost the territory of Novorossiya for various reasons, its people remained there.\n\n\"The mythology that Putin promotes is that these are Russian lands,\" said Professor Qualls. \"It was part of the Russian empire but it wasn't Russians who lived there. There were far more Romanians than there were Russians, and Ukrainians were dominant.\"\n\nIn 2014, separatist militants in Donetsk sported the tsarist-era \"Novorossiya\" flag\n\nNevertheless, the idea took hold, and for a brief period in 2014 the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk wanted to recreate Novorossiya, even sporting its tsarist-era red and blue flag.\n\nRussia's historic claim to Ukrainian land has been a frequent theme for President Putin in the run up to the invasion, but Professor Wanner says it should not be taken seriously.\n\n\"Mr Putin has shown himself unashamed in terms of fashioning highly creative historical interpretations to invade and annex territory - Novorossiya is a flimsy justification\", she told the BBC.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Do Russia's attacks on Ukraine amount to war crimes? Ros Atkins investigates", "A residential building in Mariupol, which locals say was almost completely destroyed by Russian shelling\n\nRussian forces continued to shell the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier - throwing an attempted mass evacuation of civilians into chaos.\n\n\"I'm right now in Mariupol, I'm on the street, I can hear shelling every three to five minutes,\" said Alexander, a 44-year-old engineer and resident of the city.\n\nThe green corridor set up to get people out was not working, he said.\n\n\"I can see cars of people who tried to flee and they are coming back. It is chaos.\"\n\nThree hours after the ceasefire was supposed to begin, at 09:00 (07:00 GMT), Mariupol authorities announced they had postponed a planned mass evacuation because of the continued bombardment.\n\n\"We ask the people in Mariupol to head for the shelter, there will be more information on the evacuation asap,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Due to the fact that the Russian side is not sticking to the ceasefire and continues to shoot Mariupol itself and the outskirts, the evacuation has been postponed.\"\n\nMariupol, a port city of about 400,000 people, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.\n\nRussia has not commented on the renewed shelling, but its defence ministry said civilians had not used the escape routes from Mariupol and Volnovakha and accused Ukrainian authorities of preventing people from leaving, Russian state media said.\n\nMaxim, a 27-year-old IT developer, sent the BBC videos from his grandparents' Mariupol apartment building showing smoke from explosions near the city centre and he said smoke was rising from the highway to Zaporizhzhia - the planned ceasefire escape route.\n\n\"We can hear missiles and see smoke coming from buildings around us,\" Maxim said. \"Our apartment building is full of people now because everyone is fleeing the shelling into the city centre.\n\n\"Some people have come from the left bank district and they said it was a total disaster there and there were bodies in the streets.\"\n\nFamily members of those trapped in the city said they feared their loved ones were not getting any up-to-date information about what was happening.\n\n\"I talked to my uncle Dmitri for less than a minute before the phone connection cut,\" said Juliana Ivliova, 26.\n\n\"They didn't know about the evacuation or green corridor. People who know about it and try to get out are being told to turn and get back to their houses.\n\n\"The city is still being shelled. I'm devastated, I'm like a robot, I've gone completely numb. When I heard the voice of my uncle on the phone I just wanted to cry.\"\n\nKate Romanova, a 27-year-old designer from Mariupol, said her parents were trapped in the city and completely cut off.\n\n\"We talked to them at 8am and they had no information about the evacuation. They live in the city centre and they said there was non-stop shelling. They are hiding inside their building.\n\n\"Someone told me there were loudspeakers in the city that spread information about evacuation but people there don't know if they can trust it - they think it might be fake Russian information.\n\nDiana Berg, who escaped the city by car with her husband on Friday despite heavy shelling, said they left his mother behind because she refused to leave.\n\n\"We spent three days under the brutal non-stop shelling and then we decided it was suicide in the city or suicide on the road, and we chose the road,\" she said.\n\n\"Now we are full of guilt, we should have brought her with us. All these people are trapped. How will they get information? They are completely cut off.\"\n\nThe deputy mayor of Mariupol, Serhiy Orlov, confirmed to the BBC that the ceasefire had completely collapsed amid Russian bombardment.\n\n\"The Russians are continuing to bomb us and use artillery. It is crazy,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"There is no ceasefire in Mariupol and there is no ceasefire all along the route. Our civilians are ready to escape but they cannot escape under shelling.\"\n\nThousands of civilians were preparing on Friday morning to evacuate from Mariupol, in south-eastern Ukraine, and the smaller city of Volnovakha to the north.\n\nUp to 9,000 people were initially expected to attempt to escape Mariupol by bus and private vehicle on Saturday, Mr Orlov said, adding that trains were unable to run because infrastructure had been destroyed.\n\nLocal officials earlier said residents were in dire need of food, water and medicine because of Russia's blockade.\n\nIn a statement on Friday, the International Community of the Red Cross called the scenes in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities \"heartbreaking\" and said it was \"in dialogue with the parties about the safe passage of civilians from different cities affected by the conflict\".\n\nUkraine's army has so far held control of the Mariupol, but Russia has pounded residential areas with air strikes, leaving the entire population without water, power or sanitation for four days.\n\nRussia's increased aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities has raised fears it is shifting to a tactic of destruction from the air after failing to make significant progress on the ground.\n\nIn Volnovakha - another key city as it sits on the road between Mariupol and Russia-controlled Donetsk - heavy clashes have been taking place and much of the area has been flattened by Russian bombardments.\n\nThere were about 25,000 people there and since the bombardment 90% of buildings there have reportedly been destroyed.\n\nElsewhere, fighting continues in the north and the east of the country, with several cities bombarded by Russian shelling. In some places, there have been reports of hand-to-hand combat.\n\nOrysia Khimiak and Svitlana Libet contributed to this report.", "A residential block in the city of Irpin, just outside the capital Kyiv, has been shelled, video footage shows.\n\nMultiple projectiles appear to hit the building, followed by dust clouds.", "Boris Johnson held talks with Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko at Downing Street last week\n\nWorld leaders must mount a renewed effort to ensure Russia's \"horrific\" invasion of Ukraine fails, Boris Johnson has said.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, the prime minister said \"it is not future historians but the people of Ukraine who will be our judge\".\n\nBut Labour criticised the PM for not acting more quickly over sanctions.\n\nAhead of a series of meetings with international leaders, the prime minister said: \"Putin must fail and must be seen to fail in this act of aggression.\n\n\"It is not enough to express our support for the rules-based international order - we must defend it against a sustained attempt to rewrite the rules by military force.\"\n\nThe invasion was condemned by 141 nations at the UN General Assembly this week while 39 countries, co-ordinated by the UK, made the largest-ever referral for war crimes to the International Criminal Court.\n\nBut Mr Johnson is set to call on world leaders to make a \"renewed and concerted effort\" to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin, Downing Street said.\n\nIn his six-point plan to maintain pressure on Mr Putin, the prime minister said:\n\nThe prime minister is also expected to deliver his message at meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at Downing Street on Monday.\n\nOn Tuesday, he will host leaders of the V4 group of central European nations: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.\n\nDowning Street says these countries are already experiencing a humanitarian crisis, with 1.4 million people fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring nations in just 10 days. Mr Johnson said: \"The world is watching.\"\n\nOn Sunday, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone.\n\nNo 10 said the two men discussed \"the increasing threat Russia's barbaric attacks pose to Ukrainian civilians\" and \"the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ukraine, precipitated by Russia's indiscriminate attacks and ceasefire breaches\".\n\nIn its daily assessment posted on Twitter, the Ministry of Defence said the scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continued to surprise Russia.\n\nIt was likely Russia was trying to break Ukrainian morale by targeting multiple populated areas, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol, it added.\n\nIt went on to say the reported targeting of Russian supply lines was slowing the advance of their ground forces and there was a \"realistic possibility\" that Russia was concealing fuel trucks as regular support trucks.\n\nMeanwhile, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has warned Mr Putin not to \"test\" the UK.\n\nIn an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Wallace said: \"History is littered with authoritarian leaders underestimating the wider West and the United Kingdom. He clearly underestimated the international community.\"\n\nHe added: \"If we stick together and refuse to be intimidated then I believe he will fail.\"\n\nShadow foreign secretary David Lammy said Labour fully supported the UK joining international efforts to help Ukraine, but he called on the government to move faster on sanctioning oligarchs and politicians linked to the Kremlin.\n\nHe said: \"It is inexcusable that we have fallen behind the EU and the US on the number of individuals and entities sanctioned. Ministers must move faster, acting against Putin's cronies in days not months.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer is calling on the government to work with him on new laws to prevent Russian oligarchs and other very wealthy people misusing the courts to avoid criticism or sanctions.\n\nHe wants legislation to prevent so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapp) - legal challenges which aim to drain the resources of opponents or intimidate them from using the courts - which Sir Keir said he fears could be used to buy time to move oligarchs' money out of reach and avoid sanctions.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss has said she has received letters from lawyers representing people sanctioned by Britain threatening legal challenges, while Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has called such cases an \"abuse of our system\" and promised to address them.\n\nIt comes as the government says it is to change the law to make it easier to introduce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, after criticism the UK is acting too slowly.", "Drone footage shows the extent of destruction to buildings as well as Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, 60km (40 miles) north-west of Kyiv.", "Graham Bonham-Carter is said to be linked to Oleg Deripaska through five properties, according to the NCA\n\nA judge has frozen UK bank accounts operated by a British businessman amid allegations they are linked to one of Russia's most controversial oligarchs.\n\nAccounts linked to Graham Bonham-Carter, second cousin of actress Helena, and part of the extended famous family, were put on hold on Friday.\n\nNational Crime Agency investigators believe the accounts were being used to help Oleg Deripaska avoid sanctions.\n\nIt is alleged Mr Bonham-Carter manages property on behalf of the oligarch.\n\nGranting the order, Westminster Magistrates Court has given the National Crime Agency six months to investigate the accounts, in one of the first public court moves against an oligarch since the Ukraine crisis began.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter's lawyers have been contacted for comment. There is no suggestion anyone else in the Bonham-Carter family is being investigated by the NCA.\n\nOleg Deripaska is one of the richest men associated with President Putin - having made billions from his stake in Russia's aluminium industries.\n\nHe's been subjected to US sanctions since 2018 - but is not under any sanctions in the UK.\n\nHe first became widely known in the UK in 2008, when it emerged he had been involved in talks over a donation to the Conservative Party via George Osborne. The donation was never made - but the story triggered a huge row at the time about links between British politicians and Russia's elites.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter is described, on his Linkedin profile, as the director of a company that runs private homes and estates.\n\nAndrew Chadwick, a National Crime Agency investigator, told Westminster Magistrates Court that it wanted to freeze five bank accounts associated with Mr Bonham-Carter, of Surrey, to allow Mr Chadwick to investigate suspected links to Oleg Deripaska.\n\n\"The application is in respect of account-freezing orders for several bank accounts, held by Graham Bonham-Carter, of Surrey,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\n\"My investigation is that he is heavily linked with a well-known Russian oligarch, who is linked to various crimes and criminality and is currently subject to sanctions in the United States.\n\n\"My submission is that funds in accounts held by Mr Bonham-Carter may be for the use of, or from, criminal activity.\"\n\n\"Oleg Deripaska is a Russian national subject to sanctions since 2019,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\nThe officer told the court the US Treasury alleges Mr Deripaska has been involved in money laundering, threatening rivals, wiretapping a government official, extortion, racketeering, ordering a murder and having links to Russian organised crime. Mr Deripaska has called the US allegations and sanctions absurd.\n\nThe court heard that Mr Bonham-Carter had no criminal record and was not under investigation for taking part in organised crime.\n\nHe was said to be linked to Mr Deripaska through five properties - two in the United States and three in the UK, all of which are suspected to be ultimately held for the oligarch's benefit.\n\nIn London, Mr Chadwick said two properties, worth a combined £50m, were owned by a company based in the British Virgin Islands. That company benefited Mr Deripaska and the 'care-of' mailing address had been to Mr Bonham-Carter.\n\nHamstone House, near Weybridge in Surrey, is on the market for £18m\n\nThe third UK property is Hamstone House, a mansion near Weybridge, Surrey, currently on the market for £18m.\n\nMr Chadwick said that it was owned by Edenfield Investments and, according to public research, Mr Bonham-Carter's name had appeared on Land Registry documentation for the property when it was purchased. One of the aforementioned London properties had also been the forwarding address for mail to Hamstone House.\n\nThe two US properties, in New York and Washington, are owned by a company headed by Mr Bonham-Carter.\n\n\"Based on that information [about Mr Deripaska's apparent property] I have reasonable grounds to suspect that the accounts are being held for unlawful conduct,\" said Mr Chadwick.\n\n\"The suspicion is that property held in the name of Mr Bonham-Carter, or companies that he is linked to, in fact belongs to Mr Deripaska - and the reason for the structure is to mask the true ultimate beneficial owner and to evade the sanctions.\"\n\nDistrict Judge Tan Ikran approved the National Crime Agency's freezing order for the next six months - allowing the agency time to investigate.\n\nThe accounts hold just over £100,000, but the NCA has established that nearly £800,000 has additionally flowed through them since November 2020.\n\nMr Bonham-Carter will have the chance to make representations to the court at a date to be fixed.", "The Seacod set sail for Tranmere on 22 February\n\nWorkers are refusing to unload Russian oil from a German-flagged ship which is moored at a major British oil refinery.\n\nThe Seacod vessel is at a terminal on the River Mersey, from where oil is usually pumped to Stanlow Oil Refinery.\n\nThe UK government has banned ships with \"any Russian connection\" from entering its ports due to the country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHowever, the Unite union said cargo was not included in the ban and has called for ministers \"to close this loophole\".\n\nStanlow operators Essar said a German-flagged vessel was granted approval to berth by the Port Authority on Thursday.\n\nA spokesperson for the refinery, which supplies 16% of road transport fuels in the UK, said Essar \"remained deeply concerned by the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine\" and was \"fully complying with the statutory framework implemented by the UK government with regard to Russia-related entities\".\n\nThe firm said it had turned away Russian-flagged tankers earlier this week.\n\nIt added it had been \"working urgently to find alternative sources of diesel while simultaneously ensuring uninterrupted supply of fuel to the North West of England\".\n\nThe German-flagged tanker Seacod is berthed on the River Mersey\n\nSharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said they had informed the company that \"Unite workers at the facility will under no circumstances unload any Russian oil regardless of the nationality of the vessel which delivers it\".\n\nFollowing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK became the first country to ban all ships that are Russian-owned, operated, controlled, registered or flagged from entering its ports.\n\nHowever BBC business correspondent Simon Browning has said that many Russian businesses use transport that is licensed and registered in other countries, which experts describe as a \"loophole\" for sanction enforcement.\n\nA government spokesperson said \"the UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas, with imports making up just 4% of demand\".\n\n\"Ministers are exploring options to further reduce the already small amount of imports we do get from Russia and we continue to urge Europe to put in place plans to end their dependence on Russian gas.\"\n\nEarlier this week, dockers in Kent refused to unload two tankers of Russian gas, prompting the vessels to be diverted.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The BBC is temporarily suspending its journalists' work in Russia, in response to a new law which threatens to jail anyone Russia deems to have spread \"fake\" news on the armed forces.\n\nBBC Director-General Tim Davie said the legislation \"appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism\".\n\nThe Kremlin objects to the conflict being called a war, instead calling it a \"special military operation\".\n\nBBC News in Russian will still be produced from outside the country.\n\nAccess to BBC websites had already been restricted in Russia. News outlets Deutsche Welle, Meduza and Radio Liberty also had their services limited, Russia's state-owned news agency RIA said.\n\nLater on Friday, Canada's public broadcaster and Bloomberg News said they too had temporarily halted reporting from Russia, and news channel CNN said it would stop broadcasting in the country.\n\nAnd on Saturday, German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF announced they were stopping their reporting from Russia - as did Italy's Rai\n\nResponding to the legislation passed by the Russian authorities, BBC Director-General Tim Davie said: \"It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.\n\n\"Our BBC News service in Russian will continue to operate from outside Russia.\n\n\"The safety of our staff is paramount and we are not prepared to expose them to the risk of criminal prosecution simply for doing their jobs. I'd like to pay tribute to all of them, for their bravery, determination and professionalism.\n\n\"We remain committed to making accurate, independent information available to audiences around the world, including the millions of Russians who use our news services. Our journalists in Ukraine and around the world will continue to report on the invasion of Ukraine.\"\n\nRecord numbers of people have read the BBC's Russian language news website since the invasion, seeking up-to-date information on the conflict.\n\nThe announcements from global media outlets come a day after one of Russia's last independent news outlets, TV Rain, stopped broadcasting after coming under pressure for its coverage of the invasion.\n\nThe channel ended its final broadcast by showing staff walking off set.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Staff from TV Rain walk off set after final broadcast\n\nRussia's telecommunications regulator had accused the channel of \"inciting extremism, abusing Russian citizens, causing mass disruption of public calm and safety, and encouraging protests\".\n\n\"No to war,\" said Natalia Sindeyeva, one of the channel's founders, as employees walked out of the studio.\n\nThe channel then began playing footage of a performance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.\n\nThe ballet was used in Soviet-era broadcasts to mark the death of leaders, and was also played during the 1991 coup that contributed to the end of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe station's editor in chief, Tikhon Dzyadko, left Russia on Wednesday, saying it was due to concerns for his safety.\n\n\"The main problem is that we were covering Ukraine objectively, as professional journalists and covering from different sides. We had journalists going live and covering the situation,\" Ekaterina Kotrik, TV Rain presenter and former head of news, told the BBC.\n\nShe had to leave Russia due to the new law which could lead to prison terms of up to 15 years for people who intentionally spread what the Kremlin terms \"fake\" information about Russia's armed forces.\n\n\"Fifteen years in jail for just doing your job,\" Ms Kotrik said. \"It's the end of democracy in Russia. Any freedom is lost.\"\n\nRadio station Echo of Moscow was taken off air on Tuesday. On Thursday it was shut entirely by its board of directors and on Friday it was reported by Russia's Interfax agency that the lease at its office had been terminated and its website disabled.\n\nEkaterina Schulman is a political scientist who was presenting a programme on the station when it was taken off air.\n\n\"People like me might find ourselves with nowhere to work. Very soon there won't be media outlets, or lecture halls or other platforms where we can talk to the public,\" she told the BBC.\n\nRussia's state-controlled TV has depicted the war in a very different way to broadcasts seen around the rest of the world.\n\n\"Every deviation from the official narrative about this war is now punishable with jail,\" Mikhail Fishman, an independent journalist and commentator who recently left Russia, told the BBC.\n\n\"Everyone I know in Russian independent journalism has already left Russia or is trying desperately to do so now.\"\n\nThe newspaper Novaya Gazeta said in a tweet on Friday (in Russian) that it was removing material on the conflict, because of the threat of prosecution to journalists and other citizens disseminating information which differed from Russian defence ministry press releases.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Новая Газета This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe newspaper is run by Dmitry Muratov. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, along with Maria Ressa of the Philippines, for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.\n\nThe crackdown on independent journalists comes as Russia's economy has been hit by sanctions. Its currency, the rouble, has plunged in value, hitting the savings of citizens.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of \"nuclear terror\" after it reportedly bombarded a large nuclear power station, causing a fire in a nearby building.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin has insisted the war in Ukraine is \"going to plan\".\n\nThe BBC has issued a statement on how to access its content via circumvention tools.\n\nBBC advice on how to access BBC sites using circumvention tools", "Greg Robinson loved \"the simple things\", like spending time with his family\n\nFrom sausage rolls to sweeties and a coffee with a bun, there were many things that made Greg Robinson smile.\n\nBut none more so than his family, who he adored, and in particular his grandson, who allowed him to be a big kid.\n\nWhen the father-of-two, who was in his 50s, died suddenly in March 2021, his family's life was turned upside down.\n\n\"Granda Greg\" was fit and healthy and along with his wife, Nikki, ran a gift shop in his hometown of Donaghadee in County Down.\n\nWhether it was at work, walking the dog, with his local flute band or just out in his beloved town, his family say Greg made time for everyone.\n\nAfter his death, the community rallied around his family - particularly Nikki and their two daughters, Jess and Sam.\n\nNow, on the week of his first anniversary, they are giving back to their community by sharing some of the things that made him smile.\n\nThe little gifts have been being found around the town, each with a simple message: \"An act of kindness in memory of Greg Robinson\".\n\n\"We - Nikki, Jess and Sam - wanted to plan something together that allowed us to put our energy into something positive and give us something practical to do which we knew would have an impact on others,\" they told BBC News NI.\n\n\"We knew that by making others smile that we, in turn, would feel the benefit of that too.\n\n\"We wanted to give back to the community of Donaghadee that helped us.\n\n\"We have realised the importance of little things that have made us smile throughout the past year.\"\n\nAs Greg was \"a Donaghadee man, he loved his town and the community\", all the gifts were purchased locally.\n\nAmong them are chocolate bars; scents from the family's gift shop; flowers; and vouchers for a bakery, for some of his favourite sausage rolls, an ice-cream shop where he used to buy a quarter of sweets on a Saturday night, and a cafe because \"a wee coffee and a bun would have made dad's face light up with excitement\".\n\nMany recipients, including some who did not know Greg, have posted photos of their finds on a local Facebook page, prompting others to share memories.\n\n\"When someone dies, it is often the case that people are scared to mention the loved one in case it makes you sad, but the grief journey has taught us that this isn't the case and that the wonderful stories and chat about dad brings so much comfort,\" his family said.\n\n\"We love those times when we hear how dad had impacted their lives, from showing kindness as a teenager at high school, to chatting away to customers in his shop.\"\n\nNikki remembers her husband as being \"a true gentleman\" who was always making people laugh.\n\n\"He was so charismatic, lighting up the room whenever he walked in,\" she added.\n\nFor Jess and Sam, they will be forever grateful for him teaching them \"to focus on the positive parts of the day, looking for ways that we can express gratitude for every day things\".\n\nNikki says her husband was \"a raker\" who was always joking\n\nGreg's wife and daughters have decided that they will continue to mark his anniversary in this way.\n\n\"Our hope is that the finders of the envelopes will feel a wee rush of happiness and that it will bring a smile to their face.\n\n\"It would also be our hope that it sparks conversations about dad and how his legacy can live on in the community of Donaghadee.\"", "WWII Soviet propaganda poster depicting hoped-for victory over the Nazis - which Putin constantly references\n\nThere are moments when the tectonic plates of history shift beneath our feet and Europe is violently remade. It is time to recognise that we are at such a moment. Time too, to stop saying that it is somehow unbelievable that this can be happening in 2022.\n\nIt is no more unbelievable now than it was in 1914 or 1939 - nothing predetermined that they would be years when darkness would descend. That's not to say, of course, that we are on the edge of a war that will suck in the rest of Europe or even the world.\n\nThe point is that peace is always fragile - and that what happens even in the most distant corners of Europe will always affect all of us.\n\nDrawing the right lessons from those big moments when everything changes is not easy.\n\nThe French military commander Ferdinand Foch called the end of World War One a \"20-year\" ceasefire - because he felt the victorious allies had overplayed their hand in dealing with the defeated German Empire. He was about a year out.\n\nThe question for our generation is whether or not we made a similar miscalculation over how to handle Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. We rejoiced as Poland, the Baltic States and others took their place among the free nations of the world.\n\nPoland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - once occupied by Soviets - joined Nato in 1999. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia followed five years later.\n\nBut the dark energy that drives Vladimir Putin is the other side of that coin. He saw Russia diminished, humiliated and stripped of what he saw as its right to a buffer zone of subordinate states.\n\nHe illustrates the point with a story - which might even be true - from his own shadowy past. A former colonel in the counter-intelligence corps of the KGB, Putin was reduced to acting as a part-time taxi driver. One imagines he would have been rather a difficult one.\n\nAt some point he conceived an almost mystical concept of restoring lost Russian greatness. He must have been encouraged by the way in which he got away with the annexation of Crimea - from Ukraine - in 2014. After all, four years later we were enjoying the World Cup in Russia.\n\nWestern Europe's main reaction to the end of the Cold War was to take a 30-year holiday from serious defence spending.\n\nSoviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced the Soviet Union's dissolution and his resignation on 25 December 1991\n\nAt one point a few years ago, only four of Germany's 128 fighter aircraft were combat ready and the Dutch had a plan to dispose of every one of their heavy tanks. The Dutch have thought again and the Germans are now proposing to spend an extra €100bn (£83bn) on defence.\n\nIt is good of course that Germany reflects on its past, but it's even better that it is thinking of the future too.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a Social Democrat who certainly didn't run for office on a promise of raising defence spending but he has risen to the historical demands of the moment rather impressively.\n\n\"With the invasion of Ukraine we are in a new era,\" he told the German parliament - defining the challenge of that new era as a simple question: \"Whether we allow Putin to turn back the clock, or whether we mobilise power to set boundaries for warmongers such as Putin.\"\n\nThey are extraordinary words from the leader of a country where politicians once argued that the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 made it impossible to stand up to the Kremlin.\n\nSweden, which is wealthy and well-armed but militarily non-aligned, was the first country to feel colder winds blowing from the East and perhaps the first to act. It is increasing defence spending by an extraordinary 40% in its current five-year cycle - raising new infantry regiments and buying American Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nThe Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said simply: \" We have a situation where Russia is prepared to use military means to achieve political goals.\"\n\nSo the rather decadent view - that the only weapon the West would ever need is economic sanctions - is out of fashion now. You can't fight tanks with banks. No-one wants to see this continent turned into an armed camp of course, but when you feel those tectonic plates shifting you have to shift with them. Acting now - buying weapons and donating money - is the easy bit when the hot sharp stab of outrage is fresh.\n\nBut this new age of containment is going to call for much more. The will to stand with Ukrainians first - but then the grit, vision and staying power to stand guard over freedom wherever and whenever the next attack might come.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nA minute's silence was held before Australia men and women's matches as tributes to continued to pour in for Shane Warne, who died on Friday.\n\nLeg-spinner Warne, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died of a suspected heart attack aged 52.\n\nA stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will be permanently renamed the SK Warne Stand as a tribute.\n\nAustralian fast bowler Glenn McGrath described Warne as the \"ultimate competitor\".\n\nMcGrath, who formed a formidable partnership with Warne for Australia, said: \"Warnie was larger than life. I thought nothing could ever happen to him.\n\n\"He thought the game was never lost, that he could turn it around and bring us to victory, which he did so many times.\"\n\nFans left flowers, beer cans and photographs at Warne's statue at the MCG.\n\nWarne took his first Test hat-trick at the MCG and also claimed his 700th Test wicket at the ground in 2006.\n\nVictorian Premier Daniel Andrews has offered a state funeral to the family of a man who he said \"defined a generation\".\n\n\"To us, he was the greatest - but to his family, he was so much more. Our hearts are breaking for Shane's family and friends,\" Andrews said.\n\n\"I have offered a state funeral to his family so Victorians can pay tribute to his legacy and contribution to our state, community and country.\"\n\nState funerals are held to honour people of national significance.\n\nAustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also offered his family a state funeral for Warne.\n• None Warne obituary: A fascinating life on & off the field\n\nFormer Australia batter Ricky Ponting, who captained Warne from 2004-2007, called him \"the greatest bowler I ever played with or against\".\n\n\"He gave me my nickname [Punter]. We were team-mates for more than a decade, riding all the highs and lows together,\" Ponting wrote on Twitter.\n\n\"Through it all he was someone you could always count on, someone who loved his family, someone who would be there for you when you needed him and always put his mates first.\"\n\nAustralia and Pakistan men wore black armbands and held a minute's silence before play on the second day of the first Test in Lahore.\n\nAustralia's women also wore black armbands in their Women's World Cup victory against England and observed a silence for both Warne and Rod Marsh, who died on Thursday.\n\nLeg-spinner Alana King touched her armband after dismissing Tammy Beaumont as a mark of respect to Warne.\n\nCricketers in the Sheffield Shield, Australia's domestic competition, also wore black armbands and AFL players observed a minute's silence.\n\nTom Mitchell, who plays for Victoria-based Hawthorne in the AFL, left a football by Warne's statue to pay respect to \"a guy who just loved sport\".\n\nWarne died in his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui on Friday of a suspected heart attack.\n\nThai police told Reuters one of three friends staying with Warne found him unconscious and performed CPR on him before medics arrived.\n\nThey added the death was not being treated as suspicious.\n\n\"The case is still under investigation, and will need a detailed autopsy result to prove the real cause of death,\" Thai police spokesperson Kissana Phathanacharoen said.", "From a basement in the centre of Kyiv, BBC Correspondent James Waterhouse reports on how lives across Ukraine have changed irrevocably in the last seven days.\n\nFrom a basement in the centre of Kyiv, BBC correspondent, James Waterhouse, has been reporting on the seismic developments in Ukraine as the Russian bombardment continues. In this special programme, James speaks with colleagues from BBC News across Ukraine and Russia on the extraordinary impact of seven days that have changed the world.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nLegendary Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne, one of the greatest cricketers of all time, has died of a suspected heart attack aged 52.\n\nWarne took 708 Test wickets, the second most of all time, in 145 matches across a stellar 15-year international career.\n\nHe had been found unresponsive in his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui on Friday, said his management company.\n\n\"It is with great sadness we advise that Shane Keith Warne passed away of a suspected heart attack,\" it added.\n\n\"Despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived.\n\n\"The family requests privacy at this time and will provide further details in due course.\"\n\nAustralia Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Warne's family will be offered a state funeral for him.\n\nWarne helped Australia win the 1999 50-over World Cup and claimed 293 dismissals in 194 one-day internationals between 1993 and 2005.\n\nIn 2000, he was named one of the five Wisden cricketers of the century, alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Sir Viv Richards.\n\nHe retired from international cricket in 2007 following Australia's 5-0 Ashes clean sweep of England at home.\n\nWarne also retired from first-class and List A cricket later that year, ending a seven-year spell with Hampshire, who he had captained since 2004.\n\nHe continued to play Twenty20 franchise cricket until retiring from all formats in 2013.\n• None Shane Warne obituary: A fascinating life on and off the cricket field\n• None Cricket pays tribute after death of its 'greatest showman'\n• None Shane Warne dies: All the tributes and reaction\n\nWarne worked regularly as a commentator and pundit, as well as holding coaching roles at T20 franchises.\n\nHe is survived by his three children with former wife Simone Callahan.\n\nHis death comes on the same day as legendary former Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, who died aged 74 of a heart attack, and was announced shortly after the close of play on day one of Australia's first Test in Pakistan.\n\nWarne's mastery of leg-spin - a style of bowling that declined during the 1970s and 1980s when fast bowlers dominated - revolutionised cricket.\n\nHis magnificent control and canny variations bewildered even the greatest batters of his generation.\n\nOnly Sri Lankan off-spinning great Muttiah Muralitharan, with 800 dismissals, has taken more Test wickets than Warne.\n\nHe was also a fine slip fielder and capable lower-order batter, scoring 3,154 runs at an average of 17.32 and is the only batter in Test history to surpass 3,000 runs without making a century - falling for 99 against New Zealand in 2001 and 90 against England in 2005.\n\nWarne was a larger-than-life figure whose fame transcended cricket and his sense of fun inspired successive generations of fans.\n\n\"Shane was a once-in-a-century cricketer and his achievements will stand for all time,\" said Australia men's Test captain Pat Cummins.\n\n\"So many of us in the playing group grew up idolising him and fell in love with this great sport as a result.\"\n\nCricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley added: \"Shane was one of the most talented and charismatic cricketers we have ever witnessed.\n\n\"He loved cricket, had an extraordinarily astute understanding of the game and his influence and legacy will last for as long as it is played.\n\n\"We are in a state of complete shock at his sudden passing and our thoughts are with his family, his many friends and the legion of fans from all over the world who loved and admired Warnie for his unbelievable bowling skills, his humour, warmth and engaging personality.\"\n• None 5 Live Sport special: All About... Shane Warne, the 'King of Spin'\n\nWarne holds the record for the most Ashes wickets in history, with 195 dismissals in 36 Tests.\n\nHe made his Test debut against India in 1992 after only seven first-class matches for his native Victoria, but announced himself on the world stage in astonishing style in the 1993 Ashes in England.\n\nWith his first ball of the series, Warne bowled England batter Mike Gatting with a stunning delivery that pitched outside leg stump and clipped the top of off stump.\n\nIt became widely known as the 'ball of the century'.\n\nThat was the first of six Ashes victories in a row involving Warne, until the run was ended by England's famous 2-1 win in 2005, despite the leg-spinner taking a staggering 40 wickets in that series.\n\nWarne gained revenge in 2006-07 when Australia won 5-0 and retired on the same day as long-time team-mates Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer.\n\nWarne was a key part of Australia's run to the 1996 World Cup final, where they were beaten by Sri Lanka.\n\nHe became vice-captain under Steve Waugh and starred in the 1999 World Cup triumph, being named man of the match after taking 4-33 in the final against Pakistan.\n\nHowever, he was sent home the day before the 2003 tournament started after testing positive for a banned diuretic and served a one-year ban from the sport.\n\nAustralia would go on to win the 2003 World Cup by beating India.\n\nWarne led Australia 11 times in ODIs but never captained the Test team, with batter Ricky Ponting replacing Waugh.\n\nWarne captained Hampshire for four seasons during a spell with the county from 2000 to 2007, and they named a stand after him at their Ageas Bowl ground in 2012.\n\nUnder Warne, Hampshire won the one-day Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy in 2005 - although he was unable to play in the Lord's final which was in the middle of the 2005 Ashes - and narrowly missed out on a County Championship title the same year.\n\nHe played his entire domestic career in Australia for Victoria.\n\nHe also played for Melbourne Stars in Australia's Big Bash League and Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League, also coaching the latter.\n\nIn last year's inaugural Hundred he coached London Spirit.\n\nShane Warne wasn't just one of the greatest spin bowlers in the game's history - he was also one of cricket's great characters.\n\nHis partnership with seamer Glenn McGrath made Australia virtually invincible in the 1990s.\n\nIn terms of a wrist-spinner's repertoire, Warne perfected the art completely, spinning the ball vast distances and always with a touch of theatre.\n\nHe took that character with him into the commentary box and beyond cricket. He featured regularly on the world poker circuit, and while brushes with the authorities were also a feature of his life, his contribution to cricket will never be forgotten.\n\n'He was the greatest showman' - tributes flood in for Warne\n• None Shane Warne dies: Follow all the tributes and reaction\n\nFormer England captain Sir Andrew Strauss told BBC Radio 5 Live: \"I'm utterly shocked and saddened. Shane Warne was cricket's greatest star and he was a guy who, I suppose, you felt the rules of life didn't apply to him. To hear about his untimely demise is genuinely shocking and I know the whole cricket world is in a great deal of mourning.\"\n\nStrauss added: \"He was the greatest showman. There were other great cricketers when you look at their records would potentially equal Shane's or maybe better it. But there was no greater star in cricket than Shane Warne, certainly in the time I have been around. You felt every time you were on the pitch against him it was his show. You were just a small part of his show.\n\n\"He used that to his advantage in terms of getting you out. He had such charisma and such passion for the game that it was infectious. If you were lucky enough to spend time with him off the pitch it was always a privilege. A man of great generosity of spirit, great passion for the game and a man who is going to be sorely missed.\"\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"Really shocked and really sad to hear such a legend of the game passed so suddenly.\n\n\"We had just started the game and it filtered through the dressing room. It's been quite a quiet dressing room off the back of it. It's hit everyone quite hard if I'm being brutally honest.\n\n\"My experiences of Shane were of someone who absolutely loved the game of cricket. He was always a joy to be around, he gave so much energy to the sport. As a kid growing up he was a massive idol of mine and someone you wanted to emulate. The way he could win a game on his own, his skill levels were incredible.\n\n\"I'd have been 14 when the 2005 Ashes was on, in many ways that series was a massive influence on my career.\"\n\nFormer England captain Mike Gatting told BBC Radio 5 Live: \"It's been devastating really, unbelievable. When you think he's just 52 and he's been an absolute legend in the game. I don't use that word lightly either. It's been unreal. We've lost a great cricketer and a great guy.\n\n\"The figures talk for themselves but he was inspirational to many, many young children. Certainly if you look at county cricket now, where he played himself for Hampshire.\n\n\"He inspired a lot of kids to take up spin bowling. The way he approached the game, he was knowledgeable, he loved the game. He was dedicated to the game but he also had a bit of fun as well.\"", "John Stahl appearing at the Royal Court Theatre, London in 2016\n\nGame Of Thrones actor John Stahl has died at the age of 68, his agent has confirmed.\n\nThe Scottish actor played the role of Rickard Karstark in two series of the popular HBO fantasy show.\n\nHe was also well known for playing Inverdarroch in the long-running soap opera Take The High Road.\n\nA statement from his agent Amanda Fitzalan Howard described him as \"an actor of remarkable skill and a stalwart of Scottish theatre\".\n\nStahl, who was from Sauchie in Clackmannanshire, also appeared in numerous theatre productions during his career, including performances at The Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre.\n\nScottish screenwriter Peter May also remembered the actor and recalled how he had recently attended his online wedding.\n\nHe said: \"Terribly sad to hear that my old friend, John Stahl, has passed. I wrote so many scenes for the character of Inverdarroch that he portrayed in Take The High Road.\n\n\"Only recently attended his online wedding. Saw him last in Adelaide, Australia, for a fun reunion. RIP John.\"\n\nWriter Ian Rankin, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels, said he had hoped to work with the actor again after he featured in his play Long Shadows, describing his portrayal as \"terrifying and charismatic\".\n\nScottish playwright and theatre director David Greig described him as a \"truly great actor\" and noted that the Scottish theatre world will miss him.\n\nHe added that he was a \"beloved company member\" in many Scottish shows, recalling his roles in The Winter's Tale, Gagarin Way and his own play The Architect.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by National Theatre of Scotland This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by National Theatre of Scotland\n\nThe National Theatre of Scotland also paid tribute, saying they were \"deeply saddened\" to hear the news.\n\nThey shared a photo of the actor on Twitter and added: \"We were fortunate to work with John on Mary Stuart and The James Plays.\n\n\"His passing is a huge loss to the industry, and he will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his loved ones.\"\n\nMr Stahl died on the Isle of Lewis on 2 March and is survived by his wife, Jane Paton.", "Ukrainian civilians, assisted by the country's military, are evacuating the small city of Irpin, which sits just 20km (12 miles) north-west of Kyiv.\n\nThe route is a difficult one, with many having to travel by foot along shelled roads and damaged bridges.\n\nIrpin has found itself on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces over the past week.\n\nArtillery and air strikes have caused severe damage in the area, with at least one attack leaving a residential tower block almost completely destroyed.\n\nIn recent days, trains have been transporting evacuees, mostly women and children, from Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv into the capital.\n\nEarlier this week, the shelling of a residential block in Irpin was captured in video footage.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Video shows a block of flats in Irpin, near Kyiv, being hit by projectiles\n\nAll images are subject to copyright.", "Models walk the runway in a Chanel fashion show in Moscow in 2018\n\nFrench luxury giants have joined other firms in announcing they will suspend sales in Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.\n\nLVMH, Hermes, Kering and Chanel have decided to temporarily shut their shops in Russia, the firms said on Friday.\n\nIt follows calls from Ukrainian high-end stores to \"stand up\" following the invasion of the country.\n\nLuxury retailers have so far largely been left out of sanctions introduced by Western governments.\n\nBut many have found doing business and fulfilling orders in the region more difficult, after measures introduced by the UK, European Union and US.\n\nThe maker of pricey Birkin bags Hermes and the Swiss Cartier owner Richemont were among the first firms to announce that they would pause business in Russia.\n\nLVMH, which owns such brands as Christian Dior, Givenchy and Bulgari among others, will close its 124 boutiques in the country from Sunday.\n\nChanel, famous for its boucle jackets, said in a LinkedIn post: \"Given our increasing concerns about the current situation, the growing uncertainty and the complexity to operate, Chanel decided to temporarily pause its business in Russia.\"\n\nKering, which is home to Gucci and Saint Laurent, has two shops in Russia, along with 180 employees in the country.\n\nThe French firm said its decision was due to \"growing concerns regarding the current situation in Europe\".\n\nAn executive at a luxury Ukrainian department store told the BBC that high-end firms must \"choose humanity over monetary gain\".\n\nMarusya Koval, marketing director at Tsum Kyiv, pointed out that some firms have pledged aid, but have not commented on whether they will stop selling their products in Russia.\n\nMarusya Koval said fashion brands need to do more for Ukraine\n\nShe said brands publishing social media posts in support of Ukraine \"won't help us to stop the war\".\n\nFashion house Prada, for example, did not respond to requests for comment from BBC News on whether it would stop selling its products in Russia.\n\nIn an Instagram post earlier this week, it said the war in Ukraine was \"of great concern\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by prada This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCountless other firms have already announced plans to withdraw from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGiorgio Armani has not said if it plans to stop sales in Russia, but Mr Armani said he told his team to not play any music at its recent Paris fashion show to \"communicate that we are not celebrating here\".\n\nThe Tsum Kyiv department store, as with other retailers in the Ukrainian market, is shutting down as Russian troops advance on the capital.\n\nMs Koval said she wanted to see the fashion and luxury industry \"react immediately by imposing sanctions on Russian brands, stores and retailers\".\n\nJewels on display at a Bulgari exhibition at the Kremlin Museum in Moscow in 2018\n\nWhile affluent Russians are keen consumers of luxury goods, analysts say the proportion of luxury sales generated in Russia is small compared to the industry's key markets - China and the United States.\n\nAnalyst Luca Solca, of Bernstein Research, said luxury fashion in Russia makes up about 2% of global revenues for most companies.\n\nHe said firms \"must be considering their options\" but said it could be \"possible\" brands were trying to make the most of Russian spending before sanctions affect the sector.\n\n\"There's a huge devaluation of the rouble so one of the ways they try to cushion it would be to buy expensive jewellery products.\n\n\"It's not a bad overall assumption, it could be happening,\" he said.\n\nProf. Etel Solingen from the University of California's School of Social Sciences told BBC News that targeted sanctions on luxury goods might target those closely linked to the upper levels of power in Russia.\n\n\"Who can afford to buy luxury items in Russia?... It may be a small fraction of Russia's growing penalties for what it has unleashed on the Ukraine, but they target a constituency that is better positioned to express discontent,\" she said.\n\nShe described brands making supportive comments on social media while supplying luxury goods as \"hypocritical\".\n\nProf. Thomai Serdari from the Stern School of Business at NYU said that luxury brands were mainly \"in the business of selling their creations\", goods that many people \"covet\".\n\n\"In tense moments like the one we are living now, it is a very good idea to not aggravate the situation with an explicit statement that would offend anyone and that could perhaps provoke a worse reaction,\" she suggested.\n\nShe added that there was \"no question\", however, that Russia's isolation would hurt high-end brands who have a presence in the country or continue to sell their goods online there.", "Jim Crossley died after being stabbed earlier this week\n\nA 31-year-old woman has admitted killing her boyfriend in west Belfast earlier this week.\n\nJulie-Ann McIlwaine, of Filbert Drive in Dunmurry, stabbed Jim Crossley, 38, at her Dunmurry home on Tuesday.\n\nHe died less than an hour later at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast.\n\nLisburn Magistrates' Court also heard that Ms McIlwaine had been a victim of domestic violence and had been in a two-year relationship with Mr Crossley.\n\nA detective inspector told the court that Northern Ireland Ambulance Service received a call at 23:47 GMT from the accused who told them that she had stabbed her boyfriend six times in the chest.\n\nWhen the ambulance crews arrived they were directed upstairs by a neighbour.\n\nHe was taken to hospital and suffered a cardiac arrest enroute. He died at Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital at 00:40 on Wednesday.\n\nThe police officer said that Ms McIlwaine gave an open and honest account of what happened to the police.\n\nMr Crossley died of five stab wounds to the chest and one large stab wound to the inner thigh.\n\nAfter being arrested she told police that after Mr Crossley had taken his medication, he had gone to bed, and she then stabbed him.\n\nThe court heard that Ms Mcllwaine had been a victim of domestic violence during her relationship with Mr Crossley.\n\nHe had told her she had to decide between him or her family, Ms McIlwaine said.\n\nShe had three other children from a previous relationship. Their father had full custody of the children.\n\nMs McIlwaine had a 10 month old baby with Mr Crossley.\n\nHe said it was a very unique case that there had been no objection to bail from the police in such a serious crime.\n\nThe police had concerns about the women's safety in relation to herself - the court heard that Ms Mcillwaine had tried to take her own life previously.\n\nShe was released on bail to stay with her sister.\n\nThe prosecution is appealing the bail.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Kherson is Ukraine\": Protests against Russian occupation take place in the only big city captured so far\n\nProtests against Russian occupation have broken out in the port city of Kherson, Ukraine's only big city to have been captured in the war so far.\n\nAbout 2,000 people marched through the city centre, waving flags and singing the Ukrainian national anthem.\n\nThey shouted patriotic slogans including \"Russians go home\" and \"Kherson is Ukraine\".\n\nKherson, a key port on the Black Sea and the Dnieper River, fell to Russian troops earlier this week.\n\nVideos of the protest on social media show Russian troops firing into the air to deter the approaching crowd.\n\nOne local resident, Yevhen, told the BBC the protest was a march for freedom and Ukrainian independence.\n\nWhen asked whether Ukrainian forces were trying to retake Kherson, he said: \"Every night we hear about six or 10 explosions. It sounds like mortars. We don't know who is bombing whom.\"\n\nHe added: \"We are trying not to go outside because Russian troops are stopping cars, checking what is in the cars. They are even checking phones, searching for evidence of helping the Ukrainian army.\"\n\nOther locals have told the BBC that Russian soldiers have a list of Ukrainian activists they want to capture.\n\nElsewhere in the country on the 10th day of the invasion, the Russian defence ministry said its units had opened humanitarian corridors to let civilians leave the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, which are under siege by its forces.\n\nHowever, Ukrainian authorities said Russia was not observing the ceasefire and attacks were continuing, so mass evacuations had been postponed.\n\nRussia later announced that its assault on Mariupol was under way again.\n\n\"Due to the unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to influence nationalists or extend the ceasefire, offensive actions have been resumed,\" a Russian defence ministry spokesman said.\n\nRussian forces continued to shell Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier, local residents told the BBC.\n\n\"I'm right now in Mariupol, I'm on the street, I can hear shelling every three to five minutes,\" said Alexander, a 44-year-old engineer.\n\nMariupol, a port city of about 400,000 people, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nAustralia Test captain Pat Cummins says Shane Warne was a \"once-in-a-century cricketer\" as he led the tributes to the iconic leg-spinner who died on Friday aged 52.\n\nWarne took 708 Test wickets, the second most of all time, in 145 matches across a stellar 15-year international career.\n\nKnown for his showmanship and charisma, Warne inspired a generation of fans and players alike.\n\n\"The game of cricket was never the same after Shane emerged,\" said Cummins.\n\n\"And it will never be the same now he has gone. So many of us in the playing group grew up idolising him and fell in love with this great sport as a result. Rest in peace, King.\"\n• None Shane Warne obituary: A fascinating life on and off the cricket field\n• None Shane Warne dies: Follow all the tributes and reaction\n\nCummins added: \"Shane was a once-in-a-century cricketer and his achievements will stand for all time, but apart from the wickets he took and the games he helped Australia win, what he did was draw so many people to the sport.\n\n\"Players all over the world owe him so much for what he has brought to cricket. He had a huge effect on all he met. He transcended cricket.\"\n\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, former England captain Sir Andrew Strauss described Warne as the sport's \"greatest showman\".\n\n\"There were other great cricketers who when you looked at their records would potentially equal Shane's or maybe in some cases even better them. But there was no greater star in cricket than Shane Warne,\" said Strauss.\n\n\"And you felt that when you went on the pitch against him - it was his show and you were just a small part of his show. He literally was the greatest showman.\"\n• None 5 Live Sport special: All About... Shane Warne, the 'King of Spin'\n\nWarne shot to prominence in astonishing fashion in the 1993 Ashes in England.\n\nWith his first ball of the series, he bowled Mike Gatting with a stunning delivery that pitched outside leg stump and clipped the top of off stump and later became widely known as the 'ball of the century'.\n\nFrom there he went on to become arguably the best player in Australia's all-conquering side of the 1990s and early 2000s, winning multiple Ashes series and the 1999 World Cup.\n\nHe claimed 293 dismissals in 194 one-day internationals between 1993 and 2005, and in 2000 was chosen by Wisden as one of the five outstanding players of the 20th century alongside Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs and Sir Viv Richards.\n\nWarne retired from international cricket in 2007 following Australia's 5-0 Ashes clean sweep of England at home.\n\nHe also retired from first-class and List A cricket later that year, ending a seven-year spell with Hampshire, who he had captained since 2004. He continued to play Twenty20 franchise cricket until retiring from all formats in 2013.\n\nEngland captain Joe Root added: \"My experiences of Shane were of someone who absolutely loved the game of cricket.\n\n\"He was always a joy to be around, he gave so much energy to the sport. As a kid growing up he was a massive idol of mine and someone you wanted to emulate. The way he could win a game on his own, his skill levels were incredible.\n\n\"I'd have been 14 when the 2005 Ashes was on, in many ways that series was a massive influence on my career.\"\n\nFormer England spinner Phil Tufnell, who competed against Warne before later sharing a commentary box with him as a pundit, called the Australian an \"absolute superstar\".\n\n\"He emptied bars, when Shane Warne was bowling people came out and sat there and got involved in the game,\" Tufnell told 5 Live.\n\n\"He got people to fall back in love with spin bowling. Everyone wanted to be a spinner and a leggy when there was just a sea of fast bowlers.\n\n\"He had a fantastic cricket brain as well. I got to know him quite well off the field and he had a love for the game and knowledge for the game. Who could he help? What young spinner could he go and help and give some advice to?\n\n\"People say you are never bigger than the game but if anyone every got close to it I reckon it was Shane.\"\n\nAustralia's 2010 world snooker champion Neil Robertson said the news of Warne's death was like being \"hit by a truck\", adding: \"All of Australia will be in mourning. He's our national hero, with what he did for Australian cricket and cricket all over the world.\n\n\"It's like when Diego Maradona died for Argentines. It's as bad as it gets and I just feel awful for his friends and family and cricket fans around the world.\"\n\nFormer India Test captain Virat Kohli said Warne was \"the greatest to turn the cricket ball\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night.\"\n\nThat was the verdict of the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday, after Russia attacked and seized a nuclear power plant in Ukraine.\n\nBuildings at the Zaporizhzhia plant - the largest in Europe - were damaged after it was hit by shelling.\n\nThe UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), says that none of the safety systems at the plant were affected, and there was no release of radioactive material.\n\nBut it is still a very risky situation.\n\n\"For the first time this morning, I'm frightened,\" Sheffield University nuclear materials expert Prof Claire Corkhill told BBC News.\n\nAs well as the Zaporizhzhia plant, Russia has taken control of the now-retired Chernobyl plant - the site of the worst nuclear incident in history.\n\nExperts have stressed that there are important differences between the two plants.\n\nThe Zaporizhzhia site is far more secure, according to Dr Mark Wenman of Imperial College London.\n\nHe says the reactor is in a steel-reinforced concrete building that can \"withstand extreme external events, both natural and man-made, such as an aircraft crash or explosions\".\n\nThe Zaporizhzhia plant also does not contain any graphite in its reactor.\n\nAt Chernobyl graphite caused a significant fire and was the source of the radiation plume that travelled across Europe.\n\nTowns near Chernobyl were abandoned following the nuclear incident\n\nHowever, scientists say a military attack on the reactor itself isn't the only threat. Disruption to its electricity supply could also cause serious issues.\n\n\"You don't need to hit directly a plant to get a problem,\" said Olexi Pasiuk, deputy director of Ecoaction, an energy pressure group in Ukraine.\n\nThe Ukrainians were in the process of taking the reactors offline to protect them. Only one of the six reactors operational at the power plant is now thought to be running.\n\nBut reactors cannot just be turned off like conventional energy supplies. They must be cooled slowly over 30 hours, which requires a constant electricity supply to the plant.\n\nA disruption to this supply - and therefore the cooling process - could lead to radiation leaking into the surrounding environment.\n\nA loss of cooling like this was experienced at Japan's Fukushima plant following the 2011 tsunami.\n\nIn that case a loss of power caused a meltdown in three of its nuclear reactors.\n\nIf people are exposed to leaked radiation it can cause severe immediate and long-term health impacts including cancer.\n\nThis was seen in 1986 at Chernobyl.\n\nRussia may be trying to curb Ukraine's power capabilities, Prof Corkhill said.\n\n\"They're taking the rectors offline. This means they're shutting down the nuclear reaction and putting them into a safe and stable state.\n\n\"And this could be the intention of the Russians: if you want to target their power supply, you attack a building close to the power plant and force operators to shut it down.\"\n\nThere are four major nuclear plants in Ukraine, and the defunct Chernobyl.\n\nRussia has control of Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl and it is approaching a third site - the south Ukraine nuclear power plant.\n\nThere are also smaller plants and radioactive disposal sites which store waste material from nuclear power operations across Ukraine.\n\nOn 27 February, Russian missiles also reportedly hit the site of a radioactive waste disposal facility in Kyiv.\n\nUkraine's nuclear inspectorate said no radiation leaks were reported and the plant was not directly damaged.\n\nFor now, Russian forces - who have blamed the attack on Ukrainian saboteurs - have allowed staff to remain in the control room at Zaporizhzhia, to run operations.\n\nBut world leaders have accused the Kremlin of acting recklessly. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it could \"directly threaten the safety of all of Europe\", and Ukraine's president accused Russia of \"nuclear terror\".\n\nIAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said: \"We shouldn't wait for something like this to happen [again].\"\n\nHe plans to travel to Ukraine to negotiate with Russian forces for the safe operation of all power plants in Ukraine.", "Images and video emerged on Friday showing destruction in residential areas of Chernihiv and other cities\n\nCivilians in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv have described being trapped under relentless shelling as Russia indiscriminately pounds residential neighbourhoods there and in several other cities.\n\n\"We can hear the sounds right now of air strikes nearby,\" Svitlana, 40, told the BBC. She was hiding in Chernihiv on Friday morning under her dining table with her two children, aged six and three, and her neighbours in her five-storey apartment building.\n\n\"There are no military targets here, there is only a cemetery, residential buildings, clinics and a hospital, why are they bombing us?\" Svitlana said.\n\nRussia escalated its air campaign against Ukraine on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 47 civilians in Chernihiv and continuing to lay siege to residential areas in Mariupol, Borodyanka and Kharkiv.\n\nAerial attacks in Chernihiv destroyed high-rise apartments buildings and damaged a clinic and hospital, sending residents fleeing into the streets and to underground bunkers.\n\nAn apartment building 500m from Svitlana's was destroyed on Thursday, she said. Her building sits just 50m from a children's hospital, where staff had taken children including cancer patients to a shelter between the two buildings but were not able to create a sterile environment there and were struggling to evacuate the children.\n\nReached on Friday morning, Sergey Zosimenko, a charity worker supporting the hospital, told the BBC that the staff were in the process of attempting an evacuation.\n\nImages and video footage from Chernihiv, which is 90 miles (144 km) north of the capital Kyiv and home to about 300,000 people, showed indiscriminate destruction to residential areas, drawing immediate comparisons to the devastating Russian bombing campaigns against Grozny in the late 1990s and Aleppo in 2016. Chernihiv has reportedly been surrounded by Russian forces.\n\nThe BBC verified the full names and exact locations of people it spoke to in Chernihiv and other cities under attack but is not publishing those details for safety reasons.\n\nKatya, a 22-year-old nurse in Chernihiv, said she had been able to hear the sounds of continuous shelling throughout Friday morning.\n\n\"I'm calling back now because I don't know if it will be too late, I don't know if we will survive,\" she said.\n\n\"There is me, my mother, my grandma and our neighbour and we all are hiding in our house. At this very moment I can hear the shelling. Local hospitals and schools are destroyed. Russians promised not to kill civilians but they are killing.\"\n\nLarysa, a 52-year-old maths teacher, managed to escape alive with her husband, sister and brother-in-law after their Chernihiv apartment building was hit in a direct strike.\n\n\"We were hiding in the staircase near our sixth-floor apartment and we could hear planes flying overhead and they sounded low,\" she said. \"Suddenly there was a boom and the whole building shook. We ran outside and people were screaming. We could see that the missile went through our building and hit the next building.\"\n\nLarysa's apartment building, hit while she was hiding in the staircase with her family\n\nRussia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape from cities under siege, but residents in Chernihiv and in the southern port city of Mariupol told the BBC on Friday that there had been no significant break in the aerial bombardment to allow people to move.\n\nThe escalating strikes on residential areas raised concerns that Russia would continue to target civilians from the air after meeting staunch resistance from Ukraine's army and failing to make significant progress on the ground. The bombing of Chernihiv on Tuesday came after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, told French leader Emmanuel Macron that Russia would achieve its military goals in Ukraine \"whatever happens\".\n\nHeavy bombardment continued in Mariupol, which entered its third day on Friday without power, water or its sanitation system. The city's deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, told the BBC on Friday that the city council was trying to create a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to escape.\n\n\"We have been preparing everything we can, transport, routes, supplies, but as of Friday morning there is no agreement how and when we can get people out and there has been no break in the shelling,\" he said.\n\nMr Orlov said the Ukrainian army was holding its positions around Mariupol, \"but they cannot do anything about aerial bombing\".\n\n\"What you have to understand is this is not troops fighting troops, Putin sees destruction and humanitarian crisis as the goal. He wants to terrify people and force them to lose their will.\"\n\nDamage in central Kharkiv in Thursday after days of aerial bombardment against the eastern city\n\nIn Kharkiv, in the east, Ukrainian authorities said the city had been \"pounded all night\" by indiscriminate shelling, which UN prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.\n\n\"Yes the shelling has been constant,\" said Elena, a 59-year-old engineer who was hiding in the basement of her apartment building with her daughter and grandchild. \"We can hear planes flying overhead and explosions,\" she said. \"Nothing has hit our building yet.\"\n\nMasha, a 24-year-old communications manager in western Ukraine, whose aunt Larysa survived the direct strike on her Chernihiv apartment building, said she had \"no feelings right now, only emptiness\".\n\n\"It is the eighth day of the war and I can't feel anything - no fear, no nothing. Chernihiv was my second home, and now it's destroyed,\" Masha said.\n\n\"I didn't realise what was really happening until the moment I saw a slow-motion video of a missile hitting the building I used to live in.\"\n\nSvitlana, who was sheltering in her Chernihiv apartment with her two children and neighbours, said she could only wait for a break in the shelling.\n\n\"We are terrified here but we have to be brave,\" she said. \"Ukraine above all.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nUkraine topped the medal table with three golds on the first day of the Winter Paralympics in Beijing.\n\nBiathlete Grygorii Vovchynskyi triumphed in the men's sprint standing event to win Ukraine's first gold at these Games.\n\nOksana Shyshkova then won the women's sprint vision impaired, before Vitaliy Lukianenko led a Ukrainian one-two-three in the men's event.\n\nUkrainian athletes claimed seven medals in total on the opening day.\n\nThere are 20 Ukrainian athletes and nine guides in Beijing.\n\nThe delegation travelled to China despite the Russian invasion of their country, which began on 24 February.\n\n\"It was difficult for me when the war began. I cried every day,\" Vovchynskyi said.\n\n\"What can I do? I can dedicate this race to Ukraine, for peace [for the] people in Ukraine.\n\n\"Please stop war, it's very important for our children.\"\n\nVovchynskyi, who won gold in the long distance event in Sochi in 2014, beat Germany's Marco Maier by 45.8 seconds to win his event.\n\nHe said: \"I was thinking before the race, I must try to do everything for Ukraine. I must think about war, about my country, about my people, about my president. I love Ukraine.\n\n\"I love sport, but today I ran because I want life in Ukraine to move to the future.\"\n\nShyshkova held off Germany's Linn Kazmaier to claim Ukraine's second gold.\n\nLukianenko added a third in the men's sprint vision impaired event, with compatriots Oleksandr Kazik and Dmytro Suiarko claiming silver and bronze respectively.\n\nThere were also silvers for Liudmyla Liashenko and Taras Rad.\n\nLiashenko, 28, won her fifth Games medal in the women's sprint standing where China's Guo Yujie, 17, emerged victorious.\n\nIt was a second Paralympic medal for Rad, 23, following his middle distance gold from Pyeongchang, after he finished 17.5secs adrift of China's Liu Zixu in the men's sprint seated event.\n\nBefore the Games, Valeriy Sushkevych, the Ukrainian Paralympic chief, said his team's presence at the Games was a \"symbol that Ukraine is alive\" and that it was a \"miracle\" they made it to the competition.\n\nThey were warmly welcomed into the Bird's Nest Stadium for Friday's opening ceremony.\n\nThe Russian Paralympic Committee and Belarus were banned from competing.", "The girl was waiting at a bus stop in Toxteth\n\nAn 18-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after a girl was shot as she waited at a bus stop.\n\nThe 15-year-old was seriously injured in Upper Warwick Street, Liverpool on Tuesday and is in a stable condition in hospital, Merseyside Police said.\n\nRio Jones, of Jermyn Street, has been charged with attempted murder, having a firearm with intent to endanger life and possessing a controlled drug.\n\nHe is due to appear at the city's adult remand court on Saturday.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Naomi Long was speaking at the Alliance Party's conference in Belfast on Saturday\n\nThe assembly election in May will be a chance to say no to \"political soap operas\" and deliver politics that works, Naomi Long has said.\n\nThe Alliance Party leader said it was not a time to walk away from government, but \"lead in government\".\n\nMrs Long is leading the party into the second assembly election since she took over in 2016.\n\nShe addressed the party's annual conference on Saturday - its first since the Covid pandemic began.\n\nThe party currently has seven assembly members (MLAs) at Stormont, but is hoping that will rise following successful local government, European and Westminster elections in 2019.\n\nMrs Long has also been Stormont's justice minister since January 2020, remaining in post despite the absence of an executive after the DUP withdrew Paul Givan as first minister.\n\nShe said it was \"hard to fathom\" that Stormont was again without an executive after being restored just two years ago.\n\n\"It seems some politicians are addicted to crisis and conflict and simply not up to the job of actually governing,\" Mrs Long said.\n\n\"People have had enough of the constant dramas and political soap operas.\n\n\"They want politicians who don't just identify more problems - or worse still, add to them - but who are focused on finding solutions.\"\n\nShe added that Alliance had so far been \"punching well above its weight\" in the assembly but needed to \"finish the job\".\n\nShe cited a private members bill her party had brought seeking to ban hunting of animals with dogs, and said \"four more Alliance\" MLAs could have helped pass the bill after other parties voted against it.\n\n\"May's election won't just determine how our politics works for the next five years - it will determine if it works.\"\n\nAlliance is part of the bloc that designates as other in the assembly, but Mrs Long has previously said that system means her party's views are not considered on controversial issues that require cross-community support, i.e. a majority of both unionists and nationalists.\n\nHe was elected as the party's sole MP for North Down in the 2019 general election.\n\nHe described Alliance as \"protocol realists\".\n\nThe Northern Ireland Protocol puts a trade border in the Irish Sea.\n\nNorth Down MP Stephen Farry took to the stage before his party leader\n\nMr Farry said: \"In the absence of an alternative, the only course of action is to try and make it work.\n\n\"We are committed to doing all we can to reduce the level and impact of the resultant checks down the Irish Sea through seeking closer alignment between the UK and the EU, and achieving further mitigations, flexibilities and derogations from EU requirements.\"\n\nThe conference took place in Belfast on Saturday.\n\nThe assembly election is due to take place on 5 May.", "Facebook said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nRussia has limited Twitter in parts of Russia, Twitter has confirmed.\n\nIn a statement, the company said \"We're aware that Twitter is being restricted for some people in Russia and are working to keep our services safe and accessible\".\n\nOn Friday Russia restricted Facebook after a clash over \"censorship\".\n\nRussia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor accused Facebook of violating \"the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens\".\n\nFacebook said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nInternet connectivity watchers at NetBlocks say there is a total or near-total restriction on Twitter in Russia.\n\nNetBlocks said Facebook and Instagram weren't \"observably restricted per our metrics, certainly not to the extent Twitter is at present\".\n\nThe actions follow Russia's attack on Ukraine with many videos and images of the invasion going viral on social media.\n\nThe BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, said he'd had difficulty tweeting.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Steve Rosenberg This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCircumvention for those in Russia is currently possible using VPN services, which can work around government-imposed restrictions.\n\nNetBlocks Director Alp Toker told the BBC: \"Russia's restriction of Twitter will significantly limit the free flow of information at a time of crisis when the public most need to stay informed.\"\n\nRoskomnadzor has not announced actions against Twitter.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Can a government switch off access to the web?\n\nIt is unclear what the Facebook restrictions could mean if implemented or if other Meta-owned platforms - like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram - will be hit.\n\nThe Russian regulator had demanded Facebook lift the restrictions it placed on Thursday on state news agency RIA, state TV channel Zvezda, and pro-Kremlin news sites Lenta.Ru and Gazeta.Ru.\n\nIt said that Meta had \"ignored\" these requests.\n\nSir Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Meta, said Russian authorities \"ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling\" the outlets' content.\n\nBut he made clear he wanted Russians to continue to use Meta's platforms.\n\n\"Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organise for action\", Sir Nick said, and the company wants \"them to continue to make their voices heard\".\n\nMany state-owned media outlets in Russia have painted a largely positive picture of Russian military advances in Ukraine, calling the invasion a \"special military operation\" that had been forced on Moscow.\n\nOn Thursday Meta said it had set up a \"special operations centre\" to monitor content about the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nRussia has its own Facebook equivalents, VK and Odnoklassniki, but Facebook is also popular in the country - as is Meta-owned Instagram.\n\nOn Friday, US Senator Mark Warner said Facebook, YouTube and other social media services had \"a clear responsibility to ensure that your products are not used to facilitate human rights abuses\".\n\nMeta has been under pressure to label misinformation - and has been working with outside fact-checkers, including Reuters.\n\nMoscow has also increased pressure on domestic media, threatening to block reports that contain what it describes as \"false information\" regarding its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTwitter also told the BBC that its safety and integrity teams were \"disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information and to advance the speed and scale of our enforcement\".", "The elderly woman sustained a serious head injury and later died at Derriford Hospital\n\nAn 87-year-old woman who died during a helicopter landing was blown over while walking on a footpath, police said.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said it was continuing to investigate the incident at Derriford Hospital on Friday.\n\nThe downdraught from the landing helicopter caused the woman, from Plymouth, to be blown over, the force added.\n\nAnother woman, also in her 80s, suffered a broken pelvis and remains in hospital in a stable condition.\n\nThe HM Coastguard helicopter, which was landing at the helipad at the hospital at about 11:20 GMT, was carrying a casualty linked to a separate incident.\n\n\"Whilst the helicopter was in the process of landing on the helipad, the downdraught caused one member of the public, an 87-year-old woman from the Plymouth area who was on near-by footpath, to be blown over\", Det Insp Hodges said.\n\nShe suffered a serious head injury and died at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.\n\nThe other injured woman was in the car park when it is believed the down draft also caused a car door to slam shut while she was getting out of the vehicle, Devon and Cornwall Police said.\n\n\"This is a tragic incident and our thoughts go out to all affected by what took place,\" Det Insp Hodges continued.\n\nHe said the force was now assisting with the investigation which is being led by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said on Friday: \"Our deepest sympathies go out to those affected by the incident at Derriford Hospital.\n\n\"It would be inappropriate to comment while the incident is investigated by Devon and Cornwall Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a HM Coastguard helicopter was flying a patient to Derriford Hospital and \"as it landed, there was an incident which is now being investigated by the police and Air Accidents Investigation Branch\".\n\n\"Our thoughts are with all those affected,\" she added.\n\nDerriford Hospital opened the helipad in 2015 to accommodate larger helicopters.\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.", "Svetlana said she was overwhelmed to have her mum with her in Northern Ireland\n\nA Ukrainian woman has been reunited with her daughter in Northern Ireland after making an emotional journey from the war-torn country.\n\nSvetlana Murphy, who is originally from Ukraine, has lived in Northern Ireland for years.\n\nShe was reunited with her mother Galina Korol at Dublin Airport before travelling to NI on Thursday.\n\n\"I just can't believe it, it is just overwhelming and I am so happy she is here now,\" Svetlana said.\n\n\"I have got her, so I'm not going to let her go.\"\n\nGalina arrived from Lublin in Poland, which she had made her way to from Dnipro in Ukraine after four days of travelling.\n\nThe journey was facilitated by a chance conversation between her future son-in-law Mel Campbell and Aneta Gil, a Polish waitress at Gowdy's pub near Lisburn.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Svetlana Murphy and her mother Galina Korol were reunited at Dublin Airport.\n\nAneta was able to help by getting friends to drive three-and-a-half hours each way to collect Galina from a refugee camp on the Poland-Ukraine border and drive her into Poland.\n\n\"Svetlana was sending me the locations of her mum, so I was passing this to my friend, it was all about communication,\" Aneta said.\n\nAneta told BBC News NI it was an emotional moment when Svetlana and Galina came into Gowdy's after being reunited.\n\n\"When I saw, of course, it made me cry,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm so happy I could help, that I had a chance to help, I'm so happy.\n\nAneta helped to plan Galina's journey from the Polish border\n\nMel said they had booked a flight for last Saturday night, hotels for three nights and a flight for Wednesday night for Galina, knowing that the circumstances could change quickly.\n\n\"We just booked flights and hotels, that if she got there, she'd have somewhere to go,\" he said.\n\n\"We pre-empted the plan of action and hoped that it would fall into place and with the amazing help of Aneta and her family friends, everything fell into place.\n\n\"It was amazing and testament to the Polish people and Aneta's family especially, and the effort that Galina put in.\n\n\"She's in her early 60s, you know, that takes a lot of guts to get up and leave your home, to travel with pretty much no possessions and being driven by strangers, crossing your fingers and hoping that things fall into place, that the gods are looking down on you.\"\n\nMel Campbell said Galina had shown courage to make the journey\n\nSvetlana revealed that her mother would be there for her wedding to Mel.\n\n\"I'm just so happy, I'll have my mum close to me on a special day for us and it's just the best present ever,\" she said.\n\nShe was also asked what her mother wanted to say and translated for her as Galina does not speak fluent English.\n\n\"She said: 'I want to say thank you to everyone who helped and my kids, what they did for me - I can see my kids, my grandchildren growing up, I can live, I can breathe',\" Svetlana said.\n\nGalina will be able to attend her daughter's wedding\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine eight days ago and the city of Mariupol is now under siege.\n\nEarlier, the port of Kherson became the first major city to be taken by Russian forces.\n\n\"She [Galina] knows it's a war and I am not afraid to use that word because loads of people are dying,\" Svetlana said earlier on Thursday.\n\n\"The explosions are really frightening and I just begged her to get away from it, because she has family here and we need her.\"\n\nOn Thursday, the Irish Department of Justice confirmed 450 Ukrainian nationals had arrived into Dublin Airport between 25 February, when visa requirements were removed, and 2 March.\n\nA spokesperson said a temporary protection directive to allow officials to \"quickly and humanely respond to the mass displacement of Ukrainian people by Russian aggression\" was agreed on Thursday and is expected to be adopted on Friday.\n\n\"It will provide an immediate right of access to the labour market, housing, social welfare, healthcare, education, training and other supports,\" the department said.\n\nAll over Northern Ireland, friends and family members of people stuck in Ukraine, are waiting for news from their loved ones.\n\nIn Newry, County Down, members of the Ukrainian community are gathering aid to send back to their homeland.\n\nElena Bushtruk's daughter Anna fled Kyiv and has made it to the Romanian border, but she hopes her daughter will soon join her in Northern Ireland.\n\nSpeaking through a translator, Elena said: \"Of course I am worried.\n\nElena Bushtruk says it has been \"very hard\" waiting on news of her daughter\n\n\"I hope that she gets here, and I hope that it's soon.\"\n\nMariya Krupska's home has become a hub for the local Ukrainian community.\n\nHer house is fit to burst with donations from people in Newry.\n\nThis weekend, she plans to fill a truck with them and drive them to the Polish border with Ukraine.\n\n\"I'm not scared because it's a little thing that I can do,\" she said.\n\nMariya Krupska is driving aid donations to the Poland-Ukraine border\n\n\"People don't have a roof, people don't have food, people have their houses ruined.\n\n\"My heart is in pieces - I didn't sleep for maybe four nights at all.\n\n\"My family is in the west and they are safe for now but something will happen if this is not stopped.\n\n\"I have a lot of friends in Kyiv, in Odesa, in Kharkiv, in Sumy. They are all in big massive danger.\"\n\nEvery morning, Natasha Stokes waits for updates from her friends and family members in Kyiv.\n\nNatasha Stokes has asked people to pray for those in Ukraine\n\n\"The messages don't always get through,\" she said.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"I feel empty. I'm a very private and reserved person in my ordinary life, but I am a religious person.\n\n\"I'm so overwhelmed with grief and worry. I just want to ask people in Northern Ireland, it doesn't matter what beliefs they have, what religion they have.\n\n\"Every night when you go to bed, please say a word of prayer for people in Kyiv, for people in Ukraine.\n\n\"Please pray they will be alive in the morning.\"\n\nRussia has for the first time admitted suffering heavy military casualties during its attack on Ukraine, with 498 troops killed and a further 1,597 injured.\n\nHowever Ukraine says Russian losses run into the thousands.\n\nUkraine reports that more than 2,000 civilians have died since the invasion began last Thursday.\n\nThe conflict has also caused more than a million people to flee Ukraine, according to the UN.", "The number of fuel poor households in the UK will double in a year if the crisis in Ukraine leads to higher energy bills, charities are warning.\n\nAnalysts are predicting that the war has pushed up wholesale prices, and could mean the average domestic bill in the UK hits £3,000 in October.\n\nNational Energy Action said that would put 8.5 million households in serious financial difficulty from fuel bills.\n\nThat would be twice the number of a year earlier, equating to 30% of homes.\n\nCharity Age UK said such an increase would have a \"devastating\" impact on the health and wellbeing of older people, many of whom could go without heating for weeks.\n\nThe cost of gas and electricity for the typical household, on a tariff governed by the energy regulator Ofgem's price cap in England, Wales and Scotland, is already rising by 54% to nearly £2,000 from the start of April. Prices are also rising sharply in Northern Ireland.\n\nA string of energy analysts have predicted that the conflict in Ukraine, and the knock-on for gas supplied by Russia, could have a relatively sustained impact on the wholesale price of energy.\n\nUK suppliers, and ultimately consumers, are not immune to those global price rises, even though Russia only provides about 5% of the UK's gas supplies.\n\nAnalysts have suggested that could be reflected in the next calculation of Ofgem's price cap, which would take effect at the start of October. Many, including the suppliers' own trade body, say the average household bill could get close to, or reach £3,000 a year.\n\nNational Energy Action, which campaigns for warm, dry homes, said the number of households in fuel poverty was already expected to go up from four million in October 2021, to 6.5 million after April's price rise.\n\nThat would go up again to 8.5 million in October this year, if the typical bill increases to £3,000. That is a possibility but still far from certain, owing to the volatility of the war, the international picture, and wholesale prices.\n\nThe charity's definition of fuel poverty is a household which needs to spend more than 10% of their household income on fuel to heat their home to a satisfactory standard. Similar definitions are used officially in parts of the UK, although in England the definition of fuel poverty used by the government is a more complex calculation.\n\nWhen George Mycock, moved to London from Stoke-on-Trent, he ended up having to pay £950 a month for a room in a four-bedroom flat share. With bills included, it works out at about 70% of his monthly income.\n\nHis flatmates have already seen bills go up by between £50 and £100 each in the last few months. But he says the rise in energy bills is \"scary\".\n\n\"We don't know how much we're going to have to pay [on our default tariff],\" he says. \"It's plunged people into uncertainty.\"\n\nNational Energy Action has joined with 50 charity and campaign groups to call for support from the government for financially-stretched bill-payers.\n\nThe coalition has claimed that further price rises could lead to more people dying prematurely across the UK next winter.\n\n\"This is a disaster and, inevitably, will lead to more needless winter deaths. The government must act now, to protect the most vulnerable, and to save lives,\" said Adam Scorer, chief executive of National Energy Action.\n\nA government spokeswoman said: \"It is hard to predict what longer term impacts the current situation in Ukraine will have on energy costs. However, the energy price cap will continue to insulate millions of customers from volatile global gas prices\n\n\"We are also taking decisive action to help more than 27 million households with rising energy costs, with a £200 reduction on bills this autumn and a £150 non-repayable reduction in council tax bills.\"", "A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of his parents.\n\nWilliam Warrington, 40, of St George's Street, Cheltenham, appeared before Cheltenham magistrates via video link earlier.\n\nHe is charged with the murder of his father Clive, 67 and mother Valerie, 73, who were found dead on Wednesday.\n\nChairman of the bench, Andy Hill, remanded Mr Warrington in custody to appear at Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday.\n\nWilliam Warrington appeared via video link at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court on Saturday morning\n\nThe body of Clive Warrington was found at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham at 06:25 GMT on Wednesday.\n\nShortly afterwards, the body of his ex-wife, Valerie Warrington, 73, was found at a property about 15 miles (24km) away in Whiteshoots Hill, Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswolds.\n\nThey were both found with fatal stab wounds and their family said they were devastated by the \"sudden and tragic loss\".\n\n\"We thank everyone for their messages of love and support, which are of great comfort to us,\" they added in a statement.\n\nOfficers were called to Sherborne Place in Cheltenham at 06:25 GMT on Wednesday\n\nWilliam Warrington was arrested on Wednesday morning near Sherborne Place in Cheltenham and questioned for three days before being charged on Friday evening.\n\nHe spoke to confirm his name and date of birth during the remand hearing.\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: Bristolbristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nRussian driver Nikita Mazepin has been sacked by the Haas team as a result of his country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe US-based outfit have also terminated the contract of their title sponsor, the Russian chemicals company Uralkali.\n\nUralkali is part-owned by Mazepin's billionaire father Dmitry, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, through his company Uralchem.\n\nHaas said news on Mazepin's replacement was expected early next week.\n\nAmong the drivers said to be under consideration are the team's reserve Pietro Fittipaldi, who stood in for Romain Grosjean for two races at the end of 2020 after the Frenchman's fiery accident in Bahrain, Indian Formula 2 driver Jehan Daruvala, and Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri, the reigning F2 champion.\n\nMazepin said he was \"disappointed\" to have his contract terminated and that his \"willingness to accept the conditions proposed in order to continue were completely ignored\".\n\nHaas said in their statement: \"As with the rest of the Formula 1 community, the team is shocked and saddened by the invasion of Ukraine and wishes for a swift and peaceful end to the conflict.\"\n\nMazepin's departure from F1 had been expected since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.\n\nDmitry Mazepin was one of a number of leading Russian businessmen invited to a meeting with Putin at the Kremlin hours after the invasion began.\n\nHaas repainted their cars on 24 February, in the middle of the first Formula 1 pre-season test in Spain, to remove the red white and blue colours that had been on the car to represent the Russian flag since Mazepin joined at the start of 2021.\n\nF1 cancelled this year's Russian Grand Prix a day after the start of the invasion, and on Thursday tore up their contract for the race, signalling that the sport will not return to Russia at least until Putin is no longer in power.\n\nThe FIA, motorsport's governing body, has stopped short of banning Russian drivers from international competition. It says they must compete as neutral athletes, and sign a document agreeing not to support the invasion.\n\nMotorsport UK was this week one of a number of national motorsport authorities to ban Russian competitors from taking part in events in the UK.\n\nThere is debate as to whether this would ban a Russian driver from the British Grand Prix, as an F1 driver's super-licence contains a clause requiring national authorities to allow them to race.\n\nBut that point is now moot after Haas' decision to end their association with Mazepin.", "Businessman Andrew Whitney purchased 6 Pin Oak Court, otherwise known as 26 Ramsay Street, in 1998 and invested in 3 Pin Oak Court in 2013\n\nA Neighbours superfan from Yorkshire who owns two Ramsay Street properties is backing a move to give the famous Australian street heritage status.\n\nAndrew Whitney was left \"devastated\" by Thursday's news that the long-running TV soap will end after 37 years.\n\nMr Whitney, originally from Melbourne but now living in York, is supporting a council motion to make \"Hollywood Down Under\" a heritage asset site.\n\n\"It's a 37-year-old film set, of course it should be protected,\" he said.\n\nThe 46-year-old entrepreneur's properties have been home to Neighbours stalwarts, including Toadie 'Toadfish' Rebecchi and Paul Robinson and formed the backdrop for the blossoming love of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell.\n\nMr Whitney, a self-confessed \"massive fan\" of the programme, said he invested \"a good million dollars\" (about £550,000) in number 3 and number 6 Pin Oak Court, Vermont South, where the series has been filmed since 1985.\n\nAndrew Whitney is originally from Melbourne but moved to the UK in 1999 and lives with his family in York\n\n\"When Neighbours ends I will still own two beautiful houses on an amazing street, but a couple of hundred cast and crew members are going to be out of jobs,\" he said.\n\n\"I wish we could lobby [Neighbours production company] Fremantle to sell Neighbours to a TV subscription service.\"\n\nThe soap, which has provided a launchpad for several Hollywood and music success stories including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Guy Pierce, and Margot Robbie, will come to an end this summer.\n\nThe announcement by the soap's producers follows the news that UK broadcaster Channel 5 was dropping the show, leaving a funding gap after almost 9,000 broadcast episodes.\n\nThe houses of Pin Oak Court, pictured during Neighbours filming in 1987, have become almost as famous as the fictional Ramsay Street residents\n\nThe set is located in an area of Melbourne covered by Whitehorse City Council, which is in the process of preparing a report to consider heritage protection due to its international cultural significance.\n\nMr Whitney, who purchased 6 Pin Oak Court in 1998 and 3 Pin Oak Court in 2013, added: \"Of course it needs to be heritage listed, it's a living film set and it's Hollywood Down Under.\"\n\nThe long-running Australian soap has launched the careers of pop stars Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue\n\nSet and filmed in Melbourne, Neighbours was first broadcast in Australia and launched on BBC One in 1986.\n\nMr Whitney concluded: \"It shouldn't really be about what happens to the houses of Ramsay Street, we should be asking how do we keep these guys employed?\"\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.", "Cars queue to cross the border into Finland\n\nAt Vaalimaa, Finland's border crossing with Russia - 120 miles east of Helsinki - buses and cars stop for passport and customs checks. These aren't Ukrainians, they're Russians, and although the flow isn't heavy, it is constant.\n\nSome people are anxious to get out of Russia because there has been a persistent rumour that President Vladimir Putin's government might soon introduce martial law to deal with demonstrations against the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nWith flights to Europe halted, the only way out of the country is by car - crossing this border - or by train.\n\nWe spoke to one young Russian woman who was leaving for the West - one of the lucky ones who had an EU visa before the sanctions were announced. She was in despair at what has been happening.\n\n\"People in Ukraine are our people - our family,\" she said. \"We shouldn't be killing them.\" Would she think of going back, I asked? \"Not while our dreadful government is there. It is so, so sad.\"\n\nShe said most Russians don't want this war, but they risk going to jail if they try to stand up to Putin.\n\nIn Finland, there's immense sympathy for people like her - just as there is for Ukraine and its inhabitants. This sympathy, and the fear that Russia might lash out at other neighbours such as Finland itself, is changing attitudes to Finland's traditional leanings toward neutrality.\n\nAccording to the latest opinion polls, a growing majority of Finns believe that it's time for their country to join Nato and access the protection that membership of the alliance would bring.\n\nA bus waits at a border crossing between Russia and Finland\n\nBack in Helsinki, the train from St Petersburg is pulling in, carrying hundreds more people anxious to flee Russia. Most trains are fully booked, with ticket prices soaring.\n\nThe amount of money passengers leaving Russia can bring is limited. The rouble is in a state of collapse; the Russian economy is threatened by sanctions and the withdrawal of many large Western companies. Russia's government is desperate to avoid a run on the banks.\n\nWill sanctions against wealthy Russians cause them to turn on President Putin? It's certainly not impossible, but it's unlikely to force him to stop the war on Ukraine.\n\nMore worrying for him is the call by the Russian oil giant Lukoil for a halt to the invasion. If the main elements of the Russian economy are turning against him, he will find it much harder to carry on without making big changes - such as the introduction of martial law.\n\nAnother woman who has left Russia, this time for Istanbul, told us by phone she had been terrified of a return to life as it was under the Soviet Union.\n\n\"I'm 30, I haven't seen the worst... the repressions, the secret police,\" she said. \"I had a very clear fear that if I'm not going to fly out right now, I will not be able to fly out ever.\"\n\n\"On the one hand, it seems this is the moment to get out. On the other, there is a legitimate fear that you will not be able to see your friends and family for God knows how long, if ever.\"\n\nIf martial law were introduced, Mr Putin would be free to do what he wanted, without having to worry about damaging protests in the streets. He has already made it clear to French President Emmanuel Macron that he won't stop until he has occupied the whole of Ukraine - and a French official who listened in on their phone call said, afterwards, that things could get a great deal worse.\n\nHow? Well, the nuclear option could be getting decidedly closer. It's a frightening prospect.\n\nNo wonder Russians who don't want any part of the invasion or the trouble it's creating inside Russian towns and cities are desperate to get out of the country - and make a living for themselves outside.", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a flare lighting up the site, followed by shelling and a fire.\n\nAccording to Mayor Dmytro Orlov of nearby Enerhodar, \"continuous enemy shelling of [the plant's] buildings and units\" seemed to cause a fire at the nuclear station, which is the largest in Europe.", "Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of violating international law, including targeting civilians\n\nThe UK's attorney general has appointed a war crimes lawyer to advise Ukraine over the Russian invasion.\n\nSuella Braverman said Sir Howard Morrison would become an independent adviser to Ukraine's chief prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova.\n\nSir Howard served as a judge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague for more than 12 years.\n\nIt comes as Russian forces continue to be accused of violating international law by targeting civilians.\n\nEarlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of committing war crimes after it launched air strikes in Kharkiv that hit an opera house, a concert hall and government offices.\n\nThe ICC's chief prosecutor later said evidence was being collected on whether the Russian military had committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.\n\nBut Russia is not a member of the ICC, so any Russian nationals indicted by the court would have to be extradited by the Kremlin.\n\nAsked by MPs in the House of Commons on Thursday about alternative ways of prosecuting war criminals other than the ICC, the attorney general said \"all options are on the table\", although she insisted the ICC was the UK's preferred option.\n\n\"I will always defer and support my counterpart in Ukraine, the prosecutor general, in terms of my efforts to support her in terms of her choice of route for redress,\" she said.\n\n\"But whilst we welcome the focus on accountability, we do believe that the ICC is the right place for those responsible for committing these atrocious crimes in Ukraine to be held accountable for their actions.\"\n\nAnnouncing Sir Howard's appointment, Ms Braverman said the UK was committed to \"showing that the atrocities we see being committed day after day in Ukraine will not be forgotten\".\n\nMs Venediktova welcomed Sir Howard's help, saying his experience and knowledge of international criminal law \"speaks louder than words\".\n\nDuring his time as a judge, Sir Howard oversaw cases such as that of the Serbian war criminal, Radovan Karadzic.\n\nThe attorney general's office said Ms Braverman was in regular communication with Ukraine's prosecutor general and they planned to meet in person next month.\n\nOn a trip to The Hague last week, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab accused Mr Putin of responding in \"ever more barbaric ways\" in Ukraine and offered the ICC financial and technical help for prosecuting alleged war crimes in the country.\n\nBoris Johnson has used similar language, describing the Russian military under Mr Putin's orders of using \"barbaric and indiscriminate\" tactics.\n\nRussia denies targeting civilians and says it is carrying out a military operation against \"neo-Nazis\" in Ukraine.", "BBC TV programming has been taken off air in Afghanistan, after the Taliban ordered local channels not to broadcast content from international partners.\n\nCalling it a \"worrying development\", the BBC said it would affect more than six million viewers of Persian, Pashto and Uzbek language service programmes.\n\nThe BBC Persian TV channel can still be accessed - but only by the 20% of Afghans who have satellite TV.\n\nOther international broadcasters whose programming was taken off air by the ruling include Voice of America, German company Deutsche Welle and China Global Television Network.\n\nBBC World Service head of languages Tarik Kafala said it was crucial Afghans were not denied access to impartial journalism at a time of \"uncertainty and turbulence\".\n\n\"We call on the Taliban to reverse their decision and allow our TV partners to return the BBC's news programmes to their airwaves immediately,\" he added.\n\nBefore the ruling, the BBC had broadcast every day for half an hour in Pashto, via Afghan partner stations.\n\nSimilar arrangements allowed for 15 minutes of programming in Uzbek, five days a week, and for 60 minutes a day in Persian, also five days a week, backed by two weekly current affairs programmes.\n\nReporting from the Afghan capital, Kabul, BBC correspondent Secunder Kermani said the Taliban had insisted the media could report critically, \"as long as they bear 'Islamic values' and 'national unity' in mind\".\n\nHowever, reporters have at times been detained or beaten as a result of their coverage and many Afghan journalists fled the country after the group took power last year.\n\nOur correspondent said the latest move appeared to be part of an intensifying authoritarian trend. It came days after the Taliban reversed a decision to allow girls' secondary schools to re-open.\n\nOn Sunday, the group decreed that men and women would be allocated separate days of the week to visit parks around Kabul.\n\nThe Taliban regained control of the country last August, 20 years after being ousted, as the remaining Western troops and diplomats left.", "England are set for another humiliating defeat after enduring a wretched third day of the decisive third Test against West Indies in Grenada.\n\nHaving begun with hopes of pushing for victory themselves, the tourists were thwarted by the West Indies lower order before they collapsed in abject fashion in their second innings.\n\nThey ended the day 103-8, just 10 runs ahead of West Indies with two days to go.\n\nJoshua da Silva reached his maiden Test century in the morning session, frustrating England with a stand of 52 with number 11 Jayden Seales before West Indies were finally dismissed for 297.\n\nThat gave the hosts a first-innings lead of 93 and in response England's top order folded to 39-4 - captain Joe Root out for five and all-rounder Ben Stokes four.\n\nJonny Bairstow and opener Alex Lees offered some resistance with a dogged stand lasting 24.4 overs but when Bairstow was caught behind for 22, Ben Foakes followed in a calamitous run-out five balls later.\n\nLees made 31 before he was castled by Kyle Mayers - the seamer ending the day with remarkable figures of 5-9, his first five-wicket haul.\n\nHosts West Indies now look certain to complete victory, which would also see them take the series 1-0.\n• None Test may be Root's last as captain - Vaughan\n\nEngland's winless run now looks set to stretch to nine Tests. They had dark days during their 4-0 Ashes defeat but this ranks among them, given West Indies are eighth in the world Test rankings.\n\nWhen play began West Indies led by only 28 and if England had taken the final two West Indies wickets quickly they would have hoped to set a challenging target.\n\nInstead the bowling was toothless and tactics puzzling.\n\nThen, on a pitch displaying some uneven bounce but on which West Indies lower order survived for more than two hours, England's batting capitulated. As happened repeatedly in Australia they were not able to cope when the pressure was on.\n\nOnly Lees, who got a ball that kept low, was unfortunate. The rest of the batters were dismissed in disappointing fashion.\n\nRoot was one of those - he played a tired waft on five to be caught at slip off Mayers, the second time the medium-fast seamer has dismissed him in the Test. Root's position as captain will now come under serious scrutiny.\n\nEngland's 'red-ball reset' looks to be heading to a fourth consecutive series defeat.\n\nAt one stage it looked as though England would not make a fourth day.\n\nZak Crawley was the first to fall. He had already been dropped once and almost caught hitting over extra cover when he loosely drove for a third time and was caught at second slip from his 11th ball.\n\nRoot followed in the ninth over - his total of five runs across both innings is his lowest since 2015.\n\nMayers was not even picked for the first two Tests in this series but before long he had Dan Lawrence bowled for a duck when playing no shot and Stokes caught behind as he attempted to leave.\n\nLees and Bairstow showed the same calm, steady accumulation that had served Da Silva well earlier in the day. That was until Bairstow tried to swipe Alzarri Joseph off a length and was caught off an under edge.\n\nThe sight of Foakes coming up short diving through the dirt in attempt to make a unnecessary second run summed up England's day.\n\nTypically it was Mayers' throw from the deep that caused the run-out.\n\nEven before the batting collapse, England's day was poor.\n\nDespite having a ball just six overs old they showed little intent to dismiss Da Silva. As a result he was able to quietly but astutely accumulate while the match meandered.\n\nAfter Kemar Roach nicked Saqib Mahmood down the leg side for 25, Seales, whose previous high Test score was seven, survived for more than an hour alongside the wicketkeeper.\n\nEngland can point to misfortune - Seales should have been out lbw for a duck to Mahmood when the lead was just 41 and other chances did not go to hand - but to do so would be to ignore their shortcomings.\n\nWhen Seales later planted Leach for six over long-on it only heaped more misery onto a side looking increasingly frustrated.\n\nDa Silva accelerated as he neared his century, first attacking Leach and then clubbing Craig Overton for back-to-back boundaries to reach the landmark. He celebrated wildly and afterwards admitted there were tears in his eyes.\n\nA ball later came another moment emblematic of England's toil. Da Silva seemed to nick Overton behind and despite reviewing walked from the field. However, replays showed he had in fact missed the ball and as a result he and the England players had to be recalled to the middle.\n\nIn the end, Root himself ended the partnership and the innings by having Seales caught and bowled for 13 as Da Silva ended 100 not out.\n\nEngland assistant coach Marcus Trescothick, speaking to BBC Sport: \"It is disappointing - we've had a tough day. The guys are pretty despondent at the moment but we'll look at it and try to learn from the mistakes we've made and try and be better when our next opportunity comes around in the summertime.\n\n\"You can't have days like this in Test cricket when the series is going down to the wire, but unfortunately we have.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"This batting performance sits comfortably alongside what we saw in Australia. It was desperate stuff.\n\n\"England have thrown this away. Only Alex Lees can be counted as blameless in his dismissal. The rest were all either poor shots or misjudgements, or in the case of Foakes, a ridiculous second run.\"\n\nWest Indies all-rounder Kyle Mayers to BBC Sport: \"It was a brilliant day for us. Joshua and the tailenders inspired us to go out there and perform like that this evening. The momentum slid straight into the bowling.\n\n\"It would mean a lot to beat England - from the beginning people have been speaking about how historic this series is because they haven't beaten us at home for a while so to beat them would be great.\"", "The government plans to take a 20% stake in a £20bn large-scale nuclear plant at Sizewell, the BBC has learned.\n\nFrench developer EDF will also take a 20% stake in the Suffolk power station.\n\nMinisters hope the confirmation of two cornerstone investors will encourage infrastructure investors and pension funds to take up the remaining 60%.\n\nSizewell C is a key part of the new UK energy strategy, anticipated this week. However, no decision is expected yet on the future of Wylfa, in north Wales.\n\nGovernment officials say new nuclear facilities at Wylfa could - like Sizewell - be one of the \"big bets on nuclear\" the prime minister has said are integral to plans to reduce UK reliance on fossil fuels over time.\n\nIt's not yet clear whether these additional ambitions will include large-scale plants, smaller reactors based on nuclear submarine technology, or both.\n\nThe government's strategy will also include plans for solar and wind power, as well as stimulating additional investment in oil and gas fields in UK waters.\n\nLegislation allowing construction and financing costs to be added to customer bills, as Sizewell C is built over the next decade, is due for a second reading in the House of Commons next month. It made it through the Lords unamended and is expected to become law in the coming weeks having received strong support from MPs.\n\nEDF has insisted the amount added per household will be relatively insignificant, at about £2 a year for the first phase, rising to a peak of £12 a year.\n\nThe total cost of Sizewell C is expected to be about £20bn. That is slightly less than the plant currently under construction at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, as Sizewell C will be a near-identical replica, creating cost savings.\n\nHowever, those numbers are expected to rise as global inflationary pressures affect prices of steel, cement, wages and the large amounts of energy required to build plants of this size.\n\nGroups opposed to the Sizewell plan say it is risky, expensive and endangers wildlife\n\nThe £20bn in capital (at current prices) is expected to be financed with about one-third in equity - or cash up front - and the remainder in debt borrowed from financial markets.\n\nThe government has already committed £100m to the project's development but taking a 20% stake in the equity would see that figure rise to around £1.5bn.\n\nNuclear industry insiders say proposed reforms to EU-wide financial regulations (Solvency II) will make it easier for pension funds and insurance companies to invest in long-term infrastructure assets like nuclear.\n\nWhile some Suffolk business groups would welcome the jobs and skills that would be brought to the local economy, there is significant opposition to the plant both at a local level and more widely from those who argue big nuclear is slow, expensive, old fashioned, risky and threatens local wildlife.\n\nAnti-Sizewell groups have mounted planning challenges and are expected to demand a judicial review of any approval.\n\nCampaign group Stop Sizewell C said: \"We are appalled the government plans to throw billions of pounds in taxpayers' money at Sizewell C and hit households with a nuclear tax on their bills when renewable solutions, insulation, efficiency and energy storage will achieve energy security faster, more cheaply and with much less risk.\"\n\nHowever, the government is convinced it is a source of non-imported, low carbon, \"always on\" electricity and has a target for nuclear to contribute 25% of the UK's power needs.\n\nNuclear currently produces about 16% of UK power but, of the eight plants still in operation, all but one are due to be switched off by 2030. Only Hinkley Point C is currently under construction.\n\nThat plant alone will produce 7% of current needs when it comes online in 2026.\n\nThe government is also keen to accelerate the development of smaller reactors, of the kind being developed by Rolls Royce, but designs for these are still at an early stage.\n\nCritics argue other technologies like solar and wind are cheaper, faster and greener to deploy.\n\nWhile the current energy crisis, exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war, has made a powerful argument for weaning economies off volatile fossil fuels, it has also painfully demonstrated that point is still some way off.", "Officers released a photo of Kyle Darren Eglington and a second showing what he could look like with a shaved head and without a beard\n\nA prisoner who escaped wearing nothing but his underwear and socks is now believed to have changed his appearance.\n\nDorset Police said Kyle Darren Eglington assaulted a security officer in Hardy Road, Poole, on Saturday before making off from a prison van.\n\nSearches are continuing and officers believe since absconding he has shaved his head and beard.\n\nThe force said he should not be approached.\n\nThe 32-year-old had been remanded in custody at Poole Magistrates' Court after being charged with robbery, following an incident in Bournemouth on Thursday.\n\nOfficers carried out detailed searches in the area with the help of a police helicopter and British Transport Police, but he was not found.\n\nMr Eglington is described as white, 5ft 11in (1.8m) tall, of medium build, and previously had dark brown hair and a beard.\n\nFollowing further searches, police believe he may have been in the West Howe area of Bournemouth in the early hours of Sunday.\n\nCh Insp Neil Wright said: \"We believe that he may have changed his appearance significantly and will therefore look different to the latest image we have for him.\n\n\"I would urge anyone who sees Kyle, or a man matching the description given, to please report it to us.\"\n\nCh Insp Wright said there is nothing to suggest he poses a risk to the general public but asked people not to approach him and to call 999.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n• None Prisoner on run in underwear and socks\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland slumped to a chastening 10-wicket defeat on the fourth day of the third Test to lose their series against West Indies 1-0.\n\nAfter a dismal third day, they began 103-8, leading by just 10, and the hosts claimed the final two wickets within the first hour to have them all out for 120.\n\nVictory in Grenada came just 30 minutes later, leaving a sorry England at one of the lowest points in recent memory.\n\nWest Indies cantered to their target of 28 inside five overs to clinch the Richards-Botham trophy.\n\nEngland have now lost four Test series in a row - five if the unfinished India series which Joe Root's side trail 2-1 is included - and are winless in nine matches.\n\nThe defeat, which comes on the back of a humiliating 4-0 Ashes loss, leaves England bottom of the World Test Championship table and looks set to reignite intense debate about the state of the men's Test team.\n\nNot since the 2013-14 Ashes capitulation, and the break-up of a team that followed, have England gone as many Tests without a win.\n\nThey have also won just one of 17 Tests going back to February last year - and not had such a poor run since the 1980s.\n\nThe result was all-but certain after England collapsed a day earlier in their second innings and the formalities were completed in less than 90 minutes of play.\n\nPrior to this series England, one of the best white-ball teams in the world, talked of a 'red-ball reset' and a wish to refocus on the longest format following the Ashes debacle.\n\nThere were flashes of promise in the first two Tests - a century for Zak Crawley, runs for Dan Lawrence, Ben Stokes' return to form and Saqib Mahmood's encouraging debut. But their dismal display has their rebirth in tatters.\n\nEngland next play a Test in June, at home against New Zealand, where they will hope to have appointed a new managing director and head coach, while captain Root's position will also come into question.\n\nVictory for West Indies maintains their proud home record against England, with just one series loss against England in the Caribbean since 1968.\n\nThey outplayed Root's side in this deciding Test, having been on the back foot in the previous two matches.\n\nEven in the brief period on the fourth morning there was time for a moment of West Indies magic.\n\nAfter 40 minutes without a wicket, Jason Holder produced a brilliant one-handed reaction catch at leg slip to dismiss Chris Woakes for 19. Jack Leach edged behind in the next over - both wickets falling to seamer Kemar Roach.\n\nThe hosts celebrated with a lap of honour when the result was finalised.\n\n'We let ourselves down' - reaction\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"Yesterday [day three] we let ourselves down and we didn't stand up to it well enough and it has left us in this position where we've lost after playing so much brilliant cricket.\n\n\"We've got to show more, like we did on the first day of the tour, people standing up and us getting to a total, more frequently. We've shown we can do it - that's the frustration.\"\n\nPlayer of the match Joshua da Silva: \"The emotion is still there - 100%. I've dreamt of this moment and hopefully it isn't the last time I win this award.\n\n\"I wanted to trust my tailenders - all the credit goes to them. I can't thank them enough. It is because of them that I've won this award.\"\n\nWest Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite: \"We decided this was one of our best series at home and we have to fight hard. We put in a lot of work. Every game someone raised their hand and did the job. The effort was remarkable.\"\n• None Who were the greatest number 10s? Ranking the best players who wore the number\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the iconic role", "Eugene Shvidler (right) has been sanctioned over his ties with longstanding business partner Roman Abramovich\n\nPrivate jets owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch have been detained indefinitely by the British government.\n\nThe two jets belonging to billionaire oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler had been under investigation at Farnborough and Biggin Hill airports for three weeks.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps said [Russian President Vladimir] \"Putin's friends\" should not \"enjoy luxuries\" while innocent people die in Ukraine.\n\nMr Shvidler was sanctioned over ties with Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe government said Mr Shvidler, a former boss and shareholder in Mr Abramovich's steel giant Evraz PLC, was associated with a person benefitting from or supporting the Russian government.\n\nHis net worth has been estimated at £1.2bn, the government says, while the seized jets are believed to be worth up to $60m (£45m).\n\nMr Shapps said in a statement: \"Introducing these latest measures - detaining tens of millions of pounds worth of Russian private jets - shows this government will leave no stone unturned in depriving Putin's cronies of their luxury toys.\"\n\nA private helicopter belonging to Russian firm HeliCo Group LLC has also been detained.\n\nWestern nations opposed to the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine have introduced a raft of sanctions designed to cripple Russia's economy and hurt its wealthiest citizens.\n\nThe UK has made it a criminal offence for planes owned, operated or chartered by Russians - including private jets - to fly or land in the UK.\n\nUkraine said it had inflicted \"powerful blows\" and \"significant losses\" on the Russians.\n\nBut Russia's army said the first phase of its military campaign in Ukraine is over, and it will now focus on the eastern Donbas region.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Inside Ukraine, but now what? From left: Kieran Perkins, Elliot Davies and CJ Darton\n\nThe road to war for CJ, Elliott and Kieran ran through Facebook, a cheap flight to Poland, and a cold night sleeping outside a railway station.\n\nWe meet the former British soldiers in Ukraine just outside a school, a couple of kilometres from the border with Poland. They are waiting for a minibus to transport them, along with other recruits, to Lviv.\n\n\"I just can't sit at home and watch what's going on and carry on as usual,\" says CJ Darton, who served for seven years with the Royal Anglian Regiment.\n\nWhen Russia invaded Ukraine in February, he almost immediately began making plans to volunteer.\n\n\"If you're not fighting in someone else's street, does it end up in yours? Do my kids become a target? Do my mates' kids?\"\n\nBetween them, the three men have 19 years of experience in the British military, and all did tours in Afghanistan.\n\nAfter exchanging messages online, they met for the first time at Stansted airport as they waited to catch a £20 Ryanair flight to the Polish city of Krakow.\n\n\"We were stopped by police on the way out,\" recounts Kieran Perkins, 35, who works as a plumber near Brighton. \"They said 'fair play to you'. As far as I'm aware we're not doing anything wrong.\"\n\nHundreds of former British soldiers who have completed their time in the armed services have said they want to go to Ukraine to fight or help with medical or humanitarian efforts.\n\nMany told the BBC earlier this month that they are getting mixed messages from the government about whether they should go.\n\nThe legal position at home is vague. In February, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss encouraged people to go, only for Downing Street to advise people \"with no combat experience\" not to. The Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, says it may be against the law and could lead to prosecution.\n\nThat first night in Poland the men slept out outside Przemyśl railway station, before walking across into Ukraine the following morning. Elliott Davies, a construction worker from Colchester, Essex, and CJ had both told their families where they were going.\n\nKieran, a father of four, had not.\n\nThe former armoured vehicle driver with the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment didn't tell the children's mothers, he says, trying to suppress a smile.\n\n\"I didn't even tell my mum. I just thought because I'm only away for a short period of time... I didn't want to worry anyone.\"\n\nWhere will it stop? Who else could suffer if we don't do something?\n\nKieran is not planning on a long war. He only wants to stay in Ukraine for two or three weeks before returning home, explaining that he has childcare responsibilities and a birthday coming up.\n\n\"I'm not expecting to get to the front line in that time. But if everyone chips in to help then it takes the weight off the people that are really working hard right at the front line.\"\n\nBy contrast, Elliott says he's in Ukraine for as long as it takes.\n\n\"I'll help out wherever I can in the field,\" he says. \"Anywhere from back to front.\"\n\nBearded, with long, curly hair, the 28-year-old served for seven years with the Grenadier Guards and says he is ready, if necessary, to die in Ukraine.\n\n\"Where will it stop? Who else could suffer if we don't do something?\"\n\nAlso waiting by the side of the road is an American ex-marine, Nate Vance. A consultant in the oil and gas industry, he felt it was his duty to come and see what he could do.\n\n\"If somebody was bombing the United States and bombing civilian-occupied areas and my children were in those civilian-occupied areas, I would want anyone and everyone that could help.\"\n\nAnd how would he respond to those who say this war is a long way from the United States?\n\n\"So was Germany in World War Two. If he [Russian President Putin] gets away with it and he's successful, it just encourages more of that behaviour.\"\n\nBussing it towards battle - Elliot, CJ and Kieran prepare for another leg of their journey\n\nAs they chat to us the men somehow manage to miss the minibus supposed to transport them and other prospective recruits to the city of Lviv.\n\nSo they board a regular bus, and end up chatting to Julia, who has just dropped her daughter at the border to travel into the European Union as a refugee.\n\n\"Thank you very much that you have come here to help,\" she tells them. \"Our Ukrainian soldiers are also very brave, very brave.\"\n\nThe men now have a choice to make. One option is to sign up with Ukraine's International Legion. That could mean committing to stay for the duration of the war. In return they'd get paid the same as rank-and-file Ukrainian soldiers.\n\nA more flexible choice is to remain unattached, and link up with other British former soldiers who are already fighting at the front line, bypassing what might turn out to be painful Ukrainian bureaucracy.\n\nAs they prepare to leave I ask whether it was the excitement of war that had brought them to Ukraine.\n\n\"Anyone who thinks we're war junkies or war tourists needs to stick to watching the news,\" CJ says.\n\n\"There is no excitement to war. There's nothing nice about dead kids at the side of the road.\"", "Refugees are forced to put their trust in strangers\n\nFive weeks into Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, imagine for a moment what it's like to live there now.\n\nBombs, bloodshed, trauma. No school for your children, no healthcare for your parents, no safe roof over your head in many parts of the country.\n\nWould you try to run? Ten million Ukrainians have, according to the United Nations.\n\nMost seek refuge in other areas of Ukraine, believed to be safer. But more than three and a half million people have fled over the border.\n\nThey are mainly women and children, as men under the age of 60 are obliged by the Ukrainian government to stay put and fight.\n\nDisplaced and disoriented, often with no idea where to go next, refugees are forced to put their trust in strangers.\n\nThe chaos of war is now behind them, but the truth is, they're not entirely safe outside Ukraine either.\n\n\"For predators and human traffickers, the war in Ukraine is not a tragedy,\" UN Secretary General António Guterres warned on Twitter. \"It's an opportunity - and women and children are the targets.\"\n\nTrafficking rings are notoriously active in Ukraine and neighbouring countries in peace time. The fog of war is perfect cover to increase business.\n\nKarolina Wierzbińska, a coordinator at Homo Faber, a human rights organisation based in Lublin, told me children were a huge concern.\n\nMany youngsters were travelling out of Ukraine unaccompanied, she said. Patchy registration processes in Poland and other border regions - especially at the start of the war - meant children disappeared, their current whereabouts unknown.\n\nMy colleagues and I headed down to the Polish-Ukrainian border to see for ourselves.\n\nAt a train station, well known for refugee arrivals, we found a hive of activity. Dazed-looking women and crying children were all around.\n\nWomen and their children have been arriving at the border area\n\nMany were being comforted and offered hot food from steaming industrial-sized cooking pots by an army of volunteers wearing high-vis gilets.\n\nSo far, so well organised, right? Not quite.\n\nWe met Margherita Husmanov, a Ukrainian refugee from Kyiv in her early 20s. She arrived at the border two weeks ago, but decided to stay on, to help stop fellow refugees falling into the wrong hands.\n\nI asked her if she felt vulnerable. \"Yes,\" she told me. \"That's especially why I worry about their safety.\n\n\"The women and children come here from a terrible war. They don't speak Polish or English. They don't know what's going on and they believe what anyone tells them.\n\n\"Anyone can turn up at this station. The first day I volunteered, we saw three men from Italy. They were looking for beautiful women to sell into the sex trade.\n\n\"I called the police and it turned out I was right. It wasn't paranoia. It's horrible.\"\n\nMargherita says local officials are a bit more organised now. Police regularly patrol the station. The people (mainly men, we're told) with cardboard signs to tempting destinations, so present in the first couple of weeks of refugee arrivals, have largely disappeared.\n\nBut as we find out from a number of sources, other ill-intentioned individuals are now posing as high-vis-wearing volunteers.\n\nElena Moskvitina spoke out on Facebook to raise awareness. She's now safely in Denmark, so we chatted at length via Skype. Her experience is chilling.\n\nShe and her children crossed into neighbouring Romania from war-torn Ukraine. They were looking for a lift away from the border.\n\nWhat she described as fake volunteers at a refugee centre asked where she was staying.\n\nThey turned up later in the day and aggressively told her Switzerland was the best place to go and that they'd give her a lift there, with a van full of other women.\n\nElena told me the men looked at her and her daughter \"sleazily\". Her daughter was petrified.\n\nThey asked her to show them her son, who was in another room. They looked him up and down, she said. They then insisted she travel with no-one else except them, and they got angry when she asked to see their ID cards.\n\nTo get the men away from her family, Elena promised to meet them when the other women were in their van. But as soon as they left, she told me, she grabbed her children and ran.\n\nElżbieta Jarmulska, a feisty Polish entrepreneur, is the founder of the Women Take The Wheel Initiative. Her aim, she says, is to provide Ukrainian refugees with a \"bubble of safety\".\n\n\"Those women have been through so much already, walking or driving their way through a war zone and then they are exposed to fear and exploitation here? I have no words for what that must be like,\" she says.\n\nBy now, she has recruited more than 650 Polish \"amazing women\", as she describes them, driving backwards and forwards as often as they can to the Polish-Ukrainian border, in order to offer refugees safe passage.\n\nI accompany Elżbieta, better known as Ela, to a refugee centre where she makes a point of showing her ID card and proof of residence to officials, before she asks if anyone wants a lift to Warsaw.\n\nHer car was full in moments. The passengers: refugee Nadia and her three children.\n\nEla settled the family into her thoughtfully stocked car, offering the small children water, chocolate and motion-sickness tablets if they needed them.\n\nNadia and her children are grateful for the lift\n\nNadia, meanwhile, told me of her dangerous journey out of Ukraine from Kharkiv. Now in Poland, she was so relieved, she said, to have a female driver.\n\nShe'd heard of the risks of trafficking and exploitation on Ukrainian radio. But she came anyway.\n\nHer home was being shelled, she said. The risks of war were more immediate.\n\nEla has the refugees' best interests at heart. But leaving the border safely doesn't mean the danger is over for them.\n\nMost we spoke to hoped to go home as soon as the violence ends. But over the next days, weeks, even months, they need somewhere to sleep, to eat, to send their children to school, as well as a job to properly support themselves.\n\nEU leaders have unanimously approved a measure to open up the job market, schools and access to health care for Ukrainians, but as human rights groups point out, refugees need help to get registered and be informed of their rights.\n\nOne of the volunteers I met at the Polish-Ukrainian border told me that when you're down and out, friendless and in need of money, you can all too easily end up doing things you would have never imagined.\n\nThis woman was lured into prostitution when she was younger. And that, she says, is a large part of the reason she's helping Ukrainian refugees now.\n\n\"I want to protect them. To warn them,\" she told me. She asked me not to reveal her name. She's since turned her life around and doesn't want her children to know about her past.\n\nRefugees are all too vulnerable to exploitation\n\nFive weeks into Russia's onslaught in Ukraine, processes across Europe screening those claiming to help Ukrainians are still far from foolproof.\n\nOrganised crime (including sex and organ trafficking and frequently, slave labour) is not the only menace. Refugees are exploited by individuals too.\n\nPeople in Poland, Germany, the UK and elsewhere have opened up their homes to refugees, most with the best of intentions. But sadly not all.\n\nWe found a post on social media from a Ukrainian woman who fled to Düsseldorf in Germany. The man who offered her a room confiscated her ID papers and demanded she clean his house for free. He then started to make sexual advances as well. She refused - and he kicked her out on the street.\n\nIrena Dawid-Olczyk, chief executive of the Warsaw branch of anti-trafficking NGO La Strada, told me the story was all too familiar. That kind of thing happens, war or no war, she told me. But an avalanche of conflict-scarred women and children bursting out of Ukraine means that exploitation and abuse cases escalate.\n\nShe cites teenage refugees as a particular concern. \"We all know teenagers, don't we? They're insecure. They want acceptance and recognition,\" she says.\n\n\"And if they are refugees who are far from home and friends, they're even easier to exploit.\n\n\"Girls might love attention lavished on them by older men. Or they'll be introduced to a cool girl their own age, who has great clothes and invites them to parties.\n\n\"That's how it starts. Don't forget, it's not only men who are pimps, traffickers and abusers.\"\n\nRefugees are given leaflets offering help\n\nThe push factors for Ukrainian women to accept seemingly generous online offers to escape their difficulties also increase manyfold in war time.\n\nWithout revealing identities, Irena reels off case after case that La Strada Poland is working on - Ukrainian girls offered plane tickets to Mexico, Turkey, the UAE, without ever having met the men inviting them.\n\n\"My colleagues are trying to persuade a 19-year-old girl not to join her friend at a man's house,\" she says.\n\n\"She knows her friend has been beaten. But the man calls her on her mobile, says sweet things and offers her presents.\n\n\"If they insist on going, we beg the girls to at least register with the local authorities. If they don't, they have our phone number.\n\n\"I hope they can call us if they need us.\"\n\nGovernments across Europe have pledged solidarity with Ukraine.\n\nHuman rights groups want them to take better care of those running for their lives. They need protection.\n• None Where have Ukraine's millions of refugees gone?", "Canada's Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says there is agreement about moving away from Russian oil and gas\n\nCanada says it can provide more oil, gas and uranium to help solve the global energy crisis.\n\nPrices have soared as a result of Russian supplies being squeezed because of its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nCanada's natural resources minister said many countries are committed \"to help as much as we can in terms of displacing Russian oil and gas\".\n\nThe world's fourth biggest oil producer has committed to exporting an extra 200,000 barrels of oil.\n\nIts Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told BBC News it would also export an additional 100,000 barrels of natural gas.\n\nIt follows requests from its allies at a meeting of the world's energy ministers at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which pledged to accelerate the move to clean energy.\n\n\"We expect that by the end of the year we will be fully up to the 300,000 barrels,\" said Mr Wilkinson.\n\nHowever, that is only a fraction of the three million barrels a day that the IEA says will be removed from global markets by next month because of sanctions against Russia.\n\nCanada will export 200,000 more barrels of oil per day by the end of the year\n\nCanada is limited in how much oil it can export because its pipelines are running near full capacity, but Mr Wilkinson says sending it via the United States is an option.\n\nCanada's biggest pipeline company Enbridge told the BBC it is \"prepared to do what we can to increase energy security for both North America and Europe\".\n\nThe impact of Canada's extra supplies \"will be relatively limited given the regionality of Canadian crude, which will likely stay in the North American market\", according to Louise Dickson, who is a senior oil analyst at the consultancy Rystad Energy.\n\n\"The main energy crisis is playing out in Europe due to supply shortages, and Asia where demand is on the cusp of recovering if Covid-19 lockdowns can be kept at bay,\" added Ms Dickson.\n\nCanada has joined the US and UK in introducing a ban on Russian oil. That has seen prices pushed up as high as almost $130 (£98.56) a barrel since the war in Ukraine began.\n\nMr Wilkinson believes \"there is a consensus\" among the other energy ministers at the meeting that the world needs to cope without Russian oil and gas, adding: \"I think the only differences are around how fast can you actually get away from it.\"\n\nHowever, the investment bank JP Morgan says it thinks the \"current extreme aversion to Russian oil will subside\" and that the price of a barrel of oil will fall back to about $100 in the second half of this year.\n\nThe International Monetary Fund is among those who have raised concerns that higher oil prices are causing costs of goods and energy bills to rise and that inflation is harming the global economy.\n\nMr Wilkinson said leaders must ensure that people \"are able to heat their homes and that industries are able to produce the goods that we all need.\"\n\nMotorists, including these in Toronto, have seen the price of filling up their car go up as a result of the war in Ukraine\n\nIn the longer term, Mr Wilkinson said he recognised that \"energy security and fighting climate change are intimately linked\".\n\nAddressing immediate concerns, he argued: \"Canadian oil displacing Russian oil doesn't cause more climate change. There's no more CO2 emissions.\"\n\nHaving previously run a \"clean energy\" company, Mr Wilkinson said he was a big believer in using hydrogen and other renewable sources to create more energy going forward.\n\nThe variable nature of solar and wind power means \"there is a role for nuclear in many jurisdictions in terms of providing baseload rather than intermittent power\", Mr Wilkinson said.\n\nRussia plays a key role in the global nuclear power industry. As well as mining uranium, it does a lot of the processing to make it useable in power stations.\n\nEnergy ministers meeting at the IEA in Paris agreed to maintain a focus on cutting carbon emissions as they seek to move away from Russian oil and gas\n\nCanada is \"absolutely\" prepared to export more uranium, said Mr Wilkinson. He explained \"our uranium producers actually do have excess capacity and certainly could ramp up to to help to fill the gap that Russian supplies will provide\".\n\nThe UN Secretary General didn't mention a role for nuclear power when he said a few days ago that the rush to use fossil fuels because of the war in Ukraine is \"madness\" and threatens the ability to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C.\n\nMr Wilkinson said: \"I think where the secretary general and I would agree very much... is the need to accelerate the work that we're doing on climate change.\n\n\"We are we are running out of time. There is no question about that - we need to make significant progress by 2030.\"\n\nHe suggested that the war in Ukraine is underlining \"how important it is not just from a climate perspective, although that's enough, it's from an energy security perspective that we actually do this now. We don't wait.\"\n\nYou can watch Jonathan Wilkinson's full interview on \"Talking Business with Aaron Heslehurst\" this weekend.\n\nViewers in the UK can watch the show on Sunday at 15:30 on the BBC News Channel.\n\nIn other countries, it will be on BBC World News at Saturday at 12:30 & 23:30 GMT and Sunday 06:30 & 18:30 GMT.", "Protests were held at a police station over the teenager's treatment\n\nMuch tougher guidelines will be introduced in response to the \"hugely distressing\" strip-searching of a black schoolgirl referred to as Child Q, the education secretary has said.\n\nNadhim Zahawi told the BBC's Sunday Morning show he would set out a new policy after the \"appalling\" incident.\n\nThe 15-year-old was wrongly suspected by teachers of carrying cannabis.\n\nA safeguarding report found racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor in the search of the girl.\n\nProtests erupted after it emerged the teenager was searched by two female Metropolitan Police officers at a school in Hackney in 2020, without another adult present and in the knowledge that she was menstruating.\n\nMr Zahawi said: \"It's appalling, what happened. I'm reviewing what our guidelines, our policies, are on this. No child should have been exposed to that sort of trauma.\n\n\"The parents weren't even contacted, which I find hugely distressing, which is why I've asked my team to review the policy on this, and I will be saying more about this very soon.\"\n\nNadhim Zahawi told the BBC he would set out a new policy after the \"appalling\" incident\n\nHe did not say whether he thought racism was a factor, adding: \"I don't know because I don't know what drove those police officers.\n\n\"You don't have to have a child to be shocked that a child is allowed to be strip-searched in an environment which is meant to be a protective environment - school is a protective environment for children - hence why I have asked my team to make sure that we review the policies, and I will be saying more, but I will certainly be looking at putting out much tougher guidelines on this.\"\n\nMeanwhile, a government adviser has also condemned the incident, saying it should \"horrify us all\".\n\nNimco Ali, an adviser on violence against women and girls to the Home Office, said the UK should not tolerate minors being strip-searched.\n\nThe school's governing board said the school \"was not aware that a strip-search was taking place\".\n\nIt has apologised to the girl and her family, who are suing the east London school and the Met Police over the incident.\n\nProtests have also been held in east London over the student's treatment\n\nMs Ali, chief executive of the Five Foundation which works to end the practice of female genital mutilation, said: \"It's something that should horrify us all.\n\n\"This country is one of the most tolerant countries in Europe but is there more for us to do? Yes, there is.\n\n\"Ultimately, we have to talk about the Metropolitan Police and institutional racism.\"\n\nHer comments came after Met Police data showed five children are strip-searched every day on average by the force.\n\nThe figures, first reported by LBC, showed that out of 5,279 children searched after an arrest in the past three years, 3,939 - about 75% - were from ethnically diverse backgrounds.\n\nThe data did not cover children who were not arrested but still strip-searched - like Child Q - so it was likely the number was even higher.\n\nWeyman Bennett, co-coordinator of the Stand Up to Racism campaign group, called for \"urgent change\" in light of the \"shocking\" data.\n\nA spokesperson for the Met Police said it \"understood\" strip-searches could have \"a significant and lasting impact on someone\".\n\n\"Every search must be lawful, proportionate and necessary and carried out with respect, dignity and empathy,\" the spokesperson said.\n\nThe force added there were \"occasions when it is very necessary\" to strip-search minors, for example \"to prevent harm to children who may be exploited by gangs, County Lines and drug dealers\".\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nHarry Kane moved level with Sir Bobby Charlton on 49 England goals as they came from behind to beat Switzerland in a friendly at Wembley.\n\nEngland were grateful to the excellence of goalkeeper Jordan Pickford in the first half but they still fell behind when Breel Embolo's header put Switzerland in front after 22 minutes.\n\nGareth Southgate's side were second best to the confident Swiss but were handed a route back into the game when Fabian Frei's error ended with Luke Shaw providing an emphatic finish for England's equaliser in first-half stoppage time.\n\nEngland, who gave debuts to Marc Guehi, Kyle Walker-Peters and Tyrick Mitchell, completed the turnaround with 12 minutes left when Kane scored from the spot after VAR adjudged that Steven Zuber had handled from a corner.\n\nKane scored with his usual expertise and now stands just four goals behind England's record marksman Wayne Rooney.\n• None Guehi reveals 'nervous' family were not at Wembley\n• None Player Rater: Rate the players out of 10\n\nEngland unconvincing but get over the line\n\nEngland, perhaps understandably, struggled for any rhythm over long periods as manager Southgate gave his line-up an experimental appearance for the first of two Wembley friendlies in this international break.\n\nIt was only the fine work of Pickford that prevented Switzerland establishing a more decisive advantage before Frei's error gave England an equaliser they barely deserved in the closing moments of the first half.\n\nWalker-Peters did well to stretch and intercept Frei's risky clearance, allowing the excellent Conor Gallagher to provide a pass that rolled into the path of Shaw, who made no mistake at the same end where he scored for England in the Euro 2020 Final against Italy at Wembley in the summer.\n\nUnder Southgate, England have developed a habit of getting the job done on many occasions when they have not been at their best and so it proved again as an improved second-half display ended with Kane's winner.\n\nKane has been approaching his best for Tottenham in recent weeks and he scored from the spot with power and precision as he took a step closer to the England record books.\n\nHe now stands just those four goals behind Rooney's record of 53 and it is only a matter of time before he takes top spot, currently standing on a highly impressive tally of 49 goals from 68 appearances.\n\nEngland struggled in the opening 45 minutes, Southgate's plans disrupted in the moments before kick-off when John Stones was injured in the warm-up. He was replaced by Ben White, who saw Xherdan Shaqiri's cross float over his head for Embolo to score.\n\nGallagher pressed his claims with a fine performance, although Declan Rice's absence from the starting line-up, then his appearance as a substitute, only emphasised his crucial importance to every element of Southgate's plans in this World Cup year.\n\nSouthgate will enjoy another morale-boosting victory and he can experiment further when England meet Ivory Coast here at Wembley on Tuesday.\n• None Attempt missed. Michel Aebischer (Switzerland) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Mario Gavranovic.\n• None Attempt saved. Conor Coady (England) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Raheem Sterling with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. Ricardo Rodríguez (Switzerland) left footed shot from outside the box is too high.\n• None Attempt blocked. Granit Xhaka (Switzerland) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Kevin Mbabu. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Tributes have poured in from musicians after the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins\n\nTaylor Hawkins, drummer with one of the world's biggest rock bands, Foo Fighters, has died aged 50.\n\nHawkins performed with the band for more than two decades, joining shortly after they finished recording their 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.\n\nHawkins joined the group, created by Dave Grohl, in 1997\n\nDave Grohl created Foo Fighters in 1994 after Nirvana disbanded following the suicide of lead singer Kurt Cobain.\n\nGrohl, an acclaimed drummer, took on lead vocals and guitar in Foo Fighters.\n\nBBC Radio 6 presenter and former drummer Matt Everitt says Hawkins had \"to be pretty good\" to be chosen to drum for the band.\n\n\"Dave Grohl is a legendary drummer, but Taylor was no less the musician at all,\" he says.\n\n\"For a start they wouldn't have had him in the band, if he didn't have the chops.\n\n\"He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Dave Grohl. He was brilliant\"\n\nRock singer Ozzy Osbourne described Hawkins as an amazing musician\n\nEveritt, who interviewed Hawkins several times during shows in the UK, described the late drummer as having remarkable passion when playing and great taste.\n\n\"He served the song,\" he continues. \"That's what all the best drummers do.\n\n\"They understand it's not just about how great your part is, but it's about how great the whole song is and knowing when to sit back on a song.\"\n\nGrohl and Hawkins sometimes swapped roles during the band's concerts, with Hawkins taking on vocals.\n\nHawkins and Grohl \"absolutely adored each other\" BBC Radio 6 presenter Matt Everitt said\n\nThe band were on a tour of South America at the time of his death\n\nThe Texas native was introduced to music by his brother and started out playing guitar but, inspired by Roger Taylor of Queen and Stewart Copeland of The Police, he soon switched to drums.\n\nHe drew influence from UK artists, and at almost every Foo Fighters concert stepped out from behind the drum kit to sing a track by his favourite band, Queen.\n\nBrian May in a tribute described Hawkins as his \"beloved child\". He posted on Instagram: \"Taylor, you were family to us.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nEveritt says: \"He loved London. A lot of the bands he really loved came from the UK.\"\n\nWhen in London he would make a pilgrimage to Trident Studios in Soho, London, where Davie Bowie and Queen recorded music.\n\nThe late drummer was a big fan of legendary band Queen\n\nBut during 2001 visit to London, Hawkins spent two weeks in a coma after taking an overdose of heroin.\n\nSpeaking about the experience in 2018, he said it had been \"a real changing point for me\".\n\nHawkins and his wife, Alison, married in 2005. They have three children.\n\nThe father-of-three was married to Alison Hawkins\n\nIn 2011, Foo Fighters replied to a protest from a fundamentalist Christian church by performing a special gig for them.\n\nMembers of the Westboro Baptist church were picketing outside the Sprint Center, Kansas City, where the band were due to perform on Friday evening.\n\nThe group were dressed up and arrived on a flat-bed truck, before performing a track called Keep It Clean.\n\nThe Foofighters turned up to perform in protest against the Westboro Baptist church\n\nWhile the Foo Fighters were on break in 2013, Hawkins formed a rock cover band called Chevy Metal.\n\nTaylor Hawkins released music, outside of Foo Fighters, with his band Chevy Metal\n\nIn 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.\n\nAccording to Everitt, the stadium-fillers were not \"resting on past glories\" and still producing records.\n\n\"They weren't standing still,\" he adds. \"Foo Fighters had more to say, which just makes the tragedy even more unbearable.\"\n\nFoo Fighters are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Paul McCartney\n\nHawkins was pictured performing at Lollapalooza Chile last week\n\nFoo Fighters are currently on tour in South America.\n\nHawkins' final performance with the band was at the Lollapalooza festival.\n\nThe band had been due to perform on Friday night at the Estereo Picnic festival in Bogota, Colombia, before news of his death was announced.", "Kenneth Branagh and Ciarán Hinds are due to attend the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday\n\nSir Kenneth Branagh is out of Covid isolation and will attend Sunday night's 94th Academy Awards.\n\nCiarán Hinds, who is nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category, will also go to the ceremony.\n\nThere had been concerns that they would be unable to attend after both testing positive for Covid earlier in March.\n\nBelfast has seven Oscar nominations in total, including two for Branagh in the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay categories.\n\nThose nominations mean he has become the first person to be shortlisted in seven different categories throughout his career.\n\nDame Judi Dench is nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Sir Van Morrison's Down to Joy is up for Best Song.\n\nThe film is also nominated for Best Sound and the biggest prize of the night, Best Picture.\n\nAnother contender for Best Picture, the western film The Power of the Dog, has 12 nominations in total, while Apple TV's Coda is another strong contender for the prestigious award.\n\nAfter three years without a host, a trio of female comic actors - Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes - will take the reins at the ceremony this year.", "Simon Coveney was notified of the alert by his team shortly after he began speaking\n\nA woman has been released after she was arrested following a security alert which led to the Irish foreign minister being evacuated from a venue in north Belfast.\n\nSimon Coveney was giving a peace-building talk at the Houben Centre, on the Crumlin Road, when the hijacking and security alert happened on Friday.\n\nA man arrested following the incident remains in custody.\n\nPolice carried out searches on Saturday in north Belfast.\n\nThe 38-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances, possession and concealing criminal property and possession of a Class B drug with intent to supply.\n\nShe has been released on police bail pending further inquiries.\n\nPolice said the 41-year-old man, who was arrested under the Terrorism Act remained in custody.\n\nRoads around the venue remained closed on Friday afternoon\n\nDetectives have blamed loyalist paramilitaries for the security alert.\n\nThey said a van was hijacked in Sydney Street West off the Shankill Road in west Belfast between 09:00 and 10:00 GMT on Friday.\n\nThe van driver was threatened by two gunmen and forced to drive the vehicle to another street, where a device was placed in the van.\n\nHe was then forced to drive to Holy Cross Church near the Houben Centre, sparking the evacuation.", "This livestream has now ended.\n\nOn this week's Sunday Morning, Sophie Raworth is joined by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth, and Dr Anthony Fauci - the chief medical adviser to the US president.", "Ukrainian volunteers have formed territorial defence groups to help their armed forces stop the Russian invasion.\n\nSome of them work close to the front line.\n\nThe BBC’s Abdujalil Abdurasulov joined an aerial reconnaissance team during their field operation.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nRed Bull's Sergio Perez beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.\n\nThe second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz beat Red Bull's Max Verstappen to third.\n\nHaas driver Mick Schumacher was taken to hospital after a high-speed accident, although the German was uninjured.\n• None How to follow the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix\n\nAnd Lewis Hamilton had his worst competitive showing in qualifying since 2009 in managing only 16th place.\n\nQualifying happened against the backdrop of a difficult weekend for F1 following a missile strike against an oil facility just nine miles from the track.\n\nThe drivers spent four hours in meetings late into the night on Friday discussing whether it was safe to continue driving before eventually deciding to follow the lead of the Saudi government, which gave them assurances the event was secure.\n\n\"We don't want to go into details of what we discussed,\" Leclerc said. \"It was more a matter of coming together as drivers to share our options because it was a tricky moment to say the least.\n\n\"It was very useful to speak about this all together. It took quite a bit of time but that's normal in those situations.\n\n\"We are here anyway and we have not listen to the people who are taking care of the situation, and trust them.\"\n\nSchumacher hit the wall at high speed during qualfiying\n\nPerez's pole was unexpected to say the least. He is not known as a great qualifier, he beat Verstappen only once in their first season together last year and this achievement came in his 220th grand prix.\n\nBut it was well deserved. He had looked closer than usual to Verstappen throughout the weekend but put in what he called the lap of his life to beat Leclerc at the very end of qualifying.\n\n\"I could do another 1,000 laps and I could never beat this lap time,\" Perez said.\n\nThe Mexican was 0.261 seconds quicker than world champion team-mate Verstappen, who was down in fourth.\n\nPerez beat Leclerc by 0.225secs, with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz third, 0.177secs behind his team-mate.\n\nMercedes driver George Russell was sixth as team-mate Lewis Hamilton could manage only 16th.\n\nLeclerc himself had saved his best for last - he improved by more than 0.2secs on his final run to leapfrog himself ahead of Sainz, who had taken provisional pole with his first lap.\n\n\"The lap felt good,\" Leclerc said. \"I was very happy with the lap. In the second lap, I just went for it. I definitely did not expect that lap time from Checo and he did an incredible job today.\"\n\nIt sets up an intriguing race, with the Ferraris sandwiched between the Red Bulls at the start, following Leclerc's win in the season-opener in Bahrain last weekend, where Red Bull suffered an agonising late double retirement.\n\nAnd it came at the end of a crash-strewn session in which there were two red flags, the second one for a massive crash involving Schumacher which caused a stoppage of nearly an hour.\n\nMercedes are not competitive at the moment as they battle with aerodynamic problems in their car but no-one would have foreseen Hamilton's struggles.\n\nHamilton was only 11th fastest in final practice although felt he had hit on a decent set-up direction, but when it came to qualifying after nightfall he complained of a lack of grip.\n\n\"It was looking good in P3,\" he said. \"I tried to progress in a similar direction and maybe went a bit too far and the car was just undriveable, so nervous.\"\n\nIt was his worst performance in terms of outright pace, disregarding technical or other problems, since the 2009 British Grand Prix.\n\nRussell was more than 0.6secs quicker than the seven-time world champion in the first session and made it through to the final top 10 shootout.\n\nBut while team boss Toto Wolff said he felt the team were still the third quickest car behind Red Bull and Ferrari, that was not the case, and Ocon snuck in front of him.\n\nThe second Alpine of Fernando Alonso, Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas, Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10.\n\nLando Norris qualified 11th for McLaren, while his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was one place behind him but given a three-place penalty for impeding Ocon.\n\nSchumacher was ahead of Magnussen early in the second part of qualifying but he pushed too hard through the fast swerves for Turns Eight and Nine, caught the kerb, spun and smashed into the wall.\n\nThe Haas was badly damaged but Schumacher was conscious throughout and the first indications were that he was uninjured, but he was air-lifted to hospital for precautionary checks.\n\nSchumacher, however, will not take part in Sunday's race after the team withdrew his car.\n\nThe accident has raised further questions about the safety of the track, about which drivers have been concerned since it made its debut last year.\n\nThe first heave accident happened in the first session, when Nicholas Latifi lost his Williams on the entry to Turn 13. The impact was less severe, and he hit crash barriers rather than an exposed concrete wall and the session was able to resume after a few minutes.", "Tests take place behind the barriers of a makeshift Covid centre in Shanghai earlier this week\n\nChina has announced its biggest city-wide lockdown since the Covid outbreak began more than two years ago.\n\nThe city of Shanghai will be locked down in two stages over nine days while authorities carry out Covid-19 testing.\n\nThe important financial hub has battled a new wave of infections for nearly a month, although case numbers are not high by some international standards.\n\nAuthorities had so far resisted locking down the city of some 25 million people to avoid destabilising the economy.\n\nBut after Shanghai recorded its highest daily number of cases on Saturday since the early days of the pandemic, authorities appear to have changed course.\n\nThe lockdown will happen in two stages, with the eastern side of the city under restrictions from Monday until 1 April, and the western side from 1-5 April.\n\nPublic transport will be suspended and firms and factories must halt operations or work remotely, authorities said.\n\nThe city government published the instructions on its WeChat account, asking the public \"to support, understand and cooperate with the city's epidemic prevention and control work\".\n\nOther lockdowns during the pandemic have affected entire Chinese provinces, though people could often still travel within those regions. But Shanghai, due to its high population density, is the largest single city to be locked down to date.\n\nIt is China's commercial capital and by some calculations the biggest city in the country - but is now one of the worst-hit areas as China fights to contain a resurgence of the virus with Omicron, leading to a spike in new cases.\n\nOfficials had until now said the eastern Chinese port and financial hub must keep running for the good of the economy. The staggered approach to this lockdown means half the city will remain functioning at a time.\n\nMillions of residents in other Chinese cities have been subjected to citywide lockdowns, often after a relatively small number of Covid cases.\n\nIn a city that's been on its knees for two weeks, parts of it reduced to something like a ghost town, the streets are now suddenly busy with panic shoppers.\n\nI've been out and seen queues stretching out of shop doors as people stock up before the lockdown starts early on Monday.\n\nThe subway station at the end of my road, newly opened just a few months ago, will be shut on Monday. Public transport will stop and all residents will be subject to mass city-wide Covid testing.\n\nAlmost 25 million people will be affected; the eastern side of the city first, then at the end of next week the western side.\n\nWuhan was sealed off at the very outset of this pandemic. Before Christmas it was Xi'an. Now China's commercial and financial capital is being shut.\n\nJust a few days ago officials here said Shanghai was too big and too important to lock down. The question now on many residents' lips will be whether nine days is enough.\n\nThe recent surge in cases in China, although small compared to some countries, is a significant challenge to China's \"zero-Covid\" strategy, which uses swift lockdowns and aggressive restrictions to contain any outbreak.\n\nThe policy sets China apart from most other countries which are trying to live with the virus.\n\nBut the increased transmissibility and milder nature of the Omicron variant has led to questions over whether the current strategy is sustainable in the long run.\n\nSome Shanghai residents have complained about the seemingly endless cycles of testing, suggesting that the cost of zero-Covid had become too high.\n\nChina's national health commission reported more than 4,500 new domestically transmitted cases on Sunday.", "Will Smith became tearful as he gave his acceptance speech Image caption: Will Smith became tearful as he gave his acceptance speech\n\nWill Smith went up to the stage and slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about his wife earlier on in the ceremony.\n\nWhen Smith later went up to the stage, it was to collect his Academy Award for best actor.\n\nHe delivered this apologetic speech, where he talked about God, love and his actions and referenced his role, as the father of tennis players Venus and Serena Williams:\n\n\"Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment, I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world.\n\nMaking this film, I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one of the most strongest, most delicate people I've ever met.\n\nI got to protect Saniyya [Sidney] and Demi [Singleton], the two actresses who played Venus and Serena.\n\nI'm being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people. I know, to do what we do, you've got to be able to take abuse.\n\nYou got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business, you've got to be able to have people disrespecting you, and you've got to smile, you've got to pretend like that's OK.\n\nWhat I loved was, Denzel [Washington] said to me a few moments ago, he said, 'At your highest moment, be careful, that's when the devil comes for you'.\n\nI want to be a vessel for love. I want to say thank you to Venus and Serena and the entire Williams family for entrusting me with your story.\n\nThat's what I want to do. I want to be an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern.\n\nI want to apologise to the Academy. I want to apologise to all my fellow nominees. This is a beautiful moment and I'm not crying for winning an award.\n\nIt's not about winning an award for me. It's about being able to shine a light on all of the people - Tim [White, producer] and Trevor [White, producer] and Zach [Baylin, writer] and Saniyya and Demi and Aunjanue and the entire cast and crew of King Richard, and Venus and Serena, the entire Williams family.\n\nArt imitates life. I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.\n\nAnd my mother… a lot in this moment is really complicated for me but to my mother, she didn't want to come out.\n\nShe's had her knitting crew who she's in Philly watching with. Being able to love and care for my mother, my family, my wife… I'm taking up too much time… Thank you for this honour.\n\nThank you for this moment and thank you on behalf of Richard and Oracene and the entire Williams family. Thank you.\n\nI hope the Academy invites me back. Thank you.\"", "Smoke as heavy as a winter fog hung over the last mile or so of the road into Irpin, just a 20-minute drive north-west of Kyiv. Trees and undergrowth in the pine forest on either side were burning, set alight by shelling. The road was almost empty.\n\nWhen our BBC team was last able to come here, about three weeks ago, the city was badly damaged. Now it is in ruins.\n\nIrpin sits in an arc of towns that also includes Bucha and Hostomel, where the most important fighting for the future of Kyiv is taking place. If it is important for Kyiv, it is important for the rest of the country. The capital remains the biggest prize.\n\nIt seems clear now that a central part of Russia's strategy when President Putin ordered the invasion was a decisive thrust into Kyiv, to replace the troublesome Zelensky government with one that would do as it was told.\n\nThe failure of that strategy is, without a doubt, a victory for Ukraine. President Zelensky's presence in the capital is as well. While the government is here, and functioning, and while Kyiv remains accessible, President Putin has a constant reminder that the start of his \"special military operation\" - it is not called a war by the Kremlin - was badly bungled.\n\nUkraine is winning another battle decisively - the war of the Twittersphere. From skilfully crafted video messages delivered by President Zelensky and world-famous Ukrainians, such as the boxing Klitschko brothers, to local journalists who suddenly have hundreds of thousands of followers, they dominate social media.\n\nIt is a clever strategy, partly managed and partly spontaneous. The information battlefield is a vital part of modern war.\n\nBut getting to the truth of what is happening in a war means being very cautious about declarations of victory or defeat by anyone.\n\nFor journalists, that requires using your own eyes and ears, which is why our BBC team - and many other colleagues - have made trips to front line areas to try to base our reporting on first-hand knowledge.\n\nA month into the war, it's harder to get to the crucial front line at Irpin. In the first days, journalists were able to drive in that direction. They were waved through roadblocks, and images went round the world of thousands of displaced civilians crossing the ruins of a road bridge blown by Ukrainian engineers to slow the Russians down if they made it to the Irpin River.\n\nPeople cross the destroyed bridge as they evacuate Irpin during heavy shelling and bombing on March 5, 2022\n\nBut as governments and military commands organise themselves in wars after the confusion of the first few days, it is always more difficult to move around. So, when the opportunity came to revisit the area it was important to take it. It is never an easy decision to go into harm's way.\n\nCommander Oleg, the leader of the unit that was going to take us in, delivered a stern briefing at their base in Kyiv. His pistol was on the desk in front of him and his Kalashnikov assault rifle was propped up against a chair. The unit was part of the volunteer territorial defence.\n\nOleg, a thick-set man in his 40s, said he had been a factory manager before the invasion. He said that shelling north west of Kyiv was constant. If we were lucky there might be a lull. If we were not whatever happened was our responsibility, and there were basements and cellars we would have to reach in a hurry.\n\nWhen displaced people were leaving Irpin, the road into the city was crowded with buses and ambulances picking them up and taking them into Kyiv. Many went straight to the railway station to head west, further from the Russians or to cross the border to become refugees in Poland, Romania and beyond.\n\nIn Irpin I could see clearly that the last few weeks of bombardment had damaged almost every building. The ruined bridge was now the route into the battlefield for groups of Ukrainian troops, heavily laden with weapons and ammunition, who were pushing forward on foot.\n\nA few civilians were still emerging from the rubble of their town, people who had tried to hang on. A man called Pavlo, who walked painfully slowly with a stick, said he was getting out because a shell had destroyed his house. A soldier was helping him, carrying a few of things Pavlo had salvaged packed into a plastic supermarket shopping bag. I asked the old man how he was.\n\n\"I'm bad,\" he said. \"Children are dying, everyone is dying. I didn't think I would make it to the bridge.\"\n\nA man and a woman were leaving with nine dogs. The animals were terrified, and Slava was dragging them on a lead. She said they had been cut off, but now had to move.\n\nThey were the exceptions. Otherwise, it was a military area, swept up by the fighting. Vehicles picked up the Ukrainian soldiers to ferry them deeper into the battleground. The sound of Russian heavy artillery rumbled constantly around the flat, boggy terrain.\n\nIrpin, Bucha and Hostomel, all now in ruins, used to be desirable places to live, an easy drive into the city, criss-crossed by waterways, with plenty of forest to walk dogs. It turns out that what was good for the residents is also good for Ukrainian defenders.\n\nAs one of the generals commanding the defence of Kyiv told me early in the war, the topography helps them. Spring is in the air, ice and snow have melted; mud and water are a nightmare for tanks. Forests are good places to conceal guns and build defensive positions.\n\nIn a cellar Commander Oleg, who had delivered the stern warning in Kyiv, was more relaxed closer to the fight.\n\nThe underground space, chosen because it had a thick concrete roof, was in a half-built house. It still had power. The lights on racks of battery chargers for walkie-talkies glowed in the gloom. Weapons were stacked in corners.\n\nAmmunition comes in metal containers painted army green, which are opened like giant cans of corn beef.\n\nLike his men, Oleg said the Russians had been pushed back. He explained that they were hitting Russian supply lines. Putin's men still had a toehold on the ground in Irpin, but the way they made their presence felt was with heavy artillery.\n\nFormer British soldier Shane Matthews is fighting with Oleg's unit\n\nShane Matthews, a former British soldier who travelled here from the UK with a Ukrainian friend, was part of Oleg's unit. Shane did not believe Nato should intervene, unlike every Ukrainian from the president down, because of the risks of a wider war. He had seen many civilians, including a family of four whose car was hit by an artillery shell. So little was left of them, he said, that their remains would barely have filled a bin bag.\n\nFirst-hand reporting helps, but it is still hard to penetrate the fog of war, especially in a place that is being shelled more or less constantly. As far as I could see, the claims made by the Ukrainian military that it is holding territory and even taking some of it back are true.\n\nWhat is also true is that Russia is using its formidable firepower and could still direct it at Kyiv. Even if most of their artillery is kept too far back to hit the city centre - a key Ukrainian objective - the Russians have destructive long range conventional missiles.\n\nSo far, apart from isolated but deadly attacks, nothing nearly as bad has happened in Kyiv. Everyone in the city knows that could change very fast.\n\nIn the city this week, more volunteers were being redeployed from quieter sectors to the battered north-western suburbs. It was quiet, a bit tense, as they waited for buses that would take them to the front line.\n\nKatrine, one of the few women in uniform, cuddled her 18-month-old son Nikita. It was going to be a brief reunion as she too was off to Irpin. Katrine said she had been a sniper since 2015 in the long war against Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Now she was back.\n\n\"I'm ready to kill,\" she said, kissing her boy, \"to protect his future\".\n\nKatrine the sniper cuddles her son before heading off to fight\n\nThe war has changed everything for Ukraine, and for Russia. The world now feels more dangerous. Whatever happens on the battlefields of Ukraine, it is clear after a month that the Russian invasion is the biggest threat to international peace and security since the end of the Cold War.\n\nIts consequences are already being felt beyond the borders of Ukraine, in the shape of European security, the politics of the Nato alliance and the growing pressure on economies and food supplies. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned this week that disruption to Ukraine and Russia's agricultural exports could increase world hunger.\n\nOutside their headquarters, the younger volunteers were checking their phones as they waited for the buses. They were born when Europe was hopeful, in the 1990s.\n\nPlenty of older men, some in their 60s were there too. Two of them said they were fishing buddies. They grew up when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union.\n\nNow the old drumbeat of the Cold War, the risk of confrontation between the big powers that was so familiar when Europe was divided by an iron curtain, is back for a new generation.", "The Duke of Cambridge has said the royal tour of the Caribbean was an \"opportunity to reflect\"\n\nThe future relationship between the UK and Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas is for their people to decide, the Duke of Cambridge has said.\n\nHe said that he and the duchess were \"committed to service\" and that \"for us that's not telling people what to do\".\n\nPrince William's comments come after an eight-day tour of the Caribbean nations to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.\n\nThe trip saw the Jamaican prime minister publicly tell the royal couple that his country would be \"moving on\".\n\nIt also came four months after Barbados replaced the Queen with an elected president.\n\nIn a written statement reflecting on the trip, the prince said foreign tours were an \"opportunity to reflect\".\n\n\"You learn so much,\" he said. \"What is on the minds of prime ministers. The hopes and ambitions of school children. The day-to-day challenges faced by families and communities.\"\n\nThe trip saw the duke and duchess visit Belize and Jamaica before a final stop in the Bahamas.\n\nThe Bahamas leg included a trip to a primary school, where the duchess spoke to pupils about the importance of being able to reconnect after being separated during the pandemic.\n\nThe couple also visited a church on the Abaco Islands to speak to locals about destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian in 2019, and a coral conservation project that was among last year's winners of the Royal Foundation's Earthshot Prize for contributions to environmentalism.\n\nThe duke and duchess visit a memorial wall to the victims of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 on the Abaco Islands\n\nThe duke continued: \"I know that this tour has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future.\n\n\"In Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, that future is for the people to decide upon.\"\n\nAfter the couple left Belize on Tuesday, a government minister announced a new commission would begin consulting with people across the country on how the \"decolonization process\" should proceed.\n\nBahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis has not commented on the issue, although last year said it was \"not on the agenda\".\n\nHowever, the day before the duke and duchess arrived in the Bahamas, a letter was released by campaign group The National Reparations Committee, calling for Britain to pay reparations for the slave trade.\n\nIn the statement, the duke said he and his wife saw the purpose of their roles as being to serve and support people \"in whatever way they think best, by using the platform we are lucky to have\".\n\n\"Who the Commonwealth chooses to lead its family in the future isn't what is on my mind,\" he said. \"What matters to us is the potential the Commonwealth family has to create a better future for the people who form it.\"\n\nThe royal couple visit a coral conservation project that was among the winners of the Royal Foundation's 2021 Earthshot Prize for contributions to environmentalism", "Last updated on .From the section Mixed Martial Arts\n\nAs Michael Bisping walks into the room for this interview, he spills a cup of coffee on the floor.\n\nFor most, it would be an innocuous incident. For Bisping, there is a life-changing, career-defining reason behind the spillage - he is blind in one eye.\n\nThe remarkable story of how the 43-year-old lost the vision in his right eye yet still went on to become the first British UFC champion in history is told in a new documentary.\n\nHere, Bisping talks to BBC Sport about the emotional turmoil he experienced as a fighter, the steep barriers he overcame to reach the top, and how it felt watching a film about his career.\n\n'The eye injury took my identity away'\n\nWhen Bisping agreed to fight Vitor Belfort in 2013, he knew beating the Brazilian could lead to his first UFC world title fight.\n\nWhat he didn't know was the bout would be the last time he stepped inside the octagon with vision in both eyes.\n\nIn the second round, Belfort landed a fight-ending head kick which led to a detached retina on Bisping's right side.\n\nHe initially dealt with the injury privately - fearing medical professionals would prevent him fighting - and three months later beat Alan Belcher by a technical unanimous decision.\n\nBy then, though, his symptoms had worsened to the extent he couldn't put off seeing a doctor any longer.\n\nSix surgeries later, his vision remained irreparable and his fight career appeared to be over.\n\n\"The mental side was by far the hardest part,\" says Bisping.\n\n\"I'd just moved out to America. Things were going well living this new life in California, but we weren't financially secure and it all got taken away.\n\n\"I went through depression and feeling sorry for myself and drinking too much because I couldn't do anything. My entire identity had been taken away.\"\n\nDespite the loss of vision, decline in his mental health and insistence by doctors his career was over, Bisping never considered retiring.\n\n\"Physically I felt great,\" he says. \"I could still do it, but I couldn't get cleared to fight. Someone else is saying: 'No we're not allowing you to fight because of your eye.'\n\n\"I was forced for a year to not do anything which could get my heart rate up, and to allow the eye to heal, and that was in itself very challenging.\"\n\nContrary to the belief of the doctors, Bisping did end up fighting again. And again. And again.\n\nIndeed three years after going blind in his right eye, Bisping won the UFC middleweight title by knocking out Luke Rockhold.\n\nBut how did Bisping get cleared to fight, and what was it like competing with one eye?\n\nIn Bisping: The Michael Bisping Story, he tells how he \"fluked and conned\" his way through a number of tests by medical professionals, before getting the all-clear.\n\nIndeed only Bisping and his close team members knew the full extent of his problem.\n\nInside the octagon, the main adjustments he had to make were to do with depth perception, which he still struggles with today - hence the spilt coffee.\n\n\"I'd go to grab things, miss on a couple of occasions, then get it the third time,\" says Bisping.\n\n\"It was the same with punching - I'd be hitting fresh air, but then you connect and your brain kind of measures the distance.\n\n\"It was tough, challenging and definitely an adjustment period but I got there in the end.\"\n\nThroughout the documentary, Bisping shows an emotional side in contrast to the brash, outspoken character he portrayed through his fight career.\n\nWhether it's speaking about his eye injury, the problems he suffered growing up in Clitheroe, or the difficulties in coming to terms with defeat, Bisping isn't afraid to pour out his feelings.\n\nOne such poignant moment comes when he talks about meeting his wife, Rebecca.\n\n\"She never helped me, she just loved me,\" he says. \"She loved me for who I was and because of her and what we had, I wanted to do better in life.\n\n\"I never had any ambition, never wanted to be someone. I didn't care. Who cared if I didn't go to school? Who cared if I got arrested?\n\n\"My mum and dad weren't around too much so when Rebecca came along I wanted more out of life and I wanted to be a success.\"\n\nBisping says discussing his emotions in the way he did during the documentary is something he struggled with during his career.\n\n\"I had this defence mechanism, especially after a loss, of trying to play things down,\" he says. \"But inside you're crushed.\n\n\"That's one thing that would have helped me - trying to get hold of my emotions. If I could do that, my life would be so much easier because I react out of emotion all the time, and controlling those emotions and discussing those emotions and being honest would certainly have helped.\"\n\n'Everyone said the nicest things, but I'm just an idiot from Clitheroe'\n\nFollowing defeat by Kelvin Gastelum, and a scare involving his left eye, Bisping retired in 2017.\n\nHe's since built a career in the media - commentating and providing analysis for the UFC, and taking part in a number of podcasts.\n\nLooking back, he struggles to identify with the person he used to be.\n\n\"The fighter side of me ... I wouldn't say it's dead, but it's definitely suppressed,\" he says.\n\n\"But I sit cageside now, commentating on fights, and see what these guys do to each other, and I think: 'They're out of their mind - and I used to this. It's crazy.'\"\n\nAmong the other big names to appear in the documentary are MMA stars Georges St-Pierre and Rashad Evans - and both credit Bisping with being an inspiration.\n\n\"They're legends themselves - they don't get any bigger than Georges - and for them to say what they said, it's incredibly humbling,\" he says.\n\n\"Rashad Evans is actually crying because he was so proud of what I managed to do so, again, it's hard to find the right words.\n\n\"Everyone on the film said the nicest things, and I'm just an idiot from Clitheroe, do you know what I mean?\n\n\"It's amazing, it really is. Mind-blowing.\"\n• None Who were the greatest number 10s? Ranking the best players who wore the number\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the iconic role", "Passengers board the train in Lviv during the first days of the war in Ukraine\n\nTen million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. Most head west to the relative safety of cities like Lviv - and many continue onwards to neighbouring countries. Our correspondent Fergal Keane met some of those who took the 91/92 train between Kyiv and Lviv - the \"Rescue Express\"\n\nThe air raid alarm in the station tower has just started: no bombs are falling, but nerves are fraying. The guard tells us to shelter with the refugees in the tunnel under the platform.\n\nThere are several thousand people here, in a long queue.\n\nWe wait among the anxious and exhausted, the families calming scared children, the elderly woman wrapped in a blanket and pulling a suitcase. She looks as if she cannot possibly walk another step. But she will trudge forward when the all-clear is given. This is not a place of options. Go forward, or run the risk of the war catching up with you.\n\nThen a horn blares. A searchlight appears down the track to the east, a looming brilliance that grows larger as it approaches. Another horn sounds, followed by a conductor's whistle cutting through the clamour of the air raid sirens. A murmur ripples through the crowd. The all-clear is declared, and they can board a train to Poland.\n\nAfter nearly a month reporting on refugees, I have taken to calling this extraordinary evacuation the \"Rescue Express\". Millions of Ukrainians have taken trains from as far south as Odessa on the Black Sea, from Kharkiv close to the Russian border in the north-east, from the Donbas and from Kyiv, and numerous smaller stations in between.\n\nIt has come at great human cost: 33 railway staff have been killed. Tracks and stations have been bombed.\n\nThe head conductor on Train 91/92 between Lviv and Kyiv is Ievgen Propokenko, a 40-year veteran of the railways. He comes from Kharkiv, which is now under Russian siege, and where his daughter and son-in-law also work to keep the Rescue Express going. The railways, he explains, run in the family.\n\nIevgen Propokenko, head conductor on board the \"Rescue Express\" knows that his train could come under fire\n\n\"It is terrifying. My native city is being bombed,\" says Ievgen. \"I can feel it and see it, but I cannot believe it.\"\n\nHe knows that his own train runs the risk of being attacked. One of the conductor's duties is to check that train windows are covered, so its lights don't present an obvious target for Russian aircraft.\n\n\"We can see the war in the faces of the people who come onboard. It is our job. It is what we have to do.\"\n\nAlso onboard is his younger colleague, Oleksandr Shevchenko, 31, the spokesman for the railways who is heading to an awards ceremony. The Prime Minister will be handing out awards to railway staff at the station in Kyiv.\n\nThis service is heading east back towards the conflict, and has only a few passengers. Sitting in a compartment before departure I met Petro Rocharan, a 25-year-old investment banker, who has volunteered to join a battalion defending the capital. Petro is a scout. He has had just three weeks' military training and he is frank about his feelings.\n\n\"I am rather scared honestly. I know Kyiv has been through a lot so far. Including the streets where I am going, where some of my friends are living, and I am just not sure if I am ready to see those buildings destroyed,\" he explains. Petro speaks of different waves of feeling: from fear to excitement and back to fear again.\n\nThe lights of the train could make it a target in these dangerous times\n\nThe train pulls into Kyiv just after dawn, and Petro heads off in search of his battalion. New shifts of drivers, conductors and stewards start to arrive at the station. So do the buses carrying families from the embattled cities of Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kramatorsk and the suburbs of Kyiv itself.\n\nOleg Kryvospytska, 59, comes from Troyeschchyna in the northern suburbs of Kyiv and has brought his wife, Olena, his 29-year-old daughter Olga, and his granddaughters, aged six and 12.\n\nBut Oleg will not be travelling with them. He must stay behind and care for an elderly relative who is unable to travel.\n\nOlena says that they will take the train to Lviv and stay for a few days before deciding where to go in Europe. \"I have no words for this,\" she says. \"This is something terrifying that I can't believe is happening. I'm currently taking sedatives every day to keep me calm, but even that isn't helping.\"\n\nOleg is a tall, strongly-built man and his wife Olena leans into him as the time approaches to board the train. They embrace, and sway gently from side to side. It is a portrait of fortitude and loss, rooted in the 30 years of their life together.\n\nOleg does not speak or cry. For the children's sake, he smiles.\n\nOleg says goodbye to his family, but is careful not to shed any tears\n\nEven as he walks alongside the departing train and can see Olena weeping, he keeps smiling and waving. The little girls shout: \"We love you, we love you.\" His daughter Olga calls out: \"Wait for us.\"\n\nHe will. Of course. However long it takes.\n\nThe train picks up speed. The horn blares and the carriages roll west, through the suburbs, away from the front line and out into the great immensity of Europe's second-largest country. It passes wheat fields ready for spring planting, through small and large towns, further and further from the war zone.\n\nIt is after 22:00 when the Rescue Express pulls into Lviv. Olga and Olena and the children are in the first carriage and it is dark on the platform. A conductor appears with a flash lamp and lights their way. The weary travellers gather their bags and walk towards the lights of the station.\n\nIn a day or two they will board another train, to Poland, peace and exile.", "No food for children in Mariupol, deputy mayor says\n\nThe deputy mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol says people are starting to die from starvation and dehydration, as food and water supplies run low and no humanitarian aid is allowed in. “Some are dying from dehydration and lack of food. Some are dying from lack of medicine, insulin... Because people cannot find medical help,” Sergey Orlov tells the BBC. “Some mothers do not have milk, and they don't have food for children. What should they do with their infants? I don’t know. There’s no food for children at all in the city.” Mariupol has been under relentless Russian attacks since the early days of the war, and pictures show a city in ruins, with entire neighbourhoods destroyed. Orlov says 70% of hospitals in the city have been “destroyed by bombing and shelling”. Communication with the city is difficult, as the phone network is intermittent, so it is hard to independently verify information. Residents spend most of their time in shelters or basements with no electricity, running water, or gas. “People are just looking for any possibility to survive. [They] share food, water, they’re collecting wood to cook in the street,” Orlov says. More than 100,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol. Efforts to carry out large-scale evacuations have failed, although thousands have managed to leave in recent days in private vehicles.", "Empty plinths and cabinets now line the large rooms of the National Museum of Lviv\n\nIn one room of the National Museum of Lviv, an enormous scaffold is bare. In another, brackets hang loosely from the walls. Plinths sit empty along the corridors and wooden pallets and cardboard boxes are strewn on the floors. The staff used whatever they could to pack away the museum's priceless artefacts in a hurry.\n\nAs Russian shelling has devastated other parts of Ukraine, the picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far. But it is bracing for war. Some preparations you can see in the open - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets - but some are taking place behind closed doors.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage. Thousands of artworks and artefacts have been carefully removed and taken to secret underground locations, or down to basement storage rooms.\n\nThe climate-controlled cabinets in Lviv's national museum now sit empty, their treasures hidden underground\n\nIhor Kozhan, the director of the National Museum of Lviv - the largest art museum in Ukraine - took the BBC on a tour of its now empty rooms, which looked as though they had been looted. Climate-controlled display cases, usually home to artworks, icons and manuscripts dating as far back as the 14th Century, were bare.\n\nNearly every one of the 1,500 artefacts on display has now been removed from the museum. The other 97% of the collection - 180,000 pieces in total - was already in storage in some form.\n\n\"Everything, everything is gone,\" Kozhan said.\n\n\"It is sad for me to be in these empty rooms,\" said Ihor Kozhan, the director of the museum\n\nDespite overseeing the operation, Kozhan was amazed by the speed with which the 17th-century Bohorodchany Iconostasis - a grouping of religions paintings measuring 10m by 8m and one of the museum's most valuable pieces - had been dismantled by his team. It had taken six months to hang, piece by piece, he said, and less than six days to pull down from its scaffold and store away.\n\nConstructed and painted over seven years beginning in 1698, the iconostasis represents the high watermark of the work of the icon painter Yov Kondzelevych. It has been in Lviv since 1924, then a Polish city, brought there by an archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.\n\nIt was dismantled and hidden from the Nazis in 1939, forbidden from display during the Soviet era, painstakingly restored in 2006, and now dismantled once more.\n\nIhor Kozhan describing the Bohorodchany Iconostasis, one of the museums largest and most valuable pieces\n\nThere was no plan in place for the evacuation of the museum's artefacts before the invasion began two weeks ago, Kozhan said - not even after Russia began months ago to mass troops along Ukraine's borders.\n\n\"There was no plan because no one could imagine this would happen,\" he said. \"We had no plan at all - not before the war, not even in December. You must understand, we did not believe it could come to this.\"\n\nTerritorial defence soldiers gathered outside a Lviv church where the statutes have been wrapped in protective fabric\n\nAround Lviv, cultural and religious officials are running complex operations to wrap up statues, seal off stained glass windows and spirit away sacred artefacts.\n\nIn the city's main square, fountains with sculptures of Greek gods and goddesses have been wrapped in flame-retardant fabric and covered with scaffolds to protect them from falling masonry.\n\n\"At first it was a bit chaotic but it has become more organised,\" said Liliya Onischenko, the head of Lviv's city council heritage protection office.\n\n\"We are photographing everything before we take it away and we are photographing all the pieces in their hidden places,\" she said\n\nGreek gods and goddesses on fountains in Lviv's town square have been wrapped and scaffolded\n\nOnischenko said the priority was protecting the stained glass windows in the city's historical old town, a Unesco world heritage site whose architecture was built over centuries by different nationalities - Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Armenians - as the region changed hands.\n\nAt the Armenian cathedral, a prized 15th-Century wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross was removed for the first time since World War Two and taken to a secret, safe place.\n\nOther artefacts besides the sculpture have been removed, the deacon, Armen Hakopian said, but he would not elaborate. \"What needed to be taken out was taken out,\" he said, with a smile.\n\nThe windows along the side of the 850-year-old Armenian cathedral are plain, because the original stained glass was blown out in the 1940s by German bombing. But above, stained glass remains in the cupola and the high parts of the church.\n\nA stained glass window in the 14th-Century Armenian cathedral in Lviv, among those not destroyed during World War Two\n\nThe institutions of Lviv have had the benefit of time to prepare. And they may yet escape the violence. But there are grave fears for the cultural, religious and architectural treasures in the parts of Ukraine under attack.\n\nThere has already been significant damage. The stained glass windows and nave of the assumption cathedral in Kharkiv were damaged by Russian shelling. Russian troops have reportedly destroyed a 19th-century wooden church in the village of Viazivka in Zhytomyr. And a museum in Ivankiv, north of Kyiv, was razed, destroying 25 works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko.\n\nThe stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals in Lviv's historic old town have been covered\n\nScaffolders in Lviv's historic old town preparing to cover more of the city's stained glass windows\n\nIhor Kozhan, the national museum director, said he feared that destroying Ukraine's cultural fabric was part of Russia's goal, and he feared greatly for Lviv.\n\n\"If the same damage is done here as in Kharkiv, Mariupol, it would be a terrible tragedy,\" he said.\n\n\"This is a place of historical memory. The museums here hold the history of the nation. They give us an understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.\n\n\"Russia wants to destroy that.\"\n\nA statue, too heavy to move underground, lies on the floor of the museum's atrium\n\nThe job of emptying the national museum was virtually complete by Wednesday - only a few cardboard boxes of manuscripts were left, near the doors, alongside a sculpture lying on the floor - one of several too heavy to move that will be protected in other ways.\n\nThe artefacts that have been moved underground are on a clock - too long there without adequate climate control and they would begin to degrade, Kozhan said.\n\nAnd they would not probably not survive a direct hit, he said, with a long sigh, because the bunkers are not designed to withstand powerful bombs.\n\nA picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary sits on an otherwise empty shelf in the National Museum of Lviv\n\n\"I hope we can bring them up soon,\" he said. \"It is difficult for me to be here in these empty rooms and hallways. We could have walked the whole day here together looking at our history and our art.\"\n\nAsked to estimate the total value of the museum's works, Kozhan declined.\n\n\"Of course there is no number,\" he said.\n\n\"If these things are destroyed they cannot be remade.\"\n\nCorrection 8 April 2022: This article has been amended after we mistakenly stated Lviv was part of Ukraine in 1924. It was in fact a Polish city at that time.", "The man was unconscious when he landed in water, rescuers said\n\nA walker is in a critical condition after falling unconscious into water at a Snowdonia beauty spot.\n\nThe man fell 15 metres from a cliff above Swallow Falls near Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, at about 11:00 BST on Saturday.\n\nHe remained in the water unconscious for 10 minutes until he was reached by an off-duty paramedic who performed CPR at the scene, rescuers said.\n\nThe A5 was closed for a helicopter to land and take the man to Royal Stoke University Hospital.\n\n\"A young man had fallen approximately 10-15 metres from the cliff above the river opposite to the visitor site,\" Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue said.\n\n\"He landed unconscious in the water and remained there for ten minutes until his friend, a bystander and an off-duty paramedic were able to reach him.\n\n\"Working with the Wales Air Ambulance crew and two paramedics, the critically-ill young man was treated and placed in a vacuum mattress and stretcher before being raised to the path.\n\n\"From there, he was carried to the now closed A5 where further critical care was given before he was flown to Stoke trauma centre.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Musicians in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv have performed an emotional concert in a metro station, which is being used as a makeshift shelter.\n\nKharkiv has been the target of intense Russian bombardment for weeks, leaving residents to take shelter in bunkers and metro stations.\n\nThe concert marked the opening day of the Kharkiv Music Festival.", "The boss of P&O Ferries has been given \"one final opportunity\" to reemploy sacked staff on their previous salaries by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.\n\nIn a letter, Mr Shapps again urged Peter Hebblethwaite to reverse his decision to sack 800 seafarers.\n\nIf not, he said the government's plans to make it illegal for ferry firms to pay less than the minimum wage, would likely force him to do so.\n\nP&O Ferries said sacking workers was not just about saving money on wages.\n\n\"The predicted savings we announced are not solely coming from the reduction in wages, but from removing job duplication and the benefits we will see from increased flexibility,\" it said.\n\nIt said it would welcome the minimum wage rising for all seafaring workers because it would create \"a level playing field when it comes to pay and conditions on British ferry routes.\"\n\nP&O Ferries prompted outrage on 17 March when it announced that it would be replacing staff immediately with agency workers paid less than the minimum wage.\n\n\"A reversal at this point may also go some way in starting to repair your firm's reputation,\" the transport secretary wrote, accusing Mr Hebblethwaite of leaving it in \"tatters\".\n\nMr Shapps also suggested that company dropped a 31 March deadline given to staff to respond to redundancy offers.\n\nIt is understood that over half of the sacked workers - 430 people in total - have already accepted their redundancy payments.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite admitted last week that his decision to sack 800 workers without consulting unions first broke the law. However, he said no union would have accepted the plan and it was easier to compensate workers \"in full\" instead.\n\nThe transport secretary said Mr Hebblethwaite's attitude showed \"contempt for workers who have given years of service at your company\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMinisters plan to force all ferry companies operating from UK ports to pay at least the National Minimum Wage, in a bid to persuade P&O Ferries to reinstate 800 workers it has sacked.\n\nThe UK minimum wage is £8.91 per hour for workers over 23. The average rate paid to the agency staff brought in by P&O Ferries would be £5.50, which is in line with international maritime standards.\n\nEfforts to change the law will begin on Wednesday or Thursday.\n\nTransport Minister Robert Courts told MPs P&O Ferries would \"not be allowed to get away with their actions\".\n\nHe said that the government was looking at a range of tools \"as fast as humanly possible\", although he could not give more detail when speaking in the House of Commons.\n\nMr Shapps said the measures would ensure seafarers were protected against the actions P&O Ferries had taken, but admitted some may not want their jobs back at this stage.\n\nThe chairs of the Business and Transport committees also wrote to Grant Shapps on Monday, calling on the government to prioritise the well-being of seafarers.\n\n\"Government has not moved quickly enough to support them,\" they suggested, while also calling for the resignation of Mr Hebblethwaite.\n\nUnions have also argued that workers should be reinstated on their existing terms - not the National Minimum Wage.\n\nThe Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union said it would not accept the National Minimum Wage for its members, and that P&O Ferries should honour their existing contracts of employment.\n\nThe union's national secretary, Darren Proctor, said ferry operators paying below minimum wage had \"contributed to the decimation of UK seafarers\" and higher wages would create more opportunities for UK workers.\n\nHowever, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme customers may have to pay higher prices as a result.\n\n\"If you want decent terms and conditions and decent service and safe vessels then you might have to pay a little bit more,\" he said.\n\nUnions have also cited fears over a lack of training of new crew, and on Friday the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) detained P&O Ferries' vessel European Causeway in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe ship was held in Larne over \"failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training\", the MCA said. P&O Ferries said it would make changes to return the ship to service.\n\nOfficials will also meet P&O Ferries' rivals to prevent possible Easter travel issues.\n\nBosses from ferry operators DFDS and Stena Lines will meet the government to see what measures can be introduced to help if P&O Ferries services remain disrupted into the Easter holidays.\n\nOn Monday, P&O Ferries said its Dover-Calais route would remain suspended until 31 March. Sailings were originally expected to resume on 29 March.\n\nThe firm said it had to replace crews because it was losing £100m a year and would not be a viable business without making the changes.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. ‘P&O Ferries weren’t just jobs they were our homes’\n\nOther operators, such as Eurotunnel, have said they have seen a boost in demand following the move.\n\nA Eurotunnel spokesman told the BBC that it had seen a marked increase in bookings since the no-notice sackings - even beyond the boost seen after Covid restrictions were lifted.\n\nThe firm said it was partly down to people wanting to travel, but also down to consumers voting with their feet after the shock announcement by P&O Ferries.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said: \"Ministers are working to understand how we can ensure the continuation of services in collaboration with other operators, including DFDS and Stena\", although Eurotunnel is not expected to take part in the talks.", "Police are hunting a prisoner who escaped wearing nothing but his underwear and socks.\n\nDorset Police said Kyle Darren Eglington assaulted security officers in Hardy Road, Poole on Saturday before making off from a prison van.\n\nThe 32-year-old had been remanded in custody after being charged with robbery, following an incident in Bournemouth on Thursday.\n\nPolice said he should not be approached.\n\nOfficers are carrying out detailed searches in the area, with the help of the police helicopter and British Transport Police.\n\nMr Eglington is described as white, 5ft 11in (1.8m) tall, of medium build, with dark brown hair and a beard.\n\nSupt Heather Dixey of Dorset Police said: \"I would like to reassure members of the public that we have a number of officers carrying out searches and other enquiries in a bid to locate Kyle Eglington as soon as possible and return him to lawful custody.\n\n\"I would urge anyone who has sees a man in the area in just his underwear and socks to report it to us. There is nothing at this time to suggest he poses a risk to the general public, however, we would urge people not to approach him and to please dial 999 immediately.\"\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Grohl and Hawkins performing together last month\n\nThe drummer with US rock group Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins, has died aged 50, the band have announced.\n\nThe band said they were \"devastated by the tragic and untimely loss\" in a statement on social media. No cause of death has been given.\n\nHawkins played with Foo Fighters for more than two decades, joining shortly after they finished making their 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.\n\nThe band are currently on tour in South America.\n\n\"His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live with us forever,\" Foo Fighters wrote.\n\n\"Our hearts go out to his wife, children, and family, and we ask that their privacy be treated with the utmost respect in this unimaginably difficult time.\"\n\nFoo Fighters were formed in 1994 by Dave Grohl, after his previous group Nirvana disbanded following the suicide of lead singer Kurt Cobain.\n\nWhile Grohl drummed for Nirvana, he took on lead vocals and guitar in Foo Fighters, and so Hawkins had the daunting task of drumming in a group founded by one of the most celebrated drummers in rock.\n\n\"I was a little nervous at first, but I got over that,\" he told OC Weekly soon after joining.\n\n\"Any instance where you're auditioning for something, you're going to be nervous. But no-one can play better than Dave Grohl. He just has this vision in his head.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe two sometimes swapped roles during the band's concerts, with Hawkins taking on vocals. After news of his death was announced many fans shared clips of him singing Queen's Somebody to Love.\n\nWhile visiting London in 2001, he took an overdose of heroin and spent two weeks in a coma.\n\nSpeaking about the experience in 2018, he said it had been \"a real changing point for me\".\n\nThe band had been due to perform on Friday night at the Estereo Picnic festival in Bogota, Colombia. The US embassy in Bogota expressed its \"sincerest condolences\" to the drummer's family, friends and fans.\n\nBeatriz De La Pava from BBC Minute was backstage at the festival when the announcement of Taylor Hawkins' death was made to the crowd.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the crowd's reaction at the festival where Foo Fighters had been due to perform on Friday night\n\n\"While we were backstage, I saw the Foo Fighters team was packing up everything,\" she said.\n\n\"The organisers of the festival arrived and then they all went on to the stage after Nile Rodgers had finished and said they had some very sad news to share.\n\n\"A message was then published on the big screens that Taylor had died and everyone was silent. A few of the other stages started playing My Hero by the Foo Fighters.\n\n\"They placed candles on the stage where the Foo Fighters were supposed to play. A lot of people were crying and some DJs who were supposed to play sets cancelled, although people just wanted more and more Foo Fighters music.\"\n\nIf you're going to play drums for Dave Grohl, one of the best players in the history of rock, you'd better be good. Taylor Hawkins was that good.\n\nHe could pulverise the kit on The Pretender, play it like a song on Learn To Fly or add a funky shuffle to a track like Shame Shame. He was more than just Grohl's equal, he was his partner in crime. The star once said Hawkins was \"overly qualified\" for his band.\n\nHe wasn't just the time-keeper. He had writing credits on Grammy-winning hits like Best Of You, Learn To Fly and All My Life; and at almost every Foo Fighters concert, he'd step out from behind the kit and sing a track by his favourite band, Queen.\n\nAt his last show, a week ago in Argentina, that song was Somebody To Love.\n\nBorn in Texas but raised in California, Hawkins had the affable, easy-going demeanour of a surfer dude. He was introduced to music by his brother and started out playing guitar but, inspired by Roger Taylor of Queen and Stewart Copeland of The Police, he soon switched to drums.\n\nAt the age of 10, he sat behind a \"rickety-rackety\" kit for the first time in his neighbour's garage. \"And then,\" he said, \"my life became drums, drums, drums.\"\n\nHe first rose to prominence in Alanis Morissette's touring band and joined Foo Fighters in 1997, after a studio dispute led to the departure of original drummer, William Goldsmith.\n\nAlthough he was \"super-intimidated\", he slotted right into the band. In his autobiography, Grohl called their partnership \"a kind of love at first sight\".\n\n\"Upon first meeting, our bond was immediate and we grew closer with every day, every song, every note that we ever played together,\" he wrote. \"We are absolutely meant to be and I am grateful that we found each other in this lifetime.\"\n\nHawkins' death at the age of 50 is devastating - for Grohl, his bandmates and his fans, but most of all, his wife Alison and their three children. Rest in beats.\n\nPaying tribute, Tom Morello, of fellow rockers Rage Against the Machine, tweeted: \"God bless you Taylor Hawkins. I loved your spirit and your unstoppable rock power. Rest In Peace my friend.\"\n\nOzzy Osbourne said Hawkins was \"truly a great person and an amazing musician\".\n\nMiley Cyrus, who was part of the festival line-up, said she would dedicate her Saturday show to Hawkins.\n\n\"My favorite memory of Taylor is dancing round the drum kit while he played this song...\" she posted on Instagram, with a picture of the Pretenders song Brass In Pocket.\n\n\"Playing it on repeat, imagining us laughing forever.\"\n\nFormer Beatles drummer Ringo Starr also expressed his condolences. \"God bless Taylor,\" he wrote.\n\n\"Peace and love to all his family and the band peace and love.\"\n\nKiss member Gene Simmons said he was \"shocked and saddened\" by the news of Hawkins' death.\n\nBilly Idol shared a picture of Hawkins on Twitter with the words: \"So tragic. Rest in peace Taylor.\"\n\nOther bands paying tribute to the Foo Fighters drummer included the Smashing Pumpkins, Nickelback and the Offspring.", "The shelling of a local government building came just after a short period of “relative calmness”, as locals put it.\n\nRelative calmness here in southern Ukraine means some days without blasts and shooting in the city.\n\nThat temporary serenity felt so reassuring that the local authorities had encouraged local businesses to reopen and come back to work.\n\nBut then this morning a cruise missile hit a nine-storey block that housed the Mykolaiv region's administration.\n\nThe blast wave from that strike broke the windows and doors of residential and administrative buildings nearby.\n\n“This is just horrible,” says Nina, a seller at a grocery store where glass windows were destroyed because of the blast.\n\n“But the main thing is that we are alive. We will repair all this,” she adds.\n\nThe cabinet room of Vitaliy Kim, regional governor, was destroyed, too. He said he survived because he overslept.\n\nHaving gained Ukraine-wide popularity thanks to his viral videos that start from a phrase “Good morning, we are from Ukraine”, today he added: “Not so good after all.”\n\nThe attack at the port city on the Black Sea came hours before the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations got under way on the other side of the sea, in Istanbul.\n\nTo the locals, it casts doubts over the “progressive” nature of the peace talks.", "Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the actions of the UK government were \"embarrassing\" compared to other countries\n\nThe UK should be doing \"much more\" to help Ukrainian refugees, London mayor Sadiq Khan has said.\n\nMr Khan joined a large crowd that gathered near Hyde Park ahead of a march in solidarity with the war-torn country.\n\nThe Labour mayor said the actions of the UK government compared with other European countries were \"embarrassing\".\n\nMr Khan said it needed to be made \"much more easier for those who are fleeing Ukraine to come here\".\n\nEarlier this month the government opened it Homes for Ukraine scheme, which allows UK nationals to individually sponsor a Ukrainian national's visa so that those without family connections can still come to live with a host family in the UK.\n\nThe crowd carried flags and banners as they marched through London\n\nProtesters made their way towards Trafalgar Square whilst holding Ukrainian flags and banners that said \"stop Putin's war\", \"no fly zone\" and \"solidarity with Ukraine\".\n\nThe crowd chanted \"we stand with Ukraine\" as traffic behind was brought to a standstill.\n\nAbout 10 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.\n\nAs well as the 3.6 million who have left for neighbouring countries, another estimated 6.5 million people are thought to be displaced inside the war-torn country itself.\n\nA group of children clutching balloons in the colours of the Ukrainian flag marched in the heat of the sun in central London leading today's protest.\n\nJoined by thousands of others, mini flags were being handed out for people to show their solidarity.\n\nA sea of blue and yellow surrounded Nelson's column as special guests addressed the crowd, trying to teach Ukrainian phrases.\n\nMost of the people that we stopped to speak to were either Ukrainian born or had Ukrainian links, like Olaksana. She told us that her family had just fled Kharkiv and were in Hungary and Germany.\n\nShe said: \"It is really hard to be in another country when your country is suffering.\n\n\"The least I can do is come to this protest and the least I can do is stand with Ukraine and unite as a nation and show the world they're not going to kill us as a nation.\"\n\nCheers rang out as a message from Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky was played in front of Nelson's Column\n\nMr Khan praised the actions of Londoners who had \"shown that we're opening our arms to Ukrainian refugees, whether it's by donating money to those charities doing a brilliant job in Ukraine or by opening our homes to those fleeing Ukraine\".\n\n\"I'm full of admiration for anybody who has the space to provide a room for those who have fled Ukraine,\" he said.\n\n\"It's really important families are not left to their own devices, the government has to step up and support them.\"\n\nThe BBC has contacted the Home Office for comment.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk", "Yakov Rezantsev was reportedly killed in the Kherson region\n\nUkraine's defence ministry says another Russian general, Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, was killed in a strike near the southern city of Kherson.\n\nRezantsev was the commander of Russia's 49th combined army.\n\nA western official said he was the seventh general to die in Ukraine, and the second lieutenant general - the highest rank officer reportedly killed.\n\nIt is thought that low morale among Russian troops has forced senior officers closer to the front line.\n\nIn a conversation intercepted by the Ukrainian military, a Russian soldier complained that Rezantsev had claimed the war would be over within hours, just four days after it began.\n\nUkrainian media reported on Friday that the general was killed at the Chornobaivka airbase near Kherson, which Russia is using as a command post and has been attacked by Ukraine's military several times.\n\nAnother lieutenant general, Andrei Mordvichev, was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian strike on the same base.\n\nKherson was the first Ukrainian city to be occupied by Russian forces, although there are reports that daily protests are held there against the Russian occupation.\n\nAlthough Russia has confirmed the death of only one general, Kyiv and western officials believe up to seven have been killed in fighting since the war began.\n\nHowever the death of Maj Gen Magomed Tushayev of the Chechen national guard has been disputed.\n\nIt is unusual for such senior Russian officers to be so close to the battlefield, and western officials believe that they have been forced to move towards the front lines to deal with low morale among Russian troops.\n\nThe unexpectedly strong Ukrainian resistance, poor Russian equipment and a high death toll amongst Russian troops are all thought to be contributing to the low morale.\n\nRussian forces are believed to be relying in part on open communication systems, for example mobile phones and analogue radios, which are easy to intercept and could give away the locations of high-ranking officers.\n\nA person inside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's inner circle told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia's officer class.\n\nSo far, Vladimir Putin has only referred to the death of one general, thought to be Maj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, in a speech soon after the start of the war.\n\nRussia says 1,351 soldiers have died since the war began in Ukraine, although Kyiv and western officials say the number is much higher.\n\nLt Gen Yakov Rezantsev was reportedly killed by a Ukrainian strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near the city of Kherson.\n\nHe was promoted to lieutenant general last year, and was commander of the 49th combined army of Russia's southern military district.\n\nHe is said to have taken part in Russia's military operation in Syria.\n\nAndrei Mordvichev was killed by a strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near Kherson, according to Ukrainian officials.\n\nHe was the commander of Russia's 8th combined army of the southern military district.\n\nHis death was reported on 18 March.\n\nMaj Gen Oleg Mityaev reportedly died somewhere near the city of Mariupol, a city in south-east Ukraine which has seen some of the heaviest fighting so far.\n\nThe nationalist Azov regiment claims to have killed him.\n\nHe was a commander of the Russian army's 150th motorised rifle division, a relatively new unit formed in 2016, and based in the Rostov region close to the Ukrainian border.\n\nUkraine claims that the unit was created in order to take part in the conflict in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies that its military was involved in fighting there.\n\nMaj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, of the 29th combined army, was killed in fighting on 11 March, according to official Ukrainian sources.\n\nThe circumstances of his death were not given.\n\nAfter Kolesnikov became the third Russian general reportedly killed in Ukraine, one western official told the Press Association that the Russian army may be suffering from low morale, which is why high-ranking military officers are moving closer to the front line.\n\nMaj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.\n\nKharkiv, close to the Russian border, has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.\n\nUkraine's military released a recording of what it said was two Russian security service officials discussing Gerasimov's death, and complaining that their secure communication networks no longer worked in Ukraine.\n\nGerasimov was involved in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.\n\nMaj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander at the same unit as Gerasimov, was reportedly killed by a sniper on 3 March.\n\nLike Gerasimov, Sukhovetsky was part of Russia's military operations in Crimea and in Syria.\n\nUnlike the other generals, Sukhovetsky's death was reported in the Russian media and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a speech that a general had died in Ukraine.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video captured by a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show Russian forces shooting at civilians", "Antony Blinken said it was up to the Russian people to choose their leader\n\nUS Secretary of State Antony Blinken has denied that the United States has any plans to bring about regime change in Russia or anywhere else.\n\nMr Blinken's comments come a day after President Joe Biden said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should not be allowed to remain in power.\n\nMr Biden made the unscripted remark at the end of a speech in Poland.\n\nMr Blinken said the president simply made the point that Mr Putin could not be allowed to wage war against Ukraine.\n\nThe Kremlin dismissed Mr Biden's remark, saying it was for Russians to choose their leader.\n\n\"I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else,\" Mr Blinken said on Sunday during a visit to Israel.\n\n\"As you know, and as you have heard us say repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter.\n\n\"In this case, as in any case, it's up to the people of the country in question, it's up to the Russian people,\" he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Joe Biden closes speech in Poland by saying Vladimir Putin \"cannot remain in power\"\n\n\"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power,\" US President Joe Biden said about his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin during a speech in Poland's capital, Warsaw, on Saturday.\n\nThis was quickly followed by the White House saying Mr Biden wasn't calling for regime change, but was instead making a point about Mr Putin not being allowed to exercise power over his neighbours.\n\nThis was clearly an attempt at rolling back - the concern is that this is going to put more pressure on Putin and make him more uneasy.\n\nGiven that he is the head of a country that is struggling militarily, and is in control of a nuclear arsenal, the concern on the Americans' part is that they don't want to back Mr Putin into a corner.\n\nCalling out for regime change directly could cause instability and increase unpredictability.\n\nAnd the last thing you want in these circumstances is unpredictability.\n\nThe comments \"made a difficult situation more difficult and a dangerous situation more dangerous\", tweeted Mr Haass, who is president of the US Council on Foreign Relations.\n\n\"That is obvious,\" he added. \"Less obvious is how to undo the damage, but I suggest his chief aides reach their counterparts & make clear the US is prepared to deal with this Russian government.\"\n\nMr Haass returned to the subject after the White House qualified President Biden's remarks, saying: \"The White House walk back of @POTUS regime change call is unlikely to wash.\n\n\"Putin will see it as confirmation of what he's believed all along. Bad lapse in discipline that runs risk of extending the scope and duration of the war.\"\n\nIn Ukraine itself, the western city of Lviv, which had been spared the worst of the fighting, came under heavy rocket fire on Saturday. It was one of several targets in the west to be struck, despite Russia saying it would focus on the east.\n\nIn an impassioned, late-night video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western countries to supply planes, tanks, and missile defence systems to Ukraine. He said his country could not defeat Russian aircraft with machine guns.\n\nFurther south, Ukraine's top human rights official has said the only major city taken by Russian forces, the port of Kherson, is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. Lyudmilla Denisova told the BBC that areas around the city were suffering shortages of food, water and medicine.\n\nAnd the leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, Leonid Pasechnik, said there was likely to be a referendum on joining Russia \"in the nearest future\", according to Russia's state-owned news agency RIA.\n\nOn 21 February, Russia formally recognised the Luhansk and Donetsk breakaway republics as independent entities, paving the way for its invasion of Ukraine three days later.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland will face South Africa in the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup after an efficient defeat of Bangladesh in Wellington.\n\nThe 100-run success at the Basin Reserve continued a strong resurgence from the defending champions, who have won four successive matches after beginning the tournament with three straight losses.\n\nOn a tired surface, England started with circumspection against a hard-working Bangladesh attack, at one stage finding themselves 96-4.\n\nThey were lifted to 234-6 by Sophia Dunkley, who made 67 with support from Amy Jones and Katherine Brunt.\n\nBangladesh, playing the final match of their first World Cup, never showed any serious intent in the chase.\n\nSpinners Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean took three wickets each as Bangladesh were dismissed for 134.\n\nEngland will play South Africa in the last four in Christchurch on Thursday (02:00 GMT), a repeat of the meeting between the two teams at the same stage in 2017.\n\nAustralia play West Indies in the first semi-final in Wellington on Wednesday (23:00 GMT on Tuesday).\n• None England always believed they could revive campaign - Dunkley\n\nTwo weeks ago, when England suffered a demoralising defeat by South Africa, the idea of having their fate in their own hands going into the meeting with Bangladesh was a best-case scenario.\n\nOnce victories over India, New Zealand and Pakistan were completed, it never seemed likely that Bangladesh would pose a great threat, even if they did give a fright to Australia on this ground two days ago.\n\nIndeed, in their first one-day international meeting with Bangladesh, England had complete control for the majority of the contest and head to the semi-finals with the momentum of four successive victories.\n\nAlong with the win needed to guarantee their progress, England may have been mindful of keeping their net run-rate high enough to avoid a last-four meeting with unbeaten Australia.\n\nHowever, a full-throttle approach with the bat was made difficult by the worn pitch, and England needed to take care in the early stages before late impetus from Dunkley, Brunt and Ecclestone.\n\nThe target of 235 was more runs than Bangladesh had ever made in a one-day international, so the result was not in doubt at the interval.\n\nIn the end, India's defeat by South Africa later on Sunday ensured net run-rate did not come into the equation and, with England finishing above West Indies, it could prove vital to be kept apart from Australia in the semis.\n\nEngland were boosted by much-needed performances by Brunt and Danni Wyatt in the win over Pakistan, and in Wellington it was the turn of Dunkley to prove her worth.\n\nWhen Nat Sciver fell for a fluent 40, England were four wickets down after 26 overs and flirting with danger.\n\nBut Dunkley batted with intelligence and composure, adding 72 with Jones, who made 31. When the time came to accelerate, England were able to take 79 off the final 10 overs - an impressive rate of scoring given the conditions.\n\nThe pitch seemed ideally suited to England's spinners, and left-armer Ecclestone in particular was superb with her accuracy and bounce.\n\nOff-spinner Dean underlined her status as England's find of the tournament, while seamer Freya Davies, in for the rested Anya Shrubsole, picked up two wickets on her World Cup debut.\n\nVeteran pace bowler Brunt delivered only five overs because of tightness in her back, but is not thought to be a doubt for the semi-finals.\n\n'We need more experience'\n\nEngland captain Heather Knight: \"I'm really pleased, I probably would have liked a few more runs, 250/260, but the wicket was very slow. And we were clinical with the ball.\n\n\"The batters have all had a little time out in the middle to get used to the conditions here.\n\n\"It says a lot about this group, the way we've turned things round. Not getting too down, we were on the wrong end of a few close ones. I'd have certainly bitten your hand off a few weeks ago to be in this situation.\"\n\nBangladesh captain Nigar Sultana Joty: \"I think we need to play more matches. I think we will learn more. We were coming to explore, to get a lot of experience.\n\n\"We want to take all the positives from here. Back home a lot of young girls are coming into cricket and I think after the World Cup I think there'll be more.\"", "Police said they had arrested four leaders of the MS-13 gang ahead of the vote\n\nEl Salvador's parliament has approved a state of emergency after the Central American country recorded dozens of gang-related murders in a single day.\n\nPolice said there had been 62 murders on Saturday, making it the most violent 24-hour period since the end of the civil war in 1992.\n\nNew laws restrict the right to gather, allow arrests without a warrant and the monitoring of communications.\n\nHowever, that still equates to 18 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. In November, another spate of violence led to more than 40 people being killed within three days.\n\nHours before MPs voted on the new powers, which will remain in place for 30 days, police said four leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang had been arrested over the spate of killings.\n\nPresident Nayib Bukele, elected in 2019 on promises to fight organised crime and improve security, said: \"We have had a new spike in homicides, something that we had worked so hard to reduce.\n\n\"While we fight criminals in the streets, we must try to figure out what is happening and who is financing this.\"\n\nThe country \"must let the agents and soldiers do their job and must defend them from the accusations of those who protect the gang members\", he added, in the statement tweeted by Congress president Ernesto Castro.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHowever, Juan Pappier, from the international campaign group Human Rights Watch, tweeted the measures were \"very worrying, especially in a country where there are no independent democratic institutions\".\n\nAuthorities say the MS-13 and Barrio-18 gangs, among others, number about 70,000 members and are responsible for homicides, extortion and drug-trafficking.\n\nPolice said the latest bloodshed had left 12 people dead in the central department of La Libertad, as well as nine each in the capital, San Salvador, and the western department of Ahuachapan, with the other killings spread around the country.\n\nIn April 2020, as coronavirus swept through the country, President Bukele imposed a 24/7 lockdown for imprisoned gang members after more than 50 people were killed in three days.\n\nHe argued that many of the murders were ordered from behind bars and said prisoners belonging to rival gangs would be made to share cells in a bid to break up lines of communication.", "Protests have taken place at ports over P&O Ferries' sacking of 800 workers in favour of lower-paid replacements.\n\nUnions rallied at Dover, Hull and Liverpool, chanting slogans such as \"seize the ship\". Protests caused disruptions, and vehicles in Hull were at one stage turned away.\n\nIt comes after authorities detained P&O Ferries' European Causeway in Northern Ireland, saying it was \"unfit to sail\".\n\nP&O Ferries said it would make changes to return the ship to service.\n\nUnions have said that crews without experience of the vessels are a danger to shipping.\n\nIn Hull, protestors from the RMT union at one stage attempted to block access to P&O ferry the Pride of Rotterdam at the city's King George Dock. They want customers to boycott the company.\n\nBBC correspondent Paul Murphy, at the scene, said picketers at one stage turned away cars and lorries attempting to board Saturday's 20:30 GMT sailing.\n\nHowever, the Pride of Rotterdam ferry left Hull on schedule for The Netherlands.\n\nEarlier, the Trades Union Congress had tweeted a video it said showed P&O dockers in Rotterdam refusing to load freight onto a ferry set for Hull in solidarity with sacked workers.\n\nNiek Stam, general secretary of the Docker Workers' Union in Rotterdam, told the BBC Radio 4's PM programme they hoped the protests would make \"P&O come back to the table\", adding \"what they have done is outrageous\".\n\nMr Stam said: \"We believe in solidarity, and we will punish every employer who refuses to consult unions.\"\n\nHe added that the protests will carry on in the coming days \"if it is necessary\".\n\nProtests have been held across the UK and Ireland since P&O Ferries announced they were firing 800 members of staff on 17 March\n\nUnions have raised fears over a lack of training of new crew, after the firm replaced their members with agency workers whose average hourly rate of pay would be £5.50 - less than the UK minimum wage.\n\nAs the company's ships operate internationally and are registered overseas, the UK minimum hourly rate of £8.91 does not apply.\n\nThe company has said it had to replace crews as it was losing £100m a year, and would not be a viable business without making the changes.\n\nP&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite admitted to MPs on Friday that the decision to sack 800 workers without notice broke the law.\n\nHe said there was \"absolutely no doubt\" that under UK employment law the firm was required to consult unions before making the mass cuts.\n\nBut Mr Hebblethwaite said no union would have accepted the plan and it was easier to compensate workers \"in full\" instead.\n\nAt Saturday's Dover protest, RMT union national secretary Darren Procter said: \"Bringing a crew on board a vessel they're not familiar with to sail across the busiest shipping lane in the world, carrying passengers, is going to be a dangerous act.\"\n\nHe said the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) should detain every P&O Ferries vessel around the UK, on the basis they are not fit to sail.\n\nThis was the scene in Dover, where protesters condemned the dismissal of P&O workers\n\nOn Saturday, the MCA said the European Causeway had been impounded in Larne over \"failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training\".\n\nNo passengers or freight were aboard, it said, adding that the vessel would remain under detention until all issues were resolved by P&O Ferries.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote on social media that the ship's detention had followed an instruction from him to the MCA to inspect \"all P&O vessels\" before they entered back into service.\n\n\"I will not compromise the safety of these vessels, and P&O will not be able to rush inexperienced crew through training,\" he added.\n\nP&O Ferries said it would review the findings of the MCA's inspection, \"make any changes required and continue to work closely with the MCA to return the ship to service\".\n\nThe company's services on the route the ferry sails - from Larne to Cairnryan, in Scotland - are currently suspended.\n\nSeamus Leheny, of freight industry body Logistics UK, said rival ferry operator Stena had increased capacity through Belfast by 50% but the situation at Larne was still causing difficulties for businesses.\n\n\"It's not sustainable to have so much freight coming through Belfast... we want that Larne service back up and running as soon as possible,\" he added.\n\nP&O Ferries services between Dover and Calais remain cancelled. The firm said it would organise an alternative carrier for passengers.\n\nSaturday evening's service from Rotterdam to Hull is also suspended, the firm said - but services between Dublin and Liverpool are expected to run as usual.", "There are a growing number of reports that Russian forces shoot at civilians who are trying to escape the conflict zone in Ukraine.\n\nFootage from a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group appears to show one such incident.", "Jude Hill accepts the award for Young Actor at the Critics Choice Awards\n\nIt's been a hectic, whirlwind of a few months for Belfast star Jude Hill.\n\nOr to put it in his own words: \"I'm very, very lucky, it's been a hell of a ride.\n\n\"I mean, not many 11-year-olds get to go to Hollywood and go to the Oscars.\"\n\nA ride that began just 18 months ago when filming began for Belfast - the fictional account of Sir Kenneth Branagh's childhood in the city.\n\nJude was chosen from more than 300 boys to play Buddy, a young boy who loves where he lives, but must move away from everyone and everything he knows.\n\nJude's Belfast journey has taken him around the world, but the focus of the last few weeks has been Hollywood and the awards circuit.\n\nWill Smith and Jude Hill at the Critics Choice Awards\n\nSo how does a young boy from Northern Ireland deal with the limelight?\n\n\"My motto is just go with the flow. Because if you sort of worry about it, like: 'What if I do that?'\n\n\"Or 'What if I don't do that?\n\n\"I just go with the flow and every time I meet someone I'm really, really dizzy after.\"\n\nBut there have been shocks along the way, winning Best Young Actor/Actress at the Critic's Choice Awards.\n\n\"I seriously didn't see that coming because I watched everything that all the other nominees were in and there were so good. \"\n\nSurely the nerves kicked in at that stage?\n\n\"I had like Will Smith, Andrew Garfield, Nicolas Cage watching me and I walked up and I was like, trying not to be nervous,\" he said.\n\n\"But actually behind stage they take photos of you with the awards, but I was bawling my eyes out so they said: 'Oh, we'll bring you in at a later time.'\"\n\nAnd he's made a few new friends along the way.\n\n\"I've met Andrew Garfield, Will Smith, and those two are very, very big names,\" he said.\n\n\"Will Smith told me that my jacket was hot. I was just like: 'That's a compliment I'll never forget'.\n\n\"I would love to meet Nicolas Cage and have a chat with him. He shouted me out at the HCA (Hollywood Critics Association) awards.\n\n\"I had to go to bed because it was too late that night, but I really wish I could have been there.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Oscars 2022: Making friends with Will Smith and Andrew Garfield\n\nBut is hasn't been all work, with the family squeezing in a trip to Universal Studios last week.\n\n\"It was very, very hot. But it was such a cool opportunity to just hang out with my siblings and the rest of my family.\n\n\"And while we were there we actually saw up on one of the buildings, they had a Belfast poster. It's just crazy.\"\n\nThe Hill family have been able to experience a little of the Belfast whirlwind and mum Shauneen said they were all \"incredibly proud\".\n\n\"To think that he's in a feature film, his first job was Belfast.\n\n\"We feel so lucky that he was picked from over 300 kids that auditioned for the role, but he makes us proud every day. We've been back and forth to LA for quite some time.\n\n\"He's been working really hard, but he never complains that he works hard. So we're just so incredibly proud of him.\"\n\nJude with Ciarán Hinds, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan and Sir Kenneth Branagh at the SAG awards\n\nWith seven nominations, Jude and his on-screen parents, Jamie Dornan and Caitríona Balfe, are Oscars-bound.\n\nIt's still not clear if Sir Kenneth Branagh or Ciarán Hinds will make it after recently testing positive for Covid.\n\nBest song nominee Van Morrison won't be there either as he's performing in Spain.\n\nSo what does Jude think about Hollywood's biggest night?\n\n\"I'm so excited and I've my fingers crossed.\n\n\"It's pretty cool because you get to wear all these fancy outfits, you get to get your hair all done up and you get to go on the red carpet - it's really, really fun and cool.\n\n\"And I have no fashion sense, it's all my mum. She controls all the outfits and hair.\n\n\"I just go with the flow.\"", "Northamptonshire Police said Nicholas Billingham's remains were found buried in a back garden\n\nA man whose body was discovered buried in a back garden died as a result of a stab wound to the neck, a post-mortem examination has found.\n\nNicholas Billingham, 42, was found at a house in Moore Street, in the Kingsley area of Northampton, last week.\n\nFiona Beal, 48, who was arrested at a hotel in Cumbria on 16 March, is accused of killing him between 30 October and 10 November last year.\n\nShe will appear at Northampton Crown Court for a hearing on 19 April.\n\nMs Beal, a teacher at Eastfield Academy primary school in Northampton, has been remanded in custody.\n\nMr Billingham's remains were taken to the Leicester Royal Infirmary, where a Home Office pathologist conducted the post-mortem examination, Northamptonshire Police said.\n\nHis body was discovered following a three-day search involving forensic officers, specialist search teams and a cadaver dog.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Thick black smoke could be seen rising from the area that was hit on the outskirts of Lviv\n\nSeveral explosions hit the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, regional officials said.\n\nThe governor of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytskyi, said five people had been injured, and that rocket fire had hit a fuel storage facility and a factory.\n\nLviv has so far escaped much of the shelling that has come to be a part of daily life in other parts of Ukraine.\n\nIt has also become a hub for hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing other parts of the country.\n\nThe alleged Russian attack came as US President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Warsaw, Poland, some 250 miles (400km) from Lviv.\n\nIn it, he addressed the Russian people on their leader, President Vladimir Putin, telling them: \"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.\"\n\nThe Kremlin responded that was not for the US leader to say. \"That's not for Biden to decide. The president of Russia is elected by Russians,\" a spokesman said.\n\nA White House official later said that Mr Biden was not calling for \"regime change\", but making the point that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours in the region.\n\nLviv's mayor, Andriy Sadoviy, said that \"with today's blows, the aggressor sends greetings to President Biden, who is in Poland,\" Reuters news agency reports.\n\nIn other developments in Ukraine today:\n\nFirst, mid-afternoon, the air raid sirens went off. Then, three powerful explosions, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen from the distance. Hours later, another attack.\n\nIt all happened a day after Russia said it was focusing its invasion of Ukraine on the east. Lviv is in the extreme opposite.\n\nAnd this distance from the worst of Russia's aggression, where people have been under unrelenting bombing and shelling, turned this city into something like a safe heaven. Displaced people, humanitarian workers, volunteers. They are all here.\n\nThat perception could be changing. Maryanna Pack, a 39-year-old economist who was near the site of the blast, gave a passionate testimony that may be a view shared by many. \"We're feeling unprotected. Nobody really cares about what's happening here,\" she said.\n\n\"We need more help now. Eastern Ukraine has been completely destroyed. It's really possible that could happen to Lviv and the west of the country too.\"\n\nMaryanna Pack, who saw the explosion, said 'we need more help now'\n\nAs bombs fell on Lviv and other cities across Ukraine, President Biden referred to his Russian counterpart as \"a butcher\".\n\nThe comment was made during a meeting with Ukrainian refugees helping with the humanitarian relief effort in Poland - where more than two million Ukrainian refugees have now fled.\n\nA spokesperson for Mr Putin, cited by Russian state news agency Tass, said the comment narrowed the prospects for mending ties between the two countries.\n\nThe two Ukrainian's ministers' trip out of Ukraine to Poland was seen as a possible sign that confidence in Ukraine's fightback against Russia is growing.\n\nDuring the talks, the US's \"unwavering commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity\" was discussed, according to a US state department spokesperson.\n\nMr Biden also stressed the \"sacred commitment\" to Nato's collective defence, after meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.\n\n\"You can count on that... for your freedom and ours,\" he told Mr Duda.", "Sanctions on Russia are a \"hard lever\" that should only be removed following a \"full ceasefire and withdrawal\" from Ukraine, the foreign secretary says.\n\nLiz Truss told the Sunday Telegraph that Moscow would also have to commit to \"no further aggression\" or face the prospect of them being reimposed.\n\nThe West had to remain \"tough to get peace\", she said.\n\nThe UK, US, and EU have so far imposed sanctions on over 1,000 Russian individuals and businesses.\n\nThis week saw Moscow announce it would be refocusing its military operations in Ukraine to the country's east.\n\nThe move was interpreted by many as a sign that the Kremlin was looking to scale back an invasion that has so far made significantly less progress than was widely expected.\n\nMs Truss said that a negotiations unit had been set up to assist Ukraine once the Russians were \"serious\" about negotiations, but added: \"I don't believe they are serious at present.\"\n\n\"That's why... we need to double down on sanctions,\" she said.\n\nThe foreign secretary has previously said she believes the peace talks are a \"smokescreen\" designed to distract from Russia's actions and allow its armed forces time to regroup.\n\nIt comes after the government announced it had detained indefinitely two jets owned by Russian oligarch Eugene Shvidler, who had been sanctioned over his ties with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe jets, estimated to be worth $60m (£45m), were seized at Farnborough and Biggin Hill airports following a three-week investigation.\n\nMs Truss said she believed more should have been done to deter Mr Putin following his annexation of Crimea in 2014.\n\n\"So there needs to be hard levers,\" she said. \"Of course, sanctions are a hard lever.\"\n\n\"Those sanctions should only come off with a full ceasefire and withdrawal, but also commitments that there will be no further aggression.\"\n\nShe added that \"snapback sanctions\" could be used in the event of more aggression in the future.\n\nEugene Shvidler (right) has been sanctioned over his ties with longstanding business partner Roman Abramovich\n\nAs well as sanctions on individuals, recent weeks have seen dozens of countries impose bans on the export of luxury goods to Russia and close their airspace to Russian airlines.\n\nSome Russian banks have also been banned from using Swift, the system used to manage international payments, and efforts are underway to explore how Europe can reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas.\n\nMs Truss's comments echo those of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said this month that the sanctions on Russia were \"not designed to be permanent\".\n\nMr Blinken said the sanctions could \"go away\" in the event of an \"irreversible\" withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine.\n\nHowever, speaking in Poland on Saturday, President Biden said that, while sanctions were weakening Russia, the West needed to \"steel ourselves for the long fight ahead\".\n\nAsked about ongoing disagreements with the EU about the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which sets out the post-Brexit trading arrangements between Northern Ireland and the EU, Ms Truss said that countries would always have \"differences that we need to resolve\".\n\n\"But those types of differences between friends and allies are different from the scale and the sheer belligerence and aggression and lying of Russia,\" she said.\n\nShe added that, given the scale of their differences with Russia, it was vital that Western countries \"stick together.\"", "Some 70% of schools are already open between 32 and 35 hours a week\n\nAll schools in England will have to open for at least 32.5 hours a week, under government plans due to be published this week.\n\nThe length of the school day is currently decided by the headteacher with the governing body in England.\n\nThe rule - which starts next September - will hit the 14% of schools thought to be open fewer than 32 hours a week.\n\nEducation secretary Nadhim Zahawi said he wanted \"strong schools with great teachers for every child\".\n\nSome 70% of schools are already open between 32 and 35 hours a week, with a further 9% open for longer.\n\nThe data comes from a July 2021 government survey which asked schools how many hours a week pupils in years 3 or 9 had to be in school. About 6% of schools did not teach pupils in this age bracket.\n\nThe government said the change would ensure children had a fair chance to engage with a range of subjects - as well as any catch-up support - wherever they lived.\n\nThe 32.5 hour school week is equivalent to 08:45 to 15.15, with the government arguing that a child with a school day shorter by 20 minutes a day would lose two weeks of schooling over the course of a year.\n\nBut education unions said the new requirement would make little difference, as most schools already met the threshold.\n\nThey suggested schools that did not could be in rural areas which face greater transport challenges.\n\nMr Zahawi is due to set out the government's wider plans for schools in England this week in the White Paper, alongside a review of the support available for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).\n\nEducation Secretary Nadhim Zahawi is due to set out plans for schools in England\n\nThe plans include a target for 90% of pupils leaving primary school to be at the expected level for maths and English by 2030.\n\nIn the latest available figures from just before the pandemic, 65% of pupils in year 6 reached that level.\n\nSpeaking about the proposals on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, Mr Zahawi said the White Paper would also put an emphasis on \"strong multi-academy trusts\".\n\nHe said: \"The evidence is clear that a family of schools that is really tightly managed, really well supported - especially through Covid - has delivered better educational outcomes for children.\n\n\"So strong - and I underline strong - multi-academy trusts is the infrastructure we need to complete and deliver.\"\n\nLabour shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson said after two years of \"pandemic chaos\" and six years since the government's last schools strategy, the plans would leave parents, teachers and pupils questioning \"where the ambition for children's future is\".\n\nThe National Education Union's Kevin Courtney said schools and pupils had been left \"battered and bruised\" by the pandemic and a more sophisticated approach was needed.\n\nPaul Whiteman, of the headteachers union, the NAHT, said: \"Simply adding five or 10 minutes to a day is unlikely to bring much, if any, benefit.\"\n\nAsked on Sunday Morning if he could guarantee that schools would never close again in the way they did during lockdown, Mr Zahawi said; \"I will do everything in my power to make sure they don't.\"\n\nHe also said he would be open to including the impact of lockdown on children in the terms of reference for the forthcoming government Covid inquiry - the draft terms of reference currently do not mention schools or children.\n\nHe said: \"I would be open. I think it's important to learn the lessons... the impact on education and on health and wellbeing has been substantial, which is why I think it was a mistake to close schools - and we have to learn from those mistakes\".", "Ms Begum died at her home in Bethnal Green\n\nA man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a mother-of-two was stabbed to death in east London while her children were at school.\n\nShe has been named as Yasmin Begum, 40, from Globe Road in Bethnal Green.\n\nA post-mortem examination found the cause of death was multiple sharp force injuries.\n\nA 40-year-old man was detained in Stratford, east London, on Sunday and remains in police custody, Met Police said.\n\nSchool staff raised the alarm on Thursday when Ms Begum did not arrive to collect her children after class, the force added.\n\nOfficers went to her home where she was found with stab injuries and pronounced dead at the scene.\n\nDet Ch Insp Laurence Smith said his thoughts were \"with Yasmin's family and friends at this incredibly difficult time\".\n\nHe added: \"I want to reassure them that we are working around the clock to get them the answers they deserve.\"\n\nThe force appealed for anyone with information to contact officers.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Three Arab League states normalised relations with Israel for the first time in 2020\n\nIsrael's foreign minster says deepening ties with friendly countries from the Arab League will \"first and foremost\" help counter the threat from Iran.\n\nHe was speaking after a summit held in Israel for the first time with top diplomats from Arab League countries and the US.\n\nThree of them - the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Morocco - formed ties with Israel only in 2020.\n\nThe foreign ministers pledged to continue to develop the partnership.\n\nThe Arab League diplomats, along with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Egypt's foreign minister, also reiterated their support for a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. All back the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of that, something Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has ruled out.\n\nThe Palestinian foreign ministry called the summit \"a harsh attack against the Palestinian people\", although it did not directly accuse the Arab League participants, the Times of Israel reported.\n\nAs the ministers gathered at a hotel in Israel's Negev desert on Sunday night, two Israeli Arab gunmen launched an attack in the northern Israeli city of Hadera, killing two policemen and wounding six people. The gunmen were shot dead by counter-terrorism officers. The Islamic State group said it had carried out the attack.\n\nThe foreign ministers condemned the killings of the Israeli officers, with Morocco's saying the summit was \"the best response\" to such attacks.\n\nAfter the meeting on Monday morning, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said the delegates had agreed to make the event \"a permanent forum\".\n\n\"What we are doing here is making history, building a new regional architecture based on progress, technology, religious tolerance, security and intelligence co-operation. This new architecture, the shared capabilities we are building, intimidates and deters our common enemies, first and foremost Iran and its proxies.\"\n\nMeanwhile the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, visited Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday in his first such trip since 2017. Mr Blinken also held talks with Mr Abbas on Sunday, where he reiterated his support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and for increasing funding to the Palestinians.\n\nEarlier in the day, Mr Blinken met Prime Minister Bennett in Jerusalem, following which Mr Bennett's spokesperson said the prime minister had tested positive for coronavirus.\n\nThe Israel-US talks took place at a time of growing Israeli fears that the US is on the brink of signing a new agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear programme in return for an end to crippling US-led sanctions. It is also concerned that the US will remove Iran's powerful Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) from its list of terrorist groups as part of a new nuclear deal.\n\nFormer US President Donald Trump pulled out of a 2015 global nuclear agreement with Iran and restored sanctions in a move which led Iran to significantly advance its nuclear activities which had been barred by the accord.\n\nIsrael says it believes a new deal will be weaker than the previous one and enable Iran to intensify its military activities across the region.", "Dozens of refugees are now housed in a sports centre in Taganrog, Russia, east of Mariupol\n\nUkraine has accused Russia of forcibly relocating thousands of civilians from Mariupol, the strategic port city devastated by Russian shelling.\n\nRussia is housing an estimated 5,000 at a temporary camp in Bezimenne, east of Mariupol, seen in satellite images.\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 40,000 had been moved from Ukraine to Russian-held territory without any coordination with Kyiv.\n\nA Mariupol refugee, now in Russia, said: \"All of us were taken forcibly\".\n\nSome Ukrainian officials describe Russia's actions as \"deportations\" to \"filtration camps\" - an echo of Russia's war in Chechnya, when thousands of Chechens were brutally interrogated in makeshift camps and many disappeared.\n\nTents and a long line of cars at Russia's Bezimenne camp for Mariupol refugees on 22 March\n\nIt is an internationally-recognised abuse of human rights for a warring party to deport civilians to its territory.\n\nWhile 140,000 civilians have managed to escape from besieged Mariupol, another 170,000 are still trapped there, the city council says. Relentless Russian shelling for more than three weeks has reduced the city to ruins, its terrified civilians hiding in cellars, desperately short of water, food and medicine.\n\nThe BBC is unable to independently verify the figures for civilians evacuated from Mariupol, or the number killed there.\n\nRelatively few Mariupol civilians have fled via the humanitarian corridors agreed by both sides. Ukraine says Russian troops continued shelling the evacuation routes, which were supposed to be safe.\n\nIn parts of Mariupol captured by the Russians, reports suggest the civilians - hungry, thirsty and often sick - have little choice but to head out to Russian-controlled areas and Russia itself.\n\nMatt Morris, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said the ICRC could only evacuate civilians and deliver aid if Russia and Ukraine provided safety guarantees, and that had not happened yet, though the ICRC was speaking to both sides.\n\n\"The sides have to be the guarantors and have an agreement to allow safe passage. They have to publicise the route and allow plenty of time for people to get out,\" he told the BBC.\n\nInternational humanitarian law, he said, \"requires that people should be allowed to leave, but should not be forced to leave\". Warring sides should allow aid in and let people stay if they want to, he explained.\n\n\"It's a desperate situation in Mariupol - we've called on all sides to facilitate safe access in and out,\" he said, adding: \"We don't have a team currently able to access.\"\n\nIrina, a Mariupol refugee and Red Cross volunteer, spoke to the BBC's Wyre Davies via Zoom from a relative's home in Russia.\n\nShe said she and others sheltering in a bunker had been told to leave by Russian soldiers, for their own safety. The building was on fire after being shelled.\n\nThey walked 4km (2.5 miles) to a Russian checkpoint, and from there were taken further east, to territory held by pro-Russian rebels of the so-called \"Donetsk People's Republic\" (DPR) breakaway region.\n\n\"Once there, you were to decide whether you were going to stay in the DPR or go to Russia,\" she said.\n\n\"Some elderly people that I know and whom I met at the distribution point did not know where they were headed and what for. They thought they would be able to stay in Rostov [in Russia] for a couple of months… and then maybe come back to Mariupol.\n\n\"Instead, they were taken to Samara [north of Rostov, in southern Russia]. They said they had no idea what to do there, and the accommodation there is provided only for two weeks.\"\n\nCenturies-old ties between Russia and Ukraine mean that many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. But it is not clear how many Mariupol refugees have gone willingly to Russia, whose army destroyed their city.\n\nRussia's government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported on 21 March that a long column of refugees' vehicles had taken more than two hours to reach Bezimenne, a coastal village 90km (56 miles) east of Mariupol. About 5,000 refugees are being housed there, in tents, a school and a club. The Russian emergencies ministry has sent aid and workers to the scene.\n\nOn the way, the civilians were stopped by DPR rebels at checkpoints, who took their fingerprints and photographed them.\n\n\"Their data is checked on a database of wanted criminals. One of the key problems is the shortage of sim cards and not everyone has a mobile phone,\" the newspaper reported.\n\nRussia denies it is forcibly removing thousands of Ukrainians from their country.\n\nMariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC that in his city \"some are dying from dehydration and lack of food; some are dying from lack of medicine, insulin\". Many bodies have been left lying in the streets, as collecting them is so risky.\n\n\"Russian soldiers just open [enter] this shelter and tell them: 'look, you have five minutes to evacuate in this direction. Just go, walk five or three or seven kilometres and the buses will transfer you to temporarily controlled territory [by Russia]. If you don't go this house will be bombed in an hour',\" he said.\n\nDozens of Mariupol refugees are staying in a sports centre in Taganrog, a Russian city between Mariupol and Rostov.\n\nRussian media report that hundreds have also been sent by train more than 1,000km (600 miles) north to the Russian regions of Yaroslavl and Ryazan.\n\nUkraine's defence ministry says Russia is relocating Ukrainians from occupied areas en masse to distant parts of Russia, including Sakhalin in the far east.\n\n\"After passing the filtration camps Ukrainians are sent to economically depressive areas of the Russian Federation. A number of northern regions are called as a final destination, in particular - Sakhalin. Ukrainians are 'offered' official employment through employment centres. Those who agree receive documents banning leaving Russian regions for two years,\" the ministry said on Facebook.\n\nUkraine has urged the ICRC not to open an office in Rostov-on-Don - something reportedly under discussion with the Russian Red Cross. Ukraine says it could be used to legitimise deportations.\n\nBut the ICRC insisted it \"does not want to open an office in southern Russia to 'filter' Ukrainians, as many reports are alleging\". \"This is not our role, we don't do this. We are not opening a refugee camp.\"\n\nThe ICRC says it \"does not ever help organise or carry out forced evacuations\", and has only helped in two evacuations so far - from Sumy, a besieged city in the north, to other Ukrainian-held territory.\n\n\"We would not support any operation that would go against people's will and our principles,\" the ICRC said.", "Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst (left) and director Jane Campion are all recognised for The Power of the Dog\n\nJane Campion's The Power of the Dog, an intense Western starring Benedict Cumberbatch, leads this year's Oscar board with 12 nominations.\n\nIt is closely followed by Dune, which has 10, and Belfast and West Side Story, which have seven each.\n\nOlivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Garfield are among the UK nominees in the lead acting categories.\n\nDame Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds are nominated for their supporting roles in Sir Kenneth Branagh's Belfast.\n\nHis autobiographical black-and-white film about a family in Northern Ireland during The Troubles is one of 10 films in the running for best picture.\n\nSir Kenneth, who is also nominated for best director, said in a statement: \"It's a long way from the streets of Belfast to the Academy Awards.\n\nDame Judi Dench is nominated for her performance in Belfast, while Sir Kenneth Branagh is up for best director\n\n\"Today, I think of my mother and father, and my grandparents - how proud they were to be Irish, how much this city meant to them. They would have been overwhelmed by this incredible honour - as am I.\n\n\"Given a story as personal as this one, it's a hell of a day for my family, and the family of our film. I thank Academy voters for their incredible and generous recognition.\"\n\nSir Kenneth becomes the first person to be nominated in seven different Oscar categories throughout his career. He already has director, actor, supporting actor, adapted screenplay and live action short nominations, but can now add best original screenplay and best picture. He is yet to win, however.\n\nWith her nomination, New Zealand director Jane Campion becomes the first woman to have been nominated for best director twice, having been recognised for The Piano in 1993.\n\nHer film, The Power of the Dog, is a slow and suspenseful western which also scored nominations for three of its supporting actors - Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Kirsten Dunst.\n\nDune, which stars Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet, is one of 10 nominees for best picture\n\nAndrew Garfield (right) is nominated for his performance in Tick Tick... Boom!, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (left)\n\nMany nominees shared their joy on social media after the Academy unveiled its shortlists on Tuesday.\n\nJessica Chastain, nominated for her leading performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, tweeted: \"This morning felt like a dream\".\n\nAustralian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee said he was \"deeply honoured\" to have been recognised as a best supporting actor nominee in the Power of the Dog.\n\nBelfast star Ciarán Hinds, another nominee in that category, said in a statement: \"Having worked in this industry for nearly 50 years, I thought there wasn't much that could surprise me still. Today, I can honestly say, I am astounded, thrilled and deeply grateful.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jessica Chastain This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBritish actor Andrew Garfield said he was \"deeply humbled\" to be recognised for his portrayal of the late composer Jonathan Larson in Tick Tick... Boom!\n\n\"All I long for is to tell stories that remind us of how to live,\" Garfield said in a statement. \"Jonathan's story offers us a treasure map. Thank you for keeping his song reverberating through our universe.\"\n\nJessie Buckley told RTÉ she was in \"complete shock\" after being nominated for best supporting actress, adding: \"The Lost Daughter is so special to me... To be recognised for anything connected to it is just a wild dream come true.\"\n\nAnd Ariana DeBose, who is also a strong contender for best supporting actress for her role as Anita in West Side Story, shared her excitement over her nomination.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ariana DeBose This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nTwo couples are nominated within the 20 acting places that were available.\n\nPenelope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) and Javier Bardem (Being The Ricardos) have been married since 2010, while Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst are engaged.\n\nIn a statement, Dunst said: \"To be honored by the Academy is a truly humbling experience. For both Jesse and I to get our first nominations together is beyond our wildest dreams.\"\n\nDenzel Washington's nomination for The Tragedy of Macbeth is his 10th, extending the record he already holds as the most nominated black actor ever.\n\nWill Smith has been nominated for best actor for his performance in King Richard\n\nThere is no overlap between the best actress and best picture categories - all five women nominated for a leading role appeared in films which did not make it into the top category.\n\nThis is common at the Oscars. While Frances McDormand and Nomadland synced their wins last year, that was the first time in 15 years that the winner of best actress appeared in the film that also won best picture.\n\nEfforts to nominate more popular films and make the Oscars more relevant to young people were only partly successful, as fans of James Bond and Spider-Man were left disappointed.\n\nDenis Villeneuve's sci-fi saga Dune was the most successful film to get a best picture nod, after taking $400m (£294m) at the box office worldwide.\n\nHouse of Gucci's Lady Gaga (far right) and Jared Leto (second left) both missed out in their respective acting categories\n\nWith far more films in the awards season race this year and only a limited number of slots available in each category, it was inevitable that some films and stars would miss out.\n\nThe voting system means that, while the Academy does not choose to actively reject a particular movie, director or actor, a heavily-tipped contender can miss out if they don't get as many votes as some of their peers.\n\nFor example, the red carpet will have to do without without Lady Gaga and her Oscars outfit this year. She had been tipped for a best actress nomination for House of Gucci, but has missed out.\n\nIt's not a good year to be both a musician and an actor. Gaga's co-star Jared Leto, who is also the singer with Thirty Seconds To Mars, and Alana Haim, who has gone from the band Haim to starring in Licorice Pizza, were both in contention but have been overlooked.\n\nKristen Stewart did make it on to the best actress list, though, for playing Princess Diana in Spencer. Her first Oscar nomination, the former Twilight star was the frontrunner to win a few months ago, but Spencer has rapidly fallen out of favour and it wasn't certain that she would be nominated.\n\nOn the best supporting actress list, Dame Judi had been an outsider to be nominated for Belfast - but she is loved by the Oscars, and has now received her eighth career nomination. Her on-screen daughter-in-law Caitriona Balfe, who was thought to have been Belfast's more likely representative in that category, was not recognised.\n\nThe Lost Daughter has scored acting nominations for Jessie Buckley (far left) and Olivia Colman (second right)\n\nIrish star Jessie Buckley was also something of a surprise in the best supporting actress category. She plays the younger version of Olivia Colman's character in The Lost Daughter - with Colman herself up for best actress, days after being snubbed in the Bafta nominations.\n\nOverall, Oscar voters liked The Power of the Dog a bit more than expected, and liked Dune a bit less than expected - typified by the fact that, although Dune has 10 nominations, Denis Villeneuve didn't make the cut for best director.\n\nTracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan announced the nominations in Los Angeles on Tuesday.\n\nThere is pressure to make the Oscars more popular with and relevant to young audiences, after 2021's pared-down ceremony tanked in the ratings, partly due to the absence of big film releases during lockdown.\n\nThe Academy has confirmed the ceremony will have a host this year, but has not yet revealed who it will be.\n\nThe ceremony hasn't had a host since Jimmy Kimmel was at the helm in 2018. Instead, a variety of celebrity guests have introduced individual categories and announced winners.\n\nThis year's ceremony will take place on Sunday 27 March.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Over the past week, US President Joe Biden has made a series of unscripted remarks that have upped the temperature of US-Russia relations to near boiling point.\n\nHowever, his ad-libbed line at the end of what was billed as a \"major speech\" in Poland on Saturday - seemingly calling for President Vladimir Putin to be removed from power - may have landed the hardest.\n\nIn his speech to a crowd of assembled Polish government officials and dignitaries at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the US president once again warned that the world was in the midst of an era-defining conflict between democracies and autocracies.\n\nHe pledged that Nato would defend \"every inch\" of its member states' soil. He also promised continued support to Ukraine, although he noted that the US military would not engage with Russian forces there.\n\nIt was a confrontational, but measured, speech - well in line with what US officials, from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on down, have been saying for months.\n\nThen, right before the \"thank yous\" and \"goodbyes\", Mr Biden added of his Russian counterpart: \"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.\"\n\n\"This speech - and the passages which concern Russia - is astounding, to use polite words,\" Russia spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. \"He doesn't understand that the world is not limited to the United States and most of Europe.\"\n\n\"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region,\" a Biden administration official said on background. \"He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change.\"\n\nThe speed with which the US issued its \"clarification\" - later echoed by Mr Blinken - suggests the US understands the danger inherent in Mr Biden's words.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Joe Biden closes speech in Poland by saying Vladimir Putin \"cannot remain in power\"\n\nEarlier in the day, the US president had called Mr Putin a \"butcher\". Last week, he seemed to get ahead of his own administration's diplomatic process by accusing the Russian leader of war crimes. In both cases, Mr Biden's remarks prompted condemnations and warnings from Moscow that US-Russia diplomatic relations were being frayed to the point of breaking.\n\nThere's a line between condemning a nation's leader - the sometimes overheated rhetoric of diplomacy - and calling for his removal. It was a line both the Americans and the Soviets respected even at the height of the Cold War. And it is a line that Mr Biden had apparently crossed.\n\n\"Regime change\" is something powerful countries are accused of imposing on weaker ones - not what one nuclear-armed nation demands of another.\n\nBy Sunday, even some US allies were attempting to distance themselves from Mr Biden's remarks.\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron warned that the US president was putting ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in jeopardy.\n\n\"We want to stop the war that Russia has launched in Ukraine without escalation,\" he said. \"If this is what we want to do, we should not escalate things - neither with words or actions.\"\n\nIn Washington, congressional leaders were also expressing concern. Idaho Republican Jim Risch, the senior Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, called Mr Biden's remarks a \"horrendous gaffe\".\n\n\"My gosh, I wish they would keep him on script,\" he said. \"Any time you say or even, as he did, suggest that the policy was regime change, it's going to cause a huge problem. This administration has done everything they can to stop escalating. There's not a whole lot more you can do to escalate than to call for regime change.\"\n\nMr Biden has a well-known propensity for making off-the-cuff remarks that can land him in difficult situations. They've derailed past presidential bids and occasionally frustrated Obama administration officials when he was vice-president. Those lines are not entirely accidental, however. They can reveal where Mr Biden's heart lies, even if his head - and the heads of those around him - might prefer he hold his tongue.\n\nThat, at times, is a political strength, writes The Atlantic's Tom Nichols, allowing Mr Biden to authentically connect with the emotions of the American people. But, in this current moment of diplomatic crisis - when poorly chosen words can lead to consequential actions - they're also a weakness.\n\n\"It is hard to blame Biden for giving in to his famous temper after talking to the people who have suffered from Putin's barbarism,\" Mr Nichols writes. \"But the words of every world leader matter right now, and none more than those of the president of the United States.\"\n\nMr Biden may believe that US-Russia relations are damaged to the point that they will not be repaired while Mr Putin is in power. Explicitly saying so, however, could make the immediate US goal - ending the war in Ukraine while preserving the nation's territorial integrity - more difficult.\n\nThe war in Ukraine is not going the way Mr Putin intended so far. His army is bogged down in bitter fighting and casualties are growing. His economy is straining under the weight of economic sanctions. Russia is increasingly isolated from the rest of the world.\n\nThe situation has potential to lead to the de-escalation the US and its allies are calling for - but it also could make Mr Putin more desperate. And if the Russian leader believes his power is at stake, and believes the US is not-so-secretly making that an objective of its efforts, the turn the crisis takes from here may not be one toward peace.", "One of President Putin’s justifications for his invasion of Ukraine is that he wants to \"denazify\" the country.\n\nRos Atkins looks at the distortions and untruths that Russia is spreading about Nazis in Ukraine - including about the role of the Azov regiment, who are based in Mariupol and are part of Ukraine's national guard.", "Marks & Spencer has apologised after some customers were sent other shoppers' parcel tracking details.\n\nOne customer said he got more than 100 text messages with links to GPS locations and photographs of parcels on other people's doorsteps.\n\n\"Someone could have used that information to drive around and pick all those parcels up,\" he said.\n\nM&S said: \"Due to a technical error, a small number of customers received incorrect text notifications.\"\n\nThe spokesperson added: \"The issue was quickly identified and resolved. We're apologising to [the customer] for the inconvenience caused.\"\n\nThey said only 1% of orders had been affected by the glitch.\n\nTom said he got more than 100 messages in one day\n\nThe customer, who asked us only to use his first name, Tom, said a flurry of text messages started straight after he placed an order for some bedding.\n\n\"I kept getting loads of messages at once. There's over 100 texts and I had a few two days after I rang up and told them about it,\" said the 28-year-old from Essex.\n\n\"Luckily my phone was on silent but I could see all these notifications coming through and it was quite distracting. I can imagine for the other people this has been happening to it's pretty annoying.\"\n\nHe said he had been sent \"pages and pages\" of links about other people's parcels.\n\nWhile no names or numbers or card details were included, he could see the location and GPS coordinates of where parcels were delivered as well as images of some people's parcels that had been left outside.\n\n\"Obviously the images of people's parcels, web tracking links, location of delivery and tracking information is probably somewhat sensitive information.\"\n\nAfter complaining to the retailer, Tom received a message from M&S which said: \"While we believe there is no risk of harm to customers, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused - we are continually working to keep your personal information as safe as possible. I hope we have reassured you how seriously we have taken this.\"\n\nIf you've experienced a similar issue after shopping online please get in touch. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Max Verstappen won an intense race-long battle with Charles Leclerc to take his first victory of the season in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.\n\nThe Red Bull driver passed the Ferrari with four laps to go after the two had duelled during a tense race.\n\nThe battle occasionally bordered on farce as the two slowed down almost to a stop at times to try to work the DRS overtaking zones to their advantage.\n\nBut Verstappen edged it by 0.5 seconds after making the decisive move.\n\nThe two were in a league of their own out front as Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Red Bull's Sergio Perez took third and fourth.\n\nGeorge Russell finished fifth for Mercedes, ahead of Alpine's Esteban Ocon and McLaren's Lando Norris.\n\nThe excitement meant a difficult weekend for F1 ended on a high, but the drivers and other senior figures unnerved by Friday's missile strike on a nearby oil depot are unlikely to allow the sport's bosses to forget what has been an uncomfortable three days in the desert.\n\nVerstappen took his first win of the season and 21st career victory\n\nHow did Verstappen come out on top?\n\nJust two races into the season, it already feels as if this year could distil, like last one, into a two-horse race, with Leclerc replacing Hamilton as Verstappen's main rival.\n\nLeclerc moved to the front after Ferrari appeared to trick Red Bull into making a pit stop with Perez, who started from pole and led the early laps.\n\nA radio conversation asked Leclerc to \"push to box\" but he stayed out as Perez pitted. After the race, Leclerc said the team had agreed to do the opposite of Red Bull, who said their plan had always been to pit that lap. So Leclerc stayed out.\n\nFerrari's plan was now to run longer and make ground with what they hoped was Leclerc's extra pace.\n\nBut events came to Leclerc's aid as Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams and brought out the safety car on the next lap, gifting Leclerc, Verstappen and Sainz a 'free' stop and dropping Perez down to the fourth place he would retain to the end.\n\nLeclerc nailed the restart and retained the lead. For lap after lap, Verstappen trailed him, at about 1.5-second distance, but Leclerc appeared to be able to hold him at bay.\n\nBut a virtual safety car period with 12 laps to go changed the race, as a result of a bizarre sequence of events as first Daniel Ricciardo's McLaren and then Fernando Alonso's Alpine ground to a halt in the entry to the pit lane.\n\nOn the restart, Verstappen was suddenly on Leclerc's tail and the Ferrari driver could not shake him.\n\nAt first, Leclerc tried the same tactics that won him the first race of the season in Bahrain, letting Verstappen pass him at the end of one DRS overtaking zone - at the last corner in Jeddah - so he could have the boost from the DRS aid down the pit straight into Turn One.\n\nThat worked on lap 42 into lap 43, after which Leclerc set the fastest lap trying to break away from the Red Bull.\n\nAnd the next time around, both slammed on the brakes into the last corner - Verstappen locking all four tyres - as they played chicken with the DRS trigger line.\n\nBut Verstappen came back at him. At the end of lap 45, Leclerc made an error into the last corner and lost a little time.\n\nThen, on the following lap, they were again together into the final corner.\n\nVerstappen rounded it on Leclerc's tail, an oversteer snap slowed the Ferrari's exit, and the DRS overtaking aid did the rest, Verstappen moving past down the straight with the final pass of the race.\n\nBehind the big two\n\nPerez was unlucky to lose out with the safety car.\n\nThe rest of the race suggested he did not have the underlying pace to hold Leclerc, and Red Bull would surely have ordered him to let Verstappen by had the Dutchman been behind him.\n\nBut he also lost out to Sainz by the closest of margins.\n\nAs Sainz exited the pits, he was marginally ahead of Perez at the safety car line on the track. Perez moved ahead on the exit of the corner, but this was against the rules, and Perez had to cede position on the restart.\n\nAfter that, it was a lonely race for the second drivers of the top teams, and also for George Russell in the Mercedes, comfortably clear of the midfielders but unable to challenger the leaders.\n\nHamilton at one point looked as if he might finish sixth or seventh, had things gone his way.\n\nThe caution period he was awaiting with his long first stint did happen. The team called Hamilton in, but seeing Alonso's car moving slowly and double waved yellow flags, he did not know whether he could overtake.\n\nHe slowed and lost nearly six seconds and also decided not to pit, which meant he had to wait another two laps until the virtual safety car ended to pit.\n\nThe dropped him to 12th, but he passed a couple of cars in the final stages of the race to take the final point, behind Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly and Haas' Kevin Magnussen.\n\nAlonso and Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas were also on for decent points hauls before their mid-race retirements.\n\nWhat happens next?\n\nA two-week break before the Australian Grand Prix, as F1 returns to Melbourne for the first time since the 2020 event was called off as the pandemic took hold around the globe.", "This year's Oscars have been handed out in Los Angeles, honouring the movie industry's finest from the past 12 months. Here is the list of winners and all the nominees at the 94th Academy Awards.\n\nSci-fi epic Dune won the most awards, with six\n\nJavier Bardem and Nicole Kidman were both nominated for Being the Ricardos\n\nBillie Eilish and brother Finneas O'Connell's No Time to Die was named best original song\n\nFollow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Soldiers carrying shovels walk along a pathway to the forested mountain crash site on Wednesday\n\nChinese officials have confirmed that all 132 passengers and crew died when flight MU5735 crashed on Monday in southern China.\n\nThe China Eastern flight was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it nose-dived and crashed in a heavily-forested area in Guangxi.\n\nRescue teams said they had identified 120 of the victims so far through DNA analysis, aviation officials said.\n\nState media reported that both black boxes have now been found.\n\nThe flight data recorder - which could provide crucial information about why the plane crashed an hour into its journey - was recovered on Saturday.\n\nThe first black box has already been sent to Beijing to be inspected by experts, Reuters said. That one is believed to contain the cockpit voice recorder.\n\nThough there had been little hope of finding any survivors, victims' families have been waiting for news from the search teams, which have been combing the heavily-wooded area for days.\n\nBut the search has been difficult in the remote hills near the city of Wuzhou, with rescue teams working in very muddy conditions.\n\nHu Zhenjiang, deputy director-general of China's civil aviation administration, said the search would continue for the remains of the victims and parts of plane wreckage, Chinese news website Sina reported.\n\nAircraft manufacturer Boeing - which made the 737-800 jet - said on Saturday its technical team is supporting the US National Transportation Safety Board and China's civil aviation administration with the investigation, Reuters reports.\n\nFollowing the crash, China's President Xi Jinping called for a full-scale investigation.\n\nThe crash is China's most deadly aviation incident in nearly three decades, and has prompted a national outpouring of grief.", "Bohdan had to make a police statement after a neighbour reported his fairy lights\n\nSuspicion thrives on conflict and after a month of war in Ukraine, the fear that Russian saboteurs may be operating is hardening into a certainty. But how much is fact, backed up by intelligence reports and arrests, and how much is something closer to understandable paranoia, fuelled by social media rumours about mysterious lights and signs?\n\n\"It was my neighbours from this stairwell who came to see me. They were scared about security,\" said Bohdan Mylko, a 22-year-old engineer sharing an apartment on the northern edge of Odesa.\n\nFifteen minutes later, the police were at his door, asking about a red light in his bedroom window.\n\n\"It's paranoia, based on fake news about red lights being a sign to the Russians. I had to go to the police station and get my documents checked, make a statement, and get my photo taken.\n\n\"The police realised that I'm just a normal guy and let me go home. I'm not trying to help the Russians,\" said Mylko, holding up the set of flashing fairy lights that prompted the police's intervention.\n\nElderly people are among patrols at night, asking to check the documents of people they encounter\n\nMoments after we visited him, one evening shortly before curfew, we were stopped on the street outside by a group of residents who asked to see our documents.\n\n\"You could be Russians,\" said an elderly woman who gave her name as Valya.\n\n\"What are you doing here? We have small children. We don't want anything to happen to them. Maybe someone will drop a bomb here tomorrow,\" said another woman, as the wail of an air raid siren rose over the apartment complex.\n\nSuch concerns are understandable in a city, and a country, still reeling from the shock of Russia's invasion. Similar behaviour has been noted in many other conflicts, from Syria to Chechnya and beyond.\n\n\"This is not paranoia. There are Russian agents and citizens of Ukraine working against us. That's a fact,\" said Capt Volodymir Kalina from the Odesa police.\n\nBut he acknowledged there was a strong element of disinformation involved and accused Russia of deliberately trying to stir up public fear.\n\n\"They're trying to distract us, to make us pay attention to the wrong places - to clear us from one part of the city so they can carry out their work in another area,\" he said.\n\nDmitro covered a black arrow on a wall in case it was a sign for Russian troops\n\nAlong the coast, a few kilometres south of Odesa city's historic centre in an area known for its nightclubs and beach bars, retired businessman Dmitro Novak, 71, was beginning his morning shift with a neighbourhood patrol.\n\nHe pointed to a black arrow painted on a wall, and explained he had covered it in case it was a sign for Russian troops. A few minutes later, he stopped on a set of steps beside a large, empty office building overlooking the sea.\n\n\"I saw a big light there. It was directed towards the night sky. My neighbours saw it too. It was on the roof of this building. For sure it was a signal to the Russian fleet. Some kind of signal.\n\n\"We called the authorities, and they came immediately, and the light was switched off. So now we're looking carefully around for any other signals, or marks. Everybody is alert. We're changing shifts every two hours,\" said Novak.\n\nLast week, Russian naval artillery shelled the area, with some missiles landing just off the beach and several others hitting residential homes, but causing no casualties.\n\nHanna Shelest, a prominent analyst in Odesa who advises the Ukrainian parliament on security issues, backed up concerns that Ukrainians or Russians were providing information to the Russian military.\n\n\"The first aim is the storage of weapons and ammunition in town in case street fighting starts here,\" she explained. \"The second is to spread disinformation and gossip.\n\n\"The third aim is to mark directions in the city with signs for which way to go in case there is an amphibious landing by the Russians. And the fourth is to mark targets - either visually or with electronic signals - for artillery or airstrikes.\"\n\nUkrainian media has broadcast numerous videos showing police arresting alleged Russian saboteurs. President Volodymyr Zelensky was also shown handing out medals to a group of police security agents credited with apprehending suspected Russian saboteurs and reconnaissance groups.\n\nBut it is worth noting that, for all the fear and suspicion aroused by such reports, the evidence so far suggests that a few isolated Russian cells have, so far, been remarkably unsuccessful, and that Ukrainian public opinion - directly contradicting Russian propaganda - has hardened and united against the Kremlin's invasion.\n\nThe idea that partisans or \"fifth columnists\" might be activated effectively in Ukraine would appear to have been entirely fanciful.\n\n\"Ukraine's security services are definitely monitoring those under suspicion. And we already know some people have been arrested. But as for anything more serious - it is probably not their time, yet,\" said Dr Shelest.", "A new fund to help families in Northern Ireland pay the cost of a funeral following the death of a child will be available from June.\n\nThe Child Funeral Fund will offer a one-off payment of £3,056 after the death of a child under 18.\n\nThe money will also be made available in the event of a still birth after 24 weeks.\n\nThe fund is not means-tested and will be available to all families regardless of their financial situation.\n\nThe Department of Communities, which is responsible for the fund, has said the application process for the money is still being finalised but it would ensure access would be made as simple as possible.\n\nSimilar schemes already exist elsewhere in the UK.\n\nA burial fund was introduced in England in 2018 and fees for the burial or cremation of a child in Scotland were abolished in the same year.\n\nA payment scheme towards funeral costs was introduced in Wales last year\n\nIn Northern Ireland, some councils have already chosen to waive burial costs for children.\n\nAnnouncing the new fund, Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey said the money would support families at a time of \"devastation and sadness\".\n\n\"The Child Funeral Fund will lessen stress and anxiety for people during the most devastating of times,\" she said.\n• None Money for NI child funeral fund not yet in place", "Hawkins drummed with Foo Fighters for over two decades\n\nFoo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins had opioids, marijuana and other drugs in his system before he died, Colombian investigators say.\n\nA toxicology report showed traces of 10 substances in his body, including anti-depressants.\n\nThe cause of death remains unknown and investigators did not say if the mix of drugs was a factor.\n\nHawkins, 50, died at a hotel in Bogota, with the band due to play at a music festival this weekend.\n\nLocal officials said an ambulance was sent to the hotel after a man reported having chest pains.\n\nHe did not respond to resuscitation efforts and was declared dead, the city's health department said.\n\nThe Colombian attorney general's office said it was still investigating and would release more details later.\n\n\"The National Institute of Forensic Medicine continues to conduct the necessary medical studies to ascertain the cause of death,\" it added.\n\nFans of the band who were in the Colombian capital to see them play have laid flowers outside the hotel.\n\nHawkins' death was announced by Foo Fighters in a statement, in which they said they were \"devastated\" by the loss and pleaded for his family to be given privacy.\n\nHe joined the band in 1997 and on top of his drumming skills had writing credits on several songs and sometimes sang at concerts.\n\nNews of Hawkins' death has stunned fans, with thousands lighting candles and holding a minute's silence outside the venue where they were due to play.\n\nTributes have been paid from the world of rock and beyond.\n\nOzzy Osbourne said Hawkins was \"an amazing musician\", while Mick Jagger called the news \"incredibly sad\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the crowd's reaction at the festival where Foo Fighters had been due to perform on Friday night", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why does North Korea keep launching missiles?\n\nThe US says N Korea recently tested parts of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system, in what it called a \"serious escalation\".\n\nPyongyang said the launches on 26 February and 4 March focused on developing a reconnaissance satellite.\n\nBut the Pentagon now says the tests were experimental launches, before a likely full-range ICBM launch.\n\nWith a minimum range of 5,500km (3,417 miles), ICBMs can reach the US. They are designed for nuclear arms delivery.\n\nOn Thursday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said North Korea's two tests \"involved a new intercontinental ballistic missile system\".\n\nNeither launch displayed ICBM range or capability, but the tests were carried out \"to evaluate this new system before conducting a test at full range in the future, potentially disguised as a space launch,\" Mr Kirby said.\n\n\"The United States strongly condemns these launches, which are a brazen violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, needlessly raise tensions and risk destabilising the security situation in the region.\"\n\nBoth South Korea and Japan have confirmed the US statement and condemned Pyongyang.\n\nHere we go again. And we can't say we were not warned.\n\nNorth Korea has spent over a year saying that it would return to testing bigger and better weapons. They even displayed them in a military parade and exhibitions.\n\nPyongyang has carried out several short-range missile tests which will have helped their scientists try out new technology. But testing long range intercontinental ballistic missiles really make Washington sit up and take notice.\n\nWhy? Because these missiles put the US mainland within striking distance, as North Korea demonstrated during its launches in 2017.\n\nThe Hwasong-12 was thought to be able to reach as far as 4,500km (2,800 miles), putting US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam well within striking distance. The Hwasong-14 demonstrated even greater potential, with a range of 8,000km.\n\nOnly the US, Russia and China have land-based missiles of this range.\n\nKim Jong-un has warned he will launch \"many satellites\" soon, which Washington and Seoul will see as an attempt to try out the same technology as an ICBM.\n\nThe allies have stepped up surveillance in the region. More sanctions will be announced.\n\nOnce again, it seems tensions may return to the Korean peninsula, just as Seoul elects a new conservative president who has pledged to be tougher on Pyongyang.\n\nIn a statement released on Friday, South Korea's defence ministry linked the two recent launches to a \"newly developing ICBM system\" that had been previously unveiled by North Korea's ruling party during a military parade in October.\n\nSeoul also \"strongly condemned\" the tests, whereas Japan called them a \"threat to peace and security... that can never be tolerated.\"\n\nA senior US official described the tests as a \"serious escalation\", adding that the US would slap further sanctions against North Korea on Friday.\n\nThe official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new measures would prevent Pyongyang from accessing \"foreign items and technology\" to further develop its missile programme.\n\nNorth Korea is already under biting international sanctions over its missile and nuclear weapons programme.\n\nPyongyang has not conducted any ICBM or nuclear tests since 2017, though North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has at times hinted he may do so.\n\nThe North put a moratorium in place on testing long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear tests after talks with then US President Donald Trump. But in 2020, Mr Kim announced he was no longer bound by this promise.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS actor Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 150 days in jail after a jury found he lied to police about being the victim of a hate crime.\n\nThe former Empire star, 39, was found guilty in December of five charges of felony disorderly conduct after making false reports about the hoax attack.\n\nThe sentence also includes 30 months of probation and $145,000 (£110,000) in restitution and fines.\n\nFollowing the sentence, Smollett said: \"I did not do this!\"\n\nThe trial stemmed from an incident three years ago when Smollett said he was attacked by two assailants.\n\nThe actor, who is black and gay, said the attackers shouted slurs at him and a Trump slogan, dumped a \"chemical substance\" on him and tied a noose around his neck while he was walking late at night in January 2019.\n\nAuthorities opened an investigation, but in February of that year, police charged Smollett with filing a false police report, alleging he had staged the assault.\n\nAt trial last year, a jury of six men and six women heard from brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who testified Smollett paid them to orchestrate the attack and paid them $3,500 to carry it out.\n\nSmollett faced up to three years in prison for each of the five counts. The first 150 days of his probation will be spent in custody, beginning immediately.\n\nHe must also pay $120,106 in restitution to the city of Chicago and $25,000 in fines - the maximum allowable by law.\n\nThroughout the trial, Smollett maintained that he had been the victim of a crime.\n\nIn court on Thursday, his defence team again asked that the case be thrown out or declared a mistrial, citing a previous prosecutor's 2019 promise to drop the charges.\n\nProsecutors characterised the effort as \"finger-pointing and scapegoating\".\n\nSmollet, seen here in March 2019, is known for his role in the TV series Empire\n\nAdditionally, the judge heard from several witnesses who testified on Smollett's behalf in a bid for leniency. Letters were also read from the likes of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and actor Samuel L Jackson.\n\n\"Jussie should not be incarcerated,\" his brother Joel said. \"He is not a threat to the people of Illinois.\"\n\nA victim impact statement on behalf of the Chicago Police Department read in court said police officers had committed more than 30 officers to the investigation - spread over 1,426 regular hours and 1,837 overtime hours.\n\nThey had interviewed dozens of witnesses, watched thousands of hours of surveillance videos and gone door-to-door during Chicago's Polar Vortex - one of the coldest periods in the city's history, it said.\n\nJudge James Linn repeatedly addressed Smollett directly and noted that the \"unprecedented\" media attention the case attracted is usually reserved for murder cases.\n\n\"There is nothing that I can do here today that can come close to the damage you've already done to your own life,\" Mr Linn told Smollett. \"You've turned your life upside down by your conduct and shenanigans.\"\n\n\"You're just a charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime, and that's shameful,\" Mr Linn later added.\n\nFollowing the sentencing, Smollett left the courtroom with a raised fist, and exclaimed: \"I am innocent, and I am not suicidal.\"\n\n\"If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBT community,\" he said. \"But I did not do this.\"\n\nSmollett's acting career stalled after the incident. He lost his role as a singer-songwriter in the final season of Empire, a Fox television hip-hop drama.", "Emilio Delgado appeared on Sesame Street from 1971 until 2016\n\nActor Emilio Delgado, who appeared on Sesame Street for more than four decades, has died at the age of 81.\n\nDelgado was a presence in children's lives for 45 years, playing the fix-it shop owner Luis on the long-running series.\n\nHis wife, Carol Delgado, confirmed he had died from the blood cancer multiple myeloma, which he had been battling since 2020, at their home in New York.\n\nIn a statement, producers said he was a \"beloved member of the Sesame family\".\n\nDelgado, who was Mexican-American, joined the show at a time when there were few ordinary Latino characters on TV.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sesame Workshop This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHis character Luis, who first appeared in 1971, attracted praise for avoiding the Latin American stereotypes which were commonplace on television at the time.\n\n\"There really wasn't any representation of actual people,\" Delgado recalled in a 2021 interview on the YouTube series Famous Cast Words. \"Most of the roles that I went out for were either for bandits or gang members.\"\n\nShop owner Luis was an exception to that, and Delgado's role saw him star alongside a diverse group of children and the famous puppets Elmo, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.\n\nDelgado was cast in the show's third season without having to audition. The actor recalled producer Jon Stone \"didn't want actors... he wanted real people\".\n\nThe actor took a year-long break from the show in the mid 1980s but returned to continue playing Luis, who was popular with viewers.\n\nIn a widely-viewed 1988 episode, his character married his co-worker Maria, played by Sonia Manzano.\n\nThe storyline was Sesame Street's first attempt to teach children about romantic love, with the fix-it shop employees falling for each other after caring for a sick kitten.\n\nThey first realized they might be in love when Big Bird spotted them holding hands and asked, ''Why would grown-ups need to hold hands to cross the street?''\n\n'We wanted to show a couple who are nice to each other and have fun together,'' said Ms Manzano, who also wrote for the show, told the New York Times in 1988.\n\nDelgado's \"warmth and humour invited children to share a friendship that has echoed through generations,\" Sesame Workshop said in their statement.\n\n\"At the forefront of representation, Emilio proudly laid claim to the record for the longest-running role for a Mexican-American in a TV series. We are so grateful he shared his talents with us and with the world.\"\n\nDelgado's other TV credits included Quincy M.E., Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and House of Cards.\n\nHe left Sesame Street in 2016 when his contract was not renewed during a revamp of the show. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in late 2020.\n\nHe was honoured by former New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who declared 15 October 2019, \"Emilio Delgado Day\".\n\n\"At a time when, if you saw diversity on television, it often was with stereotypes, and not the good kind of stereotypes,\" he said.\n\n\"Emilio was one of the people who broke the mould, created a positive role model, for everyone, but particularly for children who didn't get to see or hear people who looked like them and spoke like them.\"", "With fuel prices in Northern Ireland hitting record-breaking levels, car-reliant businesses and their employees are feeling the pressures.\n\nPrices have soared since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn Thursday diesel was most expensive in Craigavon where it has hit 186.9p per litre, according to data collected the Consumer Council.\n\nSome filling stations in Belfast and Carrickfergus have reportedly run out of diesel.\n\nMeanwhile, the highest petrol price was found in Londonderry at 170.9p per litre.\n\nIn parts of Northern Ireland there is evidence some petrol stations offering the lowest prices have also struggled to meet demand.\n\nIt is believed customers are filling their tanks with cheaper fuel in anticipation of further rises.\n\nMotorists in the Republic of Ireland have been queuing at some petrol stations as a cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel came into effect.\n\nOne fuel retailer said motorists from Northern Ireland were crossing the border to take advantage of the cuts, which has seen his prices fall by nearly 15 cents.\n\nBut in Omeath, County Louth, another town near the border, it has remained quiet despite a similar fall in fuel prices.\n\nFuel prices in other places near the border have remained mixed with stations offering higher and lower prices.\n\n\"We have to wait until Saturday before we can buy a load at the lower price,\" fuel retailer Terry Hughes said.\n\n\"It's going to take until then before we see the price reductions appear because everybody has a certain amount of stock in their tanks at the higher duty price.\"\n\nIn Northern Ireland, business owners have been speaking to BBC News NI about their concerns around fuel prices.\n\nEmily Magrath runs Caremark Belfast and North Down, which has 400 staff caring for about 700 vulnerable people.\n\nHer staff rely on being able to drive between patients' homes to provide that care.\n\nMrs Magrath said: \"(A typical client like) Mrs Jones could need four calls a day, seven days a week, so if a care worker is doing morning, lunch and tea, they could be going to nine or 10 houses, three times a day.\n\n\"We're all making decisions at the minute not to turn our heating on or to use public transport but care workers can't do that, because Mrs Jones has been contracted four calls a day, seven days a week, so a care worker can't just decide they won't call with her.\"\n\nFor care workers, higher outgoings means less change in their pockets.\n\nMrs Magrath explained: \"Our staff are paid a higher rate of pay, their mileage is included in their pay, but with higher fuel costs, there'll be less take home pay.\n\n\"One of our staff has recommended an app which tells the lowest petrol price in the area that they're working in.\"\n\nMrs Magrath says many have left the sector altogether.\n\n\"A rise in petrol prices is on top of the challenges that we're facing in terms of Covid - staff recruitment, getting staff into the sector, and in terms of staff retention, unfortunately staff have left this sector, and really good staff, because they've been so burnt out by what Covid has brought.\"\n\nIn a bid to retain staff, Caremark has made some changes to how staff operate.\n\n\"We're looking at all our runs and making sure they're really geographically close together so we wouldn't have care workers travelling from Bangor to Newtownards, we'd keep everyone in the same town,\" Mrs Magrath said.\n\n\"We've also started walking runs, so we've looked at runs that can be walked around, we're encouraging staff not to take their cars and to walk, and we're doing more of that in the coming weeks.\"\n\nShe told BBC News NI that due to the increase in fuel prices, she is paying almost double for diesel than she normally would have, to travel to all of her clients.\n\n\"Some days I could be going from Crumlin Road to Lisburn and then to Rathcoole, and I do try to fix the appointments to one particular area but sometimes I can't.\n\n\"From the increase, now I'm thinking 'is it worth my while going that far? Am I going to have to refuse some clients and keep it more local?'\n\n\"Because I'll end up working for pennies or turning clients away.\"\n\nMs Chambers said she had considered putting her prices up but feels people are already struggling financially since the pandemic and due to the soaring cost of living.\n\n\"Before the pandemic I had regular customers who visited me every two weeks but now it's every four, because it's not want any more, it's a luxury,\" she said.\n\n\"If things keep going this way I'm going to have to start asking people to travel to me and I know I'd lose customers.\n\n\"A lot of my clients are elderly, don't drive, or they're single mums trying to manage.\n\n\"So I would lose 80% of my income and I could end up having to close my doors, which I don't want to happen.\"\n\nDriving instructors who use their vehicles almost daily are having to fill their cars with fuel more often\n\nOliver Quinn, a driving instructor from County Tyrone, says like many others, it is costing a lot more to fill the tank in his car.\n\n\"Here in Omagh, lessons are usually about £25 but I've noticed people putting them up to £30 recently,\" he said.\n\n\"I haven't put mine up yet but I might have no other choice at the end of the month.\n\n\"I'm using diesel and it's not taking us far at all any more.\"\n\nMr Quinn says he is worried the situation is only going to get worse.\n\n\"I've noticed some people are going for tests without any lessons or enough lessons and they're not ready, but people can't afford them.\n\n\"People's wages aren't going up and people are already spending more money on the likes of heating oil, so other things will have to fall by the wayside and lessons might not be a priority in that case.\"\n\nHe says while he has not noticed much of an impact yet, he believes the increase in petrol prices is going to affect his business \"quite badly, soon\".\n\n\"It's going to start cutting into profits,\" he told BBC News NI.\n\n\"Then you have the issue of groomers who are maybe already doing it from home and don't have the overhead costs that we do.\n\n\"Customers might end up going there instead.\"\n\nWhen asked whether he considered increasing prices, Mr McRobb said he is going to \"hold off as long as possible\".\n\n\"When you add it all up - clipper blades, everyday maintenance, petrol, everything is already going up,\" he said.\n\n\"It'll make people not want to get their dogs groomed as often, they'll want to hold off.\n\n\"But coming into the summer they need cut and the dogs welfare will end up suffering.\"", "Ukrainian emergency services carry an injured pregnant woman from a hospital shelled by Russian forces\n\nPeople with loved ones trapped inside the besieged city of Mariupol were trying desperately on Thursday to connect to phones inside the city, which has been virtually cut off from the outside world by an escalating and indiscriminate bombing campaign by Russian forces.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a Ukrainian MP who grew up in Mariupol and whose parents are trapped there, said he last managed to connect to their neighbours four days ago.\n\n\"We spoke for 30 seconds after they went to a spot with signal - there are a couple of these spots people know about,\" Mr Gurin said.\n\n\"They said my parents were alive, living in the basement under their apartment building.\n\n\"Please understand me that this is not a shelter with light, water and a toilet, it is a basement with nothing.\"\n\nMr Gurin said his parents were using snow to drink water and trying to cook food on an open fire outside.\n\n\"Can you try to imagine this? Your parents, 67 and 69, are drinking snow and trying to cook on a fire outside in winter and there is continuous shelling,\" he said.\n\n\"This is not war any more. This is not army against army. It is carpet bombing. It is Russia against humanity.\"\n\nArthur Bondarenko, a 35-year-old coffee distributor in Odessa, said he was hopelessly sending messages every day to his close friends, a couple with a six-year-old son.\n\n\"Every day I message them and say, 'Hello, good morning, how are you?'\n\n\"None of the messages go through.\"\n\nMr Bondarenko said he last spoke to them on 2 March.\n\n\"They had no water, no electricity, no heating and there was no shelter under their house.\"\n\nMariupol, a city of about 400,000, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.\n\nThe city has now been subjected to nine days of heavy bombardment by Russian forces, destroying apartment buildings and flattening residential areas. Footage verified by the BBC showed shelling on Thursday, confirming a statement by the city council that the bombardment was ongoing.\n\nDmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, said on Thursday that the situation in Mariupol was the most difficult in the country.\n\nOn Wednesday, three people - two adults and a girl - were killed in Mariupol and 17 were wounded in a devastating strike that destroyed a maternity ward and children's ward of a hospital.\n\nDiana Berg, a Mariupol resident who managed to escape with her husband on Friday, said she learned of the strike via the news.\n\n\"Yesterday was the most brutal, shocking thing,\" she said. \"That hospital is very close to where I lived, I was there a week before, my family doctor is there. I don't know if he is still alive,\" Ms Berg said.\n\nMs Berg has also been unable to reach her mother-in-law since Saturday, and has no idea if she is alive or dead.\n\n\"She got one message through the day after we left to say she was alive and she knew we were still alive,\" Ms Berg said. \"Since then we know nothing. We use the Telegram app, we watch the media, that's it.\"\n\nMunicipal authorities have finally been able to begin collecting and burying bodies which had been in the streets, the deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC on Thursday. City officials estimated 1,300 civilians had been killed so far, Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"There is no possibility of private graves, because of the high numbers and because of the continuous shelling. They are being put into mass graves,\" he said.\n\nMs Berg said the news of the mass graves had spread through the Telegram chat groups people are using to monitor the situation inside the city.\n\n\"We have no news from our friends, all we know is they could be buried in those mass graves,\" she said.\n\nRussia has also heavily shelled the eastern city of Kharkiv and other major cities\n\nNumerous planned evacuation attempts for Mariupol residents have collapsed over the past five days after Russian forces have resumed shelling the city, despite ceasefire agreements. Mr Orlov said city officials were ready at any moment to put evacuation plans into place but no agreement could be reached with Russia on establishing a humanitarian corridor.\n\nMr Orlov said that a group of 100 citizens attempted to leave Mariupol on Thursday by private car and passed a Ukrainian checkpoint but were forced back when Russian forces fired close to the cars, blocking their path.\n\nMr Orlov's own parents and brother were still trapped inside a heavily shelled Mariupol neighbourhood, he said, and he had not been able to reach them for nine days.\n\nThere are growing fears now of a serious humanitarian crisis inside Mariupol, following widespread reports that people were trying to take water from snow and had no access to food or medicines.\n\nOleksandr Protyah, a 43-year-old English teacher, said his mother and close friend were trapped inside the city and his friend may have run out of medication for her diabetes.\n\n\"I managed to arrange insulin for her on the first day of the war but she has either run out or will run out soon,\" he said. \"This is a humanitarian catastrophe.\"\n\nThere would also soon be a food crisis, said Mr Gurin, the MP.\n\n\"The next thing will be the hunger,\" he said \"This is not a joke, in a week you will have famine in the centre of Europe.\"\n\nResponding to the strike on the Mariupol hospital on Wednesday, the mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, accused Russian forces of a \"total evil that has no explanation\".\n\n\"How can this be justified?\" he said. \"This is a genocide organised by Russia against our people.\"\n\nRussia claimed on Thursday that the maternity ward destroyed in the attack had been taken over by Ukrainian troops long before it was hit, but images from the scene captured by the Associated Press news agency showed medical staff outside after the blast and a pregnant woman being carried out of the building in a stretcher.\n\n\"Thank god most of the people there were in the bomb shelter already,\" Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor said. \"Otherwise it would have been much worse.\"\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike an \"atrocity\" and reiterated his call for world powers to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine - a request that has so far been denied.\n\nThe foreign minister, Mr Kuleba said on Thursday that his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov had told Ukrainian officials Russia would continue its aggression until Ukraine met all its demands, including surrender.", "White House officials hosted a private Zoom briefing for about 30 influential TikTok creators to keep them informed of the latest US messaging regarding Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.\n\nThe briefing was conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Council adviser Matt Miller. Several of the social media stars have since gone on to post about Ukraine.\n\nThe topic included the US \"strategic goals in the region\", according to the Post, such as how the US would respond to a Russian nuclear escalation and how US aid dollars are being spent to help Ukraine.\n\nTikTok has been widely embraced by the Biden administration as a way to reach younger Americans who get much of their news from social media.", "Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons\n\nIndia says it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan on Wednesday, blaming the incident on a \"technical malfunction\" during routine maintenance.\n\nDelhi said it was \"deeply regrettable\" and expressed relief no one was killed.\n\nPakistan's military said a \"high-speed flying object\" had crashed near the eastern city of Mian Channu and its flight path had endangered passenger flights.\n\nIn a statement, India's defence ministry said: \"On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry.\"\n\nIslamabad warned Delhi to \"be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence\" and to avoid a repeat. The object had been launched from Sirsa in Haryana state, it said.\n\nPakistan's air force said the missile travelled at Mach 3 - three times the speed of sound - at an altitude of 12,000m (40,000ft) and flew 124km (77 miles) in Pakistani airspace before crashing.\n\n\"The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace, as well as human life and property on the ground,\" said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikhar on Thursday.\n\nOn Friday, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had summoned India's chargé d'affaires to complain about the incident.\n\nPakistan also urged India to share the findings of its investigation into what happened.", "Concerns have been raised that President Putin may use non-conventional weapons in Ukraine, such as chemical weapons or so-called dirty bombs.\n\nMembers of the BBC audience have been sending in their questions about the impact this would have, as well as the many other aspects of the war.\n\nWill the potential for a Nato engagement increase if dirty bombs or chemical weapons are used? - Gordon Mains, Glasgow\n\nThis question must be on the minds of Nato members. But they are very careful and cautious about not being drawn into this war beyond the supply of military weapons and ammunition.\n\nNato's principle of \"collective defence,\" enshrined in its Article Five, is \"an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies\". It is now trying to defend \"every inch\" of Nato territory but there's a laser focus on any threats which cross the border.\n\nThey know this threat exists - although Russia says it has no plans to invade other countries.\n\nWhy can't we fly in humanitarian aid to besieged cities? - Steve Harvey, Northamptonshire\n\nUkraine does not control its airspace. Many airports have come under attack by Russian forces, on the ground and from the air. In most parts of the country, it would be too dangerous to fly in the desperately needed supplies.\n\nAs you've no doubt seen, a lot of aid is coming in by road across Ukraine's western borders. Western cities like Lviv, still relatively untouched by direct Russian strikes, have become a hub for humanitarian aid.\n\nAll the countries bordering Ukraine to the west have also quickly ramped up a major emergency operation as the numbers spiral in ways not seen since World War Two.\n\nIn any war or disaster, it is always a question of resources and access. Right now, aid trucks laden with urgent supplies are being turned back by incessant Russian shelling.\n\nRussian state media also show images of Russian aid distribution in areas under their control.\n\nToronto: A plane prepares to fly aid to Poland, where it will be delivered overland to Ukraine\n\nHow likely is it that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a full-fledged war between Russia and Nato? - Connor, Northern Ireland\n\nIt's not impossible, which is why Nato has been so wary of intervention.\n\nVladimir Putin has threatened any country which hinders his \"special military operation\" in Ukraine with consequences of a severity \"not experienced in your history\", which most take to mean the use of nuclear weapons.\n\nIt's difficult to know how seriously to take Mr Putin's rhetoric but, given his recent unpredictability, many in the West are nervous about where this could all go.\n\nMr Putin insists that he's only in Ukraine to protect the Russian speaking populations of Eastern Ukraine from what he deems to be the aggression of the government in Kyiv. But none of us can say for sure what his game plan really is.\n\nHe's said he doesn't want to \"occupy\" Ukraine - but then he also he said he wouldn't invade it. More broadly, we know from what he's written and said, that he sees Nato as a huge threat to Russia and that he wants to challenge its structure, particularly in Eastern Europe.\n\nNato would have to react in the event of an attack on the countries which have joined since 1997 - the countries which border Ukraine and Belarus.\n\nThe further west that Russian forces advance, the greater the risk of a accidental - or deliberate - strike on Nato territory.\n\nWhy has the UK not expelled all the Russian diplomats and staff in London? - Julie Thompson, Preston\n\nMy guess is that while there's still a hope (however fleeting) that diplomacy could end this, the UK and other Western countries will resist what would be viewed in Moscow as a provocation.\n\nIt would also likely result in the expulsion of their own embassy staff from Russia.\n\nAfter seeing all the trains fully packed, why aren't more being sent in to rescue the fleeing people? - Kate Russell, Glasgow\n\nThe trains are running, many on time, even in this war. But in some places, including Irpin just west of Kyiv, the tracks were attacked so that station is now not in use.\n\nI noticed on my last trip to the wonderful 19th Century train station in Kyiv that the platforms for trains heading west were not as crowded, although the trains pulling out are certainly still full.\n\nA volunteer in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv helps a baby on board a train to Poland\n\nWhat's the motive behind the Russian invasion in Ukraine? - Karen Keven, Nigeria\n\nThe truth is we don't really know for sure.\n\nVladimir Putin claims that he's coming to the rescue of Russian speaking populations of Eastern Ukraine who are victims of \"genocide\" (of which there's no evidence) by the government in Kyiv.\n\nHe's demanding that Ukraine officially hand over some territory in the east, including Crimea which he annexed in 2014, to Russia. He also wants Ukraine to give up on its ambition to join Nato.\n\nDoes he have wider ambitions? Perhaps. We know he views Nato (and in particular the former Soviet countries that joined after 1997) as a threat to Russian security.\n\nMoscow has demanded changes to Nato structure - it wants, for example, European countries like Germany, which host US nuclear weapons, to return them to America.\n\nThere are analysts who say we also can't rule out the possibility that Mr Putin's nurturing an ambition to re-build the Soviet Union - given how its break-up appears to be a continuing and humiliating source of deep regret for him.\n\nIs it possible for the United Nations to send troops into Ukraine and also enforce a no-fly zone? If so, why have they not made any attempt? - Joseph Akinwunmi, Lagos\n\nThe United Nations would have to be asked and authorised to come in, usually by the UN Security Council. But at the moment this war is raging and, in some comments, Russia even denies it has invaded its neighbour. It still calls this a \"special military operation\" to defend Russia from threats.\n\nUkraine has repeatedly called for a no-fly zone. It has been repeatedly ruled out.\n\nWestern/Nato powers know this would draw them into direct conflict with Russia.\n\nA no-fly zone would not just involve targeting Russian warplanes, it would also require attacks on Russian assets on the ground.\n\nIf Russia takes control of the whole of Ukraine, what would the response be from Nato and the US? - Jeff Moono, Lusaka\n\nThat's the nightmare scenario for Nato, which has bolstered troop numbers in neighbouring countries but which, for the reasons outlined above, does not want to be drawn into a war with Russia.\n\nThere's speculation that, before that eventuality arose, Kyiv might be persuaded to do a deal with Moscow - in other words, hand over some of its territory in return for a cessation of hostilities.\n\nHowever, the problem with that scenario is, firstly, that Kyiv doesn't want to give ground, and secondly, there's also a fear that such an outcome might embolden Mr Putin.\n\nNevertheless, right now most analysts assume that Russia would struggle to hold Ukraine in the long term.\n\nAs the fighting continues and more people and soldiers will suffer horrific injuries from the bombing, will they have enough blood supplies. Should people be donating their blood? - Linda Potter\n\nI remember when this invasion started more than two weeks ago that a call went out for blood donations.\n\nUkrainians are signing up to fight, and to donate blood - wherever and whenever they can. But, like you, you they must be asking if they have enough.\n\nWhen do all of the sanctions go into effect? - Alfred Pons, Albuquerque, US\n\nMany have already taken effect but others are pending.\n\nThe UK has just announced sanctions on 386 members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, who support the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAnd the EU says it remains ready to impose more sanctions.\n\nCan you tell us what Belarus is doing in this conflict? Is any of their army actually taking part? - Steve Simmons-Jacobs, Romsey\n\nNeighbouring Belarus became a staging ground for Russian troops and heavy weaponry in the weeks leading up the invasion (even though it was described as military exercises). It then became a launching pad for Russia to move into Ukraine, and for Russian missile strikes across the border.\n\nSo far, the US says it sees no evidence that Belarussian forces have become directly involved.\n\nBelarus has also hosted talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams close to the border.\n\nIn 2020, Russian forces helped the Belarussian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, survive an unprecedented uprising against his rule. Russian President Vladimir Putin expects him to return the favour.\n\nHowever, although it was announced before the invasion that Belarus could join the fight, Lukanshenko recently said he wouldn't.\n\nThe Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, also made a direct appeal to Belarus last month, saying \"Be Belarus, not Russia.\"", "Russia has been shelling the city\n\nThe boom of artillery, muffled by heavy snowfall, echoes across the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, triggering a series of air raid sirens.\n\nIn the faded grandeur of a long-abandoned club for navy officers, 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva is gathering food supplies, medicines and even home-made steel plates, carved out of local cars, for use as body armour.\n\nMykolaiv is now firmly in the sights of the Russian army - troops invaded from the nearby Crimea peninsula and have had more success in taking territory in this region than Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine.\n\nAs the Russians work their way west towards the city people are starting to flee and the hospitals are filling with the injured.\n\nBut Anastasia has decided to stay, sending her one-year-old daughter and her mother away to safety.\n\n\"I'm a mum of my baby. But I have to help because I know how to do it,\" the former army captain explains to the BBC.\n\nThe attack on a hospital in the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol on Tuesday made her decide she had no other choice.\n\n\"That was the hardest moment for me,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm a mum - but I have to stay,\" says ex-army captain 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva\n\nUkrainian forces in the city have, for more than a week now, successfully thwarted a major Russian advance west towards the larger port of Odesa.\n\nIn the city centre, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaliy Kim is standing in fatigues, explaining how Ukrainian soldiers, helped by new reinforcements, had pushed Russian troops back between 15 and 20km (nine to 12 miles) towards the east, and had even surrounded some Russian units which were now in negotiations for their surrender.\n\nSome of those troops were reportedly preparing to bring the captured and damaged Russian tanks into the city to show to residents.\n\nBut Mr Kim warns this is not a time to celebrate prematurely.\n\n\"We are winning this fight, but not this war,\" he says.\n\nThe governor said a relatively weak Russian force had underestimated local resistance and expected to \"be greeted with flowers\", but Russian reinforcements and planes could quickly turn the tide and enable the Kremlin to capture the whole Black Sea coastline.\n\n\"We need a closed sky,\" he said, referring to the idea of a no-fly zone enforced by Nato. The Western alliance has so far rejected such an idea, as it could bring them into direct conflict with Russian planes that entered the area.\n\nIn the local hospital, head doctor Alexander Dimyanov said 250 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been injured in the past fortnight, 12 fatally. Three patients, too sick to be moved further west to safety, remained on the trauma ward.\n\n\"We're exhausted,\" said a nurse, who declined to give her name. Dr Dimyanov showed a video of his colleagues in tears, explaining that they were overwhelmed by the workload and by fears that their own families might be hurt.\n\n\"They're crying because they don't know if they'll see them again. They don't run away. They work here every day. We have a lot of wounded people, every day. They see the blood,\" said Dr Dimyanov, who also called on the West to impose a no-fly zone.\n\nCivilians have been fleeing, heading west towards Moldova\n\nInhabitants of several apartment blocks in a civilian neighbourhood in the east of the city showed us where rockets or shells had hit their buildings in recent days, tearing holes in a stairwell and water pipes, and breaking dozens of windows.\n\n\"It's rocket and artillery fire at night. And it's pretty scary here. Very loud, especially at night,\" said 17-year-old Bogdan Somberakov.\n\nHe was waiting for a lift with his luggage and his family on the western edge of Mykolaiv.\n\nAs he spoke a long convoy of coaches passed by, carrying children west towards the Moldovan border and safety.", "Russia has hit back at western sanctions for invading Ukraine by imposing export bans on a string of products until the end of 2022.\n\nThe ban covers exports of telecoms, medical, vehicle, agricultural, and electrical equipment, as well as some forestry products such as timber.\n\nThe economy ministry said further measures could include restricting foreign ships from Russian ports.\n\nIt said: \"These measures are a logical response to those imposed on Russia.\"\n\nThe ministry added that the bans on countries that have \"committed unfriendly actions\" were \"aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy\".\n\nThe export ban includes more than 200 products. The measures will last until the end of the year.\n\nWestern governments have imposed a string of sanctions on Russia, notably on buying oil, and against billionaire oligarchs seen as close to President Vladimir Putin.\n\nAbout 48 countries will be affected, including the US and in the EU.\n\nThe order said that export exemptions can be made for Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and for members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.\n\nRussia's Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the ban would include exports of goods made by foreign companies operating in Russia. Items include cars, railway carriages, and containers.\n\nIt comes as Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev warned that assets owned by western companies that have pulled out of Russia could be nationalised.\n\nFirms have been leaving en masse or halting investment, including industrial and mining giants such as Caterpillar and Rio Tinto, Starbucks, Sony, Unilever and Goldman Sachs.\n\nOn Wednesday, Moscow approved legislation that took the first step towards nationalising assets of foreign firms that leave the country.\n\nAnd in a statement on Thursday Mr Medvedev said: \"The Russian government is already working on measures, which include bankruptcy and nationalisation of the property of foreign organisations.\n\n\"Foreign companies should understand that returning to our market will be difficult.\" He accused foreign investors of creating \"panic\" for ordinary Russians who could now lose their livelihoods.\n\nAccording to the most recent figures, Russia is the UK's nineteenth largest trading partner, with trade between the two nations totalling £15.9bn over a year from the end of September 2020.\n\nIt's an impressive-sounding list, but how much harm will these counter-sanctions actually cause?\n\nThe bulk of what western nations buy from Russia is made up of raw materials. Oil and gas, of course, but also metals like aluminium and nickel, not to mention potash and phosphates, widely used in fertilisers.\n\nThe conflict has already pushed the prices of these goods sharply upwards, amid fears supplies could be disrupted - and if they remain high, that will cause economic pain, particularly in Europe.\n\nBut a ban on the sale of railway cars and locomotives from Russia is unlikely to cause much hardship. Nor will restrictions on the sale of agricultural machinery, for example. These products are exported - but mainly to countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan.\n\nThe inclusion of vehicles on the list is a problem for the likes of Stellantis - the owner of Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroen. It had been planning to export vans made in Russia to Europe and other parts of the world.\n\nBut overall, the impact of the counter-sanctions looks more symbolic than significant. Restrictions on exports of raw materials on the other hand - if Russia were to introduce them - could have a much more dramatic effect.\n\nAfter Britain banned Russian-operated ships from its ports last week a retaliatory proposal to restrict foreign ships from entering Russian ports could also come into force.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that there would be \"negative consequences\" for the world's food markets due to the West's sanctions because Russia is a major producer of agricultural fertilisers.\n\n\"It is clear that at such moments people's demand for certain groups of goods always increases, but we have no doubt that we will solve all these problems while working in a calm fashion,\" he said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Lena and Raisa Kamolikova face a lengthy process to apply for a UK visa in Poland\n\nBoris Johnson has defended the UK's response to the refugee crisis and said an upcoming scheme will allow Britons to take Ukrainians into their homes.\n\nThe PM told Sky News the UK would be \"generous\" to those fleeing Ukraine, and that details of a second visa scheme would be announced on Monday.\n\nDefending the current visa rules, Mr Johnson said: \"People want us to be generous but also careful.\"\n\nThe UK has been criticised for only taking in about 1,000 refugees so far.\n\nUnlike the European Union - which is allowing Ukrainians three-year residency without a visa - the UK has retained controls on entry, saying they are essential for security.\n\nBut the government has come under mounting pressure, including from Conservative MPs, to do more to take in refugees fleeing Ukraine.\n\nA scheme allowing individuals and businesses to sponsor a refugee's visa to the UK was originally promised on 1 March, along with the other main route for Ukrainians to get to the UK, which launched last week and allows refugees to join relatives already settled in Britain.\n\nAs Russia targets more cities for air strikes and shelling, the United Nations said more than 2.5 million people have now fled Ukraine. More than 1.5 million refugees crossed into Poland, but about 40% of them are thought to have subsequently left for other countries.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK has imposed sanctions on 386 more members of Russia's parliament who voted to recognise the independence of breakaway Ukrainian regions Luhansk and Donetsk, which the Foreign Office said was used as a \"pretext\" for the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nA total of 400 members of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, are now subject to sanctions - including asset freezes, a ban on entering the country and a ban on doing business in the UK.\n\nSpeaking on Sky News' Beth Rigby Interviews programme, Mr Johnson said \"historically and by nature\", the British people are \"very generous, open and welcoming\".\n\nDefending the need to check biometric data, such as fingerprints, he said: \"People want us to be generous but also careful,\" adding security measures were \"light touch\" and \"sensible given the attitudes of the Putin regime towards the UK\".\n\nMr Johnson said this would also be the \"best thing for refugees, because they want a scheme that is safe, that is welcoming and that works\".\n\nChallenged on why the checks would be needed for children, who are estimated to make up around half of the two million refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the prime minister said these requirements did not apply to younger people.\n\nBut pressed on why just 1,000 family visas had been issued so far, Mr Johnson said the number would \"rise very sharply\".\n\nHe added that on Monday, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove would announce details of the second visa scheme, which he said would mean that \"if people want to welcome [them] into their own homes, they can do so\".\n\nHowever, the British Red Cross and Ukraine's UK ambassador have been among those urging the government to drop requirements for visas altogether during the war so Ukrainian refugees can travel to the UK more easily.\n\nOn Thursday Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that, from Tuesday, Ukrainian refugees with valid passports will be able to apply for visas online without submitting biometric information until they reach the UK.\n\nThe change - which Ms Patel said had the approval of the security services - would only affect people applying under the family scheme.\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said he saw a \"glimmer of pragmatism\" in the move but added that \"we'll see in coming days whether it's enough or needs to go further\".\n\nThe government is keen to avoid some of the problems of the scheme designed to help Afghans fleeing after the Taliban took back power, with thousands of people still stuck in hotels without temporary accommodation.\n\nThe Home Office will still administer the provision of visas, with the levelling up department taking responsibility for what happens once the refugees are here.\n\nIt's not impossible that the offer, expected to be detailed on Monday, could result in many thousands of Ukrainians coming here.\n\nWith more than two million people on the move as a result of the war, the need is plain.\n\nLike the family visa scheme, which has already been extended under political pressure, the sponsorship route is not expected to have a limit.\n\nHow many Ukrainians end up in the UK may rest therefore, in part, on the willingness of the British people to open their homes.\n\nRead more of Laura's analysis here.\n\nMinisters and officials met on Thursday afternoon to discuss the sponsorship plan, in which refugee groups are expected to be involved in finding suitable host individuals or organisations - such as families or church groups.\n\nIt is anticipated that those offering accommodation will be expected to commit to a minimum of six months.\n\nUkrainians entering through this new route are expected to be allowed to stay for a year initially and will be entitled to work, claim benefits and access public services.\n\nAhead of the scheme's launch, Krish Kandiah, a government adviser on the care system, said 2,000 people and organisations had signed up to help Ukrainian refugees settle in the UK through his Sanctuary Foundation.\n\nHe told BBC Breakfast that he understood people would be able to offer homes to Ukrainians they already knew personally or they could be matched by the government with refugees.\n\nThe Préfecture du Pas-de-Calais has announced where the \"pop-up\" visa processing centre for Ukrainian refugees will be.\n\nThere had been reports it would be in Lille, but it's in Arras, in France, which is one hour from Calais, two from Brussels and three from Paris.\n\nThe UK government had been promising it would open for several few days now. French authorities say it is finally expected to start operating on Friday.\n\nMany of the hundreds of Ukrainians who are in northern France have spent the past week travelling to the French and Belgian capitals to submit biometric information and documentation.\n\nMany have already been processed and it's thought most will be by next Tuesday, when the process becomes simpler and will move online.\n\nThe Foreign Office also confirmed on Thursday that all Ukrainian staff working for the British embassy and British Council in Ukraine plus their dependents are able to come to the UK.\n\nHowever, the speed of the UK's response to taking in Ukrainian refugees has been criticised, with Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper calling it a \"total disgrace\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Yvette Cooper on the Home Office response to Ukrainian refugees: “Our country is better than this”\n\nMs Cooper asked why it had taken \"being hauled into the House of Commons to make basic changes to help vulnerable people who are fleeing from Ukraine?\"", "Footage shows a large fireball lighting up the night sky over the Ukrainian city of Lutsk, in the early hours of Friday morning.\n\nAccording to eyewitness accounts, a nearby airfield was hit by three strikes.", "Walt Disney's CEO has apologised for his \"painful silence\" on a Florida sex education bill critics warn will isolate LGBT youth.\n\n\"You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry,\" Bob Chapek told employees.\n\nHis comments come amid internal complaints that \"gay affection\" is routinely cut from some Disney films.\n\nThe so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill is due to become law.\n\nIt bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade classes (aged 8-9) or when \"not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards\".\n\nFormally known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, it also allows private citizens to sue and seek unspecified damages if they believe a school district has violated the law.\n\nThe White House has decried its passage as \"hateful legislation targeting vulnerable students\".\n\nLGBT leaders at Disney have been clamouring for the company to speak out against the bill.\n\nIn a letter to Disney leadership, a copy of which was obtained by the BBC, LGBT employees at Pixar - the company's computer animation division - accused the parent company of stepping back from public debate around \"bigoted legislation\" while continuing to profit from the LGBT community.\n\nThey also levelled a more serious charge: that Disney has cut \"nearly every moment of overtly gay affection\" from its content \"regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar\". The company did not reply to BBC's requests for comment.\n\nOn Friday, Mr Chapek told employees in a memo that he was wrong to have been silent on the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.\n\nThe admission came after he had claimed earlier in the week that he believed \"corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds\" and Disney's involvement would make it \"a political football\" - a statement that was denounced by animators on social media, who called it a \"momentous misstep\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by animationguild This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAmid the public criticism, Mr Chapek backtracked, telling shareholders on Wednesday that Disney had been \"opposed to the bill from the outset\" and he had phoned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis - who plans to approve the bill - to express his concerns.\n\nMr Chapek also pledged a $5m (£3.8m) donation to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) LGBT advocacy group.\n\nBut the volte-face created even more fallout.\n\nHRC turned down Disney's donation and called on the entertainment giant to take \"meaningful action\" against the bill.\n\nThe company is a major tourism driver in the state, drawing some 58 million people per year to its flagship Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. It also employs 77,000 Floridians.\n\nAnd at a rally, Governor DeSantis told supporters the company has fallen for \"phony hysteria\" and wants to appease angry liberals.\n\nHis office confirmed to the BBC the governor took a call from Mr Chapek but intends to sign the bill.", "Kharkiv has been one of the focal points of the Russian attack\n\n\"We met only this afternoon, but already I know that just last week, his father Oleg was killed defending the city, and Lt Gromadsky is the seventh generation of military in his family. He plans for an eighth, in a free Ukraine.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has now entered its third week. What Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, surely intended to be a quick victory has stalled in the face of Ukrainian resistance.\n\nOur reporter, Quentin Sommerville, has been embedded with Ukrainian forces.\n\nOver a cup of borscht, he found men willing to fight but recognising they need more from the West if they are to win.\n\nUkrainian officials say three people including a child died in an attack on a children's hospital in Mariupol\n\nA dire picture is emerging from the southern port city of Mariupol.\n\nReports say food and medicine are hard to find, and residents resorting to melting snow for water. And all this under an intense Russian bombardment.\n\nWith the city encircled, residents of those trapped inside face the agonising uncertainty of trying to reach them by phone.\n\nThe BBC's Joel Gunter, who is in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, has been speaking to some of them.\n\n\"They are being put into mass graves.\"\n\nA relieved Dmytro (R) poses here with (L-R) his sister, neighbour, grandmother and mother\n\nBucha is a small town just to the north-west of Kyiv. Much like in Mariupol, the shelling has been relentless, with residents forced to shelter in basements.\n\nDmytro, a 30-year-old lawyer, decided to escape. He was joined with his sister, his mother and his two grandmothers, aged 74 and 83.\n\nNot long after they left, their grandmother could no longer walk so they needed to drag her to safety.\n\nRussia's Lavrov (R) in talks with Ukraine's Kuleba - but there was no immediate breakthrough\n\nFor the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, the two sides have held high-level talks as Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Turkey.\n\nThe two agreed to continue discussions but apart from that there was nothing in the way of a substantial agreement.\n\nThey remain far apart. Lavrov repeated Russia's demands Ukraine disarm and adopt a neutral position, something Kuleba said amounted to wanting a surrender.\n\nRoman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin pictured together at an event in Russia in 2016\n\nAs the fighting continued, individuals and companies linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin face more reprisals.\n\nThe UK on Thursday sanctioned one of the best known oligarchs, Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nHis exact relationship with the Kremlin remains murky - some suggest he is merely tolerated by President Putin, others say the relationship is much closer than that.\n\nThe sanctions against oligarchs are just one part of a long list of measures announced against Russia.\n\nThe US and UK are banning Russian oil imports, Russian banks have been shut out of international payment systems, and the central bank has had its assets frozen.\n\nA swathe of major brands have pulled out of Russia. For Russians, whether super-rich or not, that means no Big Macs or watching Netflix.\n\nRussia has now announced a series of counter measures, including export bans on a string of products such as agricultural equipment and telecoms. There's also a warning the assets of foreign companies could be seized.", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nHill was 10th in the snowboard cross event earlier in the programme Ollie Hill edged out team-mate Owen Pick to win Britain's first Paralympic snowboard medal with bronze in the banked slalom LL2 event in Beijing. Hill, 32, making his Games debut, was third after the first of two runs in his lower limb category with a time of one minute 10.45 seconds. And while he was unable to improve in his second run, it was still enough for GB's sixth medal of the Games. Pick, 30, at his second Games, was fourth, 0.19 seconds behind Hill. Gold went to China's Sun Qi (1:09.73) with Finland's Matti Suur-Hamari winning silver (1:09.98). \"It was important to put down a good first run because it took the pressure off a little bit,\" said Hill. \"I wanted to push for the gold but I felt the second run was a bit slower and the snow was caving in a bit. \"I can't really sum it up right now other than I am absolutely stoked. \"I said earlier in the week I felt I had a bit more confidence in the banked and we have proved it today. Hill has been snowboarding since he was eight and was also a talented motocross rider but he was involved in a car accident in December 2018 which led to his right leg being amputated below the knee. The Reading man only joined the GB Snowsport programme in summer 2020, but has made massive improvements in a short time and was fourth in January's World Championships. Snowboard made its debut at the Sochi Winter Paralympics in 2014 with James Barnes-Miller's fifth place in Sunday's UL (upper limb) snowboard cross the previous best performance by a GB athlete. Barnes-Miller finished his Beijing campaign with ninth in his banked slalom. Elsewhere, skiers Menna Fitzpatrick and Millie Knight both missed out on giant slalom medals. Fitzpatrick finished seventh in the visually impaired category, two places ahead of Knight. There was a Paralympic best of sixth for Nordic skier Scott Meenagh in the men's biathlon individual seated event. Meenagh has a busy programme in Beijing with five individual events Meenagh, 32, had finished ninth in both the sprint and middle distance events earlier in the programme. He impressed in the long (12.5km) race and was fourth at one point, although a missed shot in his last shooting round cost him time. Meanwhile, ParalympicsGB has defended the decision to allow fellow Nordic skier Steve Arnold to travel to Beijing after he tested positive for Covid on arrival. The 42-year-old had to delay his departure until Monday after a positive test before the Games. Although he had a negative test before he travelled, he again tested positive when he landed in China and is awaiting the results of further tests. \"ParalympicsGB's top priority is the health and welfare of its athletes,\" said a statement. \"The decision for Steve to travel to the Games was made following extensive discussions between the athlete, GB Snowsport and ParalympicsGB in conjunction with medical experts based in the UK and in Beijing. \"The decision to travel considered all implications while supporting Steve's strong desire to participate at the Games. \"ParalympicsGB continues to support Steve and his ambitions to compete in his remaining events.\"\n• None A gruelling look at 'The Dragon's Back' challenge\n• None Is this it for Villanelle and Eve? Watch the thrilling new series of Killing Eve now", "Benjamin Mendy is accused of nine sex offences involving six alleged victims\n\nManchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy, who has been charged with rape and sexual assault, will appear for a further court hearing in May ahead of his trial, a judge has ordered.\n\nThe 27-year-old is accused of attacking six women and is charged with seven counts of rape.\n\nJudge Steven Everett, Recorder of Chester, ordered a two-day pre-trial hearing starting on 23 May.\n\nHe said Mr Mendy must attend the hearing at Chester Crown Court.\n\nAdministrative and evidence matters were also dealt with, which cannot be reported ahead of the jury trial.\n\nJudge Everett confirmed the trial date for Mr Mendy and his co-accused Louis Saha Matturie, who are both on bail, as 25 July, with the trial expected to last up to six weeks.\n\nThe Manchester City defender was first arrested in August last year\n\nMr Mendy, of Prestbury, Cheshire, is accused of seven counts of rape relating to four women, one count of sexual assault and one of attempted rape.\n\nMr Matturie, 40, of Eccles, Salford, is accused of 10 offences, involving seven women, including seven counts of rape relating to five women and three of sexual assault.\n\nAll the charges are alleged to have happened between late 2020 and August 2021.\n\nNone of the women involved can be identified by law as complainants of sexual offences.\n\nThe left-back was suspended by Manchester City, who he joined from Monaco in 2017 for a reported £52m, when he was charged by police.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Satellite images taken by a US firm of a large Russian military convoy near Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, show it has \"largely dispersed and redeployed\".\n\nThe convoy was last seen near Antonov Airport, north-west of Kyiv, and its movement could signal a renewed push towards the city.\n\nThe firm that took the photos, Maxar Technologies, said parts of the convoy were in positions in surrounding towns.\n\nOther parts are further north, with artillery now in firing positions.\n\nThe apparent redeployment came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country:\n\nThe air raid sirens went off at 04:30 and wailed for more than three hours. We now know the danger was real.\n\nOfficials here say there were three air strikes, hitting a small shoe factory, an apartment block and a kindergarten.\n\nThis city is full of heavy industry, including a rocket factory. There is a metalworks nearby the site that was hit, but no obvious military target.\n\nDnipro has been bracing for this since the war began. All the bridges and main roads here are heavily guarded. Residents have got used to scrambling to underground shelters when the sirens sound.\n\nEven so, the city has been something of a safe haven, for people fleeing cities under sustained Russian attack. In the past few days, residents here had begun leaving: we saw giant queues for evacuation trains and the roads west out of town have been heavily congested. Now the city has been directly hit, I suspect more will be thinking of getting out.\n\n\"Ukrainian big cities are again subjected to devastating blows,\" said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak.\n\nHe added that the shelling in Lutsk had shut down two central heating compounds.\n\n\"Russia's destructive war against civilians and major cities continues,\" he said.\n\nRussian state media reported that the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha had been captured by Russian-backed separatist forces.\n\nThere is no independent confirmation of the capture of the city, which is a northern gateway to the besieged port city of Mariupol.\n\nPresident Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected Russian claims that chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction were developed in Ukraine. In a video address, he also warned that Russia would get \"the most severe sanctions response\" if it were to use such weapons against Ukraine.\n\nThe US said earlier that Russia's claims of Ukraine hosting US-backed chemical weapons facilities was a \"false flag\", intended to justify Russia's possible use of such weapons.\n\nRussia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday to discuss the alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine.\n\nRussian forces moved three miles (5km) closer to Kyiv in the past 24 hours, a senior US defence official said on Thursday.\n\nThat meant Russian troops advancing from the north-west were now just nine miles from the city centre, the official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - told reporters.\n\nRussian forces were also trying to close in on the city from the north-east, and were now about 25 miles (40km) away, the official said.\n\nThe northern city of Chernihiv was now \"isolated\" the official added.\n\nThe convoy was earlier seen stalled not far from the capital, where US officials said it was targeted by Ukrainian troops with anti-tank missiles. It is not clear how many of the vehicles currently seen on the move may have been an initial part of that first group.\n\nFierce battles have been raging in recent days in Irpin and Bucha, satellite towns just a few kilometres north-west of Kyiv. Thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes.\n\nOn Thursday, footage emerged apparently showing a Russian military column being hit by Ukrainian forces near the city of Brovary, just outside the capital.\n\nKyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says that half the population of the city of about three million has already fled, adding that Kyiv \"has been transformed into a fortress\".\n\n\"Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified,\" the mayor said.\n\nTens of thousands of civilians have formed Territorial Defence units to help the Ukrainian armed forces defend the capital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Anthony Russell admitted the three murders and was found guilty of rape\n\nA triple killer who raped a pregnant woman moments before strangling her has been sentenced to a whole-life prison term.\n\nAnthony Russell, 39, murdered Julie Williams, her son David Williams and Nicole McGregor, whose body was found in woodland near Leamington Spa.\n\nSentencing Russell in his absence, a judge described him as \"exceptionally dangerous and manipulative\".\n\nHe had admitted the murders during a week-long spree in October 2020.\n\nA jury also found him guilty of rape on Thursday after a retrial at Warwick Crown Court.\n\nThe court heard he had assaulted Ms McGregor, who was five months pregnant, just hours after she showed him a picture of her baby scan.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Police bodycam footage shows the moment Anthony Russell was arrested after one of the largest manhunts in recent years\n\nMr Justice Wall told the court whole-life orders were only for \"exceptionally serious\" cases.\n\n\"I have no doubt that this is a case which falls fairly and squarely within the description,\" he said.\n\n\"Each [of the deaths] was the result of a separate murderous act which was sustained and brutal.\"\n\n\"You will remain in custody for the rest or your life and will never be eligible to apply to the parole board for your release.\"\n\nSati Ruck, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said while the reasons behind Russell's killing spree may never be known, it was clear \"all the attacks were deliberate, cold-hearted and designed to achieve his own ends\".\n\nShe added Russell's decision to deny raping Ms McGregor, despite \"the strength of the circumstantial evidence\" against him, had forced her family to \"relive the tragic circumstances around her death at trial\".\n\nThe court heard Russell, described as a \"rather sad and pathetic individual\" by his own barrister, had refused to attend the sentencing hearing on Friday.\n\nAttempts to get him in a prison van resulted in staff being put in \"situations of danger\", the court was told.\n\nWest Midlands Police said it believed Mr Williams, 32, was killed due to Russell's \"mistaken belief that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend\".\n\nRussell, of Riley Square, Coventry, strangled him on 21 October with a lanyard, before leaving the body under his bed, where it was found five days later with 87 injuries.\n\nHe then strangled Mr Williams' 58-year-old mother in an attack which saw him inflict 113 separate injuries.\n\nOfficers suspect Russell \"confessed to David's killing\" and \"then killed Julie to stop her from speaking to the police\", said Det Supt Shaun Edwards, of West Midlands Police.\n\nPolice said there was no known link between Russell and Nicole McGregor\n\nMs McGregor's body was discovered in woods on 29 October, three days after she was strangled by Russell in Newbold Comyn.\n\nThe court heard that just three hours after meeting Russell, the 31-year-old had agreed to walk into the woodland with him.\n\n\"We suggest that the defendant lured Nicole on to the Comyn, not for sex but more likely for drugs,\" said prosecutor Zoe Johnson QC.\n\nAfter the murder, heroin-user Russell pretended to help Ms McGregor's partner look for her.\n\nThe court heard he had told her partner, the baby's father, \"I bet you can't wait for it to be born\", despite knowing he had raped and killed her.\n\nA victim impact statement read to the court from Ms McGregor's mother Maggie said the death had \"destroyed\" her family.\n\n\"[Nicole] was caring, she was kind and behind her barriers, she had a heart of gold.\"\n\nA statement from Julie Williams' sister Carol said: \"Sentencing will not bring our family back but we hope it will stop the defendant from committing these evil crimes on any more families.\"\n\nJulie Williams and her son David Williams were found dead at separate addresses\n\nThe three deaths prompted one of the biggest UK manhunts in recent years.\n\nRussell fled Leamington by attacking and stealing a car from a 78-year-old man.\n\nHe was eventually arrested after police spotted the stolen Ford C-Max parked on a road near Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, and found Russell on the back seat.\n\nDuring sentencing, the judge described Russell as \"a man prepared to use very significant violence on anyone\".\n\n\"You are exceptionally dangerous to those who know you, and those who do not.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The unofficial event that went on to be held at Clapham Common led to some women being physically restrained by police\n\nThe Met Police breached the rights of the organisers of a planned vigil for Sarah Everard, two judges have ruled.\n\nThe group had to cancel the event after the Met said it would be illegal to stage it under lockdown restrictions.\n\nHowever, hundreds of people attended an unofficial gathering on Clapham Common in south London to pay their respects to Ms Everard, who was murdered by a serving Met officer, Wayne Couzens.\n\nThe vigil, on 13 March, saw clashes between police and some of those there.\n\nAt a two-day hearing at the High Court in January, Jessica Leigh, Anna Birley, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler argued that decisions made by the force in advance of the planned vigil amounted to a breach of their right to freedom of speech and assembly.\n\nAnna Birley, Jessica Leigh, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler brought the case against the Met Police\n\nIn a statement after the ruling, the women's solicitor Theodora Middleton said: \"Today's judgment is a victory for women.\n\n\"Last March, women's voices were silenced. Today's judgment conclusively shows that the police were wrong to silence us.\n\n\"The decisions and actions by the Met Police in the run-up to the planned vigil for Sarah Everard last year were unlawful and the judgment sets a powerful precedent for protest rights.\n\n\"We came together one year and one day ago to organise a vigil on Clapham Common because Sarah Everard went missing from our neighbourhood. We felt sad and afraid.\n\n\"We were angry that women still weren't safe and we were tired of the burden to stay safe always weighing on our shoulders.\"\n\nOn Friday, Lord Justice Warby and Mr Justice Holgate released their ruling in favour of arguments made by the four women, who founded Reclaim These Streets (RTS) and planned the vigil, finding that the Met's actions were \"not in accordance with the law\".\n\nIn a summary of the ruling, Lord Justice Warby said the Met had \"failed to perform its legal duty to consider whether the claimants might have a reasonable excuse for holding the gathering\".\n\nHe added: \"The relevant decisions of the (Met) were to make statements at meetings, in letters, and in a press statement, to the effect that the Covid-19 regulations in force at the time meant that holding the vigil would be unlawful.\n\n\"Those statements interfered with the claimants' rights because each had a 'chilling effect' and made at least some causal contribution to the decision to cancel the vigil.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Met faced severe criticism over their policing of the event\n\nLawyers representing the four women told the court that notes of a Met gold command meeting the day before the proposed event included a statement that \"we are seen as the bad guys at the moment and we don't want to aggravate this\".\n\nTom Hickman QC said: \"The most significant 'threat' identified was not public health but the perceived reputational risk to the (force), including in the event they were perceived to be permitting or facilitating the vigil.\"\n\nThe Met argued there was no exception for protest in the coronavirus rules at the time and it had \"no obligation\" to assess the public health risk.\n\nAt the time Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick faced calls for her to resign over the actions of her officers at the vigil\n\nThe women cancelled the vigil after being told by the force they would face fines of £10,000 each and possible prosecution if it went ahead, the court heard.\n\nThe spontaneous vigil that took place instead led to the force being heavily criticised for its actions - although it went on to be cleared by the police watchdog.\n\nAssistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe said the Met was \"considering the judgment very carefully before deciding whether to appeal\".\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan welcomed the High Court ruling and said the way the vigil was handled was one of the events in the past year that had \"damaged confidence\" in the Met.\n\nHe added: \"We know tens of thousands of dedicated Met officers have gone above and beyond throughout this pandemic - but it is clear today that there are still serious lessons to be learned in how their duties are carried out.\"\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A video has emerged which appears to show a column of Russian tanks being ambushed on the outskirts of Kyiv.\n\nThe drone footage shows a large convoy of tanks under attack by Ukrainian forces in Brovary.", "That's the end of our coverage after a day that's been long-awaited for the survivors of historical institutional abuse.\n\nYou can continue to follow this story online on the BBC News NI website.\n\nBBC Radio Ulster will have the latest on Evening Extra from 4pm, as will BBC Newsline on BBC One NI at 6:30pm.\n\nThanks for following along with our coverage.", "In the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent the week with the Ukrainian forces as they fight to stop a further Russian advance.\n\nThis report contains material some viewers will find disturbing\n\nThe first casualty of war is time. Ask the young soldier at the front when the attack happened, or the old lady in the hospital bed when her home was shelled, and they look at you confused. Was it 24 hours ago, or 48? The days have become one, they tell you.\n\nIn Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, time is elastic. It's close to the border with Russia and the nightly shelling from Russian artillery and warplanes gives no rest. The past two weeks have seemed like an eternity, yet peace can be remembered as if it were yesterday.\n\nIn a frozen landscape on the city's north-eastern edge, 21-year-old Lieutenant Yevgen Gromadsky stands with hands outstretched. There are trenches dug in nearby. \"Outgoing,\" he says, lifting his right hand to accompany the thump of fire from his positions. \"Incoming,\" he says, and his left hand ticks up. With a crump, Russian shells are fired from their positions 900m away across snow-covered fields.\n\nThe shelling continues like clockwork at the edge of this bombed-out village - \"Incoming, outgoing, incoming, outgoing,\" Lt Gromadsky flicks his hands with each report.\n\nWe met only this afternoon, but already I know that just last week, his father Oleg was killed defending the city, and Lt Gromadsky is the seventh generation of military in his family. He plans for an eighth, in a free Ukraine.\n\nHe describes the fight so far, \"Sabotage groups are probing our lines out, we have direct tank battles. They shoot with mortar shells at first, and then tanks fire at our positions.\"\n\nWe move along the front lines from position to position. Inside his armoured vehicle, a Russian army hat - a trophy from their first capture - hanging from the ceiling, he continues, \"We are shooting back with anti-tank guided missiles and also the usual small arms. They dismount, they scatter, there's always a lot of people.\"\n\nInside the truck there are Mexican Day of the Dead air fresheners. Grinning skulls hanging from every corner as we bounce along rutted dirt road. On the floor, rocket-propelled grenade launchers roll around.\n\nFrom the front passenger seat Lt Gromadsky says, \"Sometimes they use this tactic - first, they raise a white flag above their equipment, then come closer to our positions. When we come up and kind of take them as prisoners of war, they start to open fire on our troops.\"\n\nThe position was attacked on Monday (or was it the day before, he wonders), two Russian tanks and an armoured vehicle. \"Don't worry, we are well defended,\" he says as he gestures to a pile of American-made Javelin guided anti-tank missiles. \"Lockheed Martin, Texas,\" is written on their casing. Nearby, is a pile of British next-generation light anti-tank weapon (NLAW) missiles. \"Eliminates even the most advanced tanks,\" its manufacturer Saab promises on its website.\n\nIt is bitterly cold and two puppies are playing around Lt Gromadsky's feet. His shoes are a pair of white Puma trainers - \"You need to be fast out here,\" he says.\n\nThe Ukrainians are improvising in this war. Their government has been criticised for being ill-prepared, and now there is a rush to bring men forward to the front. The regular army is being merged with civilian defence forces. At a marshalling point on the city's eastern edge, I watch as buses arrive with hundreds of freshly equipped soldiers. \"Where's my body armour?\" asks one. \"You'll get it at the front,\" yells an officer, and moments later they are gone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Our correspondent on the front line, with Ukraine’s troops - this report contains graphic images of casualties\n\nSome will be joining Lt Gromadsky's unit and working alongside a medic who goes by the name of Reaper. \"You've heard of the grim reaper, right?\" he asks. He's also in command of this defence line at the edge of a village. Many of the homes there have been destroyed or damaged by Russian shelling.\n\nHow are the Russians fighting, I ask. \"They fight like stupid animals,\" says Reaper. \"They fight like it's 1941 - they have no manoeuvrability, they just come to the front and that's all. They have a lot of people, a lot of tanks, a lot of vehicles, but we are fighting for our land, and we are protecting our families. it doesn't matter how they fight because we fight like lions and they won't win.\"\n\nBack in the rear, the field kitchen is in a coffee shop. The army cook is reassuringly large with a knitted hat atop his head. He offers bowls of steaming hot borscht - \"Have sour cream with it,\" he insists. There are piles of cakes and biscuits, made by local factories for the troops.\n\nI sit beside a 30-year-old battalion commander, Sergey. \"We see the enemy, we kill the enemy, there's no conversation, that's it,\" he says. He wants to know where I'm from. I tell him and he asks if it's true that British volunteers have come to fight for Ukraine. \"What aircraft have you given us,\" he says as he finishes his borscht.\n\nBut across the east and south of Ukraine, Russia has been advancing. The Russian army has met more determined resistance than it expected, but cities continue to fall. And for all their front-line courage, there is a recognition that their abilities on the ground will not be enough. Soldier after soldier says they need air defence, a no-fly zone.\n\nI get inside another armoured vehicle, which two weeks ago was doing cash pickups at the city's banks. It, too, has now been put into the war effort. As we drive through the city, with its wide boulevards, and fine buildings, we reach a Soviet-Era apartment complex. And there I meet Eugene, a great Viking of a man, heavily tattooed with an orange beard.\n\n\"If Kharkiv falls, then all of Ukraine falls,\" Eugene, 36, tells me. He's a part of a reconnaissance team working near apartment blocks. Some of the flats have taken direct hits and in the car park, a car lies ripped apart from another grad missile strike.\n\nWhat there isn't here in Kharkiv, is any surprise at the Russian attack. \"Since 2014 we knew they would come, maybe in a year, 10 years, or 1,000 years, but we knew they would come\".\n\nAt 04:55 on 24 February, Eugene received a call from a friend saying the attack was about to begin. \"Then I heard the rockets attack our city,\" he says. Like everyone else he hasn't been home since.\n\nLeaving the front to return to the centre of the city is almost like entering another world. The relentless Russian shelling has meant that most of the 1.5m population has fled. Few neighbourhoods have escaped some kind of damage. Early in the mornings, queues can still be seen at pharmacies, banks, supermarkets and petrol stations, as those who stayed behind stock up on supplies. A huge logistical and humanitarian effort is going on behind the scenes to keep Kharkiv running.\n\nBefore curfew I make my way to the city's Hospital Number 4 to meet Dr Alexander Dukhovskyi, head of paediatrics. Underneath his hospital whites, he's wearing a Miami Beach 2015 T-shirt, with the American flag. He hasn't gone home in weeks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How Russia is using tactics refined over a decade in Syria\n\nHe laughs when I say that Russia says it isn't targeting civilians. Then, silently, he takes me down corridor after corridor of victims of Russian attacks. They are in the hallways because Russian shells have landed nearby, so the patients aren't safe in the wards with large windows. Most here were injured while at home.\n\nThe children's intensive care unit is on the ground floor. Its narrow windows catch the brilliant light from the snow outside and glint over the golden icons of saints above the nurses' station.\n\nIn a bed nearby is eight-year-old Dmitry. His toes poke out from under the blanket and a hand, bruised and bloodied peeks out too. His face is scraped and scarred with hundreds of marks, his right eye is not quite closed. A few days ago, the doctors removed a bullet from under his skull and vertebrae.\n\nIt is hoped he'll make a full recovery, but for the moment he's in a sorry state, with tubes taking out fluids from his small body in plastic bottles hanging beneath his bed. The thin blanket with tiny roses on it, rises and falls with his mechanical breathing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Doctors removed a bullet from between Dmitriy's skull and vertebrae\n\nVladimir Putin said he wanted to demilitarise Ukraine, instead he's creating a no-man's land. At night the city is in near total blackout. A steady beat of Russian strikes fall through the night.\n\nKharkiv was once Ukraine's capital - it has the parks, cathedrals, museums and theatres you would expect, as well as the Antonov aircraft factory and tank and turbine manufacturers.\n\nAll of the city is now a front line.\n\nAnd this, too, should come as no surprise. The Russian war-playbook has been perfected in Syria over the past 10 years. Surround, besiege, and terrorise the population. In Ukraine, as in Syria, the population is being bussed out of their home cities as Russian forces continue their advance.\n\nI meet an intelligence team, who drive with anti-tank missiles ready to use in the back of their vehicles. Again, I head to the city's edge, and pass through the front lines into a wasteland. Two petrol stations just outside the city that have been destroyed by shelling and gunfire.\n\nLying in the snow, are a dozen or so frozen Russian corpses. The men lie like wax figures, some with hands reaching out, their matted beards frozen stiff in the cold.\n\nThe guts of one are spilled across the forecourt. There are blood-red footprints around his corpse. Their weapons have been taken, and I ask Uta, one of the officers, what will happen to the bodies.\n\n\"What do you think will happen, we will leave them for the dogs,\" he says with a shrug.\n\nAnd at this miserable spot on Kharkiv's edge, unremarkable for its ordinariness two weeks ago, surrounded by frozen corpses, it's as if time is standing still.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Ian Kirwan was treated near Asda in Jinnah Road, Redditch, but died at the scene\n\nA 14-year-old boy has been charged with murder after a man died following an attack outside a supermarket.\n\nIan Kirwan, from Redditch, was stabbed near Asda in Jinnah Road in the town at about 19:20 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nA further three youths were arrested on Thursday, in addition to eight arrests made earlier in the week, West Mercia Police said.\n\nThe teenager appeared at Kidderminster Magistrates' Court on Friday.\n\nHe spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth and address and was remanded into custody.\n\nThe teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is due to next appear at Worcester Crown Court on Monday.\n\nThe supermarket has reopened, police say\n\nThree youths, including the boy charged with murder, remain in custody, said the force.\n\nOf the 11 arrested, one has been released on bail and seven released with no further action.\n\nOfficers are continuing to ask any witnesses to come forward.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "When the Russian offensive started, as sirens sounded in Kyiv for the first time, some people here feared that the city might fall by the afternoon.\n\nReports were coming in of a long convoy of armour and heavy weapons pushing down from the north-west. Military analysts had a high opinion of the Russian army. It had, they said, been professionalised, with invaluable experience of perfecting weapons and seasoning men in the war in Syria. The tactical errors I had seen the Russians commit when they tried to crush a rebellion in the republic of Chechnya in 1995 were, I was told, ancient history.\n\nThe consensus about the Ukrainian armed forces on the first day of the war was that they were much stronger than they had been in 2014, when they could not stop Russia seizing Crimea and establishing two breakaway enclaves in eastern Ukraine. But Russia had the numbers and the firepower. The Ukrainians, it was said, would rediscover the truth of an aphorism attributed to Stalin: \"quantity has a quality of its own.\"\n\nThe first two weeks of the war proved that those predictions were wrong. The Russians blundered; the Ukrainians resisted. Around Kyiv the Russian advance stalled. In the south, it was a different story. They worked steadily towards opening a land corridor between Crimea and Moscow's enclaves in eastern Ukraine.\n\nBut it has been clear from the outset that control of Kyiv is crucial to winning arguments in politics as well as on the battlefield. While President Volodymyr Zelensky's government holds the city, he can claim not to be defeated, and President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin cannot claim victory.\n\nThe last couple of days have been bright and sunny, after more than a week of thick cloud. That means satellites have a clear view of movements on the ground. One conclusion is that the 40-mile Russian convoy north-west of Kyiv is slowly dispersing and reorganising. The latest word from the US Department of Defense is that the rear elements are catching up, but the vehicles closest to Kyiv are not moving.\n\nThe fighting around Kyiv has been concentrated in the north-west and has been going on since the first morning, when Russian airborne troops landed at a cargo airport near Hostomel and Irpin, small commuter towns that evacuees say are now badly damaged. They looked to be trying to secure a staging area for a push into Kyiv. But Ukrainian troops stopped them.\n\nIn the last few days, I have seen more defenders moving forward to continue the fight around Irpin and the Hostomel airport and heard steady artillery fire from the Ukrainian side from gunlines concealed in belts of thick woodland.\n\nThe heavily contested north-west is just a 20-minute drive from the centre of Kyiv, which has barely been touched, although sirens sound regular alerts.\n\nIn the week or so that I have been here the Ukrainians have improved their physical defences, which in places barely existed. Checkpoints that were just a few concrete blocks have become barricades. Across the city men have been filling and positioning sandbags. Kyiv's metalworkers have been busy. At strategic junctions, and on the dual carriageways that run out of Kyiv steel anti-tank obstacles stand ready.\n\nKyiv is a grand city of broad, sweeping avenues, bisected by narrower streets often paved with lumpy cobblestones. Many of the buildings have extensive basements and cellars. Street fighting here, if it happened, could grind on for months.\n\nThe city sprawls along both banks of the Dnieper, one of Europe's great rivers. Docks and marinas leading off the river are still frozen. Crossing the water under fire would be a formidable military undertaking. The bank on the west side of the river, near the government buildings and the great cathedrals, is steep and heavily wooded. Defenders would have many advantages.\n\nBut crossing the Dnieper might not be on Russia's agenda until it is able to control both banks. One theory is that the stalled offensive from the west and north-west is not just because of Ukrainian resistance and what appears to be the Russian army's own badly handled logistics. A column coming from the east has been moving slowly, and the generals might be waiting for it to catch up.\n\nThe Russians attempted to move a regiment of tanks into Kyiv's eastern approaches on Thursday. They were mauled badly as they rumbled slowly down a highway in broad daylight. Drone pictures showed that the tanks were bunched together making easy targets for Ukrainian artillery or drones. It was another tactical blunder for Moscow.\n\nIt is not clear whether Russia plans to encircle Kyiv or attempt to force a surrender by thrusting into the centre with armour supported by infantry. The choices are not great for them. Direct attacks have so far been stopped. Encircling a big city might take too many men.\n\nOne possibility is that President Putin expected the rapid collapse of a government that he has dismissed with contempt as a Nazi collaboration with the west and did not think his soldiers would need to do either.\n\nIt is certain that Putin and his generals are reassessing, regrouping and will not accept defeat. Putin's mission has been to restore Russia to what he believes is its rightful place as a world power. In a country the size of Ukraine - only Russia itself is bigger in Europe - victory in Kyiv is the most direct way for him to declare mission accomplished.\n\nWithout a doubt the Russian armed forces have been operating at half power and half speed. That is partly due to their own mistakes, and partly because the Ukrainians are proving to be formidable, nimble opponents. The stalled attacks around Kyiv have turned into a respite for the city's defenders, allowing them time to dig to improve defences that were rudimentary, and presumably to receive some of the increasingly sophisticated weapons that NATO is bringing into Ukraine.\n\nA question that nags uncomfortably at the minds of many in Kyiv is whether President Putin will conclude that the time has come to turn the deadliest conventional weapons in Russia's arsenal against the city's defenders. So far that has not happened. If it does, many more people will die and terrible damage will be done.\n\nSome people here do not believe President Putin will hammer Kyiv in the way that cities in eastern and southern Ukraine have been attacked. They argue Putin will hesitate to destroy an ancient city which has been at the centre of Russian culture, religion and history. Some of the same people also believed Russia would not invade.\n\nOthers fear that if Russian infantry and armour are held up, Putin and his generals will default to the tactics they are using in Mariupol in the south, surrounding the city and attempting to break the will of its defenders with artillery and air strikes. It is a method that worked well for the Russians in Syria, and in the 1990s when Grozny, the capital of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, was flattened.\n\nThe next few weeks will be critical for the future of Kyiv, and for the wider war over the future of Ukraine. If Russia cannot reactivate its attack on the capital, its defenders will grow in confidence and the strength and the morale of Russian forces, including conscripts, will take more blows.\n\nIf the Putin regime can find a way to end resistance here, the president will be closer to achieving his war aim of ending Ukraine's independence. Forcing the country back into Russia's orbit, in the face of what would most likely be a Nato-backed insurgency, would be an altogether more difficult job.", "A campaigner for survivors, Margaret McGuckin, pictured with some others who went to Stormont to hear the apology\n\nSurvivors of historical institutional abuse in Northern Ireland have been told that the state believes them - and is sorry.\n\nMinisters from the five main Stormont parties made statements of apology in the Northern Ireland Assembly.\n\nIt follows a 2017 inquiry which examined the abuse of hundreds of children at Church and state-run institutions over seven decades.\n\nThe move was welcomed by some; others said it was too little, too late.\n\nSix institution representatives also spoke in the assembly chamber - four representing Catholic orders, one from the charity Barnardo's and one from a Church of Ireland missionary organisation.\n\nSome survivors, about 80 of whom were present in the assembly chamber, left while those speeches were being made.\n\nThe first minister to speak was the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) Michelle McIlveen, who said there was no \"excuse or defence\" for what happened.\n\n\"We are sorry that the state did not protect you,\" the education minister added.\n\nThe Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry examined the period from 1922 to 1995 and found there had been widespread and systemic abuse at institutions.\n\nIts late chairman, Sir Anthony Hart, had recommended compensation, an apology and a permanent memorial to be erected at Stormont.\n\nAlliance Party leader and Justice Minister Naomi Long said it was \"fitting and proper\" that the apology was made in the assembly.\n\n\"This is where our laws are made, where we - ministers and those responsible for governing - are held to account. We are united in our acceptance of responsibility,\" she explained.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Victims of historical institutional abuse in NI have been told that the state believes them\n\nA minute's silence was held in the chamber, followed by a brief applause, before the statements began.\n\nInfrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon, from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), told the chamber that the inquiry \"shone a light on a dark, harsh and bleak period of our past\".\n\nShe also said the \"guilt and shame\" of what happened to survivors has never been their burden to bear, but belonged to \"those who should have protected you\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Some of the children were sent to Rubane House in Kircubbin, County Down, run by the De La Salle brothers\n\nHealth Minister and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MLA Robin Swann said victims and survivors had shown \"courage\" and had \"taught us much in government\".\n\n\"Systemic abuse should never have happened - we are truly sorry that it did happen and we commit fully to ensuring that it will never happen again,\" he said.\n\nFive long years after this apology was first recommended, today saw five Stormont ministers finally delivering it.\n\nAddressing directly those men and women whose childhoods where stolen, in places where they were meant to be protected.\n\nFrom early this morning, the Great Hall at Stormont was filled with emotion as survivors arrived in different groups to take their places.\n\nSome of the tireless campaigners smiled as they reflected on reaching this step of their journey.\n\nBut others felt while the politicians hit the mark, the institutions had offered a cold, half-hearted apology.\n\nFor a time, making this moment happen seemed out of reach, but now 11 March will always belong to these survivors.\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy, from Sinn Féin, recognised it had taken \"too long\" for the apology to be made.\n\n\"We acknowledge that the delay in progressing this recommendation from the Hart report has further added to the stress that you experienced. For this, we are sorry,\" he said.\n\nFiona Ryan, commissioner for victims of institutional childhood abuse, also spoke during the proceedings and paid tribute to the \"courage of all survivors\".\n\n\"The fact that the inquiry happened is due to the victims and survivors themselves who fought to be seen and heard by an officialdom that was largely blind and deaf to the abuse they had suffered, to their anger and to their ongoing pain,\" she outlined.\n\nCommissioner Fiona Ryan paid tribute to the courage shown by survivors\n\nAddressing members at the start of proceedings, Speaker Alex Maskey said he was mindful that many victims of abuse had died before they could hear an apology.\n\nWhile Stormont's power-sharing institutions were suspended in 2019, Westminster passed legislation to allow the establishment of a redress board for payments.\n\nBut the delivery of an apology required ministers in the Stormont Executive - Northern Ireland's devolved government - to be in place.\n\nIt was initially due to be offered by the first and deputy first ministers in March, but was in doubt after the executive collapsed again last month.\n\nSir Anthony Hart recommended a compensation scheme, an apology and a permanent memorial to be erected at Stormont\n\nThe DUP's withdrawal of Paul Givan as first minister meant Michelle O'Neill could not remain as deputy first minister.\n\nFollowing the ministers' statements, representatives from six of the institutions highlighted in the HIA Inquiry made statements.\n\nBr Francis Manning from De La Salle Brothers said his organisation's \"actions and sometimes inaction caused pain and hurt and for our part we wish to say we are sorry and offer our sincere apology\".\n\nFrom the Sisters of Nazareth, Sr Cornelia Walsh offered a \"heartfelt apology\" and acknowledged there was \"systemic physical abuse and that bullying was prevalent\".\n\nSr Uainin Clarke, representing Sisters of St Louis, apologised for the \"harshness and a lack of love and understanding\" experienced by children and teenagers in their care.\n\nMichele Janes from Barnardo's said children had experienced a climate of fear in its care\n\nSr Cait O'Leary, from Good Shepherd Sisters, accepted that \"mistakes were made\" in the care provided to girls and young women and they did not receive \"appropriate, long-term, child-centred care\".\n\nThe director of Barnardo's in Northern Ireland, Michele Janes, said the charity acknowledged organisational failings which had created \"a climate of fear and insecurity\" when children should have felt \"nurtured and safe\".\n\nRev Mark Jones, from Irish Church Missions, said the organisation apologised for failing to \"detect and prevent\" sexual abuse endured by children in the care of Manor House Home in Lisburn.\n\nAfter these remarks, Margaret McGuckin from Savia said she felt \"broken\" after a long campaign.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Chris Page This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMs McGuckin said while she believed the ministers were sincere in their apologies, she welcomed the statements by the organisations \"with a pinch of salt\".\n\n\"More damage was caused throughout this campaign than perhaps was in those institutions,\" she told reporters.\n\nJon McCourt from the Londonderry-based group, Survivors North-West, said the politicians' words were \"touching\".\n\nHowever, he said the church representatives spoke \"without emotion\".\n\n\"If what happened today was the best that the church could offer by way of an apology they failed miserably,\" he said.\n\nMr McCourt said he does not believe the church had \"atoned\" for its actions and called for religious organisations to make a \"significant contribution\" to the survivors' redress scheme.\n\nMarie-Therese Rogers-Maloney, who suffered abuse at Nazareth House in Belfast, said she did not like the apology she received but it would represent \"the end of the road\" for her journey.\n\nShe told BBC News NI's Evening Extra she \"hated\" the institution \"for its cruelty, for its lack of compassion; they had no empathy for any child\".\n\nIn a separate statement, Archbishop Eamon Martin, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, apologised \"to all those who suffered from their horrific experience in Church-run institutions, and to their loved ones\".\n\nMany were \"blinded\" in the church to the \"shocking neglect, sins and crime being perpetrated in their midst\", he continued.\n\nThe lack of a first and deputy first minister in place to deliver a statement meant the apology was \"stolen\", according to Gerry McCann, from the Rosetta Trust.\n\nGerry McCann said the apology was stolen without a first and deputy first minister in place\n\n\"Today was very tough in many ways for survivors, but to come to parliament and expect an apology from the first and deputy first minister and that didn't happen - that in itself is an indictment of our politics,\" he said.\n\n\"I can't help but feel the opportunity was there for the political parties to reinstate the first minister, even for two hours.\"\n\nEarlier this week, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Brandon Lewis welcomed the apology to victims and survivors of historical and institutional abuse.\n\nHe said: \"It was only right they are now receiving an apology for the abhorrent abuse they suffered.\"", "More than 18 million people - three times higher than official records suggest - have probably died because of Covid, say researchers.\n\nTheir report comes two years to the day from when the World Health Organization first declared the pandemic.\n\nThe Covid-19 excess mortality team at the US's Washington University studied 191 countries and territories for what they call the true global death figure.\n\nSome deaths were from the virus, while others were linked to the infection.\n\nThis is because catching Covid might worsen other pre-existing medical conditions, such as heart or lung disease, for example.\n\nThe measure used is called excess deaths - how many more people have been dying than would be expected compared to recent years, before the pandemic hit.\n\nTo calculate this, the researchers gathered data through searches of various government websites, the World Mortality Database, the Human Mortality Database, and the European Statistical Office.\n\nRates of excess deaths are estimated to have varied dramatically by country and region, but the overall global rate calculated in the study is 120 deaths per 100,000 people.\n\nThat would mean about 18.2 million deaths have happened because of Covid in the two years between the start of 2020 and the end of 2021 - three times as many as the official 5.9 million that have actually been recorded.\n\nExcess death estimates were calculated for the full study period only, and not by week or month, because of lags and inconsistencies in reporting of Covid death data that could drastically alter the estimates, the investigators stress.\n\nAccording to the research, which is published in The Lancet, the highest rates were in lower income countries in Latin America, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. But deaths were also fairly high in some high-income countries, such as Italy and parts of the US.\n\nThe five countries with the highest estimated excess death rates were:\n\nThe five with the lowest were:\n\nFor the UK, the estimated total number of Covid-related deaths in 2020 and 2021 was similar to official records at about 173,000, with an excess mortality rate of 130 people per 100,000.\n\nLead author Dr Haidong Wang, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said: \"Understanding the true death toll from the pandemic is vital for effective public health decision-making.\n\n\"Studies from several countries, including Sweden and the Netherlands, suggest Covid was the direct cause of most excess deaths, but we currently don't have enough evidence for most locations.\n\n\"Further research will help to reveal how many deaths were caused directly by Covid, and how many occurred as an indirect result of the pandemic.\"\n\nThe researchers predict that excess mortality linked to the pandemic will decline, thanks to vaccines and new treatments.\n\nBut they warn that the pandemic is not yet over. And new, dangerous variants of the virus could emerge.\n• None How new drugs are finally taming the virus\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Covid infections are increasing across the UK with about one in 25 people infected, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).\n\nIn Scotland, 300,000 people - one in 18 - have coronavirus, the highest level recorded during the pandemic.\n\nA sub-variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is now thought to be the most common strain in most of the UK.\n\nThe ONS says it's too early to say what's behind the rise in cases.\n\nBut some scientists believe the BA.2 variant's increased transmissibility, recent easing of restrictions and waning immunity from the vaccines could all be factors.\n\nAsked if there were worries about sub-variants Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the government had \"no concerns at all\".\n\nHe said Omicron had been the last variant to be considered of concern but that the country had \"successfully navigated\" it, but he said the government continued to monitor the situation \"very carefully\".\n\n\"There's a world-class surveillance system in place, and whilst in some regions we have seen a modest rise in infections, overall case numbers are still very low and hospitalisation numbers are way below their peak,\" he said.\n\nThe ONS infection survey, which tests thousands of people randomly in households across the UK, estimates that 2.6 million people would have tested positive in the week ending 5 March - up from 2.4 million the previous week - roughly one in 27.\n\nThere were also rises across the four UK nations:\n\nOlder age groups are now experiencing rising levels of infection with 2.9% of over-70s testing positive in England - the highest level since mid-January.\n\nAn extra vaccine booster is being offered this spring to people over 75, care-home residents and the most vulnerable over-12s to top up their protection.\n\nThese groups will be invited to have a jab six months after their most recent vaccination.\n\nThe booster vaccines offer good long-term protection against severe disease and death from Covid, but they provide little protection against infection.\n\nEven a small drop-off in vaccine immunity over time could have a large impact, increasing the numbers of at-risk people needing hospital treatment.\n\nNHS England says the spring booster rollout will begin in April - with the exception of a small number of extremely vulnerable people, who will be invited in late March - with no plans to bring it forward.\n\nIn Scotland, additional booster doses started being given to the most vulnerable this week.\n\nLinda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said it would be \"great\" to accelerate the booster programme \"to keep numbers in hospital low\" and also to make sure people continued to be treated for other health issues, after very long waits.\n\n\"We have always expected there to be new infections as we opened up,\" Prof Bauld said.\n\n\"We have decoupled the worst health harms of Covid due to vaccines, but getting the further booster delivered in March and April is going to be critical.\"\n\nThe number of people with Covid in Scottish hospitals is at its highest level for 13 months. There were 1,636 patients in hospital on Wednesday, which is higher than the peak during the Omicron wave in January.\n\nHealth boards said that while far fewer people needed intensive care, the large numbers of Covid patients were affecting availability of beds and other services.\n\nAfter falling steadily since January, official data shows Covid hospital admissions have also been going up gradually in the rest of the UK - with England showing the most obvious rise since the end of February. In Wales, admissions are staying relatively stable.\n\nNearly 12,000 people are in UK hospitals with a positive test for Covid but data suggests most of those patients are being treated for something else rather than Covid-19 itself.\n\nEarlier this week, Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the presence of the BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant and slight increase in infections in over-55s in England \"show the pandemic is not over\".\n\n\"We can expect to see Covid circulating at high levels,\" Dr Harries said.\n\n\"Vaccination remains the best way to protect us all from severe disease and hospitalisation due to Covid-19 infection.\n\n\"We urge you to come forward for your primary or booster doses straight away if you have not already done so.\"", "Pippa's parents Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths have been among those to campaign for a wider inquiry into maternity care in Shropshire\n\nA midwife found guilty of misconduct over the death of a baby six years ago is to be struck off.\n\nClaire Roberts was investigated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) for failures in the care she gave to Pippa Griffiths - who died a day after being born at home in Myddle, Shropshire.\n\nAn independent disciplinary panel described the midwife as \"a danger to patients and colleagues\".\n\nMs Roberts, who was not present at the hearing, now has 28 days to appeal.\n\nThe decision has been welcomed by Pippa's parents Kayleigh and Colin Griffiths.\n\nMs Roberts and fellow midwife Joanna Young failed to realise the \"urgency\" of medical attention needed, following the birth, the panel said.\n\nThey had failed to carry out a triage assessment, after Pippa's mother called staff for help because she was worried about her daughter's condition.\n\nThe panel concluded Ms Roberts's fitness to practise was impaired.\n\nInaccurate record-keeping by Ms Roberts represented \"serious dishonesty\", panel chair David Evans said, adding she had carried it out \"in order to protect herself from disciplinary action\".\n\nHer failures had represented a \"significant departure from standards expected by a registered midwife,\" he added.\n\nMr Evans said she had also failed to engage with the NMC or give evidence and had shown a \"lack of insight, lack of remorse and lack of remediation identified around the areas of concern\".\n\nHer colleague Ms Young, whose case was also heard by the panel, faced strong criticism on Wednesday, but was told she would face no sanction after the hearing concluded she had shown remorse and undergone extra training since 2016.\n\nKayleigh Griffiths said she and her husband welcomed the findings and sanctions.\n\n\"We're really relieved that one of the midwives has been struck off and actually we're also relieved to find that the other midwife has learnt and feels significant remorse for the event that took place,\" she said.\n\n\"We realise people do make mistakes and I think how you deal with those mistakes is really important.\n\n\"All we do ask is that learning was made from those and I think in one of the instances it did occur and in the other it didn't - so I think the right outcome has been found.\"\n\nDonna Ockenden's report into wider maternity standards at SaTh has faced fresh delays\n\nThere was also criticism during the hearing of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which the panel heard had demonstrated shortcomings including in leadership, communication and records systems.\n\nIn noting the judgment and the action that has been taken, SaTH director of nursing Hayley Favell said: \"We offer our sincere condolences to the family over the loss of their daughter and, as a trust, we take full responsibility for the failings in the standard of care given to mothers and babies, for which we apologise unreservedly.\n\n\"We remain committed to taking all of the steps necessary to improve and all our work is driven by a determination to ensure that we deliver safe, effective, reliable and high-quality services to the women and families we are caring for.\"\n\nPippa was just 31 hours old when she died from a Group B Strep infection. An inquest in 2017 found she could have survived with earlier intervention.\n\nSince then, her parents have called for routine testing for the Group B Strep bacteria and have been among the most prominent campaigners for a wider inquiry into maternity standards at SaTH.\n\nIt has become what is thought to be the largest maternity inquiry in the NHS's history.\n\nIts chair Donna Ockenden was due to publish her findings this month, but families have been told this will be delayed due to parliamentary processes.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nRoman Abramovich has been in charge of Chelsea since 2003 Chelsea's credit card facilities have been temporarily suspended while banks assess the implications of sanctions imposed on Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. The club has been given a special licence to operate despite Abramovich having his assets frozen by the UK government. Banks want to assess the licence criteria to ensure it does not breach the government's sanctions and Chelsea do not know when the suspension will be lifted. As part of the licence terms, Chelsea cannot receive money for match tickets which have not already been sold, future gate receipts for FA Cup games or merchandise from the club shop. That is likely to leave the club with a huge shortfall, with their monthly wage bill amounting to £28m a month. In discussions with the government on Thursday and Friday Chelsea made applications to change the terms of the licence which would allow the club to receive money for ticket sales, and also boost its limits on spending. The current licence allows £500,000 to be spent on home matches and allows a £20,000 limit on away travel. Talks were also held regarding an amendment to the licence about a potential sale of the club and included Raine Group - the American investment firm instructed to handle the sale before Abramovich was sanctioned. The Football News Show: What do sanctions mean for the sale of Chelsea? On Friday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister later said the government was \"in constant contact\" with Chelsea and the Premier League and said the Blues could apply for an \"amended licence\". They added: \"I believe Chelsea have said that they will do that, and we'll obviously work with the club and the league to consider any operationally necessary changes.\" The club has already sold tickets for its game at home to Newcastle on Sunday and Chelsea are set to travel to Lille for a Champions League tie on Wednesday. The home match against Brentford on 2 April is sold out, but tickets will not be able to be sold for games after that. It is unclear what would happen to gate receipts for the club's FA Cup quarter-final against Championship side Middlesbrough on 19 March, with 45% going to each team.\n• None Q&A: What do UK government sanctions on Abramovich mean for Chelsea?\n• None The Sports Desk: Life after Abramovich - what's next for Chelsea and English football? Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel raised the prospect of his players wearing a \"message for peace\" on their shirts, after mobile network provider Three suspended its shirt sponsorship deal with the club. \"Maybe the worry is more to find enough shirts that we can play in, with the sanctions,\" Tuchel added. \"But as long as we have enough shirts, and as long as the bus is full of fuel, we will arrive and we will be competitive. Manager Thomas Tuchel expresses hope for Chelsea in light of sanctions \"This is what everybody can be sure of and this is what we demand of ourselves and when it's a big storm, you dig in, you are all together and then you stay strong and go through it. \"But messages for peace can never be wrong.\" Meanwhile, Chelsea fans have been urged to stop chanting in support of Abramovich, after supporters sang the Russian's name during Chelsea's win at Norwich on Thursday. Technology minister Chris Philp told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that fans need to remember Abramovich has close ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose regime has committed \"barbaric acts\" in Ukraine. 'We're in 2022 and to see this is horrible for everybody' Premier League managers gave their views on the sanctioning of Abramovich for the first time on Friday. Former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte - now in charge at Tottenham - said: \"It's very sad that this serious situation, this war between Russia and Ukraine, is affecting football and the sporting world. \"To know that Russia athletes are banned from competition is very sad. I think it's not fair. I know very well the work that they do every day for this competition. \"You have to pay for this situation, I think it's not right. Honestly, I hoped the situation is going to be solved, because it's creating a lot of damage. We're in 2022 and to see this is horrible for everybody.\" Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp sympathised with employees at Chelsea but believes the government was \"right\" to sanction Abramovich because \"he is close\" to Putin. Newcastle manager Eddie Howe believes the sanctions will not change how Chelsea perform, while Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers - who previously worked at Chelsea as a youth and reserve-team coach - said Tuchel's situation is challenging. \"I've total empathy for him and for the players, but they're very professional,\" said Rodgers. \"They're an outstanding team and I'm sure they'll focus on that element between now and the end of the season.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "The scale of the destruction in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been revealed in a series of photos and satellite images.\n\nResidential areas have been flattened, a shopping centre destroyed and a maternity hospital attacked. The southern port city has used at least one mass grave to bury the dead.\n\nMariupol, a city of about 400,000, has been subjected to days of heavy bombardment.\n\nIts people are running dangerously short of food and water, the city's deputy mayor Sergei Orlov, says, and there is \"no electricity, no water supply, no heating, no sanitary system\".\n\nPeople are being forced to melt snow to drink, and chop wood to cook and keep warm in sub-zero temperatures, he says.\n\nOn Wednesday, three people - including a child - were killed and 17 wounded in a devastating strike that destroyed a maternity ward and children's ward of a hospital.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a war crime.\n\nA short distance away, damage could be seen on the roads close to the university, which also suffered heavy damage.\n\nImages from satellite technology company Maxar have also revealed damage to residential areas to the south and east of the city, now virtually cut off from the outside world.\n\nAnother image shows the damage done to a shopping centre to the west. The roofs of two buildings have been completely destroyed.\n\nMariupol is a key strategic target for Russia. Seizing it would allow Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea - the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.", "The inquiry aims to produce \"a factual, narrative account\" covering decision-making at all levels of government\n\nThe inquiry into the UK government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic will not hold public hearings until 2023, its chair has said.\n\nBaroness Hallett said her team would gather evidence throughout this year and she would try to deliver recommendations \"as soon as possible\".\n\nThe draft terms of reference for the inquiry were published on Thursday.\n\nMore than 162,000 people have died within 28 days of a positive Covid case across the UK since the pandemic began.\n\nThe inquiry, which is due to begin in the spring, will look at preparedness for the pandemic, as well as the health, care and economic response.\n\nIn an open letter Baroness Hallett, a former High Court judge, said that once it had officially begun there would be a chance for people to share their experiences of the pandemic.\n\nShe said: \"I will do everything in my power to deliver recommendations as soon as possible, to ensure that in any future pandemic, the suffering and hardship many of you have experienced is reduced or prevented.\"\n\nBaroness Hallett has launched a consultation on the draft terms of reference of the inquiry, running until 7 April, which will set out the scope of its investigation.\n\nShe said her team would be visiting towns and cities across the four nations of the UK to gather the views of bereaved families, community and support groups.\n\nBaroness Hallett pledged to run \"an independent, thorough and open inquiry\" and said that the pandemic had had an \"unprecedented impact on everyone\" in the UK.\n\nUnder the current draft terms of reference, the inquiry aims to produce \"a factual, narrative account\" covering decision-making at all levels of government and the response of the health and care sector as well as identifying the \"lessons to be learned\".\n\nThe Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group welcomed the publication of the terms of reference as a \"huge step forward\" and said it looked forward to contributing to the consultation on the terms.\n\nThe Scottish government has its own Covid-19 inquiry, to be led by Judge Lady Poole, but Northern Ireland is not holding its own at this stage.\n\nWelsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has resisted calls to hold a Wales-specific inquiry and has encouraged people to contribute to the consultation on the UK inquiry.\n\nOn Friday a further 72,898 coronavirus cases were reported across the UK with a further 114 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test.\n\nIt comes as the Office for National Statistics said infections are rising across the UK, with about one-in-25 people infected, according to the latest estimates.\n\nSeveral reports have already put the UK government's handling of the pandemic under the spotlight.\n\nA report by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee last October said the UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country's worst public health failures.\n\nMeanwhile, spending watchdog the National Audit Office found ministers were not properly prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19 and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption.\n\nThe government said the unprecedented pandemic had challenged health systems around the world - not just the UK.", "UK food prices will rise as a result of the war in Ukraine, the National Farmers' Union (NFU) has warned.\n\nSome 30% of the world's wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia and exports will stop during the conflict, it says.\n\nIn addition, the price of gas - which is used to heat greenhouses and to make fertiliser - has soared.\n\nThe union has written to the government to call for urgent action to help UK farmers produce enough food to keep supermarkets stocked and affordable.\n\n\"The government must act now, with a clear signal that food security is a priority for the nation,\" the NFU said.\n\nIts letter warned that disruption to food production, supply chains and the availability and affordability of food in the shops could last for years.\n\nEarlier this week, the boss of one of the world's biggest fertiliser companies, Yara International, warned that the war in Ukraine would deliver a shock to the global supply and cost of food.\n\nThe Federation of Wholesale Distributors has also warned that the increase in fuel prices will lead to people paying more for food in shops and restaurants.\n\nNFU president Minette Batters said the government must work with farmers to address food supply issues\n\nNFU president Minette Batters told the BBC that the rising cost of producing fruit, vegetables and meat could cause farmers to make less at a time when the nation needs more.\n\n\"I think the whole world has got to recognise that this is not something we've faced before, we are going to see wheat price inflation levels that have never happened,\" she said.\n\n\"The real danger is that farmers contract, they decide not to invest, they hold back from planting, and we produce less food,\" she said.\n\nMs Batters said the shortage of crops would also affect meat production as farmers need it to feed their livestock.\n\nThe cost of producing a chicken was 50% higher than it was a year ago but farmers were absorbing much of these costs, she said.\n\nUK feed wheat prices are already 39% up on March 2021 at £279.40 a tonne, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)\n\nRussia and Ukraine produce 80% of the world's sunflower oil exports and 20% of corn exports, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).\n\nAnother factor affecting food production in the UK is that Ukrainian workers have accounted for 60% of recruits under the UK's Seasonal Workers Scheme, the NFU said.\n\nThese workers carry out essential roles such as planting, picking, packing and grading fresh produce.\n\nThe NFU is asking the government to release an additional 10,000 visas under the Seasonal Workers Scheme, in addition to the 30,000 already granted.\n\nFarmer Dan Wallis says he will be growing more wheat\n\nDan Wallis, who runs Rookery Farms in Newbury, Berkshire, said he decided this week to sow spring wheat on land that was not due to be planted on until next autumn.\n\n\"Given the current crisis in Ukraine the demand for food is ever increasing,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"There's going to be a shortage of wheat and barley, predominantly wheat, so today we are planting spring wheat into some fallow land which should have remained fallow until next autumn.\n\n\"I made the decision in the last week or 10 days - it's the right thing to do.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ros Atkins on why the war in Ukraine is pushing up food prices - and the likely impact on poorer countries\n\nThe Environment Secretary, George Eustice, told MPs that in early January he had set up teams to make contingency plans for the UK's food security.\n\nHe told the House of Commons that he would attend a special meeting of the G7 group of the world's largest economies to discuss the issues further on Friday.\n\nCommons Leader Mark Spencer said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was \"across the threats that we face\".\n\n\"There is no prospect of food shortages at any point in the future, and Defra are working with Treasury to try and make sure that that continues to be the case,\" he said.", "Katy Perry will no longer have to pay $2.8m (£2.1m) to a rapper who said she stole his song on her hit Dark Horse.\n\nMarcus Gray sued Perry in 2014, saying she had plagiarised an eight-note riff from his track Joyful Noise.\n\nA jury agreed and awarded him the $2.8m payout, but a judge later overturned that verdict, saying the melody was not \"particularly unique or rare\".\n\nUpholding that decision, an appeals court said the original verdict could have suffocated musical creativity.\n\nIn a 3-0 verdict, the court said Gray had been attempting to claim an \"improper monopoly\" over conventional \"musical building blocks\" when he first sued Perry in 2014.\n\n\"The trial record compels us to conclude that the ostinatos at issue here consist entirely of commonplace musical elements, and that the similarities between them do not arise out of an original combination of these elements,\" the new ruling reads.\n\n\"Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to allowing an improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself, especially in light of the limited number of expressive choices available when it comes to an eight-note repeated musical figure.\"\n\nThe ruling brings the eight-year trial to an end, barring an unlikely trip to the US Supreme Court.\n\nEd Sheeran has been giving evidence at the High Court this week\n\nThe verdict will be read with interest by lawyers for Ed Sheeran, who is facing similar claims of plagiarism in the UK High Court.\n\nThe star is also accused of stealing an eight-note phrase from an unknown rapper, in this case the UK grime acts Sami Switch.\n\nSwitch, whose real name is Sami Chokri, claims that the \"oh I, oh I, oh I\" hook of Sheeran's song Shape Of You has a \"striking similarity\" to the chorus of his 2015 single Oh Why.\n\nSheeran denies the allegation, and told the court he had never heard Chokri's song before he made his claim.\n\nUnusually, Sheeran and his co-writers Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac took pre-emptive legal action, asking the High Court to declare they had not infringed Chokri's copyright.\n\nSeveral months later, Mr Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue issued their own claim for \"copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement\".\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Ed Sheeran This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nGiving evidence on Thursday, Steve Mac said the case was \"not about money\" but \"to clear my name\".\n\nHe told the court that working with Sheeran on Shape Of You was an \"extraordinary experience\", as the song came together \"from scratch\" at \"extraordinary speed\".\n\n\"I had a headache at the end of the day,\" he said, adding: \"It was the first time I had written with anyone like this. It was incredible.\"\n\nAndrew Sutcliffe QC, representing Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue, suggested the spontaneity was an illusion, because Sheeran had \"already worked out how he wanted this song to sound\" and \"already had lyrics and ideas which he was able to deploy at speed\".\n\nMr McCutcheon disagreed, adding: \"The speed that [Sheeran] writes is extraordinary to the point that we can write 26 songs in a week.\"\n\nThe trial, which is due to last three weeks, will hear from Mr Chokri next Monday.\n\nDua Lipa has yet to respond to claims she plagiarised her hit single Levitating\n\nClaims of plagiarism are as old as pop music itself.\n\nEven former Beatle George Harrison was found guilty of \"subconsciously copying\" elements of his 1970 hit My Sweet Lord from The Chiffons' He's So Fine, and ordered to pay that song's composers $1.6m ($8m in today's money).\n\nThere has been an upward trend in cases since the infamous Blurred Lines case of 2015, in which Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams were found guilty of copying the \"feel\" of Marvin Gaye's Got To Give It Up, rather than directly plagiarising musical phrases or lyrics.\n\nMany cases are settled out of court, with composers quietly added to the credits of songs behind the scenes.\n\nThe number of writers on Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars's Uptown Funk ballooned from six to 11 when The Gap Band noticed similarities to their song Oops Upside Your Head.\n\nLast year, Olivia Rodrigo added two members of Paramore to the writing credits of Good 4 U, after fans started creating mash-ups of her hit and Paramore's musically-similar Misery Business.\n\nIn the last week, both Dua Lipa and Sam Smith have been hit with copyright lawsuits of their own.\n\nLipa has been sued twice over her song Levitating - the biggest-selling single in the US last year.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video 2 by Dua Lipa This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nSongwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer said the opening melody of Levitating was a \"duplicate\" of their 1979 song Wiggle and Giggle All Night and the 1980 song Don Diablo (they apparently didn't mind copying their own material).\n\nThe Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System launched a separate legal action, saying the chorus was ripped off from their 2017 song Live Your Life.\n\nSam Smith and Normani are also facing a trial over their duet Dancing With A Stranger, with three songwriters saying that both the song and its video contained \"extraordinary similarities\" to their song, also called Dancing With A Stranger.\n\n\"In both songs, the title, hook, chorus, lyrics, and musical composition are all the same - and are repeated throughout the song giving both songs their identities,\" said Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi in a complaint filed in Los Angeles.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nChelsea beat bottom club Norwich as Mason Mount scored one and made another on the day his club's long-term future was thrown into uncertainty.\n\nTravelling fans at Carrow Road chanted the name of Roman Abramovich hours after it was announced Chelsea's Russian owner had been sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nOn the pitch, Chelsea's players responded to one of the most dramatic days in the club's 117-year history by storming into a 2-0 lead inside the opening 15 minutes on their way to a fourth successive league win.\n\nTrevoh Chalobah opened the scoring in the third minute after meeting Mason Mount's corner before Kai Havertz set up England's Mount for his eighth goal of the season.\n\nNorwich were much better after half-time and Teemu Pukki gave his side hope from the penalty spot after Chalobah handled, but Havertz sealed the points with a late third for Chelsea.\n\nWhile the win strengthened Chelsea's grip on third spot, Norwich are five points from safety with just 10 games left.\n• None Follow live text of Norwich v Chelsea, plus the rest of Thursday's Premier League games\n• None Tuchel 'still happy' to be Chelsea boss\n• None Go straight to all the best Chelsea content\n• None What do government sanctions mean for Chelsea? Your questions answered\n\nBusiness as usual on the pitch\n\nWhile Chelsea's future off the pitch is precarious right now, it was pretty much business as usual on it.\n\nCaptain Cesar Azpilicueta spoke before the game about \"this not being a normal day\" while boss Thomas Tuchel talked about \"a lot of noise\" around the club.\n\nWithin hours of the announcement that Abramovich had been sanctioned, Chelsea' main shirt sponsors - mobile network provider Three - suspended its deal with the club.\n\nNevertheless, the Blues wore their usual kit with the sponsors logo as the timing of Three's suspension made it impossible to get a fresh kit with no logo to Norfolk.\n\nThere were 'Champions of Europe' banners in the away end although the Abramovich chants were greeted with some boos from the home fans.\n\nYet any concerns Tuchel might have had about the day's worrying off-field developments seeping onto the pitch were quickly dispelled as Chelsea raced into a 2-0 lead.\n\nChalobah got between Grant Hanley and Christoph Zimmermann to put the visitors ahead before Mount lashed home the second high into the roof of the net.\n\nAndreas Christensen - out of contract at the end of the season and in a state of short-term limbo following today's announcement that Chelsea are unable to offer new deals - went close with a header.\n\nMateo Kovacic grazed the woodwork from 20 yards and Mount was denied a second goal by Tim Krul before Havertz sealed Chelsea's 10th Premier League away win with a fine 90th minute finish after a lay-off by N'Golo Kante.\n\nWith the flag of Ukraine flying at Carrow Road, Norwich produced a spirited second-half performance before Havertz's fifth goal in his last six appearances killed off their hopes of salvaging a point.\n\nThis was another hard-luck tale in a season of hard-luck tales for Dean Smith's side.\n\nHaving got to half-time having conceded only two goals, they came out fighting in the second half but were unable to avoid a 19th top-flight defeat of the season.\n\nSmith will still believe his side can avoid a quick-fire return to the Championship.\n\nNorwich still have to entertain fellow strugglers Burnley but time is running out of the Canaries.\n\nThey have 10 matches left including games against West Ham (home), Tottenham (home) and Manchester United (away), who are all chasing European places.\n• None Goal! Norwich City 1, Chelsea 3. Kai Havertz (Chelsea) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Offside, Norwich City. Max Aarons tries a through ball, but Milot Rashica is caught offside.\n• None Attempt blocked. Romelu Lukaku (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Assisted by Ruben Loftus-Cheek.\n• None Attempt missed. Pierre Lees-Melou (Norwich City) left footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left.\n• None Offside, Norwich City. Brandon Williams tries a through ball, but Grant Hanley is caught offside.\n• None Trevoh Chalobah (Chelsea) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on imports of Russian diamonds, seafood and vodka in the latest response to Russia's war in Ukraine.\n\nThe US, European Union and other allies also plan to revoke Russia’s status as an equal trade partner, paving the way for further economic punishment.\n\nThe moves add to sanctions that have isolated Russia economically since the invasion.\n\nIts currency has collapsed, while global firms rush to exit the country.\n\nRussian President Vladimir Putin has likened Western sanctions on banks and oligarchs to a declaration of war. Moscow has also threatened to nationalise production plants or factories where work has been suspended.\n\nThe European Union said it would ban imports of key Russian iron and steel products and bar new energy investments in the country, while the UK put sanctions on hundreds of Russian politicians.\n\nThe US, EU and UK also said they would cut off shipments of luxury goods to Russia.\n\nMr Biden said the latest steps will be \"another crushing blow to the Russian economy\".\n\nUnder international rules, designating a country a \"most favoured nation\" provides reciprocal trade privileges such as lower tariffs, taxes imposed at the border.\n\nStripping Russia of that status clears the way for higher tariffs on key products it sells such as mineral fuels, fertilisers and metals.\n\nMr Biden said he was coordinating the plans with the European Union and other advanced economies, including Canada and Japan, each of which will take similar steps.\n\nIn the US, Congress, which must act for the move to go into effect, has already declared itself in favour of the move.\n\nMost Favoured Nation (MFN) is a status conferred by membership of the World Trade Organisation. It might sound as though it confers special advantages, but that's not really the case.\n\nIn fact, it is a baseline designed to ensure all World Trade Organisation members are treated equally, unless they are members of a specific free trade area or agreement. Under normal circumstances, it limits countries' ability to impose trade barriers against one another - or offer individual countries special concessions.\n\nBy removing this status from Russia, G7 countries will be able to target its exports with punitive tariffs, or taxes. In fact one of them, Canada, has already done so. Last week it imposed tariffs of 35% on all products coming from Russia and its compliant ally, Belarus.\n\nIn order to do this, Canada relied on an exemption contained in one of the WTO agreements, which allows members to take action they consider necessary to protect their \"essential security interests\". It is likely the others will do the same.\n\nIn addition, Western allies said they planned to cut Russia off from accessing finance from international organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.\n\n\"Russia cannot grossly violate international law and expect to benefit from being part of the international economic order,\" the G7, a group of seven advanced economies including the UK, said in a statement.\n\nThe US ban on key Russian imports will deny Mr Putin more than $1bn in revenue, the White House said, while the ban on US exports of luxury goods hits trade worth about $550m per year.\n\nThat is just a fraction of the roughly $28bn worth of trade the US and Russia exchanged in 2019.\n\nMr Biden promised further measures, including tightening sanctions on oligarchs and their families.\n\n\"We're going to continue to squeeze Putin,\" Mr Biden said. \"He is the aggressor and... must pay the price.\"\n\nEconomists say the sanctions previously announced will throw Russia into a severe economic recession this year. But it is not clear that the economic disarray has altered Mr Putin's military ambitions.\n\nAt a press conference on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked when the weight of the sanctions might lead to a change in Mr Putin's actions.\n\n\"Our objective of course is to bring an end to this conflict, she said. \"In terms of when that will happen, I'm unfortunately not in the mind of President Putin.... When it will change his calculus, I can't give a prediction of that.\"", "A British national who has spent the last fortnight trying to secure passage to the UK for his wife’s family after they fled Ukraine has said the visa process has been \"torturous\".\n\nThe government has been under growing pressure to speed up the process to help those fleeing the war.", "Three people including a child died when Russia struck a hospital on Wednesday\n\nTwitter has removed two posts by the Russian embassy in London which claimed the bombing of a Ukrainian hospital by Russian forces had been faked.\n\nThe Mariupol hospital was attacked on Wednesday, leaving three people dead.\n\nBut the embassy's tweets made unfounded claims the hospital was not operational at the time, and that injured women pictured at the scene were actors.\n\nTwitter told the BBC the tweets violated rules \"related to the denial of violent events\".\n\nOfficials at the embassy have offered no proof to back up their claims, and the BBC's disinformation team has found evidence which contradicts the allegations.\n\nThe embassy claimed the hospital had been \"long non-operational\". However, a week-old post on the hospital's Facebook page asked for fuel to keep operations going.\n\nReports from Mariupol last week - from the Associated Press news agency and Sky News - also says it was treating bombing victims, and that the maternity ward had been moved to the basement.\n\nThe allegation that a beauty blogger was used to fake photos of a pregnant woman at the scene was also called into question, as the woman in question, who lives in the city, is seen heavily pregnant in Instagram posts dating from last month.\n\nThis tweet was deleted by Twitter for violating its rules\n\nThe initial claims that the bombing was faked by Ukraine did not come from the embassy. They first began trending among Russian users of the Telegram messaging app earlier in the day, and were then mentioned on state television news bulletins and chat shows.\n\nA further claim circulating that the beauty blogger also pretended to be another woman caught up in the bombing and photographed at the scene is also untrue. A look at high-resolution images of the other woman featured in the claims shows she looks nothing like the beauty blogger. Those are two different women.\n\nFinally there were accusations that the hospital had been taken over by a far-right battalion of the Ukrainian army. As yet there is no evidence that this was the case.\n\nThese claims all continue to circulate online, despite the tweets being removed.\n\nThe pregnant beauty blogger's Instagram account has also now become a target for online trolls and conspiracy theorists.\n\nSocial media companies have been trying to tackle misinformation on their platforms, with many big tech companies blocking Russian broadcasters RT and Sputnik.\n\nBut Twitter has not banned several accounts linked to Russian government organisations - including Vladimir Putin's official Twitter account.", "Bucha is encircled and its residents face constant shelling\n\n\"The last straw was when a Russian tank shelled my neighbour's house and a nearby church,\" says Dmytro Tkachuk. He then decided it was time to flee Bucha, a small town just to the north-west of Kyiv. \"The dome of the church is destroyed. It's terrifying.\"\n\nUkraine's emergency services have singled out Bucha and the area around it as facing one of the worst humanitarian situations in Ukraine. The biggest emergency is in Mariupol, a key port city of more than 400,000 people.\n\nBucha is encircled by the Russian army and partly occupied. It has come under relentless bombardment since the start of the war.\n\nNo humanitarian aid or food has reached the town for days. Thousands of residents remain trapped in basements, many of them elderly or with severe disabilities. Communications are down and there is little hope of getting in touch with friends and family.\n\nEscaping Bucha meant a 17km (10.5-mile) trek for Dmytro, a 30-year-old lawyer, along with his sister, his mother and his two grandmothers, aged 74 and 83. They were joined by two neighbours and a small dog.\n\nAs shells exploded nearby, they had to fling themselves to the ground at least 20 times.\n\nNot long after they had left, his grandmother could walk no more and he and his sister had to drag her for much of the way under fire.\n\n\"My granny begged us to leave her behind. She didn't want to be a burden for us but we didn't drop our loved ones.\"\n\nA relieved Dmytro (R) poses here with (L-R) his sister, neighbour, grandmother and mother\n\nThere was no safe corridor for evacuation and no help for them. They knew the risk but carried on until they eventually reached safety near Kyiv in what the family believes is a miracle.\n\n\"On our way out of Bucha I saw bodies lying on the ground all over the place. I saw people going crazy in front of their burning houses. I saw entire apartment blocks torn out of the soil. It was appalling.\"\n\nBucha was one of the evacuation corridors agreed by the Ukrainian government and Russian defence ministry on Wednesday. But no ceasefire was confirmed and only people like Dmytro have made it out.\n\nWhile thousands of Ukrainians have managed to escape bombarded towns and cities, Mariupol, Bucha, Izyum and other areas remain isolated. Bucha is only a few kilometres from the front of Russia's notorious 64km convoy of stalled armoured vehicles, tanks, and artillery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nFor five days there has been no word from a colleague and her mother who are trapped together in Bucha. In her last message she said that there was no escape and their only means of survival was to try to sleep for as long as possible in the freezing cold of their unheated basement.\n\nThere is no electricity or heating. The gas has been cut off because of fires caused by shelling. No food supply is getting in and there is no mobile reception. Occasional internet access is the only way of getting messages through to the outside world.\n\nEarlier this week one disabled resident managed to post an appeal on her Facebook page. She and other people with disabilities had become hostages, she said. They were unable to hide in shelters and had no access to food, water and medicines.\n\nOur house was under direct shelling from a tank. The city is looted by Russian invaders. We have no chance to rescue - we have nowhere to run!\n\nThe next day she posted an update to say she was alive and had managed to cook a meal with her neighbours.\n\nDmytro fled when he decided he and his family had little chance to survive.\n\nThey had to avoid a Russian checkpoint to get out of the town and then once they had reached neighbouring Irpin they hid under the town's half-destroyed bridge.\n\nFrom Irpin they crossed a field as fast as they could under constant mortar fire.\n\nThey were warned repeatedly of the deadly risk they were taking. Shrapnel flew past them and they saw houses and a bridge hit as they passed.\n\n\"My whole life was flashing by. I was praying to God to survive,\" says Dmytro.\n\nThe heaviest shelling came from the direction they were heading in as Ukrainian forces tried to halt the Russian advance.\n\n\"I realised that was our route to safety, despite the loudest explosions coming from over there.\"\n\nThey finally reached a bus heading for Kyiv. But for many others in their town the nightmare continues.", "The sanctions will hit members of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament\n\nThe UK government has imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian parliamentarians as part of its response to the war in Ukraine.\n\nSome 386 MPs who voted to recognise two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent last month have been hit by asset freezes and UK travel bans.\n\nThe UK said their recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk gave Russia a \"pretext\" for its subsequent invasion.\n\nLabour welcomed the move but said it should have happened \"weeks ago\".\n\nIt follows a similar move by the European Union, which announced sanctions against hundreds of Russian MPs last month.\n\nThe UK signalled it would impose sanctions of its own last month, but said more time was needed to pass new legislation before it could happen.\n\nThe latest announcement means 400 of the 450 members of the Duma - the lower house of the Russian parliament - are now subject to British sanctions. They also prevent them from conducting business in the UK.\n\nDowning Street declined to say whether any of the sanctioned politicians had any assets in the UK.\n\nMinisters are yet to also target members of the Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper house, who voted for recognition. The Foreign Office signalled its intention to do so last month.\n\nMeanwhile, No 10 said details of a UK ban on exporting luxury goods to Russia would be announced in the coming days.\n\nThe product ban is part of a series of additional trade sanctions announced by the G7 group of wealthy Western nations on Friday.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the UK was targeting \"those complicit in Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine and those who support this barbaric war\".\n\n\"We will not let up the pressure and will continue to tighten the screw on the Russian economy through sanctions,\" she added.\n\nThe move against Russian MPs follows sanctions on Russian banks, companies and oligarchs in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month.\n\nOn Thursday the UK announced sanctions on a further seven Russian oligarchs, including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe UK government says it means 18 Russian oligarchs, worth a combined £30bn, have been sanctioned since the Russian invasion began.\n\nRussia's Duma approved \"friendship treaties\" with Luhansk and Donetsk at a vote on 22 February\n\nMinisters have been coming under mounting pressure from opposition parties to increase both the speed and scale of sanctions in recent weeks.\n\nLabour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the latest sanctions against Duma members were welcome, but \"should have happened weeks ago\".\n\nLiberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran also backed the move, but said the UK had been \"moving at a snail's pace\".\n\nThe government has also faced criticism over its response to the refugee crisis, amid accusations the process to apply for visas is slow and bureaucratic.\n\nThe United Nations said more than 2.5 million people have now fled Ukraine, but as of Thursday morning the UK had issued 1,305 visas, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said on Friday.\n\nThe government has announced plans to allow Ukrainians with family in the UK to apply for visas online, without having to visit a visa centre in-person.\n\nDetails of a second scheme allowing individuals and businesses to sponsor refugee visas are set to be confirmed on Monday, having originally been announced on 1 March.", "All UK crypto-currency cash machines (ATMs) are operating illegally and must be shut down, the Financial Conduct Authority has announced.\n\nCrypto-ATMs look like regular cash machines and let people buy crypto-currency, such as Bitcoin, using their bank cards.\n\nBut no company offering crypto-currency services in the UK has a licence to operate a crypto-ATM.\n\nThe FCA said all such machines must be shut down or it will take action.\n\nAccording to crypto-ATM directory Coin ATM Radar, there are 81 functional crypto-ATMS in the UK.\n\nThe FCA said: \"We regularly warn consumers that crypto-assets are unregulated and high-risk which means people are very unlikely to have any protection if things go wrong.\n\n\"People should be prepared to lose all their money if they choose to invest in them.\"\n\nThe FCA publishes a list of companies that appear to be involved in crypto-currency but have not registered their business with the regulator for anti-money-laundering checks.\n\nIt said that since the publication of its list, 110 of the crypto companies had ceased trading.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Are crypto-currencies the future of money?\n• None What is Bitcoin? Video, 00:01:32What is Bitcoin?", "The BBC's Sarah Rainsford sent this picture of a bombed building in Dnipro\n\nOn day 16 of the invasion, Russian forces widened their attacks, targeting several Ukrainian cities that had previously escaped the worst of the onslaught.\n\nThe central city of Dnipro was among those directly targeted, with air strikes hitting a shoe factory, an apartment block and a nursery.\n\nThe BBC's Sarah Rainsford, reporting from the city, said it had previously been something of a safe haven for people fleeing cities under sustained Russian attack.\n\nThe mayor of Lutsk, in the west of the country, said air strikes on a military airfield there killed at least four Ukrainian soldiers.\n\nAnother airfield was hit in the southwestern city of Ivano-Frankivsk.\n\nMeanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for foreign volunteers to fight against Ukrainian forces.\n\nSpeaking at a Russian security council meeting, he said those who wanted to volunteer to fight with Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine should be allowed to.\n\nRussian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces.\n\nUS officials said these could include Syrians skilled in urban combat. But analysts have questioned how useful such fighters would be to Russia, with one saying they may just become \"cannon fodder\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: President Zelensky says Ukraine is 'on the way to victory'\n\nForeign fighters, including former and current British army personnel, have also been arriving in Ukraine to fight for the government in Kyiv.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said recently that 16,000 foreigners had volunteered for the cause, part of what he called an \"international legion\".\n\nMr Zelensky responded to Mr Putin's latest comments by saying \"thugs from Syria\" would be coming to kill people \"in a foreign land\".\n\nIn a defiant address, he said his country would be victorious in the war with Russia.\n\nAt the same time, fears grew of a possible renewed push towards Kyiv after satellite images taken by a US firm of a large Russian military convoy near the capital showed it had \"largely dispersed and redeployed\".\n\nThe convoy was last seen near Antonov Airport, north-west of Kyiv.\n\nThe firm that took the photos, Maxar Technologies, said parts of the convoy were in positions in surrounding towns.\n\nOther parts are further north, with artillery now in firing positions.\n\nMeanwhile in Kyiv itself barricades are being strengthened and defences set up in preparation for an assault on the city, our correspondent in the city Jeremy Bowen writes.\n\nControl of the city will be crucial to any political outcome to the war and it is certain that Mr Putin and his generals are reassessing, regrouping and will not accept defeat\n\nUkraine's military says Russian Maj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov has been killed\n\nWestern officials have confirmed that a third Russian major general has been killed in Ukraine, adding that he was from Russia's eastern military district.\n\nOfficials didn't name the general, but earlier Ukraine's military said Maj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, commander of the 29th army of Russia's eastern district, had been killed.\n\nAnalysts have previously said that the presence of high-ranking military figures on or near the battlefield could be a sign that Russia's operations are not going to plan.\n\nThe debris suggests it was a Soviet-era drone used by the Ukrainian military\n\nPeople in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, awoke on Friday to find that a military drone had crashed in the city overnight.\n\nThere was an explosion in the south-western Jarun district shortly after 23:00 (22:00 GMT). Residents found a crater and wreckage scattered close to student accommodation.\n\nZagreb's mayor, Tomislav Tomasevic, said \"it's amazing that no-one was injured\".\n\nCroatia's president there was nothing to indicate the country was targeted.\n\nWitness reports suggested the only person hurt was a man who fell off his bicycle as the drone hit the ground.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nFrance kept alive their dreams of a first Grand Slam and Six Nations title since 2010 with a tense 13-9 win over Wales.\n\nAn Anthony Jelonch try and eight points from Melvyn Jaminet set up the victory.\n\nSpirited Wales responded with three Dan Biggar penalties, but could not break down the French defence.\n\nFabien Galthie's side will aim to complete the Grand Slam against England next Saturday in Paris, while Wales host Italy in their final game.\n\nIt was a third defeat in four matches for Wayne Pivac's defending champions, alongside a narrow victory over Scotland.\n\nWales enjoyed second-half territory and possession dominance and managed to disrupt the possession of their opponents with Biggar and Taulupe Faletau producing inspired performances.\n\nWales' lacklustre attack could not crack a resolute French rearguard expertly organised by familiar face Shaun Edwards.\n\nThe France defence coach was part of Warren Gatland's Wales backroom team between 2008 and 2019 - a period that delivered four Six Nations titles, three Grand Slams and a World Cup semi-final appearance - before he joined Galthie's set-up.\n\nThe closest chance came when Wales centre Jonathan Davies just failed to hang onto a pass in the second half with the French line at his mercy.\n\nLed by hooker and man-of-the-match Julian Marchand, France also excelled at the contact area as they took their winning sequence to seven games.\n\nTheir first Six Nations silverware in 12 years is now beckoning.\n• None Rugby Union Daily podcast: France Grand Slam in sight after win over Wales\n• None Relive the match and reaction as it happened: Wales v France\n\nFriday night rugby was back for the first time in the Six Nations in Cardiff since 2017 with the Principality Stadium roof open.\n\nThe game was unusually played out in front of some empty seats, with 63,208 attending a stadium that holds 74,500.\n\nFactors such as the game being held on Friday night and travel issues, Covid-19 concerns, Wales losing two out of their first three matches and ticket prices, some costing £100, all helped explain the 11,000 absent fans.\n\nThere had been talk of fewer French fans travelling, but that did not translate into the Principality Stadium cauldron with the thousands who had made the trip in fine voice.\n\nWales head coach Pivac made four changes with Cardiff duo Seb Davies, normally a lock, and Josh Navidi packing down in the back row instead of Ross Moriarty and Taine Basham.\n\nNavidi demonstrated no rustiness despite having played only one game in five months since recovering from a shoulder injury.\n\nInjured centre Nick Tompkins was replaced by Jonathan Davies, with prop Gareth Thomas preferred to Wyn Jones.\n\nFrance made one change from the side that defeated Scotland as winger Gabin Villiere came in for Damian Penaud, who had tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nJaminet and Biggar exchanged early penalties before France showed their class with a flowing move for the only try, finished by flanker Jelonch following a scoring pass from Jaminet, who also converted.\n\nWales scrum-half Tomos Williams suffered a noticeable head injury in the move while attempting a tackle and tried to stumble to his feet on a couple of occasions.\n\nWilliams was permanently withdrawn with no need for a head injury assessment (HIA) and replaced by Kieran Hardy.\n\nThe incident followed on from Wales being involved in a concussion controversy when prop Tomas Francis suffered a head injury against England 13 days previously.\n\nFrancis was passed fit to face France despite warnings it would be a grave mistake to select him from Progressive Rugby, a lobby group concerned with safety of players.\n\nPivac insisted Wales had \"gone the extra mile\" in involving an independent concussion specialist surrounding Francis.\n\nWales bounced back into the match with a second Biggar penalty set up by a brilliant Faletau tackle on Jaminet.\n\nThe hosts were struggling to cope with Antoine Dupont's sniping, with prop Thomas stopping him on one occasion with a low tackle.\n\nThat resulted in the Ospreys front row going off for a head injury assessment, which he passed.\n\nBiggar produced an excellent kicking game in the first half to give Wales attacking line-out options, which the home side could not completely capitalise on as France continued to frustrate at the breakdown.\n\nThe Wales captain slotted over a third penalty, awarded after an outstanding 50:22 kick had won crucial territory, as the home side battled back to a 10-9 deficit at half-time, with Faletau and lock Will Rowlands at the heart of the effort.\n\nFrance prop Mohamed Haouas replaced Uini Atonio at the break before Jaminet extended the lead with a second penalty when Adam Beard was caught offside.\n\nAnother brilliant Biggar kick set up an attacking chance for Wales, but hooker Ryan Elias was held up over the line.\n\nWales, guided by Liam Williams, were gaining the upper hand in the aerial contest with both sides attempting high kicks to gain the ascendency in a cagey third quarter dominated by the whistle of referee Matthew Carley.\n\nAnother sublime Biggar chip kick fell into Faletau's hands, but the inside pass to Jonathan Davies went astray in the visiting 22 with the French line in sight.\n\nWales held territory and possession dominance, but were thwarted by France's efficiency at the contact area.\n\nPivac threw on wing Louis Rees-Zammit to replace Jonathan Davies with Josh Adams moving into midfield, while Gareth Anscombe replaced full-back Williams.\n\nFrance took off captain Dupont with eight minutes remaining, but Les Bleus' breakdown dominance continued as Wales' pedestrian attacking game was picked off.\n\nFrench fans were left singing into the Cardiff night as their side held on for victory.", "Mr Ross said there would continue to be \"personal differences\" between himself and the prime minister\n\nThe only person to benefit from Boris Johnson being removed from office would be Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives has claimed.\n\nDouglas Ross was speaking for the first time after withdrawing his call for the PM to quit over Downing Street parties.\n\nMr Ross said the row over the lockdown parties now seemed trivial in comparison to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAnd he said now would be \"totally the wrong time\" to change leader.\n\nHe acknowledged that there would continue to be personal differences between himself and Mr Johnson, but said his position on the prime minister's leadership during the Ukraine crisis was very similar to that of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.\n\nMr Ross said: \"Now is not the time to try and replace a prime minister - now is the time for unity.\n\n\"The only person who would gain from the removal of a UK prime minister from office would be Vladimir Putin.\"\n\nMr Ross warned that the Russian president would use any signs of division as a \"wedge\" to drive between the forces that are trying to stop him.\n\nThe Scottish Conservative leader had written to the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs in January to express his lack of confidence in Mr Johnson and to call for a leadership contest.\n\nMr Ross described the prime minister's position at the time as \"untenable\" after he admitted attending a Downing Street party during the Covid lockdown.\n\nBut he announced on Thursday that he had formally withdrawn his letter to the committee, with the party also confirming that Mr Johnson would appear in person at the Scottish Conservative conference next weekend.\n\nMr Ross said Vladimir Putin would try to exploit any signs of division within countries that oppose him\n\nMr Ross said he \"had confidence in the prime minister to deal with this situation at the moment\", and that \"everything else seems trivial\" in comparison to the horrific scenes from Ukraine.\n\nHe added: \"That is why I think our focus should be on supporting and helping the people of Ukraine, not on personal differences we may have with each other here in the UK.\"\n\nOther parties were critical of Mr Ross for withdrawing his call for the PM to go, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar saying Mr Ross \"should not be using the Ukraine crisis to go back on his principles\" and Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie saying the Tory leader had \"the backbone of a jellyfish\".\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said it was \"an utterly humiliating u-turn for Douglas Ross\".\n\nBut Mr Ross said he did not care about criticisms from other parties, and that the SNP had also been calling for unity just a few days ago.\n\nHe added: \"They were standing up in the House of Commons saying we should work together, we should support the government because the threat is not here in the UK or between different political parties or the prime minister and the opposition.\n\n\"It is between the western world, Europe and allies across the globe and Russia - Vladimir Putin.\n\n\"That is the biggest threat at the moment, and that's what our efforts should be united in trying to defeat.\"", "Thirty years ago when communism collapsed in the Soviet Union, Western firms stepped up their presence in Russia.\n\nThe arrival of big Western companies symbolised the start of a new era with Russians becoming eager consumers of brands ranging from fast-food chain McDonalds to Levi jeans and luxury goods.\n\nNow, in the wake of President Putin's invasion of Ukraine, a growing number of firms have suspended activities in Russia.\n\nSo which firms, in which sectors, are exiting and why have others held back?\n\nMcDonald's, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Heineken are the latest companies to announce they are halting business in Russia after mounting pressure to act.\n\nMcDonald's said it was temporarily closing its roughly 850 restaurants in Russia, while Starbucks also said its 100 coffee shops would shut.\n\nThe firms were initially remained tight lipped over the conflict, but took action because shareholders \"wouldn't stand\" for the continued generation of profits from Russia, says Anna MacDonald, a fund manager at Amati Global Investors.\n\n\"It was affecting their share prices and the feeling was that it was just utterly inappropriate to continue to do so,\" she told the BBC.\n\nPepsi, which has a much larger presence in Russia than rival Coca-Cola, said it was halting the production and sale of Pepsi and other global brands in Russia, but the company, which employs 20,000 people there, said it would continue to offer other products.\n\nFood companies Nestle, Mondelez, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have halted investment in Russia, but said they would continue providing essentials.\n\nBritish American Tobacco has announced it plans to sell its business in Russia due to it being \"no longer sustainable in the current environment\".\n\nThe world's biggest cosmetics firm L'Oreal and rival Estee Lauder are both closing shops and ceasing online sales. Estee Lauder, whose brands include Michael Kors, DKNY, Clinique and Bobbi Brown, has had a presence in the country for about 30 years and Russia was where it had some of its strongest sales.\n\nIn fact, Russia was the fifth largest European retail market globally last year, valued at £337.2bn. So some brands may not want to burn their bridges, if there's a chance of returning at a later date.\n\nThat is why many firms, including other luxury retailers like Burberry and Chanel, simply say they are \"suspending\" sales and temporarily shutting stores rather than withdrawing altogether, says Chris Weafer, chief executive of consulting firm Macro-advisory Limited.\n\nWith sanctions limiting forms of payment and huge uncertainty over future prices and consumer appetite, the business climate is \"extremely challenging\" he adds, making the decision to hit pause easier.\n\nThe world's biggest fashion retailers H&M and Zara-owner Inditex, which has 502 stores in the country, for example have already suspended sales in Russia, citing \"tragic developments\" in Ukraine. Other brands like Nike have simply said they can't currently guarantee delivery of goods to customers in Russia.\n\nMore brands are likely to follow suit, according to Maureen Hinton of retail consultancy GlobalData. Boohoo, Swedish furniture giant Ikea and Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo which initially kept its 49 Russian stores open, saying clothes were a \"necessity of life\", are some of the other names to have now cut ties.\n\nEven Levi's, the jeans brand that became a symbol of post-Soviet business in Russia, has closed its shops. The all-American jeans firm said about 4% of its total net sales came from Eastern Europe and Russia last year, but \"any business considerations are clearly secondary to the human suffering experienced by so many\".\n\nSamsung, the leading supplier of smartphones in Russia, has said it will suspend shipments to the country but has not said whether its shops will close.\n\nJapan's Sony and Nintendo suspended deliveries of gaming consoles, and Sony suspended the launch of racing game \"Gran Turismo 7\".\n\nApple has also halted all of its product sales in Russia, and limited other services such as Apple Pay and Apple Maps. Its shops have closed too.\n\nAll shops under the Re:store in Moscow have been shut as Apple halts all product sales in Russia\n\nFor a firm like Apple selling imported items, that's a relatively straightforward decision to take, suggests Macro-advisory's Chris Weafer.\n\n\"Companies do not want to be associated with the Russian regime and what's happening in Ukraine,\" he says. Their Russian business may be profitable, but \"the rest of the world is more important\" when it comes to reputational risk.\n\nSome tech companies, flooded by misinformation, are also restricting Kremlin-linked media outlets posting on their platforms. Facebook was blocked in Russia after it said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.\n\nMeanwhile, TikTok has blocked all non-Russian content in Russia and suspended live streaming, although it is allowing historical content uploaded by domestic accounts to stay online, including videos by state-backed media services.\n\nLarge consultancy and law firms were some of the first to set up a presence in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union but they mostly operate out of the spotlight.\n\nAll of the Big Four accounting groups - Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - have said they will no longer have a member firm in Russia because of the invasion. Top-tier law firm Freshfields says it will no longer work with any clients linked to the Russian state either.\n\nOthers say they are reviewing their client base and Russian links.\n\nA senior executive for consultancy firm McKinsey, for example, wrote online that the company would \"no longer serve\" any government or state-owned entities in Russia. According to McKinsey's website, it serves 21 of the 30 biggest Russian companies.\n\nWhen the conflict in Ukraine broke out, energy firms came under immediate pressure. And that is set to intensify now the UK, US and UK have announced bans or curbs on Russian oil and gas.\n\nBP owns a large stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft, but within days of the war starting it had announced the operation would be hived off.\n\nThat was closely followed by pledges from Shell, ExxonMobil and Equinor to cut their Russian investments following pressure from shareholders, as well as from governments and the public.\n\nA Rosneft oil rig drilling the first exploration well in the Khatanga Bay, Russia\n\nFirms want to be seen to be doing the \"right thing\", says Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.\n\nMeanwhile, Total Energies, another big player in Russia, has said it won't fund new projects in the country, but unlike its peers does not plan to sell existing investments.\n\nIt is still far from clear what will happen to those investments - whether they can eventually be sold, recouping some of their value, or if they will simply be written off at great cost.\n\nFilm fans in Russia wanting to go and see Warner Bros' new blockbuster The Batman won't be able to after the company suspended new film releases in the country.\n\nThe US movie-maker was joined by Disney and Sony, with premieres of animation Turning Red and Marvel adaptation Morbius also being withdrawn. Disney has also paused its TV channels.\n\nNetflix, a fairly new entrant in Russia, has suspended its service in the country and put all \"future projects\" on pause.\n\nPixar's new animated film Turning Red won't be released in Russia\n\nAll companies said their decisions were based on the \"humanitarian crisis\" in Ukraine, rather than as a result of sanctions that have been imposed.\n\nAll three of the world's major record labels - Sony, Warner and Universal - have closed their offices in Russia, and Spotify has announced it is cancelling its subscription service, although the free, ad-funded version will still work.\n\nPayment giants Visa, Mastercard, American Express and PayPal are pulling out of the Russian market in protest.\n\nRussian banks have, however, already downplayed the impact of the announcements on their clients.\n\nSberbank, for example, said that Visa and Mastercard-branded cards would continue to work on Russian territory because all payments in Russia are made through a national system.\n\nHowever, domestically issued cards won't work abroad, and foreign-issued ones won't work inside the country.\n\nUS investment bank Goldman Sachs was the first Wall Street bank to say it was winding down its Russian business. The bank, soon followed by JPMorgan, said it was doing so in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements.\n\nGerman lender Deutsche Bank, which had faced criticism for defending plans not to withdraw, has also said it was taking steps to exit, pledging \"there won't be any new business in Russia\".\n\nJaguar Land Rover, General Motors, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce are among the car-makers that have halted deliveries of vehicles to Russia due to the conflict, while construction equipment manufacturer JCB has paused all operations.\n\nJaguar Land Rover said sales were paused due to \"trading challenges\"\n\nCars are the biggest UK export to Russia, but still only 1% of UK cars went to Russia last year.\n\nSo any decision to stop exporting won't be particularly costly, and will have been made easier by nagging concerns over whether or not payments will arrive, says investment analyst Russ Mould.\n\nTransporting cars to Russia could prove difficult anyway, with the world's two largest cargo shipping companies, MSC and Maersk, suspending routes to and from Russia, except for food, medical and humanitarian supply deliveries.\n\nWhile the flood of announcements from companies stepping back goes on, there are calls for more to join them.\n\nAttention has turned to big food firms like Burger King who have condemned Russia's actions and have pledged support for Ukraine, but are yet to pull out.\n\nSome firms will also find it much harder to extricate themselves, even if pressure mounts in the coming days and weeks.\n\nIn retaliation against sanctions introduced by Western countries, Moscow has banned the sale of Russian assets. So firms that, in recent years, have been encouraged to establish a presence in Russia are \"locked in\" with local businesses, staff and supply chains.\n\nMarks & Spencer, for example, has 48 shops in Russia but they are operated by a Turkish franchise company called FiBA. M&S has said it is suspending shipments of its goods to FiBA's Russian business, but the shops in the country remain open.\n\nRestaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, told the BBC its Russian outlets were operated by franchisees with which it had \"long-standing legal agreements\" that were not easy to change.\n\nYum Brands, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, said it was suspending operations in the Russian KFC restaurants it owns, and finalising an agreement with its main franchisee to temporarily halt Pizza Hut operations.\n\nMr Weafer predicts it is likely that some large consumer brands may express concerns over the military conflict, but try to \"ride it out\".", "Anthony Russell had admitted the three murders, but denied rape\n\nA triple killer has been found guilty of the rape of his final victim, who was five months pregnant.\n\nAnthony Russell, 39, has previously admitted the murders of Julie Williams, her son David Williams and 31-year-old Nicole McGregor, whose body was found in woodland near Leamington Spa.\n\nThe jury heard he had assaulted Ms McGregor just hours after she showed him a picture of her baby scan.\n\nRussell is due to be sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on Friday.\n\nFollowing the verdict on Thursday, Police described Russell as an \"evil\" and extremely dangerous individual, and said the \"violent series of killings\" had taken place over a week in October 2020.\n\nPolice said there was no known link between Russell and Nicole McGregor\n\nWest Midlands Police said it believed Mr Williams, 32, was killed on 21 October due to Russell's \"mistaken belief that he was in a relationship with his girlfriend\".\n\nWhen Russell then went to speak to Julie Williams about her son's disappearance, Det Supt Shaun Edwards said officers suspected \"he confessed to David's killing\" and \"then killed Julie to stop her from speaking to the police\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRussell, of Riley Square, Coventry, strangled Mr Williams with a lanyard and left the body under his bed, where it was found by police five days later, covered in 87 injuries.\n\nHe then strangled Mr Williams' mother on 25 October, in an attack that saw the 58-year-old hit five times on the head and neck, prosecutors said. She had 113 separate injuries.\n\nHowever, there was \"no known link\" between the killer and Ms McGregor, Det Supt Edwards said.\n\nJulie Williams and her son, David Williams, were found dead at separate addresses\n\nProsecutor Zoe Johnson QC said: \"Just three hours after meeting the defendant it appears that Nicole has agreed to walk with the defendant into Newbold Comyn.\n\n\"We suggest that the defendant lured Nicole on to the Comyn, not for sex but more likely for drugs.\"\n\nAfter the murder, heroin user Russell pretended to help Ms McGregor's partner look for her.\n\nFollowing her disappearance, the court heard he had told her partner, the baby's father: \"I bet you can't wait for it to be born\" - knowing he had raped and killed her.\n\nStrangled on 26 October, Ms McGregor's body was found three days later.\n\nThe killer was eventually the subject of a national manhunt and fled Leamington by stealing a car from a 78-year-old man.\n\nRussell rang the pensioner's doorbell asking for directions, the court heard, and when the victim was distracted, he hit him over the head from behind with a brick, leaving him with a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain.\n\nHe was arrested on 30 October after police spotted the stolen Ford C-Max parked on a road near Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, and found Russell on the back seat.\n\nHe was unanimously found guilty of rape after a retrial at Warwick Crown Court.\n\nFollow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Petrol prices have risen above £1.60 a litre on average for the first time as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to affect the cost of oil worldwide.\n\nUnleaded petrol hit £1.61 a litre on Thursday, having risen by 8p in a week, while diesel reached £1.70 a litre.\n\nThe RAC said wholesale fuel costs had dropped for two days in a row, but warned prices at the pump are set to remain high for some time.\n\nThe rise in fuel costs has led to a squeeze on margins for businesses.\n\nNorth East Coach Travel, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, warned it could end up running its services at a loss.\n\nJenna Rush, the firm's managing director, said most of its bookings were agreed last year and did not take into account such a sharp rise in costs sparked by the economic fallout from the Ukraine war.\n\n\"It's just awful, it's a very, very stressful time,\" Ms Rush told the BBC's Today programme.\n\n\"We tendered as far back as last year for this type of work, no one envisaged that the fuel prices would increase as much as they have.\n\n\"At the moment we're scared that we are going to be running at a loss when it keeps increasing.\"\n\nMs Rush warned the rising costs could lead to some operators pulling out of contracts.\n\nShe said the company was trying to renegotiate prices with customers, but added it was proving \"very, very difficult\".\n\n\"The profit margins are too small that we just can't absorb them costs ourselves, not coming off the back of Covid anyway. It's been a very hard two years. We've been beginning to see the green shoots of recovery coming through but now this is just another kick in the teeth.\"\n\nThe RAC motoring group said it was costing over £88 on average to fill up a car with petrol.\n\nIt called on the government to reduce VAT on fuel, which it said added 28p on the cost of petrol or diesel per litre.\n\nFuel prices have been rising amid fears of a global economic shock from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOil prices are mainly determined by the price of crude oil and the dollar exchange rate, as agreements are made in dollars.\n\nRussia is the third largest oil exporter and some Western countries, for example the US and Canada, decided to halt imports from the country in response to Russia's actions. It means demand for oil from other producers has increased, leading to increased prices.\n\nAt one point Brent crude - the global benchmark for oil prices - jumped to $139 a barrel, the highest level for almost 14 years.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, so is not as dependent on Russia for the commodity supply as other European countries are and has said it plans to phase it out.\n\nIt is, however, affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nBut early on Friday the price of Brent crude was on track for its biggest weekly drop since November and was trading at about $107.\n\nThe drop in price is party due to reduced fears of a European ban on Russian oil, and partly due to speculation that extra supplies could come onto the market from Iran, Venezuela and the UAE.\n\nYet higher prices at the pumps are likely to remain in the coming weeks, due to the way retailers buy the fuel, Simon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC said.\n\n\"There is a real hope that these prices will filter through,\" he said. \"We would really hope these drops will take some of the heat out of the rising prices so we won't have records set on a daily basis.\"\n\nBut Mr Williams said there was a concern retailers might be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of \"catching a cold\" if wholesale costs jump back up again.\n\nIt means for the time being, firms such as North East Coach Travel will have to continue to bare the brunt of higher fuel prices.\n\n\"This could be the straw that breaks the camel's back with some operators where they just hand the contracts back and say, 'I'm done, I can't continue anymore',\" said Ms Rush.\n\n\"People are already stressing about how they're going to manage themselves with filling their own car up, paying their own gas and electric that's increasing at home. How are they going to keep managing to pay out for further things?\"\n\nThe UK is experiencing rising prices for energy, food as well as fuel as the economy recovers from the pandemic, and some expect the inflation rate to reach 8% later this year.", "The app collated and analysed the symptoms of Covid\n\nAn app that was widely used to track the symptoms of Covid will not have its government funding renewed as the UK adapts to living with the disease.\n\nCo-founder of the Zoe Covid study app, Prof Tim Spector, labelled the decision \"a really bad mistake\".\n\nThe app had received more than £5m in grants from the UK's Health Security Agency (UKHSA).\n\nThe UKHSA said it would continue to monitor Covid-19 \"through our world-leading studies and many data sources\".\n\nThe Zoe app offered a new way to track diseases, with users inputting symptoms and experts analysing the data.\n\nIt was launched in March 2020 and over the next two years the app, developed by King's College London and technology company Zoe, helped discover new symptoms of Covid.\n\nIt also reported on the effects of vaccines and provided up-to-date predictions about the spread of the pandemic.\n\nWith 4.7 million users and 850,000 daily contributors, recording more than 480 million health reports, the app was part of one of the largest studies of its kind in the world and led to 40 peer-reviewed scientific papers based on the findings.\n\nThe app was one of the first to show that a loss of smell was a Covid symptom\n\nIn a statement posted on YouTube, epidemiologist Prof Spector said: \"The UK government has informed us with just a few weeks' notice that we will no longer be receiving funding from them in order to track Covid or help us develop the study further to look at other things, such as heart disease, cancer or dementia.\n\n\"This is really disappointing. Only a few weeks ago they told me it was virtually certain they would continue to fund us.\n\n\"We have shown how effective our methods can be.\"\n\nProf Spector said it was relatively cheap to run compared with other methods for tracking diseases.\n\n\"We strongly believe that this is a really bad mistake. Zoe could have been the tool that protects the UK from the next pandemic and saves the NHS millions as we try to find ways to prevent major diseases.\"\n\nProf Spector said the app also had a use beyond Covid - as a \"health surveillance tool\" for many diseases.\n\nThe future of the app is uncertain. It will be funded in the short term by the co-founders, and Prof Spector remains hopeful the government might change its mind.\n\nHe appealed on Twitter to those who used the app and saw its value to email the health security agency.\n\nIn a statement the UKHSA said: \"Due to the reduction in serious illness and deaths from Covid-19 we begin a new phase of living with the virus.\n\n\"We thank all participants for supporting our surveillance work during the most demanding public health crisis in living memory.\"\n• None How many have Covid right now? This may be the best guess", "England in West Indies: Zak Crawley hits hundred as tourists dominate day four in Antigua Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nCrawley's hundred is his second in 19 Tests and first since 2020 Zak Crawley hit his second Test hundred as England dominated West Indies on day four of the first Test to set up an outside chance of victory. Crawley capitalised on a lifeless Antigua pitch to make an unbeaten 117, while captain Joe Root reached 84 not out at the close. Having started the day behind the game and in the field, England were 217-1, leading by 153 runs, when rain brought an early finish. Earlier they took just three deliveries to claim the final West Indies wicket as the hosts were dismissed for 375 with a first-innings lead of 64. But, despite the early loss of debutant Alex Lees for six, Crawley and Root wiped out the deficit and batted England into the ascendancy with a mammoth unbeaten stand of 193. The tourists, who have struggled for large parts of the Test, now look the more likely side to win. However, the placid nature of pitch means any quest to bowl out West Indies on the final day will be a struggle. In this three-match series, England are bidding to improve on a dreadful run which has seen them win just one of 14 Tests. The pitch is very helpful to batting and the opposition modest but this day revealed a hint of what England will hope for during this much-talked about red-ball reset. What little danger there is in the surface - just a hint of uneven bounce - was neutered by 24-year-old Crawley and Root, 31, and afterwards they progressed calmly with ease. The West Indies attack, without any express pace or world-class spin, was as blunted as England's had been across the previous two days. Crawley and Root began to up their scoring late on, with England starting to look to set up a declaration. The only wickets to fall all day were Jack Leach's lbw dismissal of West Indies number 11 Jayden Seales and the fall of Lees, who, as in the first innings, went lbw missing a straight ball from round the wicket by seamer Kemar Roach. That suggests the draw is by far the most likely result. The rain late on did not help England's cause, in taking time out of the game. There were 22 innings between Crawley's two Test hundreds Crawley's classy knock is significant in the Test but even more so for England's future in this format. Root's side are in desperate need of a settled top-order and this knock will secure the Kent opener's place for a long period. Crawley dazzled when making his first Test hundred, a stunning 267 against Pakistan in 2020. This was a more measured knock where he clipped the ball smartly off his pads. It could have been different - Crawley was given out lbw on nought but overturned the poor decision on review, with the ball comfortably missing leg. But with his captain a steady presence alongside him, Crawley did not offer another chance all day. The right-hander had a barren spell after his maiden ton which led to him being dropped last year when averaging 11.14 across seven Tests. Now, having regained his place in the third Ashes Test in December and impressing with 77 against Australia a game later, England will hope that that poor run is behind him. 'We'll have a good go' at the win - reaction England's Zak Crawley, speaking to BT Sport: \"It's a very special feeling. It was tough year last year, I didn't think I would get this opportunity again. \"We certainly want to try and win it tomorrow, we'll have a good go in the morning, then try and bowl them out.\" BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"It was certainly England's day. They began it under a lot of pressure having to try and make sure they weren't bowled out cheaply, To finish with a lead of 153 is a very good effort. \"Both batsmen played very well. It was the sort of innings you want to see from Crawley, very patient. Root, as usual, was his busy self, albeit under strangulated conditions.\"\n• None A gruelling look at 'The Dragon's Back' challenge\n• None Is this it for Villanelle and Eve? Watch the thrilling new series of Killing Eve now", "A volunteer from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group paints a heart on the National Covid Memorial Wall opposite the Palace of Westminster in central London\n\nThe draft terms of reference for the UK public inquiry into the government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic have been published.\n\nIt will look at preparedness, the public health response, the health and care sector response and the economic response, the Cabinet Office said.\n\nThe probe will play a key role in \"learning lessons\" from the pandemic and for the future, it said.\n\nThe inquiry is due to start in the spring.\n\nThe terms of reference were published after a consultation with inquiry chairwoman and former High Court judge Baroness Hallett, and with ministers in the devolved nations.\n\nRepresentatives of the inquiry will travel to towns and cities across the UK in the coming weeks to meet with people impacted by the pandemic and hear their views on what should be investigated.\n\nThe Scottish government has already published the terms of reference for its own Covid-19 inquiry, to be led by Judge Lady Poole.\n\nThe inquiry aims to produce \"a factual, narrative account\" covering decision-making at all levels of government and the response of the health and care sector as well as identifying the \"lessons to be learned\".\n\nThe draft document said the inquiry would \"produce its reports (including interim reports) and any recommendations in a timely manner\".\n\nIn the UK, more than 162,000 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.\n\nThe Cabinet Office said the UK-wide inquiry would \"reflect the importance of understanding the experiences of those most affected by the pandemic\" such as bereaved families and examine any \"disparities\" in the impact of the pandemic and the government's response.\n\nIt said there would now be a further public consultation led by Baroness Hallett to consider any changes to the terms before they are finalised.\n\nBaroness Hallett said she would open the public consultation into the scope of the inquiry, which will run until 7 April.\n\nIn a statement, she reiterated it was independent and urged people across the UK to share their views on what it should cover, especially those \"who have been bereaved, experienced hardship or suffered other harm\".\n\nBecky Kummer, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said the publication was a \"huge step forward\" and the organisation looked forward to contributing to the consultation on the terms.\n\nChris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said there was much the NHS did well during the pandemic but: \"It is right the inquiry looks at areas where there were major challenges - such as infection prevention and control, access to PPE, testing, and robust epidemiological modelling.\"\n\nHe said trust leaders welcomed the inquiry covering \"the nation's preparedness, initial capacity, and resilience ahead of, and during the pandemic, and the important focus on inequalities\".\n\nEmma Norris, director of research at the Institute for Government think tank, said on Twitter the inquiry's \"huge remit\" had \"likely implications for the length and timeliness of the inquiry\", adding: \"A wide scope usually means a longer inquiry.\"\n\nTo avoid a lengthy inquiry, she said a large team would be needed to probe different issues concurrently, but that the mention of interim reports was \"positive\".\n\nBarrister and Covid lockdown regulations expert Adam Wagner also said on first look, the draft terms of reference appeared to be \"very wide\".\n\nIn a Twitter thread, he said they failed to mention explicitly the policing of the pandemic, the government's hotel quarantine policy for people arriving in the UK from abroad and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on human rights.\n\nHe said these elements would \"hopefully\" be covered by the items \"the use of lockdowns\" and \"travel and borders\".\n\nAs the terms stand, he predicted it would be \"a massive, long and difficult\" inquiry with \"many strands and elements\".\n\nSeveral reports have already put the UK government's handling of the pandemic under the spotlight.\n\nA report by MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee last October said the UK's failure to do more to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic was one of the country's worst public health failures.\n\nIt said the government approach - backed by its scientists - was to try to manage the situation and in effect achieve herd immunity by infection.\n\nThe MPs said this led to a delay in introducing the first lockdown, costing thousands of lives.\n\nA report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) last November found ministers were not properly prepared for a pandemic like Covid-19 and lacked detailed plans on shielding, job support schemes and school disruption.\n\nThe government said the unprecedented pandemic had challenged health systems around the world - not just the UK.", "Evgeny Lebedev is the owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers\n\nRussian-British businessman Evgeny Lebedev has denied posing a \"security risk\" to the UK, declaring \"I am not some agent of Russia\" in an article.\n\nIt follows reports that the security services had raised concerns about him being made a peer in 2020.\n\nWriting in the London Evening Standard, which he owns, Lord Lebedev said he had \"no option but to respond\".\n\nHe said it was \"crucial we do not descend into Russophobia\" during the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe UK government has been ratcheting up sanctions against individuals and companies linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin since his invasion of Ukraine was launched on 24 February.\n\nSeven oligarchs including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and 386 Russian MPs were among the latest to be sanctioned by the UK.\n\nIn this climate, some people with ties to Russia are coming under closer scrutiny in the UK as the war in Ukraine escalates.\n\nLast week, the Sunday Times reported that in March 2020, the commission that vets peerage appointments advised Prime Minister Boris Johnson against granting Mr Lebedev a seat in the House of Lords on security grounds.\n\nThe newspaper said the assessment was withdrawn after Mr Johnson - a long-time friend of Lord Lebedev - personally intervened.\n\nThe commission can advise but has no veto over peerage appointments, which are ultimately decided by prime minsters and formalised by the Queen.\n\nAsked at prime minister's questions this week, if he had \"overruled\" security service advice, Boris Johnson said \"no\".\n\nLord Lebedev, the owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers, was given a peerage in July 2020, for philanthropy and services to the media, after being nominated by Mr Johnson.\n\nBoris Johnson with his sister Rachel and Lord Lebedev at an Evening Standard party in 2012\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee to investigate the appointment, calling it a \"matter of national security\".\n\nBut in his article on Friday, Lord Lebedev, who holds both Russian and British citizenship, said \"I am not a security risk to this country, which I love\".\n\nThe son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer, he came to London at the age of eight when his father began working in the Soviet embassy.\n\nIn his article, Lord Lebedev said he was educated in the UK and was \"proud to be a British citizen and consider Britain my home\".\n\nHe acknowledged his father \"was a foreign intelligence agent of the KGB, but I am not some agent of Russia\".\n\nHe said his father \"spent his time campaigning against corruption and illegal financial dealings\" and his family \"has a record of standing up for press freedom\" in Russia.\n\nHaving a Russian name, he said, \"does not automatically make one an enemy of the state\".\n\n\"It is crucial we do not descend into Russophobia, like any other phobia, bigotry or discrimination,\" he added.\n\nThe article is the second Lord Lebedev has published in the Evening Standard since the war in Ukraine started.\n\nAt the end of February, he wrote a letter to Mr Putin, in which he urged the Russian president to \"bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end\".", "Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for foreign volunteers to be able to fight against Ukrainian forces.\n\nSpeaking at a Russian security council meeting, he said those who wanted to volunteer to fight with Russia-backed forces should be allowed to.\n\nRussian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces.\n\nUS officials said these could include Syrians skilled in urban combat.\n\nMoscow is a long-standing ally of Syria and Mr Putin has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's civil war.\n\n\"If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,\" Mr Putin told his defence minister.\n\nMr Shoigu also proposed handing over captured Western anti-tank missile systems to Russian-backed rebel fighters in the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.\n\n\"Please do this,\" Mr Putin said.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, responding in a video message, said \"thugs from Syria\" would be coming to kill people \"in a foreign land\".\n\nForeign fighters, including former and current British army personnel, have also been arriving in Ukraine to fight for the government in Kyiv.\n\nMr Zelensky said recently that 16,000 foreigners had volunteered for the cause, part of what he called an \"international legion\".\n\nCharles Lister, an analyst with the US-based Middle East Institute, questioned how useful any Syrian forces would be to Mr Putin.\n\n\"If [President] Assad's regime begins sending troops to Ukraine, they'll be no more than cannon fodder in a battle and environment that's completely alien to them,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nThere was no evidence of any actual recruitment of Syrians having taken place, he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Parham Ghobadi meets some of the foreign men hoping to help defend Ukraine from the Russian attack\n\nThe televised security council meeting move came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country:\n\nAccording to the Wall Street Journal, US officials have told the paper that Russia has recently been recruiting fighters from Syria, hoping their expertise in urban warfare can help take Kyiv and deal a devastating blow to the Ukraine government.\n\nAt the same time, US private security firms have been seeking to recruit former soldiers to help evacuate people from Ukraine.", "A pregnant woman photographed escaping from the wreckage of a hospital bombed by Russia has given birth to a daughter, reports say.\n\nThe image of heavily-pregnant Mariana Vishegirskaya, her face bloodied, descending rubble-strewn steps was widely shared amid outrage at the attack, which killed three people.\n\nShe gave birth the following day, her niece in Turkey told local media.\n\nUkraine's ambassador to the UN said the baby had been named Veronika.\n\nSergiy Kyslytsya, who held up a picture of Ms Vishegirskaya and her newborn daughter during remarks at the UN, hit out at \"Russian lies\" about her in the aftermath of the attack.\n\nMs Vishegirskaya became the subject of a Russian disinformation campaign after the bombing.\n\nThe Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a conspiracy theory that Ms Vishegirskaya was an actress and the aftermath of the attack had been staged.\n\nHowever, the BBC's disinformation team found evidence which contradicted the unfounded claims, including that she had somehow pretended to be several women photographed at the scene.\n\nTwitter later removed the Russian embassy's tweets, saying they violated rules \"related to the denial of violent events\".\n\nFurther claims circulating online suggested that Ms Vishegirskaya was not even pregnant. However, the beauty blogger revealed she was pregnant in January to her followers - weeks before the invasion - and later asked them if whether they thought she would have a girl or a boy.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by gixie_beauty This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Kyslytsya produced the photo of Ms Vishegirskaya on Friday afternoon, telling those assembled he wanted to share \"very good news\".\n\n\"Miss Mariana, the pregnant woman gave birth to a healthy daughter last night. Her name is Veronika. Here she is with her father. No matter what the Russian lies are about herself, her family, and the incident,\" he said.\n\nHe also said that more than 1,500 civilians had been killed by Russia in Mariupol, which has been without water or electricity for days after being surrounded by Russian forces and where several attempts to establish evacuation corridors had failed. Ukraine has said three people, including a child, had been killed in the hospital strike alone.\n\n\"For the first time since World War Two people are being buried in mass graves in Ukrainian cities,\" Mr Kyslytsya said.\n\nNumerous tech companies have begun blocking Russian state media channels in an attempt to tackle disinformation.\n\nOn Friday, YouTube became the latest tech giant to block channels associated with Russian state-funded media. The video streaming service said it had a policy \"prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events\".", "Mr Ross wrote to the 1922 committee calling for a leadership contest after saying Mr Johnson's position was untenable\n\nScottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has withdrawn his call for Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister.\n\nMr Ross had written to the party's 1922 committee in a bid to trigger a leadership contest amid the row over Downing Street parties during lockdown.\n\nHowever he said this should now be \"put on pause while there is war in Europe\".\n\nMr Ross - who is both an MP and MSP - has withdrawn his letter, saying it was essential to fully support the UK government's efforts over Ukraine.\n\nIt was confirmed earlier on Thursday that Mr Johnson will attend the Scottish Conservative conference, which is being held in Aberdeen on 18 and 19 March.\n\nThe party said it would welcome the prime minister in person to give a speech about the war in Ukraine.\n\nMr Ross called for the prime minister's resignation in January, saying Mr Johnson's position was \"no longer tenable\" after he admitted attending a Downing Street party during the Covid-19 lockdown.,\n\nHe was later dismissed as being \"quite a lightweight figure\" by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons.\n\nMr Johnson had said he thought the May 2020 gathering was \"technically within the rules\", and that he had \"believed implicitly that it was a work event\".\n\nHowever he is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police, and submitted a questionnaire about his involvement to officers - which has the same status as information given as an interview under caution.\n\nMr Ross was backed in his position by almost all of the party's MSPs, and doubled down later in January by saying he would not be changing his mind.\n\nHowever he has now said that \"the middle of an international crisis is not the time to be discussing resignations\".\n\nHe added: \"There will be a time and place to debate partygate but, as even Keir Starmer said at the weekend, we should put that on pause while there is war in Europe.\n\n\"It's essential that we all fully support what the UK Government is doing. In light of Russia's appalling actions, the government and Prime Minister need our backing, and they have mine and the whole Scottish Conservative party.\"\n\nOther parties were critical of the move, with Labour leader Anas Sarwar saying Mr Ross \"should not be using the Ukraine crisis to go back on his principles\" and Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie saying the Tory leader had \"the backbone of a jellyfish\".\n\nAnd SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford - who had earlier denied rumours he was thinking of quitting his own post - said it was \"an utterly humiliating u-turn for Douglas Ross\".\n\nHe said Mr Ross had \"ended up catastrophically undermining his own position\" and was \"no doubt on borrowed time\".\n\nIt was earlier confirmed that Mr Johnson will attend the Scottish Tory conference later in March.\n\nThere is another Conservative conference in Blackpool on the same dates, which meant it was thought Mr Johnson would appear in Aberdeen via a video link or in a pre-recorded message.\n\nHowever the party said it would be welcoming him \"in person to speak about the war in Ukraine\".", "The scene in Melitopol. \"We have not stopped protesting,\" one resident said\n\nIn the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.\n\nHe told his followers that the Russian forces occupying the city had now taken control of the city's communications network, so they needed to be wary of what they heard on TV and the radio.\n\nHow many people would see his warning, he didn't know. Melitopol's internet connection had also all but disappeared, making it nearly impossible to reach people inside by WhatsApp or Telegram call, or stay connected for more than a few minutes.\n\nThe ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. \"We cannot use,\" he said. \"Too easy for the Russians to listen in.\"\n\nWhen the invading forces took control of Melitopol a week ago they ransacked the mayor's offices, Federov said, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Federov said emphatically. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is liberating historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.\n\nRussian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine\n\n\"There are protests in Melitopol every day,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, 33, who before the invasion helped run her family business of electronics stores.\n\n\"At some point the Russian army started shooting at us and one man got shot but we have not stopped protesting,\" Kovaliova said. \"We are not afraid to protest because we are together. We are afraid to walk alone at night, but we are not afraid to protest.\"\n\nAbout 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.\n\n\"I don't know how to count the number of people protesting, I thought it was 2,000 at least,\" said Yunona, a 29-year-old IT worker in the southern city of Kherson. \"One of our friends was beaten and taken by the Russian soldiers and people got so angry they chased the occupiers down the street and took him back.\"\n\nThe Russian troops in Kherson looked young and uncertain, said Olha, a 63-year-old English teacher. \"We go to the protests every day and they are close to us but they look afraid,\" she said. \"We are all just waiting for the Ukrainian army to kick them out.\"\n\nBerdyansk in the south-east has also seen protestors take to the streets\n\nReports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.\n\n\"Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,\" said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. \"I have asked them - please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.\"\n\nVadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors - non-fatally - and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.\n\nNovopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.\n\n\"A new 'administration' has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose\n\nGaev and his team left town when Russia seized Novopskov, in order to keep his administration running - a move he said had divided residents, some of whom accused him of a betrayal while others said they were grateful he was still able to work.\n\nTwo residents of Kherson told the BBC they thought the mayor there had betrayed the city by co-operating with Russian forces - an accusation circulating in Telegram chat groups. Two others said he was simply doing what he could to ensure the city kept running.\n\nThe mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, told the BBC: \"If I had betrayed the city would I still be here? I am in the office every day, working with my team to keep things running.\"\n\nThe priority was to restart food production and get people back to work, Kolykhayev said.\n\n\"We are running out of food and there is no aid coming in, it's just not happening,\" he said. \"So we are telling everyone in the city: make any food you can make, manufacture anything you can manufacture.\"\n\nMost residents who spoke to the BBC from the occupied cities said food was fast running out.\n\n\"Shops are almost empty. You can buy the things that are left but very few things are left,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, the electronics shop owner from Melitopol. \"Pharmacies are empty and my mother can't buy her heart medicine.\"\n\nKovaliova said that two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said.\n\n\"Later we saw on it on TV. Russia has taken over the TV towers here so we only have one Russian channel being shown now and it was showing people taking the food and saying how thankful they are to the Russian humanitarian convoy.\"\n\nMaxim, a 22-year-old piano teacher in the city, also described the supposed humanitarian convoy. \"They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,\" he said. Yunona, the IT worker in Kherson, said she saw the same thing there, and Ukrainian media reported on the phenomenon in Berdyansk.\n\nIvan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these 'humanitarian convoys' too. But there were \"no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,\" he said.\n\n\"They could open humanitarian corridors at any time to allow food and medicine in, but they do not want to. We know, we have tried.\"\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, as usual, Federov put out his daily Facebook update, appealing to anyone in the city who could afford it to pay their utility bills and congratulating Ukraine's women on International Women's Day. \"I'm sure the war will end soon and we will celebrate all our holidays in a peaceful, Ukrainian Melitopol,\" he said.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Sections of a 40-mile Russian military convoy have been modelled in a 3D video using satellite imagery.\n\nFollow its path from above, showing its scope and magnitude, by watching this video.\n\nThis video has no sound", "Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government as part of its response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHe is one of seven oligarchs to be hit with fresh sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans.\n\nThe list also includes billionaires Igor Sechin and Oleg Deripaska, both seen as allies of Vladimir Putin.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said \"there can be no safe havens\" for those who have supported the invasion.\n\nChelsea FC cannot sell any more tickets for games, its merchandise shop will be closed, and it will be unable to buy or sell players on the transfer market.\n\nThe government said it would issue a special licence that allows fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches.\n\nMinisters have come under pressure to sanction Mr Abramovich, who said he had made the \"difficult decision\" to sell Chelsea FC earlier this month.\n\nThe football club is among the assets frozen as part of the sanctions against Mr Abramovich and its sale has now been stalled.\n\nRoman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin pictured together at an event in Russia in 2016\n\nBut the BBC understands the government would consider allowing Mr Abramovich to apply for a special licence to sell the club, providing he can prove he would not benefit from the sale.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nThe government says Mr Abramovich, who has an estimated net worth of £9.4bn, is \"one of the few oligarchs from the 1990s to maintain prominence under Putin\".\n\nMr Abramovich has stakes in steel giant Evraz and Norilsk Nickel. He sold a 73% stake in Russian oil firm Sibneft to state-owned gas titan Gazprom for £9.87bn in 2005.\n\nHe is believed to own a number of properties in the UK, including a 15-bedroom mansion at Kensington Palace Gardens in west London, reportedly valued at more than £150m.\n\nWhile the sanctions against him throw Chelsea's future in doubt, ministers sought to reassure the club it would not be \"unnecessarily harmed\".\n\nIn a tweet, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said holding those who have \"enabled the Putin regime to account\" was the priority.\n\n\"I know this brings some uncertainty, but the government will work with the league and clubs to keep football being played while ensuring sanctions hit those intended,\" she wrote.\n\nWhen asked if being unable to sell tickets and merchandise would hit Chelsea's finances, the culture secretary said: \"Sanctions have consequences and that's a fact.\"\n\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan expressed support for the government's actions but said Chelsea fans were \"completely innocent\" and that it was important to ensure the club was not \"sold off in a fire sale\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Nadine Dorries says her focus is to protect Chelsea FC, its fans and the \"national game\"\n\nTelecommunications company Three, said it would temporarily suspend its sponsorship of the club and would \"request the removal of our brand from shirts and around the stadium until further notice\".\n\nChelsea has enjoyed major success since Mr Abramovich bought the club in 2003 for £140m, winning major titles including the Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup.\n\nThe club's fans were heard chanting Mr Abramovich's name during a match against Norwich on Thursday evening.\n\nMr Abramovich has previously said that proceeds of the club's sale would be donated to victims of war.\n\nOn Wednesday, there were 20 credible interested parties looking at a potential Chelsea takeover, including British businessman Nick Candy.\n\nLike all the Russian billionaires who still run businesses in their motherland, Roman Abramovich has had to remain on good terms with President Putin, even though he no longer spends much time in the country.\n\nThis is what led to him being sanctioned, with the UK government saying he is a \"pro-Kremlin oligarch\" who had has a \"close relationship\" with Vladimir Putin for decades and has obtained \"financial benefit\" and \"preferential treatment\" from that relationship.\n\nOne example given of that is the contracts he received in the run up to the FIFA 2018 World Cup.\n\nMore specifically on Ukraine and the Russian army, the UK government claims one of Mr Abramovich's companies, Evraz Plc, may \"potentially\" have been involved in providing steel which \"may have been used in the production of tanks\".\n\nIt is probably now too late for Roman Abramovich to recover his position and he may find himself being sanctioned by the US and the EU as well.\n\nLike many Russian businessmen he is now likely to turn to China.\n\nThe UK and its western allies have been ratcheting up sanctions against individuals and companies linked to President Putin since the invasion of Ukraine was launched on 24 February.\n\nThe government said Thursday's sanctions against \"seven of Russia's wealthiest and most influential oligarchs\" were part of the UK's \"efforts to isolate Putin and those around him\".\n\nAmong those sanctioned was Oleg Deripaska, a leading industrialist who has had links with British politicians.\n\nOnce one of the richest men linked to President Putin, Mr Deripaska made billions from his stake in Russia's aluminium industries, including EN+ Group, and has a multi-million pound property portfolio in the UK.\n\nMedia reports have named Mr Deripaska as the owner of a property on Belgrave Square, one of London's most exclusive neighbourhoods.\n\nHis net worth is now an estimated £2bn, according to the Foreign Office, and he has been subject to US sanctions since 2018.\n\nUnlike other Russian oligarchs, who have remained silent on the war in Ukraine so far, Mr Deripaska has called for \"peace as soon as possible\" in a tweet.\n\nIgor Sechin is another wealthy businessman who is said to have deep ties to President Putin.\n\nNamed Putin's right-hand man by the UK, Mr Sechin worked with the president when he was mayor in St Petersburg in the 1990s.\n\nIgor Sechin is the chief executive of Rosneft, a Russian state oil company, and has been sanctioned by the US and EU.\n\nIn its statement, the government said the four others sanctioned included:\n\nThe UK has now sanctioned 18 oligarchs since the invasion of Ukraine began, a Downing Street spokesperson said.\n\nIn addition to President Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and four Belarusian generals, 23 high-profile Russian oligarchs were now on the UK's sanctions list, the spokesperson said.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the government had targeted the oligarchs to \"ramp up the pressure on the Putin regime and choke off funds to his brutal war machine\".\n\nShe said: \"With their close links to Putin they are complicit in his aggression.\n\n\"The blood of the Ukrainian people is on their hands. They should hang their heads in shame.\"\n\nLabour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the sanctions were the \"right decision\" but \"should not have taken the government weeks\".\n\n\"Too few oligarchs linked to Putin's rogue regime have so far faced sanctions from the UK government,\" Mr Lammy said.\n\nThe government has been accused of moving slower than western allies the US and the EU in its sanctioning of individuals linked to President Putin.\n\nThe government's Economic Crime Bill, which is expected to become law later this month, is designed to harden and quicken these sanctions.\n\nThe government says the bill will also stop wealthy Russians using the City of London for money laundering and hiding gains linked to organised crime.", "The number of people in Scottish hospitals with Covid is at its highest for 13 months, new figures have shown.\n\nOn Wednesday, there were 1,636 people in hospital with recently-confirmed Covid-19, up 127 on the previous day.\n\nThat is higher than the Omicron peak of 1,571 which was recorded in January this year.\n\nHealth boards say that while far fewer people need intensive care, large numbers of Covid patients are affecting available beds and other services.\n\nThere are more patients in hospital than at any time since 8 February 2021, when the total was 1,672. In January, 2021 hospital numbers peaked at 2,053.\n\nThe latest Covid figures from the Scottish government show that more than 14,000 people have tested positive in the last 24 hours. That is the highest daily case rate since 8 January.\n\nScotland has recorded 41 coronavirus-linked deaths in the last 24 hours - more than double the total of 18 from the previous day.\n\nJillian Evans, head of health intelligence at NHS Grampian, said it was a difficult situation to manage in hospitals.\n\nShe told BBC Scotland's Drivetime programme : \"It is quite a rise in new cases. We are also seeing the impact on hospitals and it is quite marked actually.\n\n\"The last few days, we've seen quite big step changes every day. I know from my own board - I've just come from a meeting where we've been talking about flow of patients, pressure on beds, and I know how difficult it is to manage that in a system that's operating with very, very little headroom anyway.\n\n\"And then you have what feels like a continued surge of admissions or people in hospital with Covid so it's a difficult one to manage but we are living with this at the moment.\"\n\nShe said the threat risk was still \"fairly elevated\", given the trajectory of new cases, and the fact the latest ONS infection survey showed a fifth consecutive rise.\n\nMs Evans said the number of people in hospital had risen from 872 four weeks ago to 1,636 now, adding that the number of patients being admitted to hospital were older or more vulnerable people.\n\nShe said the rise could be partly due to the waning effectiveness of the Covid vaccine and welcomed the booster top-up programme that was now starting for most vulnerable groups.\n\n\"The only thing we can do right now is to continue doing what we've done really well,\" she said. \"Keep wearing those masks even though those legal protections might be lifted. And most importantly, be vigilant to symptoms. If you think it's a cold, it's probably Covid and stay away from other people.\"\n\nScotland's largest health board, Greater Glasgow and Clyde said hospitals were near capacity with more than 550 Covid-19 patients.\n\nIn Lanarkshire, numbers have gone from 66 in the middle of last month to 162 across its three main hospitals.\n\nThe majority of Covid patients do not need intensive care treatment but the high volume of patients mean people wait longer than they should in emergency departments for beds to become available.\n\nA number of health boards have also had to limit or cancel routine operations and change visiting arrangements.\n\nStaff absences have been improving but continue to cause some disruption.\n\nIn Orkney, there are currently 2,375 cases per 100,000 - more than double the UK level. BBC Scotland's Rob Flett said it had taken 21 months to get to 1,000 infections, two months to get to 2,000 infections and just a month to get to 4,000 infections.\n\n\"It's spreading like wildfire through here,\" he said, adding that lots of schools were returning to home learning, with 62 teachers off at the beginning of the week.\n\nHe said that while there was no increase in significant and serious illness but it was having a \"massive impact\" on services on the islands.\n\nNumbers are also high in Shetland and in the Western Isles.\n\nOf the 1,636 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19, 22 were in intensive care, a rise of three from the previous day.\n\nThe 41 deaths recorded on Thursday, up from 18 on Wednesday, mean the number of people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 has risen to 10,947.\n\nOn Wednesday, Health Secretary, Humza Yousaf, said that recently rising Covid-19 case numbers were \"concerning and a reminder that Covid is still with us\" and urged people to get their vaccinations.\n\nSo far, 4,439,451 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 4,165,704 have received their second dose, and 3,459,127 have received a third dose or booster.\n• None Coronavirus (COVID-19) protection levels- what you can do - gov.scot The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The debris suggests it was a Soviet-era drone used by the Ukrainian military\n\nPeople in Croatia's capital Zagreb were rudely awakened to Russia's war in Ukraine when a military drone crashed in the city late last night.\n\nThere was an explosion in the southwestern Jarun district shortly after 23:00 (22:00 GMT). Residents found a crater and wreckage scattered close to student accommodation.\n\nZagreb's mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said \"it's amazing that no-one was injured\".\n\nCroatia's president said there was no sign the country had been targeted.\n\nWitness reports suggested the only person hurt was a man who fell off his bicycle as the drone hit the ground.\n\nMarkings on the debris included Cyrillic lettering and a five-pointed star. Local experts said these suggested that the drone was a Soviet-era TU-141 reconnaissance aircraft.\n\nDespite the drone's vintage, it has been deployed by the Ukrainian military both in 2014 and during the current conflict.\n\nCroatian media have been speculating about its origin. Although Ukraine's embassy in Zagreb declined to comment, an adviser to Ukraine's defence ministry was adamant the drone was not Ukrainian and did not have Ukrainian markings.\n\nThe mayor said the incident was unprecedented for Zagreb, a city some 570km (355 miles) from the Ukrainian border.\n\nCroatia's government confirmed that the drone had passed over Hungary, which borders both Ukraine and Croatia, before crashing in Zagreb.\n\nPresident Zoran Milanovic said it was a serious incident: \"We need to review certain procedural issues and determine how it is possible that this size of plane was not shot down on the way from Ukraine to Zagreb.\"\n\nHe was concerned that Croatia had received no warning of the incoming drone, even though it had spent the best part of an hour flying across Hungary - a fellow member of Nato. He was alarmed that \"an unsophisticated aircraft\" had apparently evaded detection.\n\nCroatia's Index news website suggested the drone may have been meant to fly to a location in Ukraine called Yarun, rather than the similar sounding district of Jarun in Zagreb.\n\nThere is now concern that Croatia would not be ready if the worst happened and the conflict spread. Critics point out that no air raid sirens sounded in Zagreb and that many Croatian shelters have fallen into disrepair.\n\nMany people still have strong memories of conflict on home soil in the 1990s. This drone incident serves as an unwelcome reminder of the Balkans Wars and will certainly jolt Croatia's authorities out of any sense of complacency.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Lena and Raisa Kamolikova face a lengthy process to apply for a UK visa in Poland\n• None Five moments of human connection amid the Ukraine war", "Children evacuated from an orphanage are led to safety\n\nTraffickers are targeting parentless children on the Ukraine-Poland border, says a group evacuating orphanages in the war zone.\n\nA team of US military veterans is helping to organise safe passage for the estimated 200,000 children in Ukraine's orphanages and foster homes.\n\nBut they say thousands are unaccounted for and fear some may already have fallen prey to people traffickers.\n\nKyiv says it is tightening procedures for vulnerable children.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tens of thousands of children in Ukrainian state care are in desperate need to get out of the country\n\nAerial Recovery, a team of former US military veterans who are assisting vulnerable people fleeing the crisis, is working with the Ukrainian authorities to establish a system that will make it easier to keep tabs on the country's parentless children.\n\n\"The government doesn't really have the capacity to deal with the problem,\" says Jeremy Locke, the team's chief of operations.\n\nThe team is working with Salam, a charity which helps refugees. It told the BBC that children dropped at the Ukraine-Poland border by well-meaning organisations are being targeted.\n\n\"They're very easy prey - they're looking for assistance,\" says Martin Kvernbekk, of the charity. \"So if you're an adult with some food or refuge, they will come with you. They don't know any better.\"\n\nHe has heard about children going missing from a number of different sources, and reports of people smugglers wearing reflective vests and pretending to belong to organisations helping the relief effort.\n\n\"The gangs are very advanced - it's big, well-financed networks that do this for a living. They're good at this in peace time,\" he says. \"Now it's a war, it's chaos, and they're exploiting the fact there is disorder to be able to snatch more kids and women.\"\n\nMr Kvernbekk also points out that although most men aged 18-60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine because they have to fight, any man who has three or more children with him can pass through. But no proper vetting is taking place at the country's borders.\n\n\"There is no way to check if that man is actually the parent of the kids,\" he says.\n\nIn a speech earlier this week, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, voiced concerns. \"We also have some reports of criminals taking orphans from orphanages in Ukraine, crossing the border pretending that they are relatives to the child and then using them for trafficking purposes,\" she said.\n\nAn absence of vetting procedures for those who volunteer to help or house refugees once they have crossed the border only compounds the problem.\n\n\"Everybody knows it's going on, but it's difficult to say the extent because of the chaos here. The authorities are trying to track what's happened to all of the children [but] there is no paper trail,\" Mr Kvernbekk says.\n\nThe Ukrainian authorities are now establishing a system with the help of NGOs to process displaced children and setting up safe areas in the east of the country.\n\nA member of the Aerial Recovery team fist-bumps one of the children being evacuated\n\nOn Wednesday, Aerial Recovery discussed plans to strengthen safety protocols and create safe zones in Lviv with the regional minister for child services.\n\n\"That way we don't have to take these children over borders and we can ensure that Ukraine is in control of where their children are going,\" Mr Locke says.\n\nDuring that meeting the authorities expressed concern that 5,000 children on their records were unaccounted for, he says.\n\nNobody knows what has happened to them. \"They're either casualties of war, or they've slipped across the border, or have been taken out of the border by smugglers or by people that are doing it the wrong way,\" Mr Locke told the BBC.\n\nVolodymyr Lys, regional head of service of children's protection under the ministry of social policy in Lviv, told the BBC that the first 10 days of war were difficult, but it had improved.\n\n\"It was very very chaotic. They didn't know where the kids were going. Nobody felt like they had worked out a system. Now there's enough NGOs, there's enough volunteers, everybody knows what they're doing,\" he says.\n\nHe believes more than a million children remain in conflict zones in the country. Most are now being evacuated to the east, rather than abroad. Mr Lys says currently there are 550 orphans and foster children sheltering in the Lviv region, and they are expecting that number to double. He says his team spent 10 days at Lviv train station comforting, feeding and sheltering children. \"The whole of Ukraine is absolutely horrified at what is going on,\" he says.\n\nWhen asked if children fleeing abroad could be trafficked or forced into prostitution, he admits: \"Of course there is a risk of that, especially if they are travelling without their legal guardian or come unaccompanied.\n\n\"There's really not a way to know for sure for now how many are missing and the authorities are now trying to track what's happened to all of the children in the system,\" says Martin Kvernbekk.\n\nFormer soldier and aid worker Rob Lawrie is volunteering alongside Aerial Recovery in Ukraine. \"What we've seen is smugglers using the war in Ukraine as a shield to move in on the most vulnerable. Hopefully things are now in place to get these youngsters out of dangerous areas and make sure they can't fall into the hands of traffickers.\"\n\nListen to The Smugglers' Trail with Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie starting Friday 11 March on BBC Radio 4 - listen on iPlayer", "Denis Donaldson was shot dead in April 2006 months after he was exposed as a Security Service spy\n\nPolice failed to properly evaluate the threat informer Denis Donaldson was under before he was shot dead in County Donegal, a report has found.\n\nHowever, Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson said she could not conclude the former Sinn Féin official's murder in 2006 could have been prevented.\n\nHis family said the police had been negligent in a duty of care to him \"for reasons that remain unexplained\".\n\nMr Donaldson's murder was claimed by the dissident republican Real IRA.\n\nThe 55 year old, who once held a key administrative role for Sinn Féin at Stormont, admitted in December 2005 that he had been working for MI5 and the police for 20 years.\n\nHe then moved to a family cottage in Glenties, where he was murdered in April 2006.\n\nMr Donaldson was shot dead at a cottage in Glenties, County Donegal\n\nTwo weeks before his killing, the Sunday World newspaper published a story on him that included a photograph of him standing outside the property.\n\nThe Police Ombudsman found no evidence police had leaked information on his whereabouts.\n\nShortly after the story appeared, the PSNI received information indicating Mr Donaldson's life \"may be at increased risk\".\n\nThis information was shared with An Garda Síochána (Irish police).\n\nBut Mrs Anderson found no evidence of a PSNI risk assessment having been carried out following the Sunday World article.\n\n\"It is likely that this important measure to assess the threat to Mr Donaldson's life was not undertaken,\" her report stated.\n\n\"I am of the view the family's concerns about the steps taken by PSNI in management of this threat are legitimate and justified.\"\n\nIn a BBC News NI interview, Ms Anderson added: \"I believe it was a corporate failing, but I cannot say if they carried out the risk assessment Denis's murder would have been preventable.\n\nOmbudsman Marie Anderson said Donaldson family concerns over the PSNI's management of the threat were \"legitimate and justified\"\n\n\"There is certainly an indication others in County Donegal knew of his whereabouts.\"\n\nIt read: \"For reasons that remain unexplained and unaccounted for, the PSNI abandoned its routine practice of risk assessments.\n\n\"This course of action was taken at precisely the moment when the risk to Denis's life was at its greatest.\n\n\"The key question has always been: 'Did the PSNI do enough to protect Denis's life?' The ombudsman's answer today was no, they did not.\"\n\nThe PSNI said it recognised \"the pain and suffering\" of the Donaldson family.\n\nAss Ch Con Mark McEwan added: \"We note the findings of the investigation and will now take some time to review her comprehensive report.\n\n\"We have reviewed our operational policies and service procedure regarding the management of threats to life and will continue to do so on a regular basis.\"\n\nThe ombudsman's report also found that the PSNI had provided \"a high-level of co-operation and assistance\" to the the Garda's murder inquiry.\n\nDuring the course of its investigation, the ombudsman's office questioned one officer under caution and he denied sharing information about Mr Donaldson's whereabouts.\n\nAs he has subsequently retired, the issue of disciplinary proceedings could not be considered by the ombudsman.\n\nA DUP assembly member who sits on the Policing Board, Trevor Clarke, said: \"The ombudsman has been oddly critical of the PSNI for not carrying out a full risk assessment after the Sunday World had identified where Mr Donaldson was living.\n\n\"This is despite the PSNI advising the Garda of the potential increased risk and the victim living outside of their jurisdiction.\n\n\"Now that this investigation is complete, our sights must be firmly fixed on identifying those responsible for this brutal murder as well as those in the republican movement who have something to hide.''\n\nBy the time the Troubles erupted in 1969, Denis Donaldson was in the IRA.\n\nIn the 1970s he was jailed for explosives offences and during his time in the Maze prison became close friends with Bobby Sands.\n\nHis double-life began in the next decade.\n\nHe was recruited as an agent in the 1980s, at a time when he was becoming more prominent in Sinn Féin.\n\nHe was its candidate in the 1983 Westminster election in his native east Belfast.\n\nLater, he travelled widely as a representative of Sinn Féin to the likes of the Middle East and United States.\n\nAfter the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, he assumed a key backroom role for the party based at Parliament Buildings in Stormont.\n\nIn what was dubbed Stormont-gate, Mr Donaldson was one of three men arrested in 2002 over an alleged IRA intelligence gathering operation.\n\nThree years later, charges were dropped on the grounds that prosecutions were not in the public interest.\n\nWithin a matter of days, Mr Donaldson admitted having been an informer.\n\nHe said he had been paid to work for MI5 and the police \"after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life\".\n\nFour months later, he was murdered in Donegal.", "The Police Ombudsman has completed an investigation into officer conduct and a fatal crush outside a disco in 2019.\n\nLauren Bullock, 17, Morgan Barnard, 17, and Connor Currie, 16, died as hundreds queued outside Cookstown's Greenvale Hotel on 17 March - St Patrick's Day.\n\nThe investigation got under way when it emerged the first officers who arrived at the scene withdrew to await support.\n\nA file of evidence on five officers has been sent to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) for consideration.\n\nNone of the five officers under investigation has been suspended.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) referred the matter to the ombudsman within days of the tragedy.\n\nThe then Chief Constable Sir George Hamilton initially described the officers' actions as \"brave\", but later said he regretted causing the families distress in doing so.\n\nAt the time it was reported that the investigation would cover four officers who went to the Greenvale Hotel and another who dealt with call handling on the night.\n\nGreenvale Hotel owner Michael McElhatton was among those questioned by police\n\n\"During the course of the investigation, five police officers were interviewed under criminal caution on suspicion of the offence of misconduct in a public office,\" said a statement from the ombudsman's office.\n\n\"The Police Ombudsman has sent a file for direction to the Public Prosecution Service.\n\n\"As this is an ongoing investigation, the Police Ombudsman cannot provide any further information at this time.\"\n\nThe Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file police officers, said it supported calls for an inquiry into the causes of and responses to the tragedy .\n\n\"The deaths of three young people on a night out is one which will resonate throughout society for many years to come and my thoughts are with their families as we approach the third anniversary of this incident,\" chairman Mark Lindsay said.\n\n\"I have no doubt whatsoever that my colleagues who attended this shocking and tragic incident did their best in what were unique and challenging circumstances.\n\n\"I agree with the families of the young victims that there should be an inquiry into the causes and responses to the incident, which examines the roles of the various agencies involved and that of the event organisers.\"\n\nThe PSNI has been conducting a separate investigation.\n\nAmong those it questioned was the hotel owner, Michael McElhatton.\n\nOn Thursday, the PSNI said it had taken more than 1,300 witness statements and specially-trained officers had interviewed more than 140 young people.\n\n\"In total, 11 individuals have been interviewed by police in connection with a range of criminal offences and we await the response of the Public Prosecution Service,\" Det Supt Eamonn Corrigan said.\n\n\"The file of evidence contains significant amounts of material and may take some time for the PPS to consider.\n\n\"Because these matters are now being considered by the PPS, it would not be appropriate to comment further.\"\n\nThe officer said the police investigation into the deaths \"remains active\".\n\nThe PSNI file has been with the PPS since February 2021.\n\n\"All the available evidence in this large and complex file is being carefully considered by the prosecution team,\" said a PPS spokesperson.\n\n\"While we are not yet in a position to take decisions, significant progress has been made since receiving the file.\n\n\"We are conscious of the length of time which has passed since the tragedy and are working hard to issue decisions as quickly as possible, whilst giving these matters proper and careful consideration.\n\n\"We will update the families when there are key developments.\"", "", "Year 6 pupils in Sheffield have been trying to catch up after the disruption\n\nThe \"devastating\" impact of England's school closures during the pandemic is leading to greater inequality, MPs say.\n\nA report by the Education Select Committee found Yorkshire and the Humber, and the North East are the worst-affected areas.\n\nIt warns the flagship National Tutoring Programme is falling far short of its targets this year.\n\nThe government said it aimed to ensure as many children as possible received high-quality catch-up tutoring.\n\nThe committee gathered evidence about how education in England is recovering after two years of disruption.\n\nThe report calls for the government to \"refocus\" its efforts on a \"fragmented and bureaucratic\" catch-up programme.\n\nPrimary maths is one of the subjects where there are shocking regional differences: the average learning loss was 0.5 months in the South West, 0.9 months in London, four months in the North East and 5.3 months in Yorkshire and the Humber.\n\nAt Greenhill Primary School in Sheffield, it has been one of the subjects where pupils have been offered extra teaching to recover lost ground.\n\nYear 6 teacher Toni Whitehouse said there had been a \"massive impact\" from the classroom closure, and not just on learning.\n\n\"We found children couldn't sit still, hold a discussion, collaborate with other children,\" she said.\n\nAs well as covering new topics, teachers have had to reinstil some of the basics.\n\n\"Coming back from Covid, I've got children who can't use capital letters, full stops, the kind of skills we taught them when they were four or five.\"\n\nNicola said she lost confidence because of the disruption to classes\n\nAnnabel, one of the Year 6 pupils, said booster classes with her teachers have really helped after the disruption.\n\n\"I think it's helped with my arithmetic and reasoning. We didn't get to do much in lockdown. I lost quite a lot of confidence.\"\n\nNicola, also in Year 6, said despite extra help she is worried about going to secondary school.\n\n\"My confidence with learning got a bit messed up - with a year-and-a-half of learning partly at home with your family around you.\"\n\nThe risk of failing to make up for the learning loss from the pandemic is rated as \"critical or very likely\" by the Department for Education itself in its annual report.\n\nRobert Halfon, chairman of the Education Select Committee, thinks the damage could be long term\n\n\"This is incredibly serious, children have lost months of learning, disadvantaged children are between five to eight months behind in maths.\n\n\"We are damaging their life chances if we don't get this catch-up programme right.\"\n\nHe is also worried that if the almost £5bn committed so far isn't well spent, it could be hard to persuade the Treasury to give more funding to education.\n\nToni Whitehouse said disruption had had a massive impact\n\nGreenhill is part of a group of nine primary schools spread across Sheffield in very different parts of the city.\n\nChief executive Nicola Shipman says some schools have seen children more affected by the pandemic than others.\n\nThey tried using one part of the National Tutoring Programme, which is the main part of the government's catch-up programme, to get academic mentors for pupils. However, they found it wasn't easy to recruit enough good people.\n\nThis year instead, like many schools, they have used their own staff to run extra sessions with some extra government funding, rather than using tutoring agencies through the national scheme.\n\nMs Shipman said: \"There needs to be a rethink, about how that money can be better spent by those of us who know our children better.\"\n\nSchools can bid for funding from the National Tutoring Programme to organise extra tutoring themselves for disadvantaged pupils, or seek to be matched with tutoring agencies and academic mentors for pupils. This is via the private company Randstad, which won the contract.\n\nHowever, MPs say it has only reached 52,000 courses so far - just 10% of this year's target for tutoring courses.\n\nThey criticised the lack of transparency around the contract, and a decision to relax a target to reach mainly poorer pupils with tutoring.\n\nUnless performance improves, the report calls for the contract with Randstad to be scrapped.\n\nIt adds the current \"spaghetti junction\" of confusing funding should be replaced by giving money directly to the schools and areas that need it most.\n\nSo far almost £5bn has been committed to education recovery in England.\n\nA Department for Education spokesperson said: \"Tutoring plays an integral role in supporting pupils to catch up on any lost learning, and delivery is on track to meet the ambitious target of teaching two million courses this academic year.\n\n\"We continue to work with Randstad to ensure as many children from all backgrounds - in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds - across the country can benefit from high-quality tutoring and catch up on lost learning.\"", "The Queen will not attend next week's Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace has said.\n\nThis is usually a significant occasion for the Queen and earlier in the week it had been hoped she would attend.\n\nThe decision is understood to be about concerns over her discomfort with travelling, rather than illness.\n\nPrince Harry is also now not expected to come to the UK for a service of thanksgiving for Prince Philip, to be held later this month.\n\nThe message from Buckingham Palace does not mention the health of the 95-year-old Queen, but says not attending the Commonwealth Service on Monday was decided \"after discussing arrangements with the Royal Household\".\n\nIt is understood not to be related to an illness - but there have been concerns about the Queen's ability to travel and her mobility.\n\nAs she told defence staff in a meeting last month: \"As you can see, I can't move.\"\n\nThe Queen, who recently recovered from Covid, is said to regret not being able to attend the event celebrating the Commonwealth, in what would have been one of her biggest public appearances of the year so far.\n\nShe has been carrying out diplomatic engagements at Windsor Castle, such as meeting the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and is expected to continue with such in-person audiences next week.\n\nThe Commonwealth Service was one of two major events in the Queen's diary this month - the other being the service of thanksgiving for her husband, Prince Philip.\n\nBut her grandson Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will not travel to the UK for that service commemorating Prince Philip's life, to be held on 29 March.\n\nA spokesperson said that Prince Harry hoped to visit his grandmother as soon as possible.\n\nPrince Harry has been involved in a legal dispute over the provision of security when he visits from the United States.\n\nAt the annual service marking Commonwealth Day, the Queen will be represented by Prince Charles and other senior royals will be there, including Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nThe monarch last missed the event in 2013, when recovering from a bout of gastroenteritis, but before that she had not been absent from the service for 20 years.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Gloucester are not attending, after the duke tested positive for Covid.\n\nThe service at Westminster Abbey, with a focus on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, will be addressed by the former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, and will hear music from Emeli Sandé and Mica Paris.", "\"We're here to destroy the enemy brigades,\" says Johnny Dragan (left)\n\nThe commander called himself Johnny Dragan, and he smoked each cigarette as fiercely as if it was going to be his last.\n\nDragan was strengthening a blocking position at a strategic crossroads north-west of Kyiv. If the Russians broke through, Dragan and his men would have to stop them. Behind him was a dual carriageway heading straight to Kyiv.\n\nOff-duty soldiers were eating and resting at a restaurant on the crossroads that Dragan had taken over as his headquarters. The food was hearty, and they stacked their rifles in neat conical piles next to their tables.\n\nOutside, the active shift was working during another bitterly cold day, with the snow settling on their shoulders. A tank was in position. A deadly-looking artillery piece was positioned to fire directly, over open sights, at anything coming down the road that Dragan decided was a threat.\n\n\"We're here to destroy the enemy brigades,\" he said. \"The occupiers who've come to our country - and are heading our way.\"\n\nA builder's lorry was lowering slabs of reinforced concrete with the crane it had used until a fortnight or so back to deliver housebuilding supplies. Destruction not construction has been happening since. It felt more urgent near the frontline today. Ukrainian troops inside and outside Kyiv are reinforcing checkpoints into barricades.\n\nDragan's men were close to Hostomel, a small and strategically important town. Fighting has not stopped there since the first morning of the war, when Russia airborne troops came in by helicopter to seize a cargo airport as a bridgehead.\n\nTanya says Hostomel \"used to be such a lovely place to live\" but now there is \"no house, no street and no town\"\n\nWe picked up Tanya and Ivan, a couple in their 60s who had been walking for three hours to get out of Hostomel. It took 13 days, they said, to gather the courage to leave their freezing cellar.\n\nTanya described what they had seen on the first day of the war before they fled underground. \"When our guys blew up the bridge, we saw tanks and a car with the soldiers ahead of the column, but our guys did not let them go… The bridge was blown up and the car and everything was destroyed.\"\n\nWhen they emerged at dawn after nearly two terrifying weeks to walk towards Kyiv, about 20 miles (32km) away, everything had changed. Tanya wept a little as she remembered how it had been in Hostomel. \"It used to be such a lovely place to live. But when we came up this morning there was no house, no street and no town.\"\n\nSome destroyed buildings north-west of Kyiv are still smouldering\n\nMany villages nearby, not just their home, are in ruins.\n\nIn buildings that are still burning a few traces of old lives are left; smouldering kitchens where families must have eaten, argued and loved. Dogs scavenge for food, waiting close to the rubble for owners who abandoned them.\n\nRussian tactical and military blunders, plus well-organised and determined resistance, have bought the Ukrainians time to beef up for whatever comes next. That is not going to last indefinitely.\n\nThe barrage of international sanctions against Russia shows no sign of forcing President Vladimir Putin to change his mind. His public utterances reinforce what seems to be his determination to finish the job of crushing Ukrainian independence, which he tells the Russian people is a necessary step to protect themselves and their nation.\n\nIt is hard to overstate the gravity of the crisis caused by the invasion, and the years of tension that led to it. It is deadly serious because of Russia and the Nato countries' radically different views of the security and orientation of states that used to be firmly in the orbit of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe parties to the wider conflict, above and beyond the war in Ukraine, are armed with nuclear weapons that could destroy all of us. The chances that this war could somehow go nuclear are very low, despite Mr Putin's decision to increase the level of readiness of part of his arsenal.\n\nBut wars generate confusion and misperception, and the dangers of escalation are ever-present.\n\nA local hospital that has been treating the wounded Ukrainian soldiers is being abandoned\n\nLike most people who grew up in the Cold War, I cannot forget the relief I felt when it ended, and the joy of turning on the television on 9 November 1989 and seeing Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall.\n\nIt is hard to believe that more than 30 years later I have spent the day reporting on the Russian push into Ukraine, and the results of a failure by all concerned to build security that would stop Europe going back to its old ways.\n\nA couple of miles from the Russians in Hostomel, Ukrainians were preparing to abandon a hospital that has been treating the wounded. They had been evacuated further away from the fighting, and the hospital director Dr Valerii Zukin was supervising staff wrapping sensitive medical equipment with bales of clingfilm. Beds were waiting to be picked up and trucked out.\n\nMy ship is sinking, Dr Zukin told me, and I am the captain so I will be the last to leave.\n\nHis voice rose as he said Ukrainians did not want food aid. Instead, they wanted weapons and a no-fly zone enforced by Nato.\n\n\"The Russians understand only the language of the power. I would like to use the words of the former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, who said it was impossible to negotiate with the man who came to kill you.\"\n\nIt was a lonely and tense drive through the snow until we saw the suburbs of Kyiv. Ukrainian troops were dug into the woods, waiting.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In Kyiv, citizens like Maria are turning out for weapons training in case they have to defend themselves\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The Queen welcomed Mary Simon and her husband Whit Fraser to Windsor Castle\n\nThe Queen has hosted an afternoon tea for Canada's governor general, the day after missing the Commonwealth Service.\n\nMary Simon was welcomed to Windsor Castle by the Queen, 95, on Tuesday.\n\nThe monarch's absence from the annual Westminster Abbey service is understood to have been due to concerns about her ability to travel and her mobility.\n\nShe was represented by the Prince of Wales at the event. In a message, she praised the Commonwealth as a force for good \"in these testing times\".\n\nHer Commonwealth Day message also repeated the lifelong commitment she made when she was 21, that she would devote her life in service.\n\nThe ceremony in Westminster, attended by royals including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, celebrated the work of the Commonwealth and also focused on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.\n\nThe Queen has recently recovered from Covid and returned to holding diplomatic audiences and meetings in person. She has also been carrying out some virtual engagements.\n\nMs Simon and her husband Whit Fraser were greeted by the Queen in the castle's Oak Room.\n\nThe Queen, who is also monarch of Canada, was pictured standing without the walking stick she has been seen using recently as she shook hands with Ms Simon.\n\nMs Simon is Canada's first indigenous governor general and took up her post last July.\n\nEarlier on Tuesday, the Queen held two virtual audiences at her Berkshire residence, receiving the ambassadors of Mongolia and Tajikistan via video link.\n\nShe is due to be represented by Prince Charles again at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, due to take place in Rwanda in June.", "A pair of twins thought to be the most premature to survive in the UK are both home with their family.\n\nHarley and Harry Crane were born at 22 weeks and five days at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham.\n\nHarry was discharged last week after almost five months in the neonatal unit, and his sister Harley is now home too after 140 days in intensive care.\n\nTheir parents Steve and Jade Crane, from Heanor, Derbyshire, said they were \"absolutely ecstatic\".\n\n\"It's been such a long time and although it's been a really, really treacherous journey, 140 days ago we didn't think we'd be here,\" said Mr Crane.\n\n\"It's just so affirmative to see them together and to be walking out that door.\n\n\"The absolutely stunning doctors, nurses and surgeons have all been part of the making of this moment. It's hard to say goodbye to them but I hope I never see them again.\"\n\nTwin brother Harry went back to hospital to collect sister Harley on Monday\n\nWhen they were born, Harry weighed 520g (1.14lb) and Harley 500g (1.10lb). They were described by doctors as the size of Mars bars.\n\nThe babies were put into the bereavement suite for parents because doctors expected only one of them would survive.\n\nHowever their parents said they had been \"little fighters\".\n\n\"Can't wait to get them home where they belong and start our life as a family,\" said Mrs Crane.\n\n\"We've waited 140 days for this. It's really emotional. Sad to leave the team but happy to be going home.\"\n\nThe couple, who have been sharing their journey on Instagram, had tried to have children for 11 years with multiple IVFs, spending £50,000 on fertility treatments.\n\nMother Jade Crane said the twins had been \"little fighters\"\n\nThe twins have had six operations and 25 blood transfusions between them, and suffered sepsis, eye problems, brain and lung bleeds.\n\nDoctors warned they could face developmental challenges in the future and they still need oxygen to help them breathe, which will be monitored at home by their parents.\n\nNeonatologist, Dr Chantelle Tomlinson, said the day was \"huge\" for the family and had \"been coming for a really long time for them\".\n\nShe said while their news was exciting it is never to be taken for granted that all the babies will go home.\n\n\"For any of the families who need our real high-level intensive care, and have spent time on the unit with us, there's nothing to be presumed about the fact that they're going to go home, so we're delighted that they [the Crane twins] are.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Who was Brent Renaud - US journalist killed in Ukraine?\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker and was shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. He had been working in the region at the time of his death. Kyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital. It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine. Renaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High. He often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine. Photographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times. In a statement, the newspaper said it was \"deeply saddened\" to hear of Renaud's death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine.", "Mandi Arnold with her two youngest children, Presley and Phoenix\n\nTwo days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Mandi and John Arnold were curled up on the sofa of their home in Shropshire, streaming a film about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Netflix.\n\nIt struck a nerve with the mum-of-four - she and John were both born in 1986, the same year as the disaster. So later that week when Mandi saw news of millions of Ukrainians fleeing their homes to escape Russian attacks, including in the Chernobyl area, she jumped at the chance to help.\n\n\"From the moment this all started to evolve, my heart just went straight out to them and I thought if I could help anyone I would do so without any reservations,\" she says.\n\nOn Monday evening Mandi, 35, was among the almost 90,000 people to register their interest in a new visa scheme allowing people in the UK to host Ukrainian refugees in their own homes.\n\nMany of those who have signed up to help are doing so because their children have all grown up, left home and they've got some extra space.\n\nBut Mandi's house is a pretty hectic place to be. She and John live with their sons, one-year-old Presley and four-year-old Phoenix, and Mandi's nine-year-old daughter, Amalia - not to mention pet cat Nala and Oakley the Labrador. Mandi's 19-year-old daughter, who's studying in Scotland, is also \"in and out\" of the house.\n\n\"It's quite a busy household anyway, it's constantly on the go,\" Mandi says.\n\n\"Adding more would just be more love, more memories.\"\n\nThe family will free up one of the bedrooms for refugees to live in. They'll bring in an old single bed from the garage and have space for a child as well as an adult, if needed.\n\nMandi and John's sons aren't quite old enough to understand that they'll be sharing their home with strangers in the near future, but Mandi has explained it to her daughter, Amalia. She's excited about meeting new people and will \"welcome anyone with open arms\", Mandi says.\n\nUnder the newly-launched Homes for Ukraine scheme, UK households can offer a space for a refugee to live for at least six months.\n\nEach host household will be offered £350 a month, tax-free, as a \"thank you\" payment. They won't be expected to provide food and living expenses, but can choose to offer this.\n\nMandi says her daughter Amalia (left) is excited to meet any refugees. Her younger brothers Presley (centre) and Phoenix will share a room to make more space\n\nMandi fled an abusive relationship when she was younger, leaving her network of friends and family behind to start a new life.\n\nTo begin with she had nowhere to call home, so lived in hotels for months.\n\nShe and John scraped the money together from what he'd saved up from his business selling private number plates.\n\nMandi says she knows fleeing a warzone is \"completely different\" to what she went through, but she can relate to the feeling of disconnect many Ukrainian refugees might have as they step foot on UK soil for the first time.\n\n\"I know the feeling of removing yourself from somewhere that you once called home, or once felt secure and safe,\" she says.\n\n\"I've been in times of struggle, I've been in situations where I really needed someone to help. To know that I've overcome that and got to where I am now, I know it's something that can be achieved and all it takes is time and love. And these people deserve that.\"\n\nBy moving Presley in with Phoenix, this room in the Arnold's home can be freed up for refugees\n\nMandi says she thinks the whole family will benefit from taking in Ukrainian refugees.\n\n\"My kids, they've got all the love to give and we don't have much family. I'm not saying I'm going to grab [the refugees] and say 'you're my family now,' but they will be welcomed as a family member,\" she says.\n\n\"I've got a lot of love to give and it's the perfect opportunity to give it to someone who's in need.\"\n\n...from people across the UK who have hosted refugees or asylum seekers in their own homes in the past:\n\n1. Be prepared for the mental impact. Lucy Stevens, near Colchester: It is likely people will be very traumatised. Our foster son was highly traumatised and required a lot of input with regards to mental health [which] also has an impact on your own family.\n\n2. Find people who match your stage of life. Ruth Elphinston, Birmingham: If you've got young kids, bring in families with young kids. Or if your kids have left home, think about hosting a young adult. It makes things easier as they'll fit in with the way you're living your life already.\n\n3. Lean on your community. Ruth: Ask neighbours and friends to help you out. They could maybe show your refugees around the area, offer them work, or have you all over for a meal.\n\n4. Think about ground rules. Alison Baxter, Oxford. Sharing the sitting room, smoking and if you will cook for them are all points to consider. It's better to set down clear guidance because your guest is going to be anxious if you just say \"make yourself at home\".\n\n5. Give them space. Robert and Margaret Spooner, Sheffield: Don't force your guests to speak about their experiences. Instead focus on finding common bonds, as well as giving them the chance to do small jobs or make food to take their mind off things.\n\n6. Get the GP sorted early. Karina Litvack, London: I've never found access to the NHS to be a problem for the refugees I've helped, but you sometimes have to book an interpreter which takes longer.\n\n7. Don't feel bad about saying no. Justyna Bell, Belfast: Have a conversation with your entire household before you decide for sure about taking someone in. Really open up and don't think it's not very humanitarian if you have some objections.", "The new law could allow foreign leased aircraft to keep flying domestic routes in Russia\n\nRussia has implemented a new law making it harder for foreign aircraft leasing companies to repossess their planes in the face of Western sanctions.\n\nThe new law will allow foreign jets to be registered in Russia \"to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of activities in the field of civil aviation\".\n\nRussian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad worth about $10bn (£7.7bn).\n\nForeign owners have until 28 March to get them back from Russian companies before sanctions kick in.\n\nThe move comes after Bermuda and Ireland, where nearly all foreign-leased planes operating in Russia are registered, said they were suspending certificates of airworthiness for those aircraft.\n\nThe measure, signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, could circumvent that by bringing registration and certification of safety within Russia's borders and use the foreign aircraft to fly domestic routes across the vast country.\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, Western companies have been terminating leases and asking for planes to be returned.\n\nThe majority of international air routes out of Russia are not being flown and many countries, including the UK, have banned Russia's national airline Aeroflot from flying in their airspace.\n\nHundreds of foreign-owned aircraft remain in Russia. To comply with sanctions, leasing companies are trying to get them back. But that is looking highly unlikely.\n\nIf Russia does hang onto these aircraft - collectively worth billions of dollars - they will be able to continue flying, in Russia and a handful of former Soviet republics at least.\n\nBut it's one thing to steal aircraft, it's quite another to keep them operating for any length of time.\n\nAirbus and Boeing cannot supply spare parts, so when something needs to be replaced it will have to be taken from another plane, or be manufactured by a third party.\n\nThat has serious safety implications. It will also make it virtually impossible to insure those planes outside Russia. Servicing is also a concern - many aircraft are flown elsewhere for maintenance.\n\nAnd when the crisis is over there will be a huge bill to pay.\n\nIf aircraft are not maintained properly, their value will plummet. So even if lessors get them back, they will demand compensation.\n\nInternational aviation is an international business, and you have to play by the rules.\n\nRussia could decide to thumb its nose at the rest of the world now. But one day it will want to rejoin the club - and the conditions for rejoining could be very harsh.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nThere were protests from the Manchester United players that the referee went to blow his whistle but then didn't in the build-up to the Atletico Madrid goal Manchester United's Champions League campaign ended in the disappointment of defeat by Atletico Madrid at Old Trafford to leave them with only a Premier League top-four place to fight for this season. Ralf Rangnick's side were not short on endeavour but lacked the guile to break down Atletico's trademark resilience as Renan Lodi's far-post header four minutes before half-time sent the Spanish champions into the last eight. United dominated possession for large portions of the second half but, as they have done so often, Atletico built a wall of defensive resistance - and when they did threaten, goalkeeper Jan Oblak provided the final barrier. He saved brilliantly from Raphael Varane's header in front of the Stretford End as United were left to fight for a place in next season's Champions League in the final weeks of the domestic season.\n• None Follow all the reaction from Old Trafford here Manchester United went the same way as so many teams before them who have suffered at the hands of this remarkably durable Atletico machine assembled by Diego Simeone. United showed plenty of effort and had Old Trafford rocking with a high-intensity start but they simply ran out of ideas and inspiration the longer the game went on - Atletico digging in and defending with the sort of relish they have shown many times over the years. Cristiano Ronaldo produced a couple of classic early touches but he was a peripheral figure long before the end, with Rangnick and United's desperation illustrated when struggling captain Harry Maguire was replaced by veteran Juan Mata. United were also infuriated by the erratic refereeing of Slovenian official Slavko Vincic, particularly when they felt Anthony Elanga had been fouled moments before Lodi arrived unmarked to head home Antoine Griezmann's cross at the far post. Over the two legs, however, United have simply not been good enough to progress and now face an uphill task to reach the Premier League's top four, as they lie fifth behind Arsenal having played three games more. Simeone does it again At the final whistle, Atletico coach Simeone showed a neat turn of pace to turn left and sprint off towards an infuriated Stretford End, straight down the tunnel without a backwards glance, pelted with objects and drinks as he disappeared from view. Behind him, Manchester United players and fans were left with a familiar feeling of having the rug pulled out from under them by Simeone - and by the Atletico side he has drilled so fiercely and with such discipline. Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp felt exactly the same after Atletico won at Anfield at this same stage two years ago and while La Liga's champions may not be among the Champions League favourites, no-one will particularly relish being paired with them. They have players who can provide class in attack and in Oblak they possess one of the world's great goalkeepers.\n• None Juan Mata (Manchester United) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Diogo Dalot (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of Manchester United is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything United - go straight to all the best content", "Two journalists working for Fox News have been killed in Ukraine, staff at the US network say.\n\nCameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, 24, were killed when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire in Horenka, on the outskirts of Kyiv.\n\nTheir colleague, Benjamin Hall, 39, was wounded and remains in hospital.\n\nFox News CEO Suzanne Scott said it was a \"heartbreaking day\" for the organisation.\n\nMs Scott said Zakrzewski's \"passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched\".\n\n\"Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us,\" she said.\n\nNational security correspondent for Fox News, Jennifer Griffin, said Zakrzewski was \"wildly popular\" and \"profoundly committed to telling the story\".\n\n\"His talents were vast and there wasn't a role that he didn't jump in to help with in the field - from photographer to engineer to editor to producer, and he did it all under immense pressure with tremendous skill,\" she tweeted.\n\nMs Griffin described Kuvshinova as a \"bright light and talented journalist\". \"The loss we feel cannot be put into words,\" she said.\n\nSenior field producer for Fox Yonat Friling said Kuvshinova had been working with the team for the past month and \"did a brilliant job\".\n\n\"We have lost a beautiful brave woman\" Ms Friling said. \"She loved music and she was funny and kind.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Yonat Friling (Frühling) This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIrish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said he was \"deeply disturbed\" by the killing of Kuvshinova and Zakrzewski, who was an Irish citizen.\n\n\"My thoughts are with their families, friends and fellow journalists,\" the taoiseach tweeted.\n\nNews that Mr Hall was injured emerged on Monday but Ms Scott gave no further detail.\n\nOn Monday Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, posted on Telegram that Mr Hall was in a serious condition.\n\nMr Hall, dual US-UK citizen, joined Fox News in 2015 and has been heavily involved in the network's foreign affairs coverage.\n\nThe attack which killed Zakrzewski and Kuvshinova follows the death on Sunday of 50-year-old US journalist Brent Renaud, who was shot and killed in the town of Irpin.\n\nAccording to Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights chief, at least two other Ukrainian journalists have also been killed in the conflict.", "US President Joe Biden and Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin held a virtual meeting on St Patrick's Day last year\n\nTwo Stormont ministers will fly to the US this week ahead of the St Patrick's Day celebrations in Washington.\n\nFinance Minister Conor Murphy and Economy Minister Gordon Lyons are due to take part in a series of trade and investment events before attending the annual ceremony at the White House.\n\nCivil service head Jayne Brady and Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill will join them.\n\nWashington's St Patrick's Day events have been cancelled for the past two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nSome restrictions, including face coverings, remain in place for White House events.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader Colum Eastwood and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin will also be in Washington.\n\nThe Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said it regretted that its leader Doug Beattie was \"too unwell to travel to Washington\" on this occasion.\n\n\"We wish those attending this week`s events a happy St Patrick`s Day and we look forward to taking up future invitations and opportunities to engage directly with the US administration,\" a UUP spokesperson added.\n\nAfter a two-year absence, the Irish political exodus on St Patrick's Day has returned with 33 Dublin ministers flying around the world.\n\nBut there will be no first or deputy first minister from Northern Ireland.\n\nTheir absence will be noted and used by some to talk up the the crisis at Stormont.\n\nBut any debate will be completely overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and it will be Putin and not the protocol which will dominate discussions.\n\nThe programme in Washington will include the traditional Northern Ireland Bureau breakfast on St Patrick's Day.\n\nAt the same time, US Vice President Kamala Harris will host a breakfast gathering before the annual speakers' luncheon with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives.\n\nThe traditional shamrock handover between the taoiseach and US President Joe Biden will take place in the oval office.\n\nOn Tuesday, politicians will gather at the Irish Embassy for the unveiling of a bust celebrating the life of former SDLP leader John Hume, who died in 2020.\n\nA bust will be unveiled in tribute to the late John Hume (left), pictured with President Clinton on St Patrick's Day in 2000\n\nBefore arriving in Washington, Mr Lyons will meet investors in New York along with representatives from the US travel industry.\n\nHe will also travel to Maryland to meet officials from the US Department of Commerce to talk about a shared project on cyber security.\n\nThe water in the White House north lawn fountain was turned green to mark St Patrick's Day in 2021\n\nAlthough she is no longer deputy first minister, Michelle O'Neill will also be in the US with her Sinn Féin party leader Mary Lou McDonald.\n\nThey will attend an Irish unity event in New York before Ms McDonald addresses the US Council on Foreign Relations.\n\nIt is not yet clear if other party leaders, including the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, plan to travel to Washington this week.", "Oleksandr Kamyshin, 37, says Ukraine's railway staff have helped an estimated 2.5 million people to reach safety\n\nThere is a last-minute change of plan. He won't be leaving from the main station after all. The bodyguards move fast and we follow, racing along the quiet streets behind the convoy, and into the suburbs.\n\nThe Russians would like to kill him.\n\nOleksandr Kamyshin is sure of this. So the 37-year-old chairman of Ukraine's railway network constantly changes his travel plans. Never stay in one place too long. Never have a routine that the Russians can discover.\n\n\"We have to be faster than those people who try to track us,\" he tells me.\n\nThe railway is the country's biggest employer with 231,000 staff across 233,000 square miles (603,470 sq km) of territory - Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe.\n\nSo far Mr Kamyshin estimates his staff have helped to move 2.5 million people to safety. But the vast operation has come at a cost. Schedules have to be constantly updated because of Russian attacks. Since Vladimir Putin's invasion began, 33 railway staff have been killed.\n\n\"They hit our track daily. They hit the stations. Our people risk their lives. They go under shelling. They keep saving people,\" says Mr Kamyshin.\n\nWhen we first meet, he is sitting at a long table with his close advisors, studying a map of the national rail network. Police guard the entrance to the room.\n\nMr Kamyshin keeps his guards and advisors close\n\nThere are constant phone calls. \"Thank you for your support. But I also have a request,\" he says to one caller. \"Please help us build trade between Ukraine and Poland.\" He hangs up and smiles. \"That was the Polish minister for infrastructure,\" he says.\n\nMr Kamyshin wants to set up a joint venture with Poland to send Ukrainian exports west.\n\nBefore joining the railways Mr Kamyshin was a financier but he is now one of the most important men in the country. In a few weeks he has gone from reforming the rail sector to a wartime director of operations.\n\n\"All people in Ukraine were businesspeople, farmers and all other professions before the war started. Now all people in Ukraine are at war. All of us have started doing war,\" he says.\n\nHis own life is a blur of rail journeys, stopping at one place to talk to local staff, at another to meet government officials, and constantly in contact with the senior leadership in Kyiv.\n\nMr Kamyshin is convinced he is a target for Russian forces\n\nHe hasn't seen his wife and two young sons since the war started nearly three weeks ago.\n\nNot only do the railways keep refugees moving, they also deliver tonnes of aid to the embattled areas of the country, transport troops to frontline cities, and continue to export whatever Ukraine can produce in these wartime conditions. A Russian blockade has closed the key ports in the south.\n\nMr Kamyshin comes across as a man who is planning for a long campaign. \"Instead of seaports we go west,\" he explains. \"We have launched a programme to relocate production from east to west. So we can move people, ideas, plans, maybe machinery to launch new production in the west.\"\n\nIt is an ambitious project and could be essential to the country's economic survival. However, Mr Kamyshin believes the West needs to do more than supply weapons and humanitarian aid.\n\nSince Russia's invasion began, thousands of people have been packing train platforms daily to travel to safer locations\n\nHe wants the Nato military alliance to enforce a no-fly zone. It is a mantra repeated by government officials at nearly every opportunity - however unlikely the prospect of it happening.\n\n\"This war will be won by Ukraine anyway. Now the only thing that needs to happen is the closing of the sky by the West.\"\n\nMy last sight of Mr Kamyshin is close to midnight at a suburban rail depot. He is walking along the side of the tracks in darkness until the spotlight of the approaching train briefly illuminates his small group.\n\nThe train pulls alongside and a stewardess welcomes him on board. I cannot say where his train is heading, but the night ahead will be filled with calls and discussions. There will be a few hours of sleep, perhaps, and constant checking of where the Russians have recently attacked.\n\n\"We will keep repairing the tracks once the firing stops,\" he says before leaving. \"We will keep the trains running as long as we can. There is no other option for us.\"", "Russia's flagship evening news broadcast on Channel One has been disrupted by an anti-war demonstrator.\n\nThe placard she held read: “Stop the war, don’t believe propaganda, they’re lying to you”.\n\nThe demonstrator, identified as Marina Ovsyannikova, reportedly an editor at Channel One, also released a statement on her actions.", "Chelsea FC owner and Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government\n\nThe UK sanctions against Roman Abramovich have restricted rent payments to the Crown Estate, which manages properties owned by the Queen.\n\nThe UK government froze Mr Abramovich's assets last week as part of its sanctions response to the Ukraine war.\n\nHe and other wealthy Russians have been targeted to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.\n\nThe sanctions prevent them from making transactions related to their properties and businesses in the UK.\n\nMr Abramovich's frozen assets include Chelsea FC, which was allowed to continue operating under a special licence granted by the UK government.\n\nThe 55-year-old Russian billionaire, who has denied close ties to President Putin, has also been linked to the ownership of properties in the UK.\n\nThey include a 15-bedroom mansion on Kensington Palace Gardens, an exclusive street known as \"billionaires' row\" in west London.\n\nLand records show companies that manage assets for Mr Abramovich are registered as the lease owners of the property.\n\nThis means the companies own the home, but the land it was built on belongs to the Crown Estate - a business created by Parliament to oversee a portfolio of the British monarch's properties.\n\nThe Queen is not involved in management decisions by the Crown Estate, which is tasked with generating profit for the government.\n\nThe terms of the lease require the companies to pay the Crown Estate \"£10,000 rising to £160,000\" over a 125-year term, a Land Registry document shows.\n\nWhen asked about the impact of sanctions on Mr Abramovich, a spokesperson for the Crown Estate said they would not comment on the details of individual leases.\n\nBut condemning the invasion of Ukraine, the spokesperson said: \"We are doing all we can to comply swiftly with the introduction of sanctions.\"\n\nThe BBC has requested comment from a spokesperson for Mr Abramovich.\n\nThe restrictions on rent payments were first reported by the Wall Street Journal newspaper, which said Mr Abramovich bought the house for $140m (£107m) in 2011.\n\nBuilt in the mid-1800s, the Grade II listed building hosted a Soviet diplomatic mission in 1972 and is across the road from Kensington Palace.\n\nLast week the UK government imposed travel bans and full asset freezes on \"seven of Russia's wealthiest and most influential oligarchs\", including Mr Abramovich.\n\nThese measures prohibit anyone in the UK from dealing with frozen assets owned, held or controlled by a sanctioned person.\n\nLegal experts said Mr Abramovich would have to apply for licences to make any transactions related to his properties - from security services and utility bills, to maintenance and gardeners.\n\nA licence is a written permission from the Treasury allowing an act that would otherwise breach financial sanctions. The special licence granted to Chelsea FC is one example.\n\nA Treasury spokesperson said the department cannot comment on specific properties.\n\nIn general, though, a sanctioned person who is subject to an asset freeze can still live in their house but cannot rent or sell it, the spokesperson said.\n\nThe spokesperson said they can \"apply for a licence on the grounds of 'basic needs', which can cover things like payment of insurance, property management, rent or mortgage payments, utility charges\".\n\n\"The licence would enable their bank to release those specific payments without contravening the freeze.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries says the sanctions are designed to ensure Abramovich cannot benefit from Chelsea's revenues\n\nJoshua Ray, a lawyer for Rahman Ravelli, told the BBC that licence applications \"can often take at least several weeks if not longer\".\n\n\"With respect to licences related to Chelsea, the government has signalled a willingness to put applications on a fast track, but that doesn't appear to apply to his other UK assets,\" said Mr Ray, who advises international companies on sanctions.\n\nTreasury guidance says lawyers advising a sanctioned person \"cannot receive any payment\" for that service without a licence.\n\nMr Ray said Mr Abramovich \"would likely need to engage a lawyer located in a jurisdiction where he is not yet sanctioned\".\n\nOn Sunday, Housing Secretary Michael Gove told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme the government was looking at using the properties of Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the UK for \"humanitarian purposes\".\n\nBut he said there was \"quite a high legal bar to cross and we're not talking about permanent confiscation, adding \"if we can use it in order to help others let's do that\".", "Russia's foreign ministry says it has imposed sanctions on US President Joe Biden and 12 other US officials.\n\nThe list includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, press secretary Jen Psaki and other members of the administration.\n\nBut it also includes two surprises: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Biden's son Hunter.\n\nThe measures block their entry into Russia and freeze any assets held in the country.\n\nHowever, the ministry has said the sanctions will not impede necessary high-level contacts for the affected individuals.\n\nOther names on the list are:\n\nThe ministry has said it is applying sanctions \"on the basis of reciprocity\".\n\nRussia is now the most sanctioned country in the world.\n\nWestern countries have already sanctioned top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nOn Tuesday, the US announced sanctions on 11 Russian defence leaders and signalled that it could levy sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Moscow-allied Belarus.\n\nEarlier, the UK slapped sanctions on another 370 Russian individuals, including former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev.\n\nPresident Biden is due to travel to Europe next week to attend an emergency Nato summit in Brussels where he will assert Washington's \"iron-clad\" backing to its allies, the White House said on Tuesday.\n\nHillary Clinton can abandon dreams she may have had of buying a vacation dacha in Sochi.\n\nAny Joe Biden post-presidency plans for starting a business in Moscow will have to be shelved.\n\nJokes aside, the Russian \"stop\" order placed on the US President, senior White House staff and - interestingly - a former secretary of state who has not held public office in nine years is a symbolic but not particularly consequential reprisal for the staggering sanctions the US and allies have imposed on Russia. It's not like any of the listed Americans had significant financial interests in Russia.\n\nThe move is a reflection, however, of the growing chasm between the US and Russia in the wake of the latter's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nProhibiting the top American diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, from even setting foot on Russian soil suggests relations between the two nations are at a post-Cold War nadir.\n\nThat has very real consequences outside of the Ukrainian conflict, as the US and Russia had hoped to co-operate on Iranian nuclear negotiations, counterterrorism, global warming and other pressing international issues. Chances of that happening now are increasingly dim.", "The Royal Family were warned about the risk of \"might being right\" in Ukraine\n\n\"At this very moment , Ukraine risks being pulverised,\" Lord Sentamu, former Archbishop of York, has warned the annual Commonwealth Service.\n\nThe Prince of Wales and Boris Johnson were among those at the Westminster Abbey service, with the prime minister wearing a Ukraine-and-UK badge.\n\n\"It is not the first time that might has demanded to be right,\" Lord Sentamu said of the attack on Ukraine.\n\nThe Queen, 95, had pulled out of attending this year's service.\n\nLord Sentamu told the Commonwealth Service, attended by royals including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and senior politicians, his prayer for Ukraine was \"heavenly justice will defend the poor and vulnerable\".\n\nIn contrast to a \"world which measures power in megatons\", he said, the Queen's long reign had been about duty and service and the principle: \"Whoever shall be great among you shall be your servant.\"\n\nLord Sentamu speaking to Boris Johnson as he arrived at the service, which celebrated the Commonwealth\n\nThe Royal Family have been unusually outspoken over the Ukraine war, with Prince Charles condemning the \"brutal aggression\" and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting the Ukrainian Cultural Centre wearing badges in the Ukrainian national colours.\n\nThe ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, celebrated the work of the Commonwealth, with parades of flags, readings and music from Emeli Sandé and Mica Paris, and a focus on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.\n\nAfter concerns about her ability to travel and her mobility, the Queen had been unable to attend in person.\n\nBut in a message she praised the Commonwealth as a force for good in \"these testing times\".\n\nShe also showed no sign of stepping back, repeating the lifelong commitment made when she was 21 that \"my life will always be devoted in service\".\n\nThe Queen recently recovered from Covid and has returned to holding diplomatic meetings and audiences in person.\n\nBut in one of those meetings last month, she said: \"As you can see, I can't move.\"\n\nPrince Charles represented her at the Westminster Abbey service.\n\nHe will also go on behalf of the Queen to the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, due to be held in Rwanda in June.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after she was released from house arrest in Tehran in March 2021\n\nBritish-Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her UK passport returned, her MP has said.\n\nShe has been detained in Iran for nearly six years after being arrested while visiting her family. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied.\n\nTulip Siddiq said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was still at her family home in Tehran, where she is under house arrest.\n\nBoris Johnson said negotiations were \"going right up to the wire\".\n\nMs Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said she understood British negotiators were in the Iranian capital.\n\nShe met Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard for \"yet another strategy meeting\" on Tuesday - saying she hoped there would not be many more.\n\nMr Johnson said during a visit to Abu Dhabi that talks with Iran over Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release were \"moving forward\".\n\nHe said he would not comment further \"because those negotiations continue to be under way and we're going right up to the wire\".\n\nThe prime minister also said negotiations for the release of dual nationals in Tehran had been going on \"for a long time\".\n\nAccording to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's employer the Thomson Reuters Foundation, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani has said he is \"hopeful that we will have good news soon\".\n\nA £400m debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country - although the government has said the two issues should not be linked.\n\nDowning Street said it was committed to paying the debt and was \"exploring options to resolve it\", but said it had not been resolved.\n\nA Foreign Office spokesman said it continued to \"explore options\" to resolve the debt but would not comment further as discussions were ongoing.\n\nHe added the Foreign Office would not comment on speculation about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe but had long called for the release of \"unfairly detained British nationals in Iran\".\n\nFormer foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt - who has campaigned for her release - said it was traditional for clemency to be shown to some prisoners to coincide with Persian New Year, Nowruz.\n\nThis year's festival falls this Sunday so Mr Hunt said it could be \"a very, very critical next few days\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ros Atkins looks at the story behind Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's detention in Iran - and her husband's campaign to free her\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, who has always denied the charges against her, was first jailed for five years in 2016 after being accused of plotting against the regime - spending the last year of her sentence under house arrest at her parents' home.\n\nAfter that sentence expired she was then sentenced to another year's confinement in April 2021 on charges of \"spreading propaganda\", which has been served at her parents' house in Tehran.\n\nHer husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lives with their daughter Gabriella in Hampstead, London, has campaigned for her release, including by going on hunger strike in October last year.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 5 live there had been \"so many false hopes\" over the last five or six years so it was hard to tell \"if this is a really positive sign or just the Iranian government playing games again\".\n\nShe said her sister-in-law was on edge when things like this happened because she did not want to get her hopes up.\n\n\"We have everything crossed, but remain sceptical,\" she said.\n\nHer mother-in-law, Barbara Ratcliffe, told the BBC Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe \"seemed really quite upbeat when I last spoke to her\", but added that the family was \"all a bit battle-scarred\", having had disappointments in the past.\n\nSacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, warned the latest reports should be treated with caution as there had been \"false dawn after false dawn\" in the long-running process.\n\nAnd Rupert Skilbeck, director of the Redress human rights organisation, echoed such sentiments.\n\n\"We remain cautious and continue to encourage the UK government to do the right thing and ensure the debt it owes to Iran is paid, and that it does everything in its power to secure Nazanin's release,\" he said.\n\nThere are other Western passport holders detained by Iran including Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer from London, who was convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in 2019.\n\nFor more on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's story you can listen to Radio 4's Nazanin series on BBC Sounds.", "An explosion at an apartment building on Friday\n\nHundreds of people are crammed into the basement of a large public building in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, but are running out of food, with many also in need of urgent medical help.\n\n\"Some have developed sepsis from shrapnel in the body,\" said Anastasiya Ponomareva, a 39-year-old teacher who fled the city at the start of the war but was still in contact with friends there. \"Things are very serious.\"\n\nThe city is encircled by Russian troops and remains under constant bombardment with almost 400,000 people still trapped without running water, and food and medical supplies quickly running out. The local authorities say the war there has left at least 2,400 civilians dead, but even they acknowledge that this is an underestimate.\n\nMs Ponomareva's friends are with other families in the basement of the building. They have all left homes that are no longer safe or no longer standing.\n\n\"People who managed to hide in underground shelters basically live there permanently,\" Ms Ponomareva said from the western city of Drohobych, where she was living. \"They practically cannot leave at all.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMost of their day is spent hiding in the basement. From time to time they go upstairs for some sunlight, but rarely outside. Conditions, she was told, were quickly deteriorating, as some people had a fever and nothing could be done to treat them. \"There is no medical help, no antibiotics.\"\n\nSome streets are so dangerous that few go out to pick up the dead. Many are being buried in mass graves. The almost non-stop Russian attacks have turned their old neighbourhoods into wasteland. New drone footage (pictured above) showed the vast extent of the damage, with fire and smoke billowing out of apartment blocks and blackened streets in ruins.\n\n\"On the left bank, there's no residential building intact, it's all burned to the ground,\" Ms Ponomareva said. \"The city centre is unrecognisable.\"\n\nSheltering in the same building, a family of four has been in touch with Serhii Kozyrkov, a 40-year-old pastor who left Mariupol two weeks ago. \"It's very crowded and there isn't enough food,\" Mr Kozyrkov, who is now in Lviv, said. \"People get ill because it's very cold and everyone is lying next to each other.\"\n\nThe family are desperate to flee. On Tuesday, about 2,000 cars managed to exit Mariupol, the city council said, and 2,000 more were ready to go. It was the second day that residents were allowed to leave. Previous evacuation attempts had failed, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russia of attacking the city and even routes to be used by civilians, despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n\nBut, again, no humanitarian aid was allowed into the city. Sergei Orlov, the deputy mayor of Mariupol, said things were \"getting more difficult by the hour\".\n\n\"The situation is horrible,\" he said. \"There isn't enough food, water, medicine, insulin, baby food. Everyone has specific needs.\" According to Mr Orlov, cars with supplies have been waiting for four days but the Russians have not let it in. \"We get a lot of calls. For example, a mother who says 'I have a child in my hands [who] is dying from hunger.' Or we get a call 'Here's our address. We're blocked in the basement. What should we do?',\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"Unfortunately,\" he said, \"we can't do anything.\"\n\nBack in the basement, the family told Mr Kozyrkov they could hear the sound of explosions nearby but that their building remained intact. There is one generator which they use to recharge their phones and, from time to time, they venture outside to make some calls.\n\n\"The shelling doesn't stop,\" he said. \"They're very frightened.\"\n\nMs Ponomareva said the situation was \"very difficult, to put it mildly.\" People need a humanitarian corridor, she said. \"Otherwise, it's a slow death from hunger and thirst.\"\n\nAre you in Mariupol, or do you have concerns for relatives or friends living in the area? If it is safe for you to do so, please email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "The bar was popular among the city's young creatives\n\nYou'll Never Drink Alone were the words that hung above the bar at the Old Hem, an iconic pub in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.\n\nThe pub is named after Ernest Hemingway, and its patrons would walk past a statue of the legendary American writer on their way in.\n\nIt was popular among the city's young creatives, and Serhiy Zhadan, one of Ukraine's best known poets, would often perform and drink there.\n\nBut now the Old Hem lies in ruins.\n\nThe pub was destroyed in shelling on Monday\n\nIt was completely destroyed during Russian shelling of the city on Monday. The Kharkiv prosecutor's office says two people died in the attack.\n\nThe bar's owner, Kostiantyn Kuts, told the BBC that no staff were in the bar when the strike hit, and those who died were in apartments above the pub.\n\nThe Old Hem stopped pouring pints and turned into a makeshift bomb shelter when the Russian army invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Mr Kuts says.\n\nHe initially hoped that he'd only be shutting up briefly.\n\n\"We did not completely believe in what was happening and hoped that soon the bar would work. But the illusions were destroyed with the first bombs on residential buildings,\" he said in a message.\n\nIn the early days of the invasion, Kharkiv fought back a Russian armoured column. Since then, it has suffered nightly Russian airstrikes and shelling, with dozens of civilians killed and hundreds injured.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Our correspondent on the front line, with Ukraine’s troops - this report contains graphic images of casualties\n\nBut in the weeks leading up to the invasion, Mr Kuts says it was business as usual at the bar.\n\n\"The atmosphere was friendly. Many felt at home in the bar,\" he says. \"The pub was popular among young people, and they were all optimistic and did not believe in war.\"\n\nThis homely atmosphere was one the Old Hem had built up over a decade.\n\nMr Kuts says the pub was opened in 2012 as a place where people could \"meet and discuss current affairs over a glass of beer\". It soon became a focal point for Kharkiv's creatives and would showcase local talent.\n\nYuri, who often visited the Old Hem and declined to give his full name, said it was more of a hub than a pub. He recalls musician Oleh Skrypka, vocalist with the ground-breaking Ukrainian rock band Vopli Vidopliassova, playing a rare intimate show. Parties would regularly continue into the early hours.\n\n\"It was one of the first places in Kharkiv to support Maidan publicly with flags and manifestos on the doors,\" he says, in reference to the protest movement that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.\n\n\"Freedom and democracy combined with cheap beer is why youth loved it I guess,\" he says.\n\nThe pub was dedicated to Hemingway\n\nThe pub was dedicated to Hemingway, one of Mr Kuts' heroes, and had a statue of the writer at the entrance. The walls of the bar were decked out with portraits of other iconic authors including 20th Century Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov, Charles Bukowski and Mark Twain.\n\n\"I was often asked the question - why Old Hem?\" Mr Kuts says.\n\nHe said this was out of affection for an old friend rather than a reference to his age.\n\nBut what really made the bar was the people, he adds.\n\nMr Kuts hopes to one day rebuild his beloved pub\n\nMr Kuts is now in western Ukraine and is hoping to make it to Germany. But one day he hopes to return to his city to rebuild his beloved bar.\n\n\"I'm sure Hem's story didn't end today,\" he says. \"We will win and Hem will rise again.\"", "Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are among the latest people to be sanctioned by the UK over the war in Ukraine\n\nThe UK has announced 370 more sanctions, with Russia's former president one of those targeted, in its latest response to the war in Ukraine.\n\nDmitry Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin's spokesman are among those to be hit with asset freezes and travel bans.\n\nEarlier, the UK hit Russia with trade restrictions, including an additional 35% tariff on vodka.\n\nThe move comes after the passage of new legislation to speed up and harden UK sanctions.\n\nThe government fast-tracked the Economic Crime Act through Parliament after criticism that UK had been too slow to target Russians with links to President Putin.\n\nThe legislation allows the UK to sanction those who have had their assets frozen by the EU, US or Canada, and take action to stop wealthy Russians using London for money laundering.\n\nParliament's Intelligence and Security Committee of MPs, which oversees the UK's intelligence community, said it hoped the new legislation was \"at least the first step\" in helping authorities ensure the UK is \"no longer a safe haven for the oligarchy and their enablers\".\n\nBut a statement from the committee said it had made it clear two years ago in its report on Russian interference in British politics that the UK had been \"welcoming Russian money for many years with few questions - if any - being asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth\", and urgent action had been needed then.\n\nRussian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu were among the other high-profile allies of President Putin to be sanctioned by the UK.\n\nOthers include Mr Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov and Russian Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who the UK government called \"Russian propagandists\".\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the UK was \"going further and faster than ever in hitting those closest to Putin\".\n\n\"We are holding them to account for their complicity in Russia's crimes in Ukraine,\" she said. \"Working closely with our allies, we will keep increasing the pressure on Putin and cut off funding for the Russian war machine.\"\n\nDmitry Medvedev (L) and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (R) are two of President Putin's closest allies\n\nA growing number of Russians have been sanctioned by the UK and its western allies since President Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been issuing increasingly frank pleas for stronger sanctions and western military intervention as Russian shelling of Ukrainian cities exact an ever-higher death toll.\n\nIn a video call with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Mr Zelensky said \"we can still stop the Russian war machine\" and it was vital to do so because otherwise \"they will come for you\".\n\nLast week, the UK imposed asset freezes and travel bans on Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and 386 Russian MPs who voted to recognise two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent.\n\nA further wave of sanctions was announced on Tuesday morning in co-ordination with the European Union.\n\nThey related to trade with Russia and included a 35% import tariff hike on Russian vodka and hundreds of other goods worth £900m.\n\nThe latest package of UK sanctions was targeted at individuals and organisations with links to President Putin's administration.\n\nSome of them had already been sanctioned by western allies, among them Mr Mishustin and Mr Peskov, described by the US as \"a top purveyor of Putin's propaganda\".\n\nThe UK was quicker to sanction others such as Mr Abramovich, who was blacklisted by the EU on Tuesday and accused of \"benefitting from Russian decision-makers\" responsible for destabilising Ukraine.\n\nA prominent name on the UK's latest list of sanctioned individuals was Mr Medvedev.\n\nCurrently deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020, Mr Medvedev served as president from 2008 to 2012 and as prime minister from 2012 to 2020.\n\nOnce regarded as more liberal than President Putin, Mr Medvedev warned western nations against sanctions in a tweet earlier this month.\n\nDo not forget, he wrote, \"that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones\".\n\nThe UK government has been accused of moving too slowly on sanctions against Russians with links to President Putin.\n\nOpposition parties were worried a delay in imposing them meant some could move many of their assets out of the UK before they were frozen.\n\nThe Economic Crime Act received royal assent in the early hours of Tuesday morning. It has given ministers the power to go further, and quickly sanction those who had been targeted already by the EU and the US.\n\nMinisters had expressed frustration about the process for sanctioning individuals under previous legislation.\n\nThe Economic Crime Act should remove some of the difficulties around building legal cases to justify sanctions under UK law.\n\nThe UK government also said Russian oligarchs with a combined estimated worth of more than £100bn were added to its sanctions list.\n\nOn the list was billionaire Mikhail Fridman, founder of Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia. He lives in London and has business interests in the UK.\n\nAt a London press conference on 1 March, he said while the Ukraine war was a \"huge tragedy\", sanctioning oligarchs would not sway President Putin.\n\nSome of the other oligarchs sanctioned by the UK included:\n\nFor Labour, shadow international trade secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: \"Urgent sanctions have been needed so that Putin and his inner circle cannot live a Mayfair lifestyle in Moscow while committing atrocities in Ukraine.\n\n\"The government now needs to ensure that the export ban has no loopholes so it has maximum impact.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mikhail Fridman said the conflict in Ukraine should be stopped as soon as possible", "Last updated on .From the section Horse Racing\n\nCoverage: Commentaries on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, feature races Radio 5 Live. Racecards, live text, results & reports on the BBC Sport website and app\n\nThe roar which greets the start of racing's Cheltenham Festival will be heard for the first time in two years as crowds return on Tuesday.\n\nLast year's four-day fixture, which usually attracts a total attendance of about 250,000, was held behind closed doors because of Covid-19.\n\nRachael Blackmore will look to win the opening day's Champion Hurdle again with Honeysuckle.\n\nShe made history in 2021 as the first woman to be the meeting's top jockey.\n\nThe unbeaten mare Honeysuckle seeks a 15th straight career win in Tuesday's feature race at 15:30 GMT.\n\nBlackmore will ride last year's runner-up A Plus Tard against stablemate and defending champion Minella Indo in Friday's Gold Cup.\n\nWhat will the Festival look like?\n\nCheltenham was one of the last major sporting events to be held with spectators before the coronavirus lockdown in March 2020.\n\nA year later, winners passed the finishing line to a smattering of applause from stable staff. The noise this time will be a sharp contrast with thousands of Irish punters set to travel over and tickets selling in record time.\n\nBookmakers expect around £500m overall to be wagered during the Festival and while notes will be accepted by bookies on course, the track's bars and restaurants will be cashless and require card payments.\n\nThere are a total of 28 races over the four days with Tuesday's concluding race run as the Ukraine Appeal National Hunt Chase to support those affected by the humanitarian crisis after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBritish trainers aim to do better than a year ago when they went down to a record 23-5 defeat by Irish runners as Blackmore won more races (six) than all the GB trainers.\n\nHere's some of this year's highlights:\n\nTuesday - Supreme Novices Hurdle: Trainer Nicky Henderson will be hoping to provide a home win in the opener with Constitution Hill or Jonbon while Dysart Dynamo heads three runners for Willie Mullins.\n\nChampion Hurdle: The Irish powerhouses of Henry de Bromhead, Mullins and Gordon Elliott saddle the first three in the betting in Honeysuckle, Appreciate It and Teahupoo. Between them, the training trio have 22 of the meeting's 28 ante-post favourites. The 2020 champion, Epatante, runs for Henderson.\n\nWednesday: Queen Mother Champion Chase: Henderson's Shishkin and Energumene, for Mullins - who also runs Chacun Pour Soi - renew rivalry after the former won their first clash at Ascot which was hailed as one of the great races of recent years. Last year's winner Put The Kettle On and runner-up Nube Negra return.\n\nCross Country Chase: Will two-time Grand National winner Tiger Roll bow out with a record-equalling sixth Festival win? Trainer Elliott is back at the Festival having served a six-month suspension after being pictured sat on a dead horse.\n\nThursday - Ryanair Chase: Allaho was one of the most impressive scorers last year and will be sent out to defend his title for Mullins, who earlier runs Galopin Des Champs against another Cheltenham 2021 victor, De Bromhead's Bob Olinger, in the Turners Novices' Chase.\n\nStayers' Hurdle: Three previous winners of this race line up with Flooring Porter taking on Lisnagar Oscar and Paisley Park, the hurdler named after Prince's recording studio and owned by Andrew Gemmell, who has been blind since birth.\n\nFriday - Gold Cup: De Bromhead saddles last year's first two in Minella Indo and A Plus Tard, while Mullins sends out two-time winner Al Boum Photo, who was third last year. Elliott runs Galvin and Protektorat is the leading British hope for Dan Skelton.\n\nIt is expected to be a largely dry week, aside from forecast rain on Wednesday, with temperatures of up to 15C.\n\nThe going at the track on the eve of the meeting was described as Good to Soft.\n• None Six films that got their facts wrong: From the Jamaican bobsleigh team to Sylvester Stallone's goalkeeping heroics\n• None A look back to when Michael Vaughan sat down with cricket legend Shane Warne", "Drone footage taken of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol shows the extent of the damage caused by Russian attacks.\n\nDeputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov, said the city, in south-eastern Ukraine, was under \"constant shelling, bombing and some street battles.\"\n\nThousands of civilians have been trapped there for nearly two weeks, surrounded by Russian troops firing rockets and shells, which have destroyed many buildings.", "Logan was found dead in the River Ogmore last July\n\nA teenager accused of murdering a five-year-old boy has been described as \"a monster\" and spoke of killing people, a court has heard.\n\nThe body of Logan Mwangi was found in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend, last July with 56 injuries.\n\nThe court heard the boy said he wanted to kill Logan shortly before his death.\n\nThe 14-year-old boy, Logan's mother Angharad Williamson, 30, and his step-father John Cole, 40, are on trial at Cardiff Crown Court and deny murder.\n\nIn statements read to the court, the former foster family of the accused said he made their lives \"hell\" during a period that he lived with them, and described him as a \"monster\".\n\nHe also told the family he would kill them, explaining he would do so if the plot of the horror film The Purge - in which all crime, including murder, becomes decriminalised in a 12-hour period- became real.\n\nThe boy's foster father said he had become \"terrified\" of the boy who had told him he wanted to \"punch his lights out\".\n\nThe family also told of the boy's behaviour towards their family dog, who he insisted on pulling up by his hind legs and keep him dangling even though he was aware the dog had an injured pelvis.\n\nThere was also reference to an occasion when he had been witnessed spraying a can of deodorant into the dog's eyes.\n\nAngharad Williamson and John Cole are both charged with Logan Mwangi's murder\n\nThe jury heard how on more than one occasion the teenager, who was 13 at the time, had said he wanted to kill Logan.\n\nAs details of the teen's behaviour was read to the court, Logan's mother Angharad Williamson began crying loudly from the dock.\n\nThe foster family said they had continuously raised concerns about the accused's behaviour and threats with a social worker, Debbie Williams, but these were dismissed as \"nonsense\".\n\n\"She just brushed it off as if it was nothing,\" the foster mother said in her statement.\n\nIn evidence, Ms Williams denied she was ever told about these concerns.\n\nShe told the court how she had visited the accused at a number of addresses - at first virtually, and then in person as Covid restrictions eased.\n\nMs Williams described how the teenager would sometimes \"poke, pinch or kick her\" during meetings but said he never hurt her.\n\nShe also said the teenager used to swear at her regularly, but said she felt it was mainly banter.\n\nShe said she last saw the teenager on 30 July and the teenager was \"his usual cheeky self, swearing at me.\"\n\nMs Williams was also asked about a conversation she had with the teenager around a month after Logan had died.\n\nShe told the court, she'd said to the teenager: \"I don't think you realise the seriousness of the situation you are in.\"\n\nThe accused replied: \"I do know that... we didn't hurt him.\"\n\nA neighbour of Mr Cole in Maesglas, Sarn, Sheryl Lewis, also gave evidence.\n\nShe said she heard Mr Cole crying outside on the phone at about 21:20 BST on 31 July, saying: \"Help me, help me. What should I do? What should I do?\"\n\nAll three defendants deny murder and are also accused of perverting the course of justice, including moving Logan's body to the river near Pandy Park, removing his clothing, washing blood-stained bed linen, and making a false missing person report to police.\n\nMs Williamson and the youth pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice, while Mr Cole admitted the charge.", "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Russian soldiers to surrender.\n\nIn his nightly TV address, he said Russian forces had suffered worse losses during their invasion of his country than in the Chechnya conflict.\n\nHe said they had already begun to understand that they would not achieve anything by war.\n\n\"I know that you want to survive,\" he said, adding that those who surrendered would be treated \"as people, decently\".\n\nMr Zelensky also paid tribute to Marina Ovsyannikova, the woman who interrupted Russian state TV news by holding up an anti-war sign.\n\nHe said he was \"grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth\" and who fought disinformation.\n\nNegotiations between Russia and Ukraine are expected to continue on Tuesday, with Mr Zelensky saying \"pretty good\" progress had been made so far.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in Kyiv\n\nLater, in a video call to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and representatives from the multinational Joint Expeditionary Force, the Ukrainian leader once again berated Nato over its refusal to implement a no-fly zone.\n\nMr Zelensky said Nato was \"the strongest alliance in the world\" but \"some of the members of this alliance are hypnotised by Russian aggression\".\n\nHe added that Vladimir Putin's invasion had undermined European security infrastructure and that fears of World War Three were allowing Russia to bombard peaceful cities.\n\nIn another diplomatic move, the Polish, Czech and Slovenian prime ministers are on their way by train to Kyiv to meet Mr Zelensky.\n\nThe Polish government said in a statement that the visit was intended \"to confirm the unequivocal support of the entire European Union for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine and to present a broad package of support for the Ukrainian state and society\".\n\nHowever, authorities in the beleaguered capital have announced a 35-hour curfew to begin at 20:00 local time on Tuesday.\n\nKyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said it would last until 07:00 on Thursday, adding that it came at \"a difficult and dangerous moment\".\n\nAddressing the Russian invaders, Mr Zelensky said: \"We hear your conversations in the intercepts, we hear what you really think about this senseless war, about this disgrace and about your state.\"\n\nTherefore, he said, he was offering them a choice on behalf of the Ukrainian people.\n\n\"If you surrender to our forces, we will treat you the way people are supposed to be treated. As people, decently.\n\n\"In a way you were not treated in your army. And in a way your army does not treat ours. Choose!\"", "Logan was found dead in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend, last July\n\nA five-year-old boy who was found dead in a river was made to stand on a step with his hands on a banister if he misbehaved, a court has heard.\n\nJohn Cole, 40, Angharad Williamson, 30, and a 14 year old who cannot be named, deny murdering Logan Mwangi.\n\nA friend of Mr Cole, Callum Williams, told Cardiff Crown Court he had seen Logan being disciplined in the house in Sarn, Bridgend.\n\nThis included standing on the step for 30 minutes each time.\n\nHe was also denied Chinese takeaway and fed cereal for dinner instead for misbehaving, the court heard.\n\nMr Williams said he had seen Logan on a video call on 27 July, just days before his body was found in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend.\n\nHe said the boy was \"very happy and joyful\" and had been colouring in a picture of a field and some flowers.\n\nThe court was also told Logan had previously been taken to A&E after an injury to his arm or shoulder following a fall down the stairs.\n\nJurors were told hospital staff had referred the matter to social services because of concerns over a delay in reporting the injury, and Ms Williamson had \"tried to put the injury back in place\".\n\nThe court also heard from nursery teacher Catherine Richards who said Logan \"would light up the classroom with his smile\" and \"was a very bright little boy\" who had never been any trouble.\n\nShe said there was an occasion when she saw Logan with a bruise on his face, which said he had \"poked himself\" in school, but Ms Williamson said had been the result of him being hit with by a Nerf gun while playing with Mr Cole.\n\nThe court heard there was another incident when Logan had soiled himself in school, Ms Richards said Logan \"was very distressed about it and didn't want mum to know\". He asked for the clothes to be thrown out.\n\nAngharad Williamson and John Cole are both charged with Logan Mwangi's murder\n\nLogan's mother, Angharad Williamson, 30, step-father, John Cole, 40, both of Sarn, and a 14-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all deny murder.\n\nAll three are also accused of perverting the course of justice, including moving Logan's body to the river near Pandy Park, removing his clothing, washing bloodstained bed linen, and making a false missing person report to police.\n\nMs Williamson and the youth pleaded not guilty to both offences, while Mr Cole admitted perverting the course of justice.\n\nThe two adults were also charged with causing or allowing the death of a child, which they both deny.\n\nLast July, Logan was found with 56 \"catastrophic\" injuries, which were consistent with a fall from a great height or a car crash, the court previously heard.", "The astronaut has spent 355 days in space\n\nA US astronaut will now be returning to Earth, after fears his Russian lift home might not materialise.\n\nIt was originally thought Mark Vande Hei - who has been in space for 355 days - might be left behind on the ISS due to heightened tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut it has been confirmed he will travel aboard a Russian capsule to Kazakhstan.\n\nThe American and two Russian cosmonauts will be brought back to Earth.\n\n\"I can tell you for sure Mark is coming home... We are in communication with our Russian colleagues. There's no fuzz on that,\" Joel Montalbano, Nasa's International Space Station (ISS) programme manager said.\n\nHe admitted the astronauts were \"aware of what's going on\" in the world, but they still work as a team.\n\nUnder international space law, astronauts from all nations must \"provide all possible help\" to other astronauts when needed, \"including emergency landing in a foreign country or at sea\".\n\nDmitry Rogozin, chief of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, had previously warned about sanctions causing technical issues to the ISS but Mr Montalbano said it had continued to run smoothly.\n\n\"All these activities have continued for 20 years and nothing has changed in the last three weeks. Our control centres operate successfully, flawlessly, seamlessly,\" he said.\n\nThe US controls power and life support aboard the ISS and Russia controls things such as its propulsion.\n\nEarlier this month on Russian state TV, Mr Rogozin announced Roscosmos would halt rocket sales to the US in response to sanctions against Russia.\n\nMr Vande Hei, 55, has now made a new US record for the most time spent in space.", "Outdoor civil weddings and partnerships are being legalised permanently in England and Wales.\n\nUntil last summer, non-religious ceremonies had to be held inside or in a permanent outdoor structure.\n\nThe rules were relaxed to allow for more guests while coronavirus social distancing measures were in place.\n\nThe temporary measures are being made permanent from April after \"overwhelming support\" from the public, the Ministry of Justice said.\n\nA government consultation found that 96% of respondents were in favour of the changes being made permanent, with 93% supporting it being extended to religious ceremonies.\n\nThe weddings and partnership ceremonies will still have to be held at licensed venues.\n\nReforms to religious ceremonies will follow, the Ministry of Justice said.\n\nJustice minister Tom Pursglove said: \"A wedding is one of the most important days in a person's life and it is right that couples should have greater choice in how they celebrate their special occasion.\n\n\"These reforms will allow couples to hold more personalised ceremonies and provide a welcome boost for the wedding sector.\"\n\nThe government is to also consider recommendations from a Law Commission review into marriage laws, which is due to be published in July.\n\nThe report is looking at how to modernise marriage law, including widening the locations where people can get married and whether more types of weddings should be legalised.\n\nUntil 1994, marriage ceremonies in England and Wales could only take place in churches and register offices.\n\nAn amendment to the law permitted ceremonies at other locations including landmarks, stately homes and dedicated wedding venues. The sites must be approved by local councils, with a registrar attending to record the ceremony.\n\nFor historical reasons, the law already allows Jewish and Quaker wedding ceremonies the option of taking place outdoors.\n\nBut other religious ceremonies still currently take place indoors in churches or certified places of worship.", "The Met has apologised and admitted the incident should not have happened\n\nA black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.\n\nThe \"traumatic\" search by Metropolitan Police officers took place without another adult present at the girl's secondary school in Hackney in 2020.\n\nA safeguarding report on the incident concluded it was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nScotland Yard said the officers' actions were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nAccording to the report, the impact on the pupil - referred to as Child Q - was \"profound\" and the repercussions \"obvious and ongoing\".\n\nFamily members described her as changing from a \"happy-go-lucky girl to a timid recluse that hardly speaks\", who now self-harms and needs therapy.\n\nPolice were called to a school in Hackney at the end of 2020 by teachers, who told investigators they had been concerned the teenager had drugs in her possession because she smelt of cannabis.\n\nShe was taken to the medical room and strip-searched by two female officers, while teachers remained outside.\n\nDuring the ordeal her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review. No drugs were found.\n\nHer family strongly believe the strip search was a racist incident, and the review found her experiences are \"unlikely to have been the same\" had she not been black.\n\nThe Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review, published in March, was conducted by City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP) .\n\nIt said it was highly likely that \"adultification bias\" was a factor - where adults perceive black children as being older than they are because they see them as more \"streetwise\".\n\nIn a written statement to the review, the girl said she wanted everyone who allowed the strip search to happen to \"be held responsible\".\n\nShe said: \"I need to know that the people who have done this to me can't do it to anyone else ever again, in fact so no-one else can do this to any other child in their care.\"\n\nInvestigators found that school staff deferred to the police's authority and \"should have been more challenging\".\n\nThis has been accepted by the school, with one staff member saying: \"I have never known, nor would I condone, a strip-search of a young person on a school site.\"\n\nThe Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was now investigating, the Met confirmed.\n\nDet Supt Dan Rutland, of the Met's Central East Command, said: \"We recognise that the findings of the safeguarding review reflect this incident should never have happened.\n\n\"It is truly regrettable and on behalf of the Met Police I would like to apologise to the child concerned, her family and the wider community.\"\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan said this was a \"deeply disturbing case\" that no child should face and he would be \"closely following\" the IOPC review.\n\nHackney Council's mayor and deputy mayor have condemned the \"humiliating, traumatising and utterly shocking treatment\" by police officers.\n\nThey have asked for a report in six to nine months on progress made regarding the review's eight findings and 14 recommendations.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n• None Met apology to woman over language in strip search", "NI Health Minister Robin Swann, EJ Havlin, Director of Adoption UK, and Kathy Brownlee with her adopted son, Mack, on the steps of Parliament Buildings at Stormont on Tuesday\n\nA move to overhaul Northern Ireland's out-of-date adoption laws has passed its final hurdle at Stormont.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said it was among the most important bills brought to the assembly. The review of the law was 16 years in the making, he added.\n\nThere are more than 700 adoptive families here, but the laws were last updated in the 1980s.\n\nOn average, it takes more than three years for a child to be adopted from care in Northern Ireland.\n\nBut it can vary greatly depending on a child's individual circumstance.\n\nIn other legislative developments on Tuesday:\n\nThe new adoption law allows courts to impose a timescale for adoption, and aims to make sure post-adoption assessments consider a child's needs, as well as give adopters more support through social services.\n\nIn the year to March 2020, 111 children were adopted from care in Northern Ireland.\n\nAs assembly members passed the final stage of the bill on Tuesday, Mr Swann said it would \"change lives\".\n\n\"It will mean that adoptive families can enjoy support, and strengthen and widen support for families in need,\" he added.\n\n\"Sixteen years after this process started, I'm delighted to say I commend this bill to the house.\"\n\nSinn Féin's Colm Gildernew, chair of the health committee, said the bill was \"overdue\" and one of the \"most rewarding\" pieces of legislation he had ever worked on.\n\nFor the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Colin McGrath said the passing of the bill showed what politicians could do when they worked together.\n\nWatching Stormont at work lately has been like waiting on a bus - you wait ages for one then loads arrive at once.\n\nFour bills crossed the finish line in the assembly today and will now become law - but why?\n\nThere is a rush to get outstanding legislation completed before the assembly wraps up for the election in just under two weeks' time.\n\nExtra sittings will happen next week - rumours of a Saturday sitting have even been whispered.\n\n27 bills that looked in doubt last month when the executive collapsed - on a range of issues affecting the lives of many people - should make it in time.\n\nA reminder of how fast Stormont can move when it has to.\n\nHe said it showed the assembly could \"deliver change\".\n\nThe Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) Pam Cameron also welcomed the bill becoming law and said it was a \"momentous day\".\n\nShe praised the work of all those who had helped to push the bill through its legislative process.\n\nThere were warm words from Alliance's Paula Bradshaw. who said the passing of the bill was an \"exciting day\" and said the changes filled her \"heart with joy\".\n\nThe bill was stalled after public consultation processes and the previous collapse of the Stormont institutions.\n\nThe Department of Health said the bill is expected to become law in the coming months, following which regulations would be developed and guidance put in place.\n• None 'We were left to our own devices after adopting'", "Myhailo and Maryna with their grandson, who survived the attack\n\n\"He was everything I could ever dream of, an example of what a man should be,\" says Maryna. \"He was the centre of our family, our fortress and our heart. He made my most secret dreams come true.\"\n\nMaryna's husband of 34 years, Myhailo, was killed by Russian forces on 6 March, in the commuter town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv.\n\nThis is the story of one shell that hit one flat and destroyed one family, but almost three weeks into Russia's invasion there are countless other families like this across Ukraine. Maryna wants to tell her story for the sake of Myhailo, 54, and their son Serhiy, aged 32, who was also killed in the attack.\n\nWarning: Some readers may find details in this story distressing.\n\nWe speak via video call, as Maryna is now sheltering with distant relatives in western Ukraine, along with her daughter Yanna and her grandson. The three-year-old is named Myhailo, after the grandfather he adored.\n\nMaryna appears on my screen looking drawn and wearing black. And her words pour out, in a torrent of pain, grief and anger.\n\n\"When a person is killed somewhere, \"she tells me, \"the police look for the killer. There is a court case. The person is punished. Now it's not just one person being killed, it's many. The nation is being killed. I want the world to see who is doing this so that Putin and his regime bear the blame for the killing of my beloved ones.\"\n\nThis is the second time Russia's shadow has enveloped Maryna and her family\n\nWhen the Russians began targeting Irpin, Maryna, her husband and son left their flat and moved to her daughter's home nearby. On the day of the attack, repeated shelling drove them down to the underground car park.\n\nIn the evening it was quieter, so they went up to the apartment on the 15th floor to collect some food and give her grandson a bath.\n\n\"We did everything quickly, \"she said, \"then we heard a thunderclap. Myhailo and Serhiy pushed us away - me, my daughter and my grandson. We managed to get out, but they didn't. I felt whistling in my ears, and something hot on my skin. I didn't know what had happened, but I knew I was alive.\"\n\nA shell had hit the bedroom of the flat, and blown it away, from corner to corner.\n\nOutside in the corridor she started calling for her family and found her daughter and grandson, by touch. They were scared but unharmed - saved by a mattress which fell on top of them. \"I started calling my husband and son,\" she says. \"I was calling 'Serhiy, Misha'. My son replied. I followed his voice and found the flat. My husband was at the front step. If he had made it just a few more inches, out of the flat, that would have saved his life. The entire concrete wall fell on him.\"\n\nSerhiy was alive, just. \"My son was screaming 'Mum don't come here. Run! Run away from here and take Yanna and the baby with you.\" I realised he could not move. I said: 'Darling please wait, I will come back for you.'\"\n\nMaryna, Yanna and little Myhailo felt their way downstairs through the smoke and dust - step by terrified step. Down in the car park she begged neighbours to help. \"The men went first, \"she said, \"in the blink of an eye. They came down and said someone was alive but there was nothing they could do. I asked for sheets and bandages and said I would go there myself,\" Maryna recounts.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Firefighters attend an apartment block in Obolon district after an air strike\n\n\"A woman doctor came with me. We found my son, still fully conscious. His stomach was ripped open, and his legs were broken. He said 'Mum, I can't stand it. Kill me now. My son died in my arms, not asking for anything, just cursing Putin.\"\n\nSerhiy's plans died with him - his hopes of settling down and having a family. \"I will never be able to see my son's children,\" says Maryna. \"Putin did not just kill my son and my husband. He killed my family.\"\n\nThe bereft wife and mother has her own name for the Russian leader's \"special military operation\" as he calls it. She says it is a \"special shelling operation\". One house shelled might be a fluke, she argues, but not hundreds of houses all over Ukraine. She says the Russians targeted houses deliberately in Irpin.\n\n\"The tanks moved from one place to another, to get the best view,\" she tells me.\n\nMost of Irpin's population has left\n\nThe 53-year-old angrily rejects Vladimir Putin's claim that his mission is to protect Russian speakers. \"He didn't need to rescue me,\" she says. \"I have never been oppressed. I have been speaking Russian all my life. I could travel. I could speak the language I wanted. I have started speaking Ukrainian as a form of protest (as have many others). Putin has taught me to love my homeland even more.\"\n\nThis is the second time Russia's long shadow has enveloped Maryna and her family. In 2014 she and Myhailo had just settled into their \"dream home\" in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, when Kremlin-backed rebels went to war with the Ukrainian government. They had to flee and settled in Irpin where history - or Russia's version of it - repeated itself.\n\nIn a bitter irony, many who fled the East started new lives in Irpin and neighbouring Bucha - both of which have suffered relentless Russian bombardment.\n\nMaryna says each day is harder now, as her loss seeps through to the bone. \"You wake in the morning and the person you are closest to is not there, the one who always said, 'good morning' and made you a cup of coffee. There's no-one who can come and hug you if you aren't in a good mood.\"\n\nMaryna says her grandson is now afraid of loud noises, and asks if it is \"the bad guys shooting\"\n\nMyhailo was a mechanical engineer and adored his family. \"He was a father unlike many, perhaps because he spent all his time with his children,\" Maryna says. \"When the grandson was born, he was the same with him. He taught him so many things\".\n\nShe says she and Myhailo were \"big dreamers\", always planning for the future. Now in place of dreams, there is gnawing worry for the family she has left.\n\n\"My grandson doesn't know his grandfather and uncle have passed away,\" she says. \"He is afraid of noise. When he hears a sound, he asks if it's the bad guys shooting. I need to save my daughter and grandson and get them away from the war.\"\n\nFor a short time it seemed they had outrun the threat by getting to the city of Lviv, close to the Polish border. But early on Sunday morning it too was attacked, with a cruise missile strike killing 35 people at a military training base.\n\nIn Ukraine it is now safe to assume that nowhere is safe.\n\nHaving been robbed of her husband and son, Maryna is begging Western nations to impose a no-fly zone. \"I am asking you to shield the sky over Ukraine,\" she says. \"Don't let them shoot at us. Ukraine is protecting all of Europe, and we will not manage this alone.\"\n\nthree-year-old Myhailo is named after his grandfather, who was a devoted family man\n\nTen days on, Irpin remains under fire, and most of the town's 60,000 residents have fled. Myhailo and Serhiy still lie unburied in the ruins of the flat - a torment for Maryna.\n\n\"My husband and son are still in that room,\" she says. \"I could not bury them by myself. There is no funeral service, no doctors, and no morgue. I hope there is a way to bury them, with their names on the graves. I want there to be a cross, and I want to go to visit.\"\n\nOne shell, one flat and one family hold up a mirror to the brutality of Russia's invasion, and the agony of Ukraine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson: UK needs to stand up to Putin's \"bullying\" and \"blackmail\" and stop the western addiction to Russian hydrocarbons\n\nBoris Johnson has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying the West needed to build \"the widest coalition\" to stop relying on Russian oil and gas.\n\nThe PM will fly to the country soon to hold talks on energy supply.\n\nBut the trip comes after the Saudi government faced criticism for executing 81 men in one day.\n\nTory MP Crispin Blunt said the action left Mr Johnson with \"exquisite difficulties\" in asking Saudia Arabia for help with oil supplies.\n\nBut the PM told reporters if the West was going to \"avoid being blackmailed\" by Russia's President Vladamir Putin, it needed to move away from using his country's hydrocarbons and explore other partnerships.\n\nBefore Russia invaded Ukraine, energy and fuel prices were on the rise across the West.\n\nBut since the war began, the cost has rocketed even further, with petrol reaching record highs in the UK of more than £1.60 a litre in recent days.\n\nMr Johnson said the \"Russian aggression\" in Ukraine had \"helped to trigger a spike in the price of hydrocarbons, a spike in the price of oil\" - but there had been a longer term problem.\n\n\"Vladamir Putin over the last years has been like a pusher, feeding an addiction in Western countries to his hydrocarbons,\" he said.\n\n\"We need to get ourselves off that addiction.\"\n\nAfter the mass execution in Saudi Arabia, some have called for the PM to cancel his trip.\n\nLiberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael said in the Commons on Monday: \"Actions do speak louder than words.\n\n\"If the prime minister goes in the next few days to Saudi Arabia, we will be sending a very clear signal that no matter what we say, we're not really bothered about this sort of thing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said there was a \"contradiction\" in ending ties with Russia to replace them with Saudi Arabia\n\nPushed on the human rights record of Saudi Arabia, Mr Johnson said part of building \"long-term security of energy supply\" in the UK was to make sure in the \"short-term... sure we are not as dependent in the West as we currently are on Russian oil and gas\".\n\nMr Johnson said: \"It's vital, if we are going to stand up to Putin's bullying, if we are going to avoid being blackmailed by Putin in the way that so many western countries sadly have been, we have got to get ourselves off Russian hydrocarbons.\n\n\"We need to talk to other producers around the world about how we can move away from that dependency.\"\n\nHe added: \"We need to make sure we build the strongest. widest possible collation to ensure Vladimir Putin does not succeed, that we wean ourselves off Russian hydrocarbons, and that's what the UK is helping to do.\"\n\nWhile the Gulf talks are about increasing production of oil and gas to compensate for reduced Russian supplies, Mr Johnson also wrote in the Telegraph newspaper that his promised Energy Security Strategy for the UK would step up wind energy, exploit solar power and make a \"series of big new bets\" on nuclear energy.\n\nFurther drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea was also a suggestion he made.\n\nA spokesperson from Labour said it was \"right in this time of crisis to look for alternative sources of oil for the UK beyond Russia\".\n\nBut they added: \"The only reason we are having to do this is because of 12 years of Conservative government failures to deliver energy independence for the UK.\n\n\"Importing oil can only ever be a short-term response and won't address the long challenges to our energy security or the cost of living. \"", "Protesters have draped Ukrainian flags over the property, which is believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska\n\nA demonstration at a mansion linked to Vladimir Putin ally Oleg Deripaska has ended with eight arrests, police said.\n\nProtesters occupied the balcony of 5 Belgrave Square, in central London, about midnight, and stayed most of the day, despite police efforts to remove them.\n\nThe squatters said they were reclaiming the property for Ukrainian refugees.\n\nJust before 20:00 GMT the Met tweeted the protests were over and that eight people had been arrested in total.\n\nA spokesman said four were arrested inside the building, and four more outside.\n\nPolice said they have searched the property and are satisfied there is no-one left inside, although a presence will be kept at the scene overnight.\n\nBillionaire energy tycoon Mr Deripaska is one of the oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMet police make arrests close to the building in Belgravia, central London\n\nA Met Police spokesman said four arrests were made about 18:00 GMT, for trespass, after protesters had tried to climb the back of the building, which is the Romanian consulate.\n\nEarlier in the day riot police had entered and searched the property but found nobody inside.\n\nFour people remained on the balcony, despite police negotiators' attempts to talk them down, and the spokesman said they would be monitored overnight.\n\nThe group called themselves the London Makhnovists, after the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno, who revolted against the Russian White Army in 1918-21.\n\nThere are links between Russian political donors and the war in Ukraine, the protesters claimed\n\nStanding on the balcony, one of the protesters told journalists they were doing the government's work for them by reclaiming the building for refugees fleeing their homes.\n\nHe said: \"[Home secretary] Priti Patel, don't worry, we did your job - we did the housing, just send them here, we did the housing. Refugees welcome!\n\n\"We're demanding this property belong to Ukrainian refugees. Their houses have been destroyed and this guy [Deripaska] supported the war.\"\n\nThe group said there were about 200 rooms in the \"ridiculous\" mansion, which was \"filthy fancy\" and had \"so much stuff a normal human being would never need\", including a home cinema and works of art.\n\nThe protesters said there were about 200 rooms in the mansion\n\n\"It is massive,\" one of the protesters said. \"I got lost I don't know how many times. There are so many unnecessary rooms.\"\n\nAnother added: \"[Michael Gove] said oligarchs' homes should be expropriated to house Ukrainian refugees.\n\n\"We're doing the government's work for them and we're doing it for free, so I expect a significant rebate on my tax bill later on in April.\"\n\nSpeaking about the possibility of arrest, one said the group has \"made peace\" with the option and added \"I'm ready to take the consequences for something I believe\".\n\nIn response, the prime minister's official spokesman said he thought new legislation would be needed to use seized property to house refugees.\n\nHe added: \"Squatting in residential buildings is illegal, but we are working to identify the appropriate use for seized properties while owners are subject to sanctions.\"\n\nIvan, who was passing by, said he was originally from Lviv in western Ukraine and fully supported the protest.\n\n\"I think it's very good,\" he said, adding he believed the mansion belonged to Mr Deripaska, who is \"a friend of Putin\".\n\n\"My people are suffering and they need help,\" he said.\n\nOther passers-by were supportive of the occupation, saying they were unable to protest themselves but the action would make a difference.\n\nIvan, from Lviv in Ukraine, supports the protest\n\nOne man said: \"We need to protest in every way we can because this war is not right. A lot of civilians and women and children are dying every day for Putin and it's unbelievable.\"\n\nCharles Delingpole, who said he works in the field of sanctions, said he supported the protest but it was important to uphold the rule of law.\n\nHe said: \"I think the UK has been too slow to sanction Russian oligarchs based on an abundance of caution as opposed to due process.\n\n\"However, this is the breakdown of law and just because we fight with monsters doesn't mean we need to turn into them ourselves.\"\n\nThe government has been too slow to sanction oligarchs, said Charles Delingpole\n\nMr Deripaska, founder of metals and hydropower company EN+, has been under US sanctions since 2018 as a result of his alleged close relationship with the Kremlin.\n\nA 2006 High Court judgement revealed Mr Deripaska was the beneficial owner of Five Belgrave Square.\n\nThe seven-bedroom house, in one of London's most expensive neighbourhoods, also has a home cinema, a gym and a Turkish steam bath.\n\nThe property had been bought through Ravellot Limited, an offshore company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and the business still owns the property.\n\nRussian tycoon Oleg Deripaska attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 3, 2021\n\nLand Registry documents give Graham Bonham Carter as the contact for Ravellot.\n\nFive bank accounts held by him are subject to asset freezing orders at the request of the National Crime Agency (NCA), following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe bank accounts were frozen because of suspected links to Mr Deripaska, the NCA said.", "A BBC investigation has uncovered new evidence about the corrupt deals that made Roman Abramovich's fortune.\n\nThe Chelsea owner made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995.\n\nMr Abramovich paid around $250m (£190m) for Sibneft, before selling it back to the Russian government for $13bn in 2005.\n\nHis lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality.\n\nThe Russian billionaire was sanctioned by the UK government last week because of his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nMr Abramovich's assets have been frozen and he has been disqualified as a director of Chelsea Football Club.\n\nThe Russian billionaire has already admitted in a UK court that he made corrupt payments to help get the Sibneft deal off the ground.\n\nHe was being sued in London by his former business associate Boris Berezovsky in 2012.\n\nMr Abramovich won the case, but he described in court how the original Sibneft auction was rigged in his favour and how he gave Mr Berezovsky $10m to pay off a Kremlin official.\n\nBBC Panorama has obtained a document that is thought to have been smuggled out of Russia.\n\nThe information was given to the programme by a confidential source, who says it was secretly copied from files held on Mr Abramovich by Russian law enforcement agencies.\n\nThe BBC cannot verify that, but checks with other sources in Russia have backed up many of the details in the five-page document.\n\nThe document says that the Russian government was cheated out of $2.7bn in the Sibneft deal - a claim supported by a 1997 Russian parliamentary investigation. The document also says that the Russian authorities wanted to charge Mr Abramovich with fraud.\n\nIt says: \"The Dept. of Economic Crimes investigators came to the conclusion that if Abramovich could be brought to trial he would have faced accusations of fraud… by an organised criminal group.\"\n\nRoman Abramovich's Dirty Money is on BBC One, Monday 14 March, at 20:00 GMT and on BBCiPlayer afterwards\n\nPanorama tracked down Russia's former chief prosecutor, who investigated the deal in the 1990s.\n\nYuri Skuratov did not know about the secret document, but he independently confirmed many of the details about the Sibneft sale.\n\nMr Skuratov told the programme: \"Basically, it was a fraudulent scheme, where those who took part in the privatisation formed one criminal group that allowed Abramovich and Berezovsky to trick the government and not pay the money that this company was really worth.\"\n\nThe document also suggests Mr Abramovich was protected by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.\n\nIt says law enforcement files on Mr Abramovich were moved to the Kremlin and that an investigation by Mr Skuratov was stopped by the president.\n\nThe document says: \"Skuratov was preparing a criminal case for the confiscation of Sibneft on the basis of the investigation of its privatisation. The investigation was stopped by President Yeltsin … Skuratov was dismissed from his office.\"\n\nMr Skuratov was sacked after the release of a sex tape in 1999. He says it was a stitch-up to discredit him and his investigation.\n\nHe said: \"This whole thing was obviously political, because in my investigations I came very close to the family of Boris Yeltsin, including via this investigation of the Sibneft privatisation.\"\n\nMr Abramovich remained in the Kremlin inner circle when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.\n\nThe document contains details of another rigged auction two years later, involving a Russian oil company called Slavneft.\n\nMr Abramovich formed a partnership with another firm to buy Slavneft, but a rival Chinese company was planning to bid almost twice as much.\n\nMany powerful people - from the Kremlin to the Russian parliament - would have stood to lose out if the Chinese won the auction.\n\nThe document says that a member of the Chinese delegation was kidnapped when they arrived in Moscow for the auction.\n\n\"CNPC, Chinese company, a very strong competitor, had to withdraw from the auction after one of its representatives was kidnapped upon arrival at Moscow Airport and was released only after the company declared its withdrawal.\"\n\nThe kidnapping story is backed up by independent sources who did not know about the document.\n\nVladimir Milov was Russia's deputy energy minister in the run up to the Slavneft sale. He didn't comment on the kidnapping story, but he said senior political figures had already decided that Mr Abramovich's partnership would win the auction.\n\n\"I said, look, the Chinese want to come in and they want to pay a much bigger price. They say it doesn't matter, shut up, none of your business. It's already decided. Slavneft goes to Abramovich, the price is agreed. The Chinese will be dragged out somehow.\"\n\nThere is no suggestion that Mr Abramovich knew anything about the kidnapping plot, or played any part in it.\n\nHis lawyers told the BBC the kidnap claim \"is entirely unsubstantiated\" and he has \"no knowledge of such incident\".\n\nDifferent factions had been fighting for control of Slavneft and there was widespread opposition to the Chinese bid.\n\nWhatever the reason for the Chinese withdrawal, Mr Abramovich's partnership had the only bid left on the table. And they bought Slavneft at a knockdown price.\n\nMr Abramovich's lawyers say allegations of corruption in the Slavneft and Sibneft deals are false, and he denies he was protected by Mr Yeltsin.", "Over 1.7m Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland since Russia's invasion began\n\nWith Russia's war in Ukraine raging on its doorstep, Poland is holding its breath.\n\nIt feels vulnerable on two fronts as the number of refugees coming into the country swells and a military base near its border with Ukraine was attacked.\n\nAs a first responder in one of Europe's biggest refugee crises since World War Two, over 1.7m Ukrainians have chosen to flee to Poland, according to the UN's latest figures.\n\nSome move on, but most choose to stay because of cultural, linguistic or family ties. As a result, population figures have swollen by 15% in the Polish capital Warsaw over the past two weeks.\n\nIn terms of security, alarm bells are also ringing. Over the weekend, Russia bombed a Ukrainian military base in Yavoriv, just 16 km (10 miles) from the Polish border.\n\nPoland warned the West for years that Russia planned to redress the balance of power in Europe in its favour. Polish leaders were dismissed as alarmists at the time. But no longer.\n\nOn Monday, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Ukrainian soldiers needed and deserved Western support. They were fighting not only for their own freedom, he insisted, but also the freedom of their Eastern European neighbours.\n\nHe also described Russian President Vladimir Putin's onslaught in Ukraine as a calculated part of his geopolitical plan.\n\nOnce side-lined by some in Nato as a post-communist Russophobe, Poland has now become a linchpin in the eastern flank of the alliance. The strongest part of the chain now linking the West with Ukraine.\n\nMost of the weapons convoys sent by the West to help the Ukrainian military travel through Poland. On Saturday, Moscow declared those convoys \"legitimate military targets\" inside Ukraine.\n\nBut do Poles believe the Kremlin would attack their country - a member of the European Union - and, more significantly in this case, Nato?\n\nThe Western defence alliance's charter says an attack against one of its nations will be viewed as an attack against all.\n\nThat would mean a face-off between two global nuclear powers - Russia and the US - something the West is keen to avoid. Moscow too, it hopes.\n\nWarsaw's mayor Rafal Trzaskowski has called for more international assistance (file photo)\n\nWarsaw's mayor and high profile political figure, Rafal Trzaskowski, told me his country wasn't panicking, but that people were beginning to ask questions - especially after Russia's missile strike so close to the Polish border, and Nato's talk of Russia possibly planning chemical attacks.\n\nSomething urgent needs to be done about the refugee crisis too, the mayor insisted.\n\nHe said one of President Putin's goals was to divide, and therefore weaken, the West.\n\n\"Putin is happy to use fake news, disinformation campaigns or a refugee crisis,\" Mr Trzaskowski argued, warning that, \"if refugee numbers keep rising, the system in Poland will crash.\"\n\nHe's called for more international assistance - from the European Union and United Nations - in terms of practical help, financial aid and housing refugees in other countries.\n\nBrussels says Ukrainians are welcome across the bloc. It has pledged funds to Poland too.\n\nBut the authorities here say it's not enough. The European Commission is coy about mentioning exact figures.\n\nMayor Trzaskowski has also appealed to the UK to \"get rid of its red tape\" and allow Ukrainian refugees more easily into Britain.\n\nArguably, Poland's painful past makes it a lot more anxious about the future.\n\nThe arrival of Ukrainian refugees here has evoked national memories of war, followed by decades of Soviet occupation.\n\nThis week in Warsaw, I met Polish pensioner Kristina and her friends, busy making Ukrainian flag solidarity ribbons.\n\n\"I'm too poor to give money and too old to hold a gun,\" Kristina explained, \"so I do what I can for the refugees. Partly, because I fear for my own tomorrow.\"", "Roman Abramovich was pictured at a VIP lounge in Ben Gurion international airport in Lod near Tel Aviv\n\nA private jet linked to sanctioned billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has landed in Moscow.\n\nThe jet arrived in Moscow on Tuesday morning after taking off from Israel and stopping in Istanbul, flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said.\n\nMr Abramovich was seen in a VIP lounge at the airport in Israel, though it is not known if he boarded the flight.\n\nThe Russian was among seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government last week in response to the Ukraine war.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nReuters news agency said it had obtained a photograph showing Mr Abramovich in a VIP lounge in Ben Gurion Airport in Lod near Tel Aviv on Monday.\n\nIt is not known whether he boarded the jet at any stage on its journey from Israel to Istanbul and subsequently from Istanbul to Moscow.\n\nA rabbi who helped him gain citizenship in Portugal was detained on Thursday as part of an investigation into how that citizenship was granted.\n\nMeanwhile, sources have told the BBC that the European Union is set to include Mr Abramovich on its expanded list of oligarchs who are subject to EU asset freezes.\n\nRoman Abramovich and Vladimir Putin pictured together at an event in Russia in 2016\n\nUnder UK sanctions, Mr Abramovich and the other six oligarchs - including billionaires Igor Sechin and Oleg Deripaska - have been banned from entering or remaining in the UK.\n\nSome of his assets were frozen, including Chelsea FC, though the club has been allowed to continue operating under a special licence granted by the UK government.\n\nMr Abramovich announced he was selling the club earlier this month, before the sanctions against him were introduced.\n\nHe is also believed to own a number of properties in the UK, including a 15-bedroom mansion at Kensington Palace Gardens in west London, reportedly valued at more than £150m.\n\nHis purchase of Chelsea FC in 2003 transformed the club's fortunes, turning them into a side that won every major trophy in club football. It also raised the bar for the level of investment required to compete at the top of the Premier League.\n\nMr Abramovich made his money in the 1990s during Boris Yeltsin's presidency of Russia.\n\nThis week a BBC Panorama investigation said it had uncovered new evidence about the \"corrupt\" deals that made his fortune.\n\nThe Chelsea owner made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in what BBC Panorama said was a rigged auction in 1995.\n\nMr Abramovich paid around $250m (£190m) for Sibneft, before later selling it back to the Russian government for $13bn in 2005.\n\nHis lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA woman holding an anti-war sign ran on to the set of a Russian evening news programme on the state-controlled Channel 1 on Monday evening.\n\nThe sign, clearly visible behind the presenter, read: \"No war, stop the war, don't believe the propaganda, they are lying to you here.\"\n\nThe woman has been named as Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at the channel.\n\nRussian TV news is tightly controlled by the Kremlin and reflects only the Russian version of events in Ukraine.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova is believed to be in police custody.\n\nHer voice could be heard during the broadcast saying, \"No to war! Stop the war!\" before the programme director cut early to a recorded news report.\n\nBefore the protest, which happened live on the nightly news programme, she recorded a video in which she called events in Ukraine a \"crime\" and said she was ashamed to work for what she called Kremlin propaganda.\n\n\"I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,\" she explained.\n\nShe called on the Russian people to protest against the war, saying that only they could \"stop the madness\".\n\nFrom the moment Ms Ovsyannikova's identity became known, she has received dozens of comments on her Facebook page in Ukrainian, Russian and English, thanking her for her actions.\n\nRussian television news has long been controlled by the Kremlin and independent viewpoints are rare on all the major channels.\n\nBut new laws introduced since the invasion of Ukraine have made the media landscape even more draconian. Legislation passed earlier this month made it illegal to call the military action an \"invasion\" or to disseminate \"fake\" news about it.\n\nState-controlled Russian media refer to the war as a \"special military operation\" and paint Ukraine as the aggressor, with a government described as neo-Nazi.\n\nSeveral of the remaining independent media outlets have stopped broadcasting or publishing after pressure from the authorities, including the radio station Echo of Moscow and TV Rain - an online TV channel.\n\nOthers, like newspaper Novaya Gazeta, are attempting to report on the situation without falling foul of the new censorship laws.\n\nAccess to the BBC has also been restricted inside Russia, leading the corporation to issue guidance over how to continue using its services.\n\nRussia's media watchdog accused the BBC and other foreign broadcasters of the \"deliberate and systematic circulation of materials containing false information\".\n\nMany social media sites have also been blocked, further restricting the number and diversity of news sources available to people inside Russia.\n\nFacebook and Twitter have been restricted for several days, while Instagram - which is particularly popular in Russia - was blocked on Monday, although many Russians have found ways round the restrictions.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "\"Walls are not everlasting\" read graffiti on the Berlin Wall in 1989\n\nJust over three decades ago I stood on top of the Berlin Wall which - for almost three decades before - had torn friends and families apart, split a country and set the division of Europe in concrete.\n\nI watched and held my breath with thousands of others on that heady night in November 1989, when one brave young man dared to jump off the wall into what had been \"no man's land\".\n\nDays earlier he would have been shot, joining all those who had paid with their lives for daring to try to bridge the gap between East and West. Not on the night the wall fell. He held out a flower to a bewildered-looking East German soldier who, after a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, held out his hand and accepted the gesture of peace. The crowd lining the wall cheered wildly.\n\nThey - we - dreamt that Europe might now be \"free and whole\". People might soon be free to choose who governed them - whether they lived in Berlin or Prague, Warsaw or Budapest and perhaps, just perhaps, in Moscow and St Petersburg too.\n\nI am back in Berlin - a city facing up to the fact that that dream is now dead thanks to Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine and to bomb its people into submission.\n\nGermany's leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, spoke of this being a historic turning point. In German they have a word for it (they have a word for everything). It is zeitenwende.\n\nMr Scholz announced his country would now offer real military aid to Ukraine.\n\nA few weeks before, his government had been mocked for its offer of 5,000 helmets to equip the Ukrainian army. The head of the German navy had to resign after he observed that all Mr Putin wanted was respect and that he probably deserved it.\n\nThe German chancellor has now pledged to spend more - €100bn (£84bn) more - on defence. What that means is that this country will soon become the biggest military power in Europe and the third biggest in the world - behind only China and the United States.\n\nNot so very long ago, that prospect would have been greeted with fear abroad and protests at home.\n\nAs a young man - a member of what he calls \"the 1989 generation\" - Nils Schmid studied in Ukraine in what was then part of the Soviet Union. These days, he is a German MP and foreign affairs spokesman for the governing Social Democrats. He told me he and his fellow countrymen and women now had to accept that the \"iron curtain\" which divided Europe had simply moved.\n\nOnce it had stood a few hundred yards from his office. Now, long after the fall of the wall, it is on the border between Nato countries - whose defence is guaranteed by the US - and those who look to Moscow.\n\nOpposite his office stands the vast Russia embassy - in what used to be East Berlin. It is now protected by police and there are barricades decorated with anti-war posters. A blanket lies on the ground and is filled with soft toys. The message to passers by is that it could be your children dying in Ukraine.\n\nA \"Freedom Square\" sign in Ukraine's national colours in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, 13 March\n\nThere, I met Michael - a biker from the Black Forest in south-west Germany. He was recording a video next to his Yamaha, which he had re-painted in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. He had ridden for eight hours carrying a folder bulging with 600 messages to Vladimir Putin - from friends, neighbours and colleagues calling on the Russian president to stop the war.\n\nThe embassy staff had refused to accept it. Michael had come to realise that talking to Russia (what used to be called detente) was not enough. Germany now had to be prepared to confront Moscow.\n\nWhat that means is the children of that 1989 generation will not enjoy the same freedoms as their parents. They will not grow up believing that wars are what happened in the past. Indeed a recent poll showed that seven in 10 Germans fear the spread of this war.\n\nPeople from Ukraine queuing for mobile phone cards in Berlin, 14 March\n\nAnd no wonder. The refugees driven from their homes by this conflict are pouring off trains into Berlin's stations at a rate of, some say, 10,000 a day.\n\nThis war is re-shaping how Europe's most powerful country thinks. That will have dramatic consequences which are only just beginning to be thought through.\n\nYou have to be almost 40 years old to remember the day when the wall fell back in November 1989. These days of February and March 2022 are turning out to be just as consequential.", "Motoring groups have called for fuel prices to fall as the cost of crude oil fell to its lowest level for two weeks.\n\nThe price of Brent crude - the global benchmark for prices - dropped below $100 a barrel for the first time since the start of March.\n\nThe RAC has said it is \"vital\" that fuel retailers start passing on falling wholesale prices to consumers.\n\nPetrol prices hit another record high on Monday, meaning it costs more than £90 to fill a family car, the RAC said.\n\nThe average price of a litre of petrol rose to 163.71p on Monday, and diesel also hit a fresh record of 173.68p.\n\nOil prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine, with the price of Brent crude oil hitting a near 14-year high at one point.\n\nBut in the past few days, the price of oil has dropped due to a number of factors, including hopes of progress in ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, and also expectations that demand from China will ease as Covid cases there surge.\n\nBrent crude fell to about $98 a barrel on Tuesday before recovering some ground.\n\nRAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said that although petrol prices were at record highs, drivers \"should be encouraged\" by the fall in oil and wholesale prices.\n\n\"It's now vital that the biggest retailers who buy fuel most often start to reflect these reductions at the pumps to give drivers a much-needed break from the pain of constantly rising prices,\" he added.\n\nThe AA said that the wholesale price of petrol has plummeted by 12.8p a litre since Wednesday.\n\nLuke Bosdet from the AA said: \"We should be seeing these record prices level off and start to fall away later this week. If not, MPs who are being deluged by complaints from angry constituents, need to be asking questions in Parliament.\n\n\"The government is under intense pressure from the cost of living crisis. They don't need the fuel trade to 'feather' a potential drop in pump prices.\"\n\nAndrew Opie from the British Retail Consortium said supermarket retailers \"understand the cost pressures\" facing motorists, and will do \"everything they can to offer the best value-for-money across petrol forecourts, particularly if the price of oil falls\".\n\nThe Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent forecourts, said it would expect prices to fall when fresh stock is delivered.\n\nGordon Balmer, the PRA's Executive Director, said forecourts bought from suppliers based on a price with one or two days' lag, or in some cases a week's lag. This means it can take a few days for wholesale prices to filter through to the pumps.\n\nOil prices are mainly determined by the price of crude oil and the dollar exchange rate, as agreements are made in dollars.\n\nRussia is the third largest oil exporter and some Western countries, for example the US and Canada, decided to halt imports from the country in response to Russia's actions. It means demand for oil from other producers has increased, leading to increased prices.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, so is not as dependent on Russia for the commodity supply as other European countries are and has said it plans to phase it out.\n\nIt is, however, affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nOn Monday, some analysts told MPs on the Treasury Committee that they expected the recent fall in the oil price to be temporary.\n\nNathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at financial services company Investec, said further restrictions on Russian oil exports would mean consumers \"need to get ready for what could be continued increases in fuel prices.\"\n\nDr Amrita Sen, director of research at Energy Aspects, told the committee that petrol prices could rise to around £2.40 a litre. And that diesel prices of \"£2.50 - even closer to £3\" were \"definitely in the realms of possibility\".\n\nEnergy Minister Greg Hands has said the UK's transition to cleaner forms of energy production is now \"an issue of national security\" and not just of decarbonisation.", "Edward Meenan's body was found in an alleyway in Creggan Street on 25 November 2018\n\nOne man has been found guilty of murder and another man guilty of manslaughter in relation to the killing of Edward Meenan in Londonderry.\n\nMr Meenan's body was found in an alleyway behind Creggan Street on 25 November 2018.\n\nSean Rodgers, 34, of no fixed abode, and Ryan Walters, 22, from Station Park in Crossgar, denied murder.\n\nThe victim's brother, Terry Meenan, said his life had been taken away \"in the most horrific fashion\".\n\nA jury on Tuesday found Rodgers guilty of murder, and Walters not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.\n\nA third man, Derek Creswell, 29, of King's Lane in Ballykelly, had already pleaded guilty.\n\nWalters was also found guilty of assault on William McConnell - a friend of Mr Meenan's - on the same date.\n\nAfter a trial lasting six weeks, the jury deliberated for 10 hours before returning a verdict.\n\nDuring the trial, the jury was told Mr Meenan sustained 52 stab wounds and there were more than 100 signs of assault, including two broken legs.\n\nAfter the verdict, Judge Donna McColgan thanked the jury, describing them as \"the most attentive I have ever come across\".\n\nShe told Rodgers the only sentence she could pass was a life sentence. A tariff hearing will be held at a later date to determine the minimum time he will serve.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Foyle, Terry Meenan said the men had shown \"disregard for human life\" and had taken away the \"most precious thing we had, our brother\".\n\n\"The people who did it have shown no remorse whatsoever.\n\n\"How human beings can do that to another human being I'll never know,\" he continued.\n\n\"It's been an unforgettable, unimaginable three years and we've had to suffer that every day, every night, every morning, the thoughts of what they actually did to my brother.\"", "Ukrainians have been arriving in neighbouring countries with only the possessions that they can carry\n\nNorthern Ireland can play a full role in housing Ukrainian refugees in spite of the absence of an executive at Stormont, MPs have been told.\n\nMichael Gove, Secretary of State for Communities, said on Monday night that all parts of the UK would be involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme.\n\nPeople who take in refugees will be known as sponsors.\n\nSponsors in Northern Ireland will be entitled to claim £350 a month like the rest of the UK.\n\nThe Homes for Ukraine scheme is now taking applications from people in Northern Ireland who want to offer shelter.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has said people would be matched from Friday, \"if they're able to offer accommodation, whether it's people who've got spare accommodation, businesses and individuals\".\n\nHowever, Stormont is currently without a functioning devolved government, known as the Northern Ireland Executive.\n\nIt collapsed on 4 February when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) pulled its first minister out of office, which meant other executive ministers cannot take any significant decisions or agree a budget.\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons, Mr Gove acknowledged the complications at Stormont.\n\n\"We know the political situation in Northern Ireland, but we did have the opportunity to talk to Jayne Brady [the head] of the Northern Ireland Civil Service in order to make sure that Northern Ireland was fully looped into this approach, and both the secretary of state and the minister of state in the Northern Ireland Office are committed to doing everything to help,\" he told MPs.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nDUP MP Gavin Robinson and Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry both raised questions about how the scheme would operate in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt is not clear exactly how extra funding required for school places and health services would be managed in the absence of an executive.\n\nAn online portal for people to register their interest in providing accommodation for families fleeing the war in Ukraine has opened on the UK government website.\n\nA spokesperson for the Executive Office at Stormont said the sponsorship scheme would operate in Northern Ireland and expressions of interest in providing accommodation from both individuals and groups was strongly encouraged.\n\n\"While the details will be announced by Westminster, we are working at pace, making preparations so we stand ready to provide sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees,\" the spokesperson added.\n\n\"Mindful of the pressure on social housing stock, officials are also engaging with councils and the voluntary and community sector to find creative ways of bringing suitable accommodation into use and identifying all available capacity.\"\n\nThe spokesperson added they were also in contact with the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing.\n\n\"We will participate fully in this humanitarian effort,\" the Executive Office said.\n\n\"Partnership across sectors and wider society will be key to ensuring we can support as many Ukrainian people seeking sanctuary here as possible.\"\n\nDemocratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he had space within his home and \"would be pleased to receive some of those fleeing from Ukraine\".\n\nIt is understood Alliance leader Naomi Long is considering doing the same, but would not seek payment.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, the cabinet is set to hold an urgent video conference on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, broadcaster RTÉ reports.\n\nThe taoiseach (Irish prime minister) is currently in the US ahead of events to mark St Patrick's Day, but will chair the meeting.\n\nAccommodation is expected to be a key focus for the meeting, with Ukrainian ambassador to Ireland Larysa Gerasko saying almost 6,000 refugees have arrived in Ireland over the last two weeks.\n\n\"It's very difficult for them, some of them don't have friends or relatives here,\" she said.\n\n\"They don't understand how the system in the country works.\"\n\nMs Gerasko thanked the Irish government and people for the warm welcome Ukrainians had received.\n\nShe added that while it was difficult to predict the number of refugees who would seek help in Ireland, she estimated it could be about 80,000 people.\n\nThe Irish government announced the lifting of visa requirements between Ukraine and Ireland last month, but Ms Gerasko said many people did not know that.\n\nIrish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said he expected further sanctions against Russia to be announced in the near future.\n\nHe said sanctions were \"undermining\" Russia and the European Commission was \"currently considering what further steps can be taken\".", "Kyiv has been hit by more Russian strikes, with a number of tower blocks damaged and set ablaze.\n\nTwo people have been killed in an airstrike that hit one residential building, according to Ukraine's state emergency service.", "Team GB Olympic athletes, like Adam Peaty, have benefited from National Lottery funding\n\nThe company that has run the National Lottery since it was launched, Camelot, has lost out on the next licence.\n\nThe Gambling Commission has announced Allwyn Entertainment Ltd as its preferred applicant for the lottery's next licence, which starts in 2024.\n\nIt said it had received the highest number of applications to run the National lottery since the first licence was awarded in 1994.\n\nCamelot has been named as the \"reserve applicant\" after four firms applied.\n\nThe National Lottery is one of the world's largest lotteries and has raised more than £45bn for 660,000 causes across the UK.\n\nIt has also played a part in funding training and facilities over the past three decades for Great Britain's Olympic and Paralympic athletes.\n\nAllwyn is a UK-based subsidiary of Europe's largest lottery operator Sazka, which is owned by Czech oil and gas tycoon Karel Komarek.\n\nIt signalled its intent to run the National Lottery by launching in early 2021. Its board includes former members of the London 2012 Olympics organising committee, Lord Coe and entrepreneur Sir Keith Mills, who sit on its advisory board.\n\nIn a statement, Allwyn said its proposal was \"judged to be the best way of growing returns to good causes by revitalising the National Lottery in a safe and sustainable way\".\n\n\"The appointment of Allwyn will breathe fresh life into the National Lottery,\" it added.\n\nCamelot chief executive Nigel Railton said: \"I'm incredibly disappointed by today's announcement, but we still have a critical job to do - as our current licence runs until February 2024.\n\n\"We're now carefully reviewing the Gambling Commission's evaluation before deciding on our next steps.\"\n\nThe Gambling Commission said it was \"satisfied\" that no application had been impacted by sanctions imposed by Western nations in relation to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\n\"Our priority was to run a competition that would attract a strong field of candidates. Having received the most applications since 1994, it is clear that we've achieved just that,\" said Andrew Rhodes, the Gambling Commission's chief executive.\n\n\"I am confident that the success of the competition will lead to a highly successful fourth licence - one that maximises returns to good causes, promotes innovation, delivers against our statutory duties, and which ultimately protects the unique status of the National Lottery.\"", "Lack of trust between both sides is 'biggest problem in rescuing civilians'\n\n\"The best way to stop the threat of another Mariupol is more far-reaching political conversations on peace and ceasefire negotiations,\" the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer told the BBC on a visit to Kyiv. Asked about the ICRC’s description of conditions in the besieged southern port city as \"apocalyptic\", Maurer said it was \"important to recognise this wasn't only the ICRC's voice, but the voice of so many civilians trapped in the city\". He said the lack of trust between the warring sides was \"the biggest problem\" in rescuing civilians stuck between front lines. Maurer, who has been in close contact with senior Ukrainian and Russian officials, said more people were now escaping through agreed humanitarian corridors. But he said Mariupol, a key target for Russian forces advancing on Ukraine’s southern coast, was more difficult \"in military strategy and political significance\". However, even there, he said some civilians were now managing to get out. Maurer also pointed to another major worry which has brought the head of the ICRC, the guardian of the rules governing war, to Ukraine: \"Respect for international humanitarian law and the obligations under the Geneva Conventions with regards to prisoners of war, dead soldiers, missing and detained civilians.\" The ICRC’s special role is founded on confidential dialogue with warring sides. Asked about accusations that Russia was targeting civilian infrastructure, Maurer replied that \"basic principles of proportionality and precaution which inform the conduct of hostilities, and the Geneva Conventions, are interpreted in very different ways which is why we try to establish minimal agreement on what we mean by these words\".", "Dr Liz Cameron, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, says the decision to delay lifting all remaining Covid restrictions will come as a \"bitter disappointment\" to her members.\n\nShe adds: \"Further delay will put Scotland’s recovery into reverse gear again, create confusion, dent business confidence, putting the buffers on economic growth.\n\n“Businesses cannot continue to operate with the start-stop lever being pulled just weeks apart, with no clear confirmation as to what the triggers driving decision making are.\"\n\nDr Cameron also says businesses have invested millions to keep their customers and staff safe throughout the pandemic.\n\nQuote Message: The Scottish government must commit to the removal of all remaining restrictions as soon as possible whilst providing greater detail on what triggers sit behind the decision-making process to protect consumer and business confidence in the meantime. from Dr Liz Cameron Scottish Chambers of Commerce The Scottish government must commit to the removal of all remaining restrictions as soon as possible whilst providing greater detail on what triggers sit behind the decision-making process to protect consumer and business confidence in the meantime.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nChelsea have asked for Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors because their fans can no longer buy tickets.\n\nThe government issued a licence to allow Chelsea to continue playing after freezing the assets of Russian owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nUnder the terms, Chelsea are not allowed to sell tickets to any matches.\n\nMiddlesbrough said they will challenge the \"bizarre\" and \"ironic\" request \"in the strongest possible terms\".\n\nChampionship club Middlesbrough added the request - made by Chelsea \"for matters of sporting integrity\" - was \"without any merit whatsoever\".\n\nMiddlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson told The Athletic : \"Chelsea and sporting integrity do not belong in the same sentence.\n\n\"Where is the intellect of Bruce Buck, the chairman of Chelsea, who has been an apologist for his owner, where the trophies won over 19 years have come from the corrupt money provided by Abramovich?\" Gibson added.\n\n\"Where is the intellect of the chairman of Chelsea when it comes to playing his games at home in front of his season-ticket holders? Does he want to play all his away games at empty stadiums?\n\n\"Abramovich has been kicked out of football and Bruce Buck should be kicked out of football too.\"\n\nThe Football Association will make a decision on Wednesday.\n\nChelsea Supporters Trust asked the club to withdraw the request, saying it \"does not benefit\" any fans.\n• None Is this a moment of reckoning for English football ownership?\n\nChelsea had sold between 500 and 600 tickets of their 4,620 allocation before the licence placing restrictions on the club came into effect on 10 March.\n\nThe measure was introduced to stop oligarch Abramovich, who is looking to sell Chelsea, from profiting.\n\nHe has been banned from being a club director and the sale of Chelsea has been delayed after the UK government sanctioned him over his connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nChelsea said they made the request \"with extreme reluctance\" to the FA not to allow fans of either side at the Riverside \"for matters of sporting integrity\".\n\nA statement read: \"Chelsea FC recognises that such an outcome would have a huge impact on Middlesbrough and its supporters, as well as our own fans who have already bought the limited number of tickets that were sold before the licence was imposed, but we believe this is the fairest way of proceeding in the current circumstances.\"\n\nMiddlesbrough, who have knocked out Premier League sides Manchester United and Tottenham in this year's competition, said: \"To suggest as a result that MFC and our fans should be penalised is not only grossly unfair but without any foundation.\n\n\"Given the reasons for these sanctions, for Chelsea to seek to invoke sporting 'integrity' as reason for the game being played behind closed doors is ironic in the extreme.\"\n\nChelsea said on Monday they were talking to the government on a daily basis \"in search of a resolution\" to the issue of selling tickets, and that the Premier League and FA had spoken to the government about the potential sporting integrity issues raised.\n\nThe government last week granted an amendment to the licence, allowing Chelsea to spend £900,000 on costs for home games - up from the £500,000 set on Thursday - but the allowable away costs remain at £20,000 per game.\n\nSports minister Nigel Huddleston said the government is in \"discussions\" with Chelsea \"to look at ways ways we could potentially enable further ticket sales\".\n\nSpeaking at a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) session about the role of Russian money in the ownership and sponsorship of clubs, Huddleston said licence amendments taken so far were \"precisely to stop\" Chelsea from going into administration.\n\nFA chief executive Mark Bullingham told the DCMS session that he \"would expect the (Middlesbrough) game to go ahead\".\n\nThe match, which starts at 17:15 GMT, will be broadcast live on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.\n\nA government spokesman said: \"We are working to ensure more away fans can attend games, but this must be compatible with the licence so we ensure that no additional revenue can be raised.\"\n\nTravel needs are about injuries, not 'bling' - Tuchel\n\nChelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, whose side face Lille in the Champions League last 16 second leg on Wednesday, said they have made adjustments to travel with a budget of £20,000.\n\nThe amount spent on travel for an away Premier League match is about £30,000, while European away fixtures add an extra premium.\n\nTuchel said travel needs were centred around players avoiding possible soft-tissue injuries during a busy schedule rather than \"luxury and bling bling\".\n\n\"This is just a professional level of sports, where we play with two days between matches with our opponent having four days between matches and we arrive with the possibilities of injuries,\" he said.\n\n\"For that, it is better to arrive with a plane rather than a bus.\n\n\"From my understanding, we have a framework to go and play in Lille with absolutely no excuses.\n\n\"Regarding these organisations, it is already more difficult to arrange things on a professional level, in the best way possible, for the FA Cup.\n\n\"But we will deal with it. As long as we have shirts and are 'alive' as a team, we will be competitive and fight hard for our success. We owe it to the people who support us.\n\n\"We are in the spotlight and it is our responsibility to do so. We will do it.\"\n\nChelsea 'throwing their toys out of the pram' - analysis\n\nWithin government I am told by one senior source there is \"exasperation\" at what was described to me as a \"tin-eared request\" by Chelsea to play the match behind closed doors.\n\nOfficials feel they are bending over backwards to allow Chelsea to play with a special licence, when other businesses in similar circumstances would not have received such assistance, and they have been listening to the club's concerns.\n\nBut the feeling within Whitehall is Chelsea are now trying to penalise other clubs for the predicament they are in, and are mystified they are prioritising tickets and travel arrangements.\n\nI am told Chelsea wanted more than 4,000 fans at Middlesbrough rather than the 500 they were due to have, and this is seen as \"throwing their toys out of the pram\" at the first opportunity.\n\nBBC Sport has been told the Stamford Bridge club never thought it was likely the Football Association would agree to their request and they do intend to fulfil the fixture.\n\nHowever, it was done to try to get the government to understand the complexities around the predicament they are in.\n\nUnder FA rules, Chelsea are entitled to 45% of the gate receipts from Saturday's game. In theory, that should net the Blues in excess of £300,000.\n\nBut they have no idea whether they will receive the payment - or whether it will be withheld within the terms of the special licence, handed out by the government, which they are operating under.\n\nIn April, they have home games against Brentford and West Ham - and could also have a Champions League quarter-final and FA Cup semi-final to play. If Chelsea are not allowed to sell tickets, they will be millions of pounds out of pocket which could have a massively damaging impact on the club.\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - follow your team and sign up for notifications in the BBC Sport app to make sure you never miss a moment", "The Ukrainian economy could shrink by more than a third this year if the war with Russia continues, the International Monetary Fund said.\n\nThe global lending body said the country is already facing a downturn of 10% due to the invasion, which has hit major cities, destroyed airports and precipitated a refugee crisis.\n\nThe IMF recently sent $1.4bn in emergency funds to Ukraine - the maximum allowed under its rules.\n\nBillions more will be needed, it said.\n\nThe dire economic outlook for Ukraine was included in a report prepared before the emergency loan was approved last week. The estimates were calculated by looking at wartime economies in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.\n\n\"With the war ongoing, the situation remains extremely fluid, and any forecast is at this stage subject to massive uncertainty,\" the report said, predicting the economy could contract by between 25% to 35%.\n\nIt said the estimates in the report should be \"seen as a bare minimum\".\n\nIn 2014 and 2015, Ukraine also suffered economic shock, with output falling 6.6% and 10% respectively, following Russia's annexation of Crimea.\n\nBut Ukraine's economy, which is heavily dependent on exports, expanded 3% last year, lifted by a record grain harvest. Output had been expected to grow another 3.6% in 2022.\n\nNow, the IMF said: \"A deep recession and large reconstruction costs are to be expected, on the backdrop of a humanitarian crisis.\"\n\nFor now, the government has prioritised defence and social spending and remained current on its foreign debt obligations, according to the 7 March report. Companies are still paying taxes and money is still flowing through its financial system, though many bank branches have shut and authorities have had to take emergency measures.\n\nThe country is likely to struggle even more, the report warned.\n\nThe IMF plans to set up tools to help its members send money to help Ukraine, which has already spent the equivalent of $1.4bn to service and repay the government's foreign debt since the start of the war, IMF officials said.\n\nIn an interview with the BBC, the head of Ukraine's central bank Kyrylo Shevchenko said Russian assets frozen in foreign countries, as a result of sanctions, should be used to help rebuild the country.\n\n\"The need for money will be huge,\" he told the BBC. \"It could be fulfilled through loans and grants from multinational organisations and direct help from other countries. However, a large share of financing is needed to be obtained as a reparation from the aggressor, including funds that are currently frozen in our allied countries.\"", "The Slovenian, Polish and Czech prime ministers, together with Poland's ruling party leader, took the long journey from Warsaw\n\nUkraine has praised the courage of three European leaders who made a long, hazardous journey by rail from Poland to Kyiv in a show of support as the city came under further Russian attack.\n\nThe prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday evening as a curfew began in Kyiv.\n\nAfterwards, the Czech leader told Ukrainians that they were \"not alone\".\n\nThey are the first Western leaders to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded.\n\n\"We admire your brave fight,\" Petr Fiala wrote in a tweet. \"We know that you're also fighting for our lives. You're not alone, our countries stand by your side.\"\n\n\"Your visit is a powerful expression of support for Ukraine,\" Mr Zelensky is quoted as telling the group.\n\nThe European leaders held a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv\n\nOn Wednesday, Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki tweeted that Ukraine was reminding Europe what courage was. It was time for \"sluggish and decayed\" Europe to reawaken and \"break through her wall of indifference and give Ukraine hope\", he said.\n\nThe leaders had arrived back in Poland on Wednesday morning, a Polish government spokesperson said.\n\nAlso on the trip was Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of Poland's ruling party, and he called for the creation of a Nato or international peacekeeping mission that \"will also be able to defend itself and operate in Ukraine\".\n\nHowever, one of his advisers later clarified that Mr Kaczynski had not been calling for Nato to get involved militarily.\n\n\"Here the position is unchanged. Neither Poland nor Nato are taking, or will take part, in the war,\" Michal Dworczyk told Polish Radio.\n\nUkraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Twitter that \"devastating\" sanctions against Russia had been discussed during the meeting in Kyiv, including the \"recognition of Russia as a sponsor of terrorism\".\n\nAs the talks took place on Tuesday evening, loud explosions could be heard from fighting on the western edge of the capital city.\n\nThe European Union said the politicians were not carrying any particular mandate, but that leaders in Brussels were aware of the trip, as it was mentioned during an informal EU summit in Versailles, France, last week.\n\nPoland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz admitted the trip was risky, but said it was \"worth taking for the sake of values\". He said they had told the Russians the visit was taking place.\n\nAll three leaders on the trip to Kyiv have been vocal supporters of Ukraine in recent weeks. Slovenia's prime minister said last week that the EU should send a strong message that Ukraine will eventually be granted membership.\n\nCzech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the visit was a strong and important gesture to show solidarity with Ukraine.\n\n\"Ukraine's security is European security; therefore we need to do everything possible to help them survive this sickening barbaric Russian attack,\" he told the BBC.\n\nThe leaders decided to travel by train because flying by Polish military jet could have been viewed by Russia as dangerously provocative, BBC Europe editor Katya Adler reports.\n\nUkraine's president has repeatedly called on Nato to impose a no-fly zone over his country's airspace, but Nato has refused.\n\nMr Zelensky said Ukrainians now understood they could not join Nato: \"We have heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. It's a truth and it must be recognised. I am glad that our people are beginning to understand this and rely on themselves and our partners who help us.\"\n\nAt least five people were killed in Russia's bombardment of Kyiv on Tuesday, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko ordered a curfew to run from 20:00 (18:00 GMT) on Tuesday to 07:00 on Thursday.\n\nThe city was facing a difficult and dangerous moment, he said: \"This is why I ask all Kyivites to get prepared to stay at home for two days, or if the sirens go off, in the shelters.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in Kyiv\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experiences if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nChristian Eriksen has been named in Denmark's squad for the first time since his cardiac arrest while playing at Euro 2020 last summer.\n\nThe playmaker, 30, was fitted with an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) - a type of pacemaker - after his cardiac arrest against Finland.\n\nHe joined Brentford in January following his release by Inter Milan.\n\nDenmark play friendlies in the Netherlands on 26 March and at home against Serbia three days later.\n\nEriksen will join up with his international team-mates for training in Spain prior to the two games.\n\nHe joined Brentford on a six-month deal after his release by Inter Milan and made his first appearance for the Bees as a substitute in a defeat against Newcastle United on 26 February.\n\nThe former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder was given a standing ovation from fans and players on both sides when he came on after 52 minutes.\n\nHe said afterwards: \"If you take away the result, I'm one happy man. To go through what I've been through, being back is a wonderful feeling.\"\n\nInter Milan and Eriksen agreed to cancel his contract in December because players fitted with an ICD cannot compete in Serie A. The Premier League does not however have the same regulations.\n\nAfter leaving the Serie A club he trained at Odense Boldklub, the Danish team he represented as a teenager, before signing for Brentford.\n\nFollowing the game against Newcastle, Eriksen played the full game for Brentford in wins against Norwich City and Burnley.\n\nHe set up Ivan Toney for a goal in the 2-0 victory against the Clarets and has been impressive as the Bees have moved away from the relegation zone.\n\nDenmark qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar by finishing top of their group with 27 points from 10 games - four points clear of runners-up Scotland.\n• None Six films that got their facts wrong: From the Jamaican bobsleigh team to Sylvester Stallone's goalkeeping heroics\n• None A look back to when Michael Vaughan sat down with cricket legend Shane Warne", "The first 36 of a new T-shaped design of electricity pylon have been wired up, National Grid has announced.\n\nThe pylons, the first major UK redesign since 1927, will be rolled out where possible across England and Wales.\n\nInstead of an Eiffel-Tower-style lattice A-frame with a series of arms holding the electricity cables, they are strung below a cross-arm atop a single pole.\n\nThe aim is to reduce the visual impact on the environment.\n\nThe new design, submitted by Danish company Bystrup, was selected from more than 250 entries in a 2011 competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the government.\n\nAt 35m (115ft), they are about a third shorter than traditional high-voltage pylons, with a smaller ground footprint.\n\nThe first ones form part of a 57km (35-mile) route that will carry low-carbon electricity between Bridgwater and Portbury, in Somerset.\n\nThe pylons will connect the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to homes\n\nThey will connect the Hinkley Point C Nuclear power station to six million homes and businesses, National Grid says.\n\nThe electricity supply will be turned on in October.\n\nAs part of the project, 249 old-style pylons will be removed.\n\nTheir design, submitted by US engineering company Miliken Brothers, was chosen by leading British architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, the designer of London's Lambeth Bridge, in a 1927 competition.\n\nFormally known as \"transmission towers\", they became known as \"pylons\" from the Greek word \"pyle\" meaning \"gateway\".\n\nEgyptology was all the rage after the 1922 discovery of boy king Tutankhamun's tomb and mummy.\n\nAnd the public thought the new steel towers resembled the impressive obelisks on either side of the doors of ancient Egyptian temples.\n\nThere are about 22,000 pylons in England and Wales, covering more than 4,300 miles.\n\nThey need to be high to straddle obstacles such as roads, rivers and railway lines and ensure nothing comes too close to them.\n\nThe electricity cables on pylons are uninsulated, so there is a very high risk of electric shocks.\n\nBut birds are not electrocuted, because they are not touching the ground, so the electricity stays in the power line.", "Boris Johnson arrives at a meeting of northern European leaders in London\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said the West made a \"terrible mistake\" and let President Vladimir Putin \"get away\" with annexing Crimea in 2014.\n\nWriting in the Telegraph, Mr Johnson said ending the West's dependence on Russian oil and gas was vital to end Kremlin \"bullying\".\n\nIt comes as the UK banned exports of luxury goods to Russia among other sanctions.\n\nAbout 100 more people are also expected to be sanctioned under a new law.\n\nThe legislation allows the UK to target individuals alongside the US and the European Union, which has signed off its fourth package of sanctions against Russia.\n\nIn addition, Mr Johnson said the only way to halt President Putin's \"continuous blackmail\" was by ending western reliance on Russian fossil fuels - a process that would be \"painful\".\n\nThe prime minister is preparing to head to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf for talks about increasing production of oil and gas to compensate for reduced Russian supplies.\n\nHe also said his promised Energy Security Strategy for the UK would step up wind energy, exploit solar power and make a \"series of big new bets\" on nuclear energy. Further drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea was one suggestion he made.\n\nThe UK is to phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022.\n\nA decision by the government to talk to Saudi Arabia about measures to bring down the cost of energy has been criticised by many MPs after the country executed 81 people at the weekend.\n\nDowning Street says the UK \"will continue to raise human rights abuses\" with Saudi Arabia.\n\nThe prime minister chaired cabinet meeting this morning before hosting a summit of northern European leaders in London.\n\nThe leaders of those countries, which form a security alliance called the Joint Expeditionary Force, will consider what steps they can take to help Ukraine and shore up their own resilience against Russia.\n\nIn a video call to those leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Nato alliance had been \"hypnotised by Russian aggression\" and repeated his plea for western military intervention.\n\nWhile he welcomed the latest western sanctions, Mr Zelensky said they \"are not enough\" to end the war and called for a full trade embargo on Russia.\n\nBoris Johnson is talking about taking back control again, but this time of the country's energy supply and, along the way, increasing efforts to make the UK a \"net zero\" carbon emitter.\n\n\"Green electricity isn't just better for the environment, it's better for your bank balance,\" says the prime minister in his article in the Daily Telegraph. \"There's nothing [Putin] can do to stop the North Sea wind.\"\n\nMr Johnson has been talking about making the UK \"the Saudi Arabia of wind\" for some time now so this is not a new policy, but it would represent a significant acceleration of the move towards low carbon power.\n\nYes, he is backing new drilling in the North Sea, but there's also the promise of \"big new bets\" on nuclear power and - a surprise for many - no mention of the return of fracking, a controversial method of shale gas mining.\n\nIn his article in the Telegraph, Mr Johnson said: \"When Putin invaded Ukraine the first time round, in 2014, the West made a terrible mistake. The Russian leader had committed an act of violent aggression and taken a huge chunk out of a sovereign country - and we let him get away with it.\"\n\nMr Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after months of protests against its pro-Russian president culminated in his ousting. He then backed an eastern rebellion by pro-Russian separatists, who have fought Ukrainian forces in an eight-year war that has claimed 14,000 lives.\n\nDespite years of western sanctions, Russia remains firmly in control of Crimea, which it absorbed following a referendum vote discredited by much of the international community.\n\nSince Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last month, a growing number of Russians have been sanctioned by the UK. Most recently, 386 Russian MPs who voted to recognise two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent have been hit by asset freezes and UK travel bans.\n\nRussia has maintained its grip on Crimea despite years of western sanctions\n\nIn its latest sanctions, the EU has agreed bans on any transactions with certain Russian state-owned enterprises and the export of luxury goods to \"directly hit Russian elites\".\n\nSources have told the BBC that the EU's measures will target Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, who has already been sanctioned by the UK.\n\nCo-ordinated with western allies, the sanctions \"will further contribute to ramping up economic pressure on the Kremlin and cripple its ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine\", the European Commission said.\n\nBBC Brussels correspondent Jessica Parker says the EU has gone farther and faster than many expected, although there is a growing rift between cautious countries and those like Poland and the Baltic states, who want even stronger measures.\n\nOn Tuesday, the UK announced new sanctions that mirrored the EU's in several areas, including the export ban on luxury goods such as high-end fashion and works of art.\n\nAs part of these measures, Russian vodka and hundreds of other goods worth £900m were hit with an additional 35% import tariff.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak said the new tariffs \"will further isolate the Russian economy from global trade\".\n\nOn top of this, the UK's fast-tracked Economic Crime Bill, which passed through Parliament the early hours of Tuesday, will now allow the UK to automatically sanction those who have had their assets already frozen by the EU, US or Canada.\n\nThis will potentially open the door to hundreds more individual sanctions.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss is likely to announce new measures on Tuesday on more than 100 individuals with links to President Putin's regime, the BBC understands.\n\nSpeaking to BBC's Hardtalk, senior Conservative and chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said sanctions on Russia would lead members of the Russian elite and generals to \"recognise there is no future for Russia\" and Mr Putin would \"eventually go\".\n\nHowever, Mr Ellwood warned that \"until then, he will cause absolute carnage in Ukraine and beyond unless we stand up to him\".", "At least one person has died and 12 were injured in a Russian air strike on a residential building in Ukraine's capital Kyiv.\n\nFirefighters attended the scene in Obolon district in the aftermath of the attack.\n\nFootage shows a woman - and her pet - being brought to the ground from an apartment in the smoking building.", "Scotland's rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will remain in place until April due to a rise in cases of Covid-19.\n\nAll other restrictions on businesses and services are to move from legal requirement to guidance from 21 March.\n\nBut First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it would be \"prudent\" to keep mask rules in place due to a spike in cases.\n\nThese will be reviewed again in two weeks, and are likely to be converted to guidance by 4 April.\n\nMs Sturgeon said a sharp rise in infections was putting \"significant pressure on hospital capacity\", but that vaccines were still giving people good protection.\n\nShe also told MSPs that mass testing will be wound down in April, with routine testing and contact tracing to end by May.\n\nThe average number of new cases reported each day in Scotland is more than 12,000, up from an average of 6,900 per day three weeks ago.\n\nThere has also been a rise in the number of people in hospital with Covid-19, from 1,060 three weeks ago to 1,996 today.\n\nMs Sturgeon said the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron was now the dominant strain of the virus in Scotland, accounting for more than 80% of cases - adding that while it spreads much more quickly, there is no evidence it causes more severe illness than previous variants.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The laws on wearing face coverings will not be lifted\n\nUnder the government's strategic framework for managing the virus, remaining legal restrictions - including mask-wearing and the need for businesses to record customer contact details and follow other guidance - were to be lifted on 21 March.\n\nThe rules for businesses will be dropped as planned, but Ms Sturgeon said she needed to \"ask everyone to be patient for a little while longer on face coverings\".\n\nShe said: \"I know this will be disappointing for businesses and service providers such as day care services.\n\n\"However, ensuring continued widespread use of face coverings will provide some additional protection - particularly for the most vulnerable - at a time when the risk of infection is very high, and it may help us get over this spike more quickly.\"\n\nThe first minister stressed that the lifting of other measures marked \"steady progress back to normal life and a more sustainable way of managing this virus\".\n\nTesting in England is being wound down by the end of March, but Ms Sturgeon said there would be no change in Scotland until Easter.\n\nAsymptomatic people will still be advised to test regularly until 18 April - with tests free of charge - and people with symptoms should continue to get a PCR test until the end of that month.\n\nHowever, the population-wide testing and contact tracing system will come close at the end of April, with people with symptoms advised to stay at home.\n\nFrom May onwards, testing will be used on a targeted basis to monitor levels of the virus in society and to look out for new variants.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland said changes were slower than many would like, adding that \"the impression that Scotland has a first-in, last-out approach to Covid restrictions frustrates many\".\n\nThe Scottish Chambers of Commerce said the announcement about face coverings was a \"bitter disappointment\".\n\nChief executive Dr Liz Cameron said: \"Businesses cannot continue to operate with the start-stop lever being pulled just weeks apart.\"\n\nAnd the Scottish Licensed Trade Association said the move will confuse visitors from England, where face coverings are no longer required by law.\n\nIt has become almost second nature - grab your mask alongside your keys as you dash out the front door. And in Scotland, unlike any other part of the UK, you will be doing it for a while longer.\n\nMany in public health think this is not a big ask, a sensible move at a time when community transmission is so high.\n\nIt is a very visible reminder that Covid has not gone away, and they point to a growing body of research that suggests community mask wearing can offer some protection against infection spread.\n\nHowever, others argue the evidence is not compelling and the reality is people don't wear masks in the places where they would make the most difference, at home with family and friends.\n\nAfter all, Scotland is experiencing a surge in cases despite such measures being in place.\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives said the retention of the mask rules was \"a blow for households and businesses\".\n\nLeader Douglas Ross urged Ms Sturgeon to trust people to manage their own risks, adding: \"We can't get complacent with Covid, but we need to move forward - we can't stay stuck with Covid rules forever.\"\n\nLabour's deputy leader Jackie Baillie said hospitals were \"overwhelmed\" with staff absences rising, and called for more information about testing for health workers.\n\nMs Sturgeon said health and care staff would continue to test twice weekly after the wider programme ends, and that the system would focus on high-risk settings like hospitals and care homes.\n\nMeanwhile Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said it was disheartening that \"despite the extra sacrifices that have been made in Scotland, our infection rates are still so stubbornly high\".\n\nHealth Secretary Humza Yousaf later told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime he expects Covid hospital occupancy levels to reach record levels in the next few days.\n\nHe also defended the extension of the face covering rules and described the evidence for their effectiveness as \"indisputable\".\n\nAsked if he was concerned about another wave of infections given the current case numbers, Mr Yousaf said he has been reassured by the success of the vaccination programme.\n\nHe told the programme: \"If you have not had your first, second or indeed your booster dose then please get it because that is clearly and significantly been the difference in terms of severity of illness.\n\n\"If we had these case numbers that we are seeing today, and we have seen over the last number of weeks, without a vaccine we would be frankly in lockdown.", "Anna Tymchenko was scared. She had been in labour for hours but her hometown was being bombed and her apartment was shaking. She and her husband were trapped with no electricity, running water or doctor.\n\nThe small town of Bucha, 30km (18.5 miles) from the capital Kyiv, had come under relentless bombardment since the start of the war.\n\nTwenty-one-year-old Anna, along with her husband and brother, had previously taken refuge in the basement of their block of flats. But when the electricity was cut off and the heating stopped working, the basement was plunged into darkness, and it was bitterly cold.\n\nAnna's husband Volodymyr was torn between remaining in Bucha or trying to flee. When they did finally try to escape by car, they had had to turn back when they heard that a column of Russian military vehicles was heading their way.\n\n\"We then decided to stay in the apartment,\" Anna told the BBC. \"I preferred to give birth at home and not in a dusty basement. I had difficulty breathing, my lungs hurt.\"\n\nWhen she went into labour late on 7 March, she called her neighbours for help. They agreed to come, but none of them had experience delivering babies.\n\nViktoria Zabrodskaya, Anna's 49-year-old neighbour, told the BBC they worried that if something went wrong, they wouldn't know what to do.\n\nThe room was lit with candles and the only available water was freezing cold from bottles.\n\n\"I never imagined that I would give birth in such conditions,\" Anna says. \"It was surreal. It was my first child and I didn't know anything.\"\n\nIn desperation, Anna's neighbours tried to contact medical staff, but the phone signal was poor. They were eventually able to make contact with a gynaecologist in Bucha after getting a signal from the balcony. He agreed to come but never appeared.\n\nLater that day, he messaged with an apology and explained that he had been stopped by a Russian patrol who had broken his phone.\n\nAnna's neighbours would have to deliver the baby themselves. Only one of them - Irina Yazova - had any medical expertise.\n\n\"When the baby's head came out, we got scared,\" Viktoria says. \"She was blue and we didn't know what to do. Then Irina gently turned the baby's head and she came out. She didn't cry at first - we started hitting her, and then she cried and we all cheered.\"\n\nHusband Volodymyr cried tears of relief for baby Alisa, who was born on 8 March - International Women's Day.\n\nTwo days later, it was announced that Bucha was one of the evacuation corridors agreed by the Ukrainian government and the Russian defence ministry.\n\n\"We spent the whole night discussing whether to go or not,\" Anna says.\n\nShe and her husband finally decided to leave with their new-born child. They tried to contact people to ask if the route was safe, and downloaded maps on to their phones.\n\nDriving out of Bucha, Anna and Volodymyr saw the destruction caused by Russian strikes\n\nThe following day, 21 cars left the town heading towards Kyiv. Viktoria, who had helped deliver Anna's baby, drove at the front of the convoy, a white flag wrapped around a mop attached to her car and a sign saying \"Children\".\n\n\"On the way we saw horrible scenes,\" Anna says. \"I never thought that I would see such things in real life - only in movies. There were dead bodies lying on the road. The houses were destroyed. Russian tanks parked, pointing their barrels at the road. We were so scared that they could fire when we passed by.\"\n\nAfter several hours the evacuees had safely passed all the Russian checkpoints and arrived in Kyiv - and from there went their separate ways.\n\n\"When we got out, I couldn't stop smiling,\" Anna says. \"I couldn't believe that we managed to flee.\"\n\nAnna is enjoying motherhood and is looking forward to introducing her parents to their new granddaughter. But while many of her relatives have now left the country, she and her husband cannot leave - and Anna says that she still doesn't feel completely safe.\n\n\"All my thoughts are with what's happening [in Bucha] and in the rest of the country,\" she says. \"It's just unbelievable but we hope that we can return home soon.\"", "The government has launched its Homes for Ukraine site for those wanting to host a refugee, with 100,000 signing up within the first day.\n\nHousing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove said the UK had a history of \"supporting the most vulnerable during their darkest hours\".\n\nHe said there would be no limit to how many Ukrainians could enter the UK under the visa sponsorship scheme.\n\nEach household housing a refugee will be offered £350 a month, tax-free.\n\nThey will not be expected to provide food and living expenses but can choose to offer this.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said it was \"fantastic\" that more than 100,000 people and organisations had expressed interest in supporting Ukrainians.\n\n\"Thank you to everyone across the country who has stepped up to offer their help so far,\" he tweeted.\n\nPeople who wish to offer a rent-free space in their home or a separate residence, for at least six months, can register their interest online.\n\nThey will be able to individually sponsor a Ukrainian national's visa from Friday. Those initial applications will rely on the applicant knowing a named individual from Ukraine they want to help.\n\nBut Ukrainian refugees with no family or other links to the UK can and will be hosted as part of the scheme, Mr Gove said.\n\nHe said the sponsorship scheme was initially only between people who are already known to each other so it gets \"up and running as soon as possible\".\n\nThe scheme will be expanded with the support of charities, community groups and churches who can help with matching refugees to hosts.\n\nNo timescale has been announced for when this will happen but Mr Gove said it would expand \"rapidly\".\n\nThe government has faced criticism - including from its own MPs - over the speed and scale of its response to the refugee crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAlmost three million people have fled Ukraine since Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian invasion nearly three weeks ago.\n\nMr Gove had said the scheme was open to nationals and residents of Ukraine, but his department later clarified that those eligible were Ukrainian nationals and immediate family members who had been resident prior to 1 January.\n\nAs part of the scheme, refugees will have access to the NHS and other public services. Their children will be able to attend local schools.\n\nLocal authorities will also receive £10,500 in extra funding per refugee for support services - with more for children of school age.\n\nMr Gove said everyone in the UK was \"in awe of the bravery of the people of Ukraine\".\n\n\"The victims of savage, indiscriminate, unprovoked aggression, their courage under fire and their determination to resist inspires our total admiration,\" he said.\n\nBoth hosts and refugees taking part in Homes for Ukraine will be vetted.\n\nIn addition, local councils will check that the accommodation offered is suitable, the government said.\n\nA Department for Education source told the BBC the government was planning for a capacity of around 100,000 school-age Ukrainian children to be placed in UK schools and said they were confident the school system could cope.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Michael Gove sets out how British sponsors can take in refuges in the Homes for Ukraine scheme\n\nShadow housing and communities secretary Lisa Nandy said Labour was concerned about \"the lack of urgency\" and added that the visa application process could be simplified.\n\nShe said: \"We could keep essential checks but drop the excessive bureaucracy.\"\n\nOne person putting her name forward is Mandi Arnold, who lives in Shropshire with her partner and three children.\n\nMandi, 35, says life in her house is already hectic and so \"it might as well be even busier\" with an extra couple of people.\n\n\"I would love to welcome someone in my home to give them that security and love,\" she says. \"I've got a lot of love to give and it's the perfect opportunity to give it to someone who's in need.\"\n\nMandi says her two sons are too young to understand what housing a refugee would involve but that she and her husband have chatted to her nine-year-old daughter, Amalia, about it.\n\nHusband and wife team Mandy and Mark Durrell were also among the first to register to offer a room.\n\nThe Methodist ministers from Bangor said watching the news from Ukraine had been heartbreaking.\n\n\"We want to offer space, companionship, comfort and safety,\" said Mark. \"We have this home. There's two of us and the dog - and there's space here to give someone refuge and sanctuary.\"\n\nRefugees at Home, which finds host families for refugees and asylum seekers, said it wanted to see \"as many refugees housed as soon as possible\".\n\nIts executive director Lauren Scott stressed that home visits should take place before a placement is made and called for follow-up support to be offered to hosts and guests alike.\n\nThere should also be plans for what happens \"for the rare situations in which a placement does not work out\", she added.\n\nAll that should be done quickly and also \"in a thoughtful, sensitive and thought-through way\".\n\nIryna Terlecky, a board member of the Associations of Ukrainians in Great Britain and chair of the Association of Ukrainian Women, praised the British public's response to the scheme but she told the Today programme £10,500 per refugee \"may well not be enough\" for local authorities.\n\n\"What we want to see is that local authorities have the right level of funding so that they can continue to support, not only the families coming over but also their sponsors.\n\n\"For a six-month commitment there will be times when for whatever reason it doesn't work out and local authorities and the established charities and the Ukrainian community need to be there to help in those circumstances.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says he will open his home to a Ukrainian family\n\nHomes for Ukraine is the second visa scheme the government has set up since the war broke out.\n\nThe first has allowed Ukrainians with an immediate or extended family member in the UK to apply for a family visa to join them.\n\nUkrainian passport holders no longer have to attend in-person appointments at visa application centres to submit their fingerprints and facial recognition, the Home Office said, with applicants now able to fill out forms online before giving their biometrics on arrival in the UK.\n\nSome 4,600 visas have so far been granted through that route, the latest Home Office figures show.\n\nThe Home Office has defended requiring security checks on Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion. It says it must ensure the UK helps those in genuine need as it has seen people falsely claim to be Ukrainian.\n\nHave you signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n• None Homes for Ukraine – Homes for Ukraine – Local Sponsorship Scheme for Ukraine The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Petrol prices are likely to fall back from record levels due to the costs of wholesale fuel and global oil easing, UK motoring groups have said.\n\nThe average price for a litre of petrol hit £1.63 on Sunday after rising above £1.60 for the first time last week.\n\nDiesel remained above £1.73 a litre, but the AA said \"wild\" pump prices should stabilise, unless global oil prices take off again.\n\nBut MPs were told this was a \"lull before the storm\" of more price hikes.\n\nNathan Piper, head of oil and gas research at financial services company Investec, said consumers \"need to get ready for what could be continued increases in fuel prices.\"\n\nMr Piper told the Treasury Committee: \"If more stringent actions are imposed upon Russia, and five million barrels a day is truly taken out of the market, then oil prices would really have no ceiling.\"\n\nHe explained that the UK was roughly self-sufficient in petrol but imported much of its diesel.\n\nTwo thirds of UK consumers use diesel so that it could see the biggest price increases at the pump, he said.\n\nDr Amrita Sen, director of research at Energy Aspects, told the committee that petrol prices could rise to around £2.40 a litre. And that diesel prices of \"£2.50 - even closer to £3\" were \"definitely in the realms of possibility\".\n\nShe said the UK could follow Germany in introducing rationing measures which have already seen BP and Shell reduce diesel wholesales to industry.\n\n\"If we need to rebuild stocks over the summer so that we have a buffer over the winter...it is industry that will need to be curtailed and that's where the first set of rationing will have to come in,\" she said.\n\nMr Piper said the only other option was for the government to release some of its stockpiles of petrol and crude oil.\n\n\"But it'll be industry that takes the brunt of any rationing initially,\" he said.\n\nMeanwhile, the AA said filling up a typical 55-litre car tank now costs £89.90p on average, up from £68.57 a year ago.\n\nOil prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine, with the price of Brent crude oil - the global benchmark for prices - hitting a near 14-year high at one point.\n\nHowever, in the past few days, the price of oil has dropped as fears that the European Union would follow the US and Canada in banning Russian oil have eased.\n\nBrent crude fell as much as 8% to trade at $103.68 per barrel on Monday.\n\nThe RAC said drivers would have to stomach probably more rises this week, but added they \"should soon get some respite from pump prices jumping by several pence a litre every day as oil and wholesale prices appear to have settled\".\n\n\"The price hikes seen over the weekend are still a result of the oil price rise which began at the start of the month and peaked early last week at $137 a barrel,\" said RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams.\n\n\"As the oil price has now fallen back, we should hopefully reach the peak and start to see prices going the other way to reflect the big drop in wholesale costs seen at the end of last week, subject to no further spikes in the barrel price this week.\"\n\nThe reason higher prices at the pumps are likely to remain despite falling commodity prices is due to the way retailers buy the fuel and the time lag between purchasing at a certain price and then selling it on.\n\nYet, there is a concern some retailers might be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out if wholesale costs jump back up again.\n\nLuke Bosdet, the AA's fuel price spokesman, said a 10.6p-a-litre slump in wholesale petrol costs on Wednesday and Thursday last week, followed by oil's fall in value, had produced \"bizarre price anomalies\".\n\n\"In one town this weekend, filling a tank at one forecourt was more than a pound cheaper than directly across the road at another,\" he said.\n\nMr Bosdet said weekends were the busiest time for forecourts and the rush by drivers to beat further potential price increases had pushed up demand, which had actually led to even higher prices at the pumps as stations had to resupply at a faster rate.\n\nOil prices are mainly determined by the price of crude oil and the dollar exchange rate, as agreements are made in dollars.\n\nRussia is the third largest oil exporter and some Western countries, for example the US and Canada, decided to halt imports from the country in response to Russia's actions. It means demand for oil from other producers has increased, leading to increased prices.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, so is not as dependent on Russia for the commodity supply as other European countries are and has said it plans to phase it out.\n\nIt is, however, affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nBut the price of Brent crude dropped in recent days, due to reduced fears of a European ban on Russian oil, and also partly due to speculation that extra supplies could come onto the market from Iran, Venezuela and the UAE.\n\nThe conflict in Ukraine has led to concerns being raised by Western nations about where they get their energy from.\n\nEnergy Minister Greg Hands said the UK's transition to cleaner forms of energy production was \"an issue of national security\" and not just of decarbonisation.\n\nSpeaking at an event in London, he said: \"By switching to cheaper power generated in the UK, for the UK, we will ensure that we're not dependent on any unfriendly foreign country to keep our homes warm and lit.\"\n\nHowever, Mr Hands acknowledged that the transition to cleaner energy sources would take time, and there was still a need to invest in domestic fossil fuel production.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn day 19 of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, some civilians were able to leave the city of Mariupol along a pre-agreed route for the first time.\n\nMariupol, a key port city in the south-east of Ukraine, is facing a humanitarian crisis after nearly two weeks of continuous Russian shelling, with food, water, and medicine running out and communication to the outside world all but cut off.\n\nThere have been several previous agreements to allow civilians to leave the city, but they quickly broke down each time.\n\nOn Monday, however, the Mariupol city council said 160 private vehicles had managed to leave and were on their way to the relative safety of Zaporizhzhia - a city to the north-west.\n\nThe level of destruction in Mariupol was made clear in drone footage, which showed bombed out apartment blocks and smoke rising from the rubble.\n\nLast week, Russian bombs hit a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Powerful images of two pregnant women escaping from the wreckage were shared around the world.\n\nBut on Monday, we learned that one of the women had died along with her baby who was stillborn by Caesarean section.\n\nAfter delivering the baby, who showed no signs of life, medics focused on the mother but were unable to keep her alive, surgeon Timur Marin told the Associated Press.\n\nIn another vivid example of the terrible conditions in Mariupol, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC that several burial sites had been dug to cope with the rising number of civilian deaths.\n\nSerhiy Orlov said the city's street cleaners and road repair teams were collecting dead bodies in the street. More than 2,500 people have been killed in Mariupol since the war began, according to a Ukrainian presidential adviser.\n\nThe BBC heard similar stories from local officials elsewhere in Ukraine, for example the town of Bucha near Kyiv, where more than 60 people were buried in a mass grave.\n\nThe aftermath of Russian artillery shelling on a residential area in Mariupol\n\nAway from the dire situation on the ground, the war continues to have far-reaching international consequences.\n\nAfter multiple US news outlets reported that Russia had requested military help from China, the US warned that there would be consequences if Beijing helped Russia to evade sanctions.\n\nThe Chinese foreign ministry accused the US of spreading disinformation, and Russia later denied asking Beijing for military help.\n\nWith tensions between the global superpowers so high, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday that further escalation of the conflict \"threatens all of humanity\", with the prospect of nuclear conflict \"now back within the realm of possibility\".\n\nVladimir Putin was the most prominent world leader to visit the Beijing Winter Olympics\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has shone a spotlight on the expensive homes around the world that belong to billionaire Russians, many of whom are allies of Vladimir Putin.\n\nOn Monday, protesters in London climbed onto the balcony of a mansion in central London thought to belong to the energy tycoon Oleg Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the UK government over the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe protesters said they were reclaiming the building for Ukrainian refugees who have fled their homes.\n\nThe UK government is examining whether the properties of sanctioned oligarchs could be used to house refugees, according to the prime minister's official spokesperson, although it is thought new legislation would be required.\n\nProtesters have draped Ukrainian flags over the property, which is believed to be owned by Oleg Deripaska\n\nIn the city of Kharkiv, in north-east Ukraine, the beloved Old Hem bar - named after the owner's literary hero Ernest Hemmingway - was destroyed by Russian shelling.\n\nAn extraordinary image shared widely on social media showed the building which once housed the pub reduced to rubble.\n\nThe owner - now in western Ukraine - told the BBC that he hopes to return one day to his city and rebuild his bar.\n\n\"We will win and Hem will rise again,\" Kostiantyn Kuts said.\n\nThe pub was destroyed in shelling on Monday\n\nRussia's invasion is taking place on several fronts.\n\nAlthough Ukraine's resistance has been stronger than expected, Russian forces continue to take territory in the south and are slowly moving towards the capital, Kyiv.\n\nYou can see full details of the situation on the ground in our guide to the conflict in maps.", "Sir Rod Stewart said his Ferrari could not get through the potholes\n\nThe potholes Sir Rod Stewart was filmed fixing will be temporarily filled in April and the road resurfaced in July, a council said.\n\nVideos on the 77-year-old singer's Instagram account showed him shovelling gravel in Harlow, Essex, claiming \"no-one can be bothered to do it\".\n\nIn one, he said \"people are bashing their cars up\" on the road.\n\nThe leader of Essex County Council, Kevin Bentley, said the road \"wasn't the condition it should be in\".\n\nIn the Instagram post, Sir Rod claimed the road had been in need of repair \"for ages\".\n\nDressed in a tracksuit and high-vis vest, he explained why he and \"the boys\" decided to fix it themselves.\n\n\"The other day, there was an ambulance with a burst tyre. My Ferrari can't go through here at all,\" he said.\n\nThe rural road near Harlow in Essex has many potholes, but will now be repaired by Essex County Council\n\nMr Bentley, a Conservative councillor, said the road had been inspected since the videos were posted and it was agreed it needed repairing.\n\n\"The patching work will be done in April and resurfacing will be done in July,\" he said.\n\n\"We must get to our roads as quickly as we can within the financial constraints what we have.\"\n\nHe encouraged residents to report potholes through the authority's website, so the council \"can get to them as fast as possible\".\n\nEarlier, the council said people should not to try to repair potholes themselves.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRussian state TV's Channel One plays a crucial part in the Kremlin's media messaging. It is Russia's second most popular channel, and its flagship news programme Vremya (Time) is watched by millions.\n\nNormally, there is no room for deviation from the party line.\n\nSo when Marina Ovsyannikova ran on to the set behind the news anchor in prime time, brandishing a poster saying \"Stop the War!\", it was an unprecedented moment of dissent against the Kremlin which reached into living rooms across the country.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova, who has a Ukrainian father and Russian mother, has been fined 30,000 roubles (£214, $280) for an anti-war video she had also released.\n\nHer protest is extraordinary in more ways than one.\n\nTo start with, Channel One viewers are not even used to hearing the word \"war\" used to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The government has ordered the media to call it a \"special military operation\" launched to \"demilitarise and denazify\" Ukraine.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova's protest also targeted the core President Putin supporters: most Russians still use state TV as their main source of news, rather than from reports in the diminishing number of independent websites or from social media.\n\nIt soon emerged that Ms Ovsyannikova was a Channel One editor who had earlier recorded a video statement\n\nStaging a protest like this takes extraordinary courage. Ten days earlier, Russia approved a law under which anyone challenging the Kremlin's version of events in Ukraine can face up to 15 years in jail.\n\nAlmost 15,000 anti-war protesters have been detained since the invasion began, according to the Ovd-info website. None of them have reached into as many Russia homes as Ms Ovsyannikova did.\n\nBeyond a few seconds of exposure on Channel One, state media have ignored the protest. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed her action as hooliganism.\n\nFor fear of being targeted, independent Russian websites have blurred out or pixelated Ms Ovsyannikova's poster.\n\nNovaya Gazeta, for example, left only one line from her poster still legible: \"Don't believe propaganda.\"\n\nIndependent website Novaya Gazeta left only one line of the poster unblurred\n\nIt is a different story on social media, where this anti-Putin moment has been seen as a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak Russian media landscape.\n\n\"Marina Ovsyannikova is a hero of Russia!\" opposition politician Ilya Yashin said on Twitter.\n\n\"Five seconds of truth can wash away the dirt of weeks of propaganda,\" said another opposition politician, Lev Shlosberg.\n\nHer protest is not the only crack to appear in the Kremlin media machine's campaign to convince Russians that the operation in Ukraine is neither a war nor an invasion.\n\nLilia Gildeyeva had worked for NTV since 2006\n\nNews broke hours afterwards that a veteran presenter from another top television channel, NTV, had left the country.\n\n\"First, I left [Russia] because I was afraid they would not let me go just like that, then I submitted my resignation,\" Lilia Gildeyeva told a prominent blogger.", "Retail chain Wilko has apologised for \"some miscommunication\" in which it told staff they could continue to work if they tested positive for Covid.\n\nIn a memo, reported by The Mirror, the company said staff with the virus could continue to work in stores if they felt well enough to.\n\nWilko confirmed the memo was sent out and the firm has since made a U-turn.\n\n\"When we get something wrong, we hold our hands up, admit it, and work to correct the situation,\" the firm said.\n\nJerome Saint-Marc, Wilko chief executive, said he wanted to \"reassure all our customers and team members\" that the company's advice to staff with Covid symptoms or those who test positive was to stay at home and avoid contact with others.\n\n\"As throughout our 92 years on the High Street, the safety and wellbeing of our shoppers and teams is at the heart of our business and we're truly sorry for any understandable concerns our communications may have raised,\" he added.\n\nPeople with Covid in England are no longer legally required to self-isolate with all restrictions now removed, but it is still recommended.\n\nIn Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, people are still asked to self-isolate after a positive test.\n\nIn Wilko's initial memo to staff, the company, which has 414 stores in the UK, said: \"If you test positive for Covid-19 and feel well you can continue to come to work, if you feel too unwell you can follow the absence policy.\"\n\nThe removal of all legal Covid rules has made the decision over whether to self-isolate or not an individual one.\n\nIt has led to concern that lower-paid staff face the toughest choice when deciding to isolate or not, with up to two million workers not qualifying for sick pay due to the amount they earn.\n\nThe Trades Union Congress has said people should not be forced into making a \"terrible choice\" over going into work with Covid or risking losing income by self-isolating at home.\n\nAre you affected by issues covered in this story? Please share your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Mr Sullivan, seen here in a file picture, warned that the US would not allow China to provide a \"lifeline\" to Russia\n\nChina will face consequences if it helps Russia evade sanctions in its invasion of Ukraine, the US says.\n\nUnnamed US officials told multiple news outlets that China had signalled willingness to provide military assistance to Russia.\n\nThe Chinese foreign ministry accused the US of spreading disinformation. Russia denied asking Beijing for military help.\n\nThe exchanges came before top US and Chinese officials met in Rome.\n\nMedia outlets, citing Washington officials, say that Russia has in recent days asked China specifically for military equipment, including drones.\n\nOn Monday, the US warned allies that China had suggested it was open to a move to provide military and economic support, media reports said.\n\nThe report came as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, for talks in Rome.\n\n\"Mr Sullivan raised a range of issues in US-China relations, with substantial discussion of Russia's war against Ukraine,\" a readout of the meeting said. \"They also underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China.\"\n\nIn an earlier CNN interview, Mr Sullivan said the US was \"communicating directly, privately to Beijing that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them\".\n\n\"We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country, anywhere in the world,\" he said.\n\nHe added that while the US believed China was aware that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was \"planning something\" before the invasion happened, Beijing \"may not have understood the full extent of it\".\n\nRussia's military action is now in its third week and has horrified much of the world\n\n\"Because it's very possible that [Mr] Putin lied to them the same way that he lied to Europeans and others,\" Mr Sullivan said.\n\nIn response, a spokesman for the foreign ministry in Beijing, Zhao Lijian, said the US had \"been spreading disinformation targeting China on the Ukraine issue, with malicious intentions\".\n\nAsked if he could clarify whether China had received a request for military help from Russia, Mr Zhao said this was \"fake news\" but did not deny it directly. He added that China's stance had always been consistent and that China was playing a constructive role in promoting talks.\n\nPresident Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports Russia had asked China for military assistance were not true.\n\n\"Russia possesses its own independent potential to continue the operation. As we said, it is going according to plan and will be completed on time and in full,\" he said.\n\nState Department spokesman Ned Price said the US raised concerns with the Chinese delegation \"directly and very clearly\".\n\nChina has so far refrained from condemning Russia for the invasion and has said Moscow's \"legitimate security concerns\" should be taken seriously.\n\nWhen the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn Russia's invasion earlier this month, China was one of 35 countries that abstained.\n\nBut Beijing at the same time has expressed \"unwavering support\" for Ukraine's sovereignty. It has also called for peace and has said it is ready to help end the war through diplomacy. Several countries have urged China to do more to stop Russia's invasion.\n\nThe EU and US help Ukraine, China helps Russia; if that's how this goes, then it's a delineation that will make the war in Ukraine an even more consequential one.\n\nThe White House has decided to make public its claim just as President Biden's top security adviser is due to meet China's most senior diplomat. It appears to be a tactical move, to put pressure on China; presumably to either confirm or deny it.\n\nThe bigger aim could be to try to make Xi Jinping weigh up the pros and cons to his current position of what was last week called a \"rock solid\" relationship with Moscow.\n\nRemember that it was just weeks ago, as the Winter Olympics opened in Beijing, that Presidents Xi and Putin declared a new alliance that had \"no limit\". Military aid could, clearly, be part of that.\n\nBut in the days after Russia's invasion China has condemned the UK, the US and others for giving weapons to Ukraine's military, saying they were adding \"fuel to the fire\".\n\nIf the US intelligence assessment is correct and Beijing follows through on that request, then they too would be \"adding fuel\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mariko Oi explains why China is in a delicate position in the Ukraine conflict\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Frankie Smith was sentenced to eight years in jail for causing or allowing the death of her 16-month old daughter, Star Hobson\n\nThe mother of murdered toddler Star Hobson has had her sentence for causing or allowing her daughter's death increased to 12 years.\n\nFrankie Smith, 20, was handed an eight-year term at Bradford Crown Court in December.\n\nAttorney General Suella Braverman said this was \"unduly lenient\" and referred the sentence to the Court of Appeal.\n\nThree senior judges considered the case and extended the original term by four years.\n\nThe original sentencing hearing was told Star was \"caught in the crossfire\" of the pair's toxic relationship, resulting in her death at 16 months old from \"catastrophic\" blunt-force injuries.\n\nAs she delivered the Court of Appeal's ruling, Lady Justice Sharp said Smith's original sentence was unduly lenient because it \"did not reflect the overall seriousness of the offending\".\n\nShe said Smith had shown a \"deliberate disregard\" for her daughter's welfare and had failed to take any steps to protect her, treating the toddler with \"callous indifference\", cruelty and neglect.\n\nStar Hobson suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of catastrophic injuries and died on 22 September 2020\n\nShe said Smith had failed to contact the police or social services, seek medical attention or help from family members - some of whom had reported their concerns to social services after seeing Star with bruises.\n\nStar was \"particularly vulnerable due to her very young age\", the judge said, and Smith had been a neglectful parent who had remained in the relationship with Brockhill for her own \"selfish\" gains.\n\nSitting alongside Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Jeremy Baker, she said the sentencing judge had been wrong to hand Smith a lesser sentence based on mitigation such as being a victim of domestic abuse and the fact she had lost her daughter.\n\n\"In our judgment no less a sentence than 12 years would meet the justice of this case,\" Mrs Justice Sharp said.\n\nTom Little QC, representing the Attorney General's Office, told the court the defendant had participated in \"degradation of Star and sadistic behaviour\".\n\n\"This was not a case where the offender was so racked with guilt and pleaded guilty at the very first opportunity,\" he said.\n\nMr Little further argued Star's vulnerability and a delay in calling 999 on the day of her death were not taken into account by sentencing judge Mrs Justice Lambert.\n\nSavannah Brockhill (left) and Frankie Smith had both denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child\n\nSmith's barrister Zafar Ali QC said it was \"simply incorrect\" to say she was not remorseful, and that she \"broke down several occasions during the crown's case in the trial\".\n\nHe said the case had been \"permeated by domestic violence\" and instances of physical abuse against Smith by Brockhill, whom he described as \"a very intimidating character\".\n\nSpeaking before the hearing, Star's great-grandfather David Fawcett said: \"It doesn't matter what sentence she gets, it'll never bring Star back.\"\n\nHe told BBC News he had been visiting Smith in prison and was the only family member who had visited recently.\n\n\"I've been to see Frankie last Sunday and she's not doing good,\" he said.\n\nStar's great-grandfather David Fawcett said he had been visiting Smith in prison\n\nHis partner Anita Smith, who made one of the five referrals to social services, was still devastated over Star's loss, along with the rest of the family, he said.\n\n\"Anita says she'll never be able to face seeing Frankie and can never forgive her. She says she could've got away from the situation.\"\n\nHollie Jones, who would regularly babysit Star and made the first referral in January 2020, said she was pleased with the outcome.\n\n\"No sentence will feel like justice but I'm glad that it's been increased and I'm happy with the sentence she's got,\" she said.\n\nThe Attorney General welcomed the judge's decision and said: \"This is a tragic and extremely upsetting case and my thoughts are with all those who loved Star Hobson.\n\n\"This case involved prolonged and multiple cruelty and neglect, deliberate disregard, and a failure to take any steps to protect or seek assistance for her before and after her murder.\"\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.", "Chelsea have withdrawn a request for Saturday's FA Cup tie at Middlesbrough to be played behind closed doors, the Football Association says.\n\nThe Premier League side are not allowed to sell tickets for any matches after the government froze the assets of Russian owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nChelsea initially made the request \"for matters of sporting integrity\".\n\n\"After constructive talks between the FA and Chelsea, the club has agreed to remove their request,\" the FA said.\n\n\"The FA remains in ongoing discussions with Chelsea, the Premier League and the government to find a solution that would enable both Chelsea fans to attend games and away fans to attend Stamford Bridge, while ensuring sanctions are respected.\"\n\nChelsea said it was \"grateful for the FA's continuing efforts to help us find a solution\".\n\nThe prime minister's official spokesman said the government is working with the football authorities to allow more Chelsea supporters to attend away matches, but added that any changes must ensure \"no additional revenue can be raised given the club is owned by an individual now sanctioned in the UK\".\n• None Is this a moment of reckoning for English football ownership?\n\nMiddlesbrough have put an additional 3,200 tickets on sale to their supporters after they were returned to the club by Chelsea because of government sanctions.\n\nThe Championship club had said they would have challenged the \"bizarre\" and \"ironic\" request to play the quarter-final behind closed doors - which was set to be discussed at an FA meeting on Wednesday - \"in the strongest possible terms\".\n\nBefore the request was withdrawn, Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson told the Athletic : \"Chelsea and sporting integrity do not belong in the same sentence.\n\n\"Where is the intellect of Bruce Buck, the chairman of Chelsea, who has been an apologist for his owner, where the trophies won over 19 years have come from the corrupt money provided by Abramovich?\" Gibson added.\n\n\"Where is the intellect of the chairman of Chelsea when it comes to playing his games at home in front of his season-ticket holders? Does he want to play all his away games at empty stadiums?\n\n\"Abramovich has been kicked out of football and Bruce Buck should be kicked out of football too.\"\n\nChelsea Supporters' Trust had earlier asked the club to withdraw the request, saying it \"does not benefit\" any fans.\n\nChelsea had sold between 500 and 600 tickets of their 4,620 allocation before the licence placing restrictions on the club came into effect on 10 March.\n\nThe measure was introduced to stop oligarch Abramovich, who is looking to sell Chelsea, from profiting.\n\nHe has been banned from being a club director and the sale of Chelsea has been delayed after the UK government sanctioned him over his connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nChelsea said they made the request to the FA to play Saturday's game behind closed doors \"with extreme reluctance\", saying they had done so \"for matters of sporting integrity\".\n\nA statement read: \"Chelsea FC recognises that such an outcome would have a huge impact on Middlesbrough and its supporters, as well as our own fans who have already bought the limited number of tickets that were sold before the licence was imposed, but we believe this is the fairest way of proceeding in the current circumstances.\"\n\nMiddlesbrough, who have knocked out Premier League sides Manchester United and Tottenham in this year's competition, responded: \"To suggest as a result that MFC and our fans should be penalised is not only grossly unfair but without any foundation.\n\n\"Given the reasons for these sanctions, for Chelsea to seek to invoke sporting 'integrity' as reason for the game being played behind closed doors is ironic in the extreme.\"\n\nGovernment in discussions over further ticket sales\n\nChelsea said on Monday they were talking to the government on a daily basis \"in search of a resolution\" to the issue of selling tickets, and that the Premier League and FA had spoken to the government about the potential sporting integrity issues raised.\n\nThe government last week granted an amendment to the licence, allowing Chelsea to spend £900,000 on costs for home games - up from the £500,000 set on Thursday.\n\nHowever the allowable away costs remain at £20,000 per game.\n\nSports minister Nigel Huddleston said the government is in \"discussions\" with Chelsea \"to look at ways ways we could potentially enable further ticket sales\".\n\nSpeaking at a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) session about the role of Russian money in the ownership and sponsorship of clubs, Huddleston said licence amendments taken so far were \"precisely to stop\" Chelsea from going into administration.\n\nTravel needs are about injuries, not 'bling' - Tuchel\n\nChelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, whose side face Lille in the Champions League last 16 second leg on Wednesday, said they have made adjustments to travel with a budget of £20,000.\n\nThe amount spent on travel for an away Premier League match is about £30,000, while European away fixtures add an extra premium.\n\nTuchel said travel needs were centred around players avoiding possible soft-tissue injuries during a busy schedule rather than \"luxury and bling bling\".\n\n\"This is just a professional level of sports, where we play with two days between matches with our opponent having four days between matches and we arrive with the possibilities of injuries,\" he said. \"For that, it is better to arrive with a plane rather than a bus.\"\n\n\"From my understanding, we have a framework to go and play in Lille with absolutely no excuses.\n\n\"Regarding these organisations, it is already more difficult to arrange things on a professional level, in the best way possible, for the FA Cup.\n\n\"But we will deal with it. As long as we have shirts and are 'alive' as a team, we will be competitive and fight hard for our success. We owe it to the people who support us.\n\n\"We are in the spotlight and it is our responsibility to do so. We will do it.\"\n\nChelsea's FA Cup quarter-final against Middlesbrough, which starts at 17:15 GMT on Saturday, will be broadcast live on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website.\n\n'Blues could be millions out of pocket'\n\nBBC Sport has been told Chelsea never thought it was likely the Football Association would agree to their request.\n\nHowever, it was done to try to get the government to understand the complexities around the predicament they are in.\n\nUnder FA rules, Chelsea are entitled to 45% of the gate receipts from Saturday's game. In theory, that should net the Blues in excess of £300,000.\n\nBut they have no idea whether they will receive the payment - or whether it will be withheld within the terms of the special licence, handed out by the government, which they are operating under.\n\nIn April, they have home games against Brentford and West Ham - and could also have a Champions League quarter-final and FA Cup semi-final to play. If Chelsea are not allowed to sell tickets, they will be millions of pounds out of pocket which could have a massively damaging impact on the club.\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - follow your team and sign up for notifications in the BBC Sport app to make sure you never miss a moment", "Children with mental health problems in Northern Ireland were found to be at \"serious risk\" while living in a care home run by the charity Praxis Care.\n\nRQIA inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in staff training and in record keeping, which placed \"both children and staff at risk\".\n\nThe home has been de-registered by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA).\n\nPraxis said it would ensure a managed transition for staff and children.\n\nDe-registration means the charity can no longer operate a care service on that site.\n\nThe South Eastern Health trust has taken over responsibility for the staffing and management of the home instead.\n\nIt is the first children's service to have registration cancelled through enforcement action.\n\nPraxis Care is one of Northern Ireland's leading mental health charities.\n\nIt operates a number of services including several residential homes for children with mental health problems under the age of 16.\n\nHealth inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in staff training and in record keeping in the care home\n\nThe inspection of this home in the South Eastern health trust took place in February this year, according to the RQIA.\n\nThe facility is not being named in order to protect the identity of the children.\n\nAt this stage it is understood the police have not been asked to carry out an investigation.\n\nIn a statement, the RQIA said it identified that \"insufficient skilled and competent staff were in place to meet the complex needs of the children in their care, to promote their rights, and safely respond to their needs\".\n\n\"Serious risk\" may include insufficient numbers of staff to care for children with extremely challenging behaviour.\n\nIn an unusual move, the RQIA made a successful application on 3 March 2022 to a Justice of the Peace for an order to cancel the home's registration.\n\nAdequate numbers of skilled staff is believed to be at the heart of this problem.\n\nPraxis runs a number of services including several residential homes for children with mental health problems\n\nPraxis said it was \"saddened\" to confirm that \"following extensive engagement with both the South Eastern Trust and RQIA, regarding the difficulties in recruitment and retention of staff, we very reluctantly concluded that we could no longer maintain the service and notified the trust to that effect\".\n\n\"The following day RQIA indicated their intention to formally cancel the registration,\" Praxis added.\n\n\"We are now working in partnership with the South Eastern Trust to ensure there is an appropriate and well managed transition for the children and our staff who have worked tirelessly in very difficult circumstances.\"\n\nIt is normal practice for the RQIA not to publish details of the inspection of a children's home.\n\nAs facilities are small and the children vulnerable, it is feared that children and staff could be identified.\n\nHowever, BBC News NI understands that a review of this practice is currently under way.\n\nStakeholders are examining what exactly could be published around the inspection of children's facilities which would ensure that the privacy and dignity of children is protected, while allowing for transparency.\n\nStaffing such facilities is clearly a problem across Northern Ireland.\n\nMost of the staffing vacancies in health and social care are in the care of children and adults with complex needs.\n\nA spokesperson for the RQIA said the safety and wellbeing of services for vulnerable children is of \"paramount importance\".\n\nIt added that it will continue to \"monitor and inspect this service and work with other stakeholders to ensure that it meets the required standards\".\n\nMeanwhile, the children and young people continue to live in the facility but in the care of the South Eastern Health Trust.", "A British journalist working for the Fox News Channel in the US has been injured while reporting on the war in Ukraine, the network says.\n\nFox confirmed on air that Benjamin Hall - listed as its US state department correspondent - is in hospital after an incident outside of the capital Kyiv.\n\nAfternoon news anchor John Roberts added teams on the ground were still gathering details of the incident.\n\nMr Hall is said to have been news gathering at the time.\n\nIn a memo circulated to Fox employees on Monday, CEO Suzanne Scott said there was \"a minimum level of details right now\" and called for prayers.\n\n\"This is a stark reminder for all journalists who put their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone,\" she wrote.\n\nMr Hall, 39, joined Fox News in 2015 and has been heavily involved in the network's foreign affairs coverage.\n\nHe has covered several wars from the frontlines, including in parts of the Middle East.\n\nA dual US-UK citizen, he completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in London.\n\nAnton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, posted on Telegram on Monday that Mr Hall was in a serious condition.\n\nMr Gerashchenko added that Ukrainian officials did not currently know the fate of a Fox News cameraman and a producer.\n\nHe said the news crew probably \"came under mortar or artillery fire\" from Russian forces as they were heading towards the city of Irpin, which sits just 20km (12 miles) north-west of Kyiv.\n\nEarlier on Monday, Ukraine's prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova had said that a Western journalist had been injured and was being cared for by Ukrainian doctors.\n\nThe State Department Correspondents' Association issued a statement, saying the state department's press corps was \"horrified\" to learn that Mr Hall had been injured.\n\n\"We know Ben for his warmth, good humor and utmost professionalism. We wish Ben a quick recovery,\" president of the association, Shaun Tandon, said.\n\nMr Hall's injuries come after another US journalist - Brent Renaud - was shot and killed on Sunday in the town of Irpin while working in the region. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital in the same attack.", "The Cuadrilla fracking site is not currently producing gas\n\nTalks over whether the UK's only fracking wells should be permanently abandoned in three months' time have hit a deadlock.\n\nThe two wells, in Lancashire, are due to be concreted over by 30 June on the orders of the Oil and Gas Authority.\n\nThe company behind the wells, Cuadrilla, wants the government to restart fracking at the site to reduce the UK's reliance on Russian gas.\n\nThe government says it can not overrule the regulator.\n\nBut ministers have also said it \"doesn't necessarily make any sense to concrete over the wells\" at Little Plumpton, near Preston, which are currently not producing gas.\n\nThey are urging the company to apply to the regulator for an extension to the 30 June deadline for sealing them up.\n\nIt is understood the Oil and Gas Authority wrote to Cuadrilla after meeting with ministers on Tuesday to ask them to confirm if they wanted an extension.\n\nIn a statement, the regulator said it had told the company it would consider a request to extend for one year, and all parties were now considering the implications.\n\nBut the BBC understands Cuadrilla is reluctant to apply for it because of the financial risk of extending their licence - without certainty about whether they will be decommissioned again in future.\n\nFracking was banned in 2019 over concerns about earth tremors, and the Conservatives promised at that year's general election that they would not support it \"unless the science shows categorically that it can be done safely\".\n\nThat remains the government's official position.\n\nBut, in light of soaring oil and gas prices - and the UK saying it wants to become more \"energy independent\" following Russia's invasion of Ukraine - a growing number of Tory MPs have called on the government to reconsider whether the UK could use fracking to produce its own gas.\n\nNo 10 suggested the prime minister had agreed to look at it again to \"see if it has a role to play\".\n\nThere were huge protests at Preston New Road site before fracking was halted in 2019\n\nDowning Street sources told the BBC that with oil prices so high, there were things \"we would have dismissed before that we can't dismiss now\".\n\nThe government's goal is still to shift to renewable sources of energy, they added, but \"in the transition period we need to pump more oil and gas of our own\" and it was \"in that context we should look at fracking\".\n\nCuadrilla's chief executive Francis Egan said that ministers recent \"rhetoric\" on fracking did not match their actions.\n\n\"On Wednesday morning, I read in the newspapers that the prime minister had decided that concreting up Britain's only two shale gas wells, in the midst of an energy crisis and given his own assessment that Europe is 'addicted' to Russian gas, would be a terrible idea,\" he said.\n\n\"Later on Wednesday, in the House of Commons, the business secretary said that 'it did not necessarily make any sense' to concrete over the wells.\"\n\nHe urged the government and the Oil and Gas Authority to \"formally withdraw their instruction to plug the wells\".\n\n\"If we are serious about energy security, as a very basic, first step we must not concrete up these wells, and then we need urgently to lift the shale gas moratorium and use these and additional wells to produce domestic shale gas,\" he added.\n\nThe government says that while ministers can express a view on fracking they cannot tell an independent regulator like the Oil and Gas Authority what to do.\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons, Labour's shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, accused the government of being \"completely all over the place\" on its energy policy.\n\nBut Energy Minister Greg Hands replied: \"He says we're confused, but the government's policy hasn't changed.\"", "The previous two years had each seen about 3.8 million referrals\n\nThe number of referrals for specialist NHS mental health care reached a record high in England by the end of 2021, an analysis suggests.\n\nThe Royal College of Psychiatrists says the pandemic has led to unprecedented demand and backlogs and services are struggling to keep up.\n\nThere were 4.3 million referrals, for conditions such as anxiety and depression, in 2021, NHS Digital says.\n\nJust under a quarter - 1.025 million - were for children or adolescents.\n\nThe previous two years had each seen about 3.8 million referrals.\n\nThe college said the NHS had delivered 1.8 million mental health consultations in December 2021, as the Omicron variant of Covid-19, first identified in South Africa, spread across the UK.\n\nBut an estimated 1.4 million people were still waiting for treatment.\n\nAnd hundreds of adults were being sent far from home for treatment because of a lack of beds in their area.\n\nPresident Dr Adrian James said: \"As the pressure on services continues to ratchet up, the silence from government continues to be of grave concern for the college, the wider mental health workforce and, most importantly, our patients.\n\n\"The warning of the long tail of mental ill health caused by the pandemic has not been heeded.\n\n\"Many thousands of people will be left waiting far too long for the treatment they need unless the government wakes up to the crisis that is engulfing the country.\n\n\"Staff are working flat out to give their patients the support they need but the lack of resources and lack of staff mean it's becoming an impossible situation to manage.\n\n\"We don't need warm words or empty commitments.\n\n\"We need a fully funded plan for mental-health services, backed by a long-term workforce plan, as the country comes to terms with the biggest hit to its mental health in generations.\"\n\nMarjorie Wallace from the mental health charity SANE said: \"We need urgent action or our failures to act now may leave us with a lost generation. The huge rise in the number of referrals last year, including more than one million children, suggests that we are sleepwalking into a crisis.\n\n\"Mental health staff are so depleted and on their knees that we know of patients and families told they have to wait until something terrible happens before action is taken.\"\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"We are committed to ensuring everyone is able to access the help and advice they need, which is why we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24, on top of the £500 million we have made available to address the impact of the pandemic.\n\n\"We will be launching a national conversation to inform the development of a new long-term mental health plan later this year.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The arrivals process into England is set to become easier for travellers\n\nThe transport secretary has confirmed that all remaining Covid travel measures will be scrapped.\n\nCurrently, everyone travelling to the UK must complete a passenger locator form before they arrive.\n\nTravellers who are not fully vaccinated have to take a Covid test before departure, fill in the form, and book and pay for a PCR test after arriving.\n\nGrant Shapps confirmed in a tweet that these rules will end at 04:00 on Friday.\n\nHis announcement means that passengers who are not fully vaccinated will no longer have to take Covid tests before and after travelling to the UK. The passenger locator form will no longer be necessary either.\n\nPeople planning an overseas trip will still need to be aware of other countries' entry rules.\n\nMr Shapps tweeted: \"These changes are possible due to our vaccine rollout and mean greater freedom in time for Easter.\"\n\nWhen any new Covid strains appear in the future, the government said its default approach would be to use \"the least-stringent measures\" for restricting travel.\n\nIts \"Living with Covid\" plan said new measures at the border would only be considered in \"extreme circumstances\".\n\nIt said the UKHSA would closely monitor the prevalence and spread of Covid variants.\n\nScotland and Wales have agreed to follow England in scrapping the remaining coronavirus border measures.\n\nBut Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan said she was doing so \"reluctantly\" - and was \"extremely disappointed\" that testing requirements and the passenger location form were being ditched.\n\nThe Scottish government said consistency across the four nations was agreed because of the \"negative impact of non-alignment on the tourism industry\".\n\nTesting requirements for fully-vaccinated arrivals into the UK were dropped in February.\n\nThe latest move was welcomed by some figures in the travel industry, which has campaigned for the remaining rules to be dropped so businesses can take full advantage of strong summer holiday demand.\n\nTim Alderslade, chief executive of trade body Airlines UK, said: \"Today's announcement sends a clear message to the world - the UK travel sector is back.\n\n\"With travellers returning to the UK no longer burdened by unnecessary forms and testing requirements, we can now look forward to the return to pre-Covid normality throughout the travel experience.\"\n\nA Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: \"The removal of all remaining UK travel restrictions is the final important step towards frictionless air travel, helping to further restore consumer confidence as we welcome more customers back to the skies this spring and summer.\n\n\"To uphold the experience of all travellers, it's vital that the UK Government works closely with industry to ensure the UK border is ready for increasing passengers, as international travel ramps up.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Eurostar's chief executive Jacques Damas said the easing of restrictions would help the cross-Channel train operator's recovery.\n\n\"We hope and expect to see the UK's approach replicated across our other markets in the coming weeks,\" Mr Damas said.\n\nHowever, as Covid restrictions recede, other headwinds for the aviation industry are appearing.\n\nThe price of jet fuel has soared as a result of higher crude oil prices. This adds to cost pressures on airlines, although some have been protected by their hedging strategies, whereby they purchased fuel in advance at lower prices.\n\nOn Friday, the chief executive of Heathrow airport, John Holland-Kaye, said the recovery of aviation remained \"overshadowed by war and Covid uncertainty\".\n\nBusinesses will also be keeping a careful eye on whether consumers' confidence to book is knocked by the war in Ukraine and rising household bills squeezing disposable incomes.\n\nAir France-KLM and Ryanair have both recently warned air fares will rise.", "The aftermath of Russian artillery shelling on a residential area in Mariupol, 10 March\n\nThe Russian bombardment of some places in Ukraine is so intense that towns and cities are being forced to unceremoniously bury dozens of civilian victims in mass graves.\n\nNowhere is this grim reality of war more apparent than in Mariupol, a key port city devastated by constant shelling, where several burial sites have been hastily dug in the past two weeks.\n\n\"We can't bury [the victims] in private graves, as those are outside the city and the perimeter is controlled by Russian troops,\" Mariupol's deputy mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC by phone.\n\nLocations include a retired city cemetery that has now been re-opened, Mr Orlov said.\n\nWarning: This article contains images that some may find upsetting\n\nOn Sunday, the city council said the civilian death toll had risen above 2,100. The heavy Russian shelling has prevented any mass evacuation from Mariupol, despite efforts to open a safe exit route.\n\nMr Orlov could not give a total for dead civilians buried in mass graves, but said 67 bodies were at one site. \"Some we can't identify but some had documents.\"\n\nThousands of residents are hiding in cellars and in some cases, he said, people are burying family members privately in courtyards or gardens.\n\nThe battered city's street cleaners and road repair teams were collecting bodies in the streets, he said, as municipal services had collapsed. \"Some people were killed during those collections. We've had no electricity, or heating, sanitation, water, food for 11 days,\" he said.\n\nFour-hundred miles to the north west, on the edge of the capital Kyiv, a mass grave was dug near a church in the town of Bucha, local MP Mykhailyna Skoryk-Shkarivska said. It contains more than 60 bodies.\n\nVideo of the burial was posted on Facebook by a doctor working in nearby Irpin, Andriy Levkivsky. Doctors buried the victims, who had been brought to Irpin hospital.\n\nMs Skoryk-Shkarivska told the BBC that a \"ritual service\" was conducted at the hospital before burial. Not all had been identified and \"nobody knows exactly where the relatives are,\" she said.\n\n\"Now we're discussing with volunteers how to create a digital system to identify people and trace missing relatives,\" she said.\n\nRussian troops captured the hospital on Saturday and told the doctors to leave, she said, speaking by phone from western Ukraine. Bucha and half of Irpin are now in Russian hands, she said.\n\nThe return of mass graves is a shock for Ukrainians. Many have bitter family memories of World War Two, when Jews and Soviet partisans were murdered by Nazis, and the Holodomor - the famine created in Ukraine by Soviet seizure of grain and livestock in the 1930s.\n\n\"My uncle is 92 and even he compared it with his childhood in the war,\" said Ms Skoryk-Shkarivska, who emphasised it is \"important for us to bury relatives traditionally, the Christian way, with praying\".\n\n\"Even now in war people sometimes ask priests to do that,\" she said.\n\nA mass grave in Bucha - still from video posted by Dr Levkivsky\n\nIn northern Ukraine the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Sumy are surrounded by Russian troops and relentless shelling has killed many civilians there too.\n\nOn 6 March Oleksandra Matviichuk, a civil liberties campaigner, tweeted a photo of coffins in a trench, accompanied by the message: \"Thus, civilians killed in the Russian bombing of Chernihiv are buried in trenches. Since the main city cemetery in Yatsevo is under constant shelling by the Russian occupiers, the victims are buried in the Yalivshchyna forest.\"\n\nOleksandr Lomako, secretary of Chernihiv city council, told the BBC that victims of Russian air raids and shelling were being buried in a temporary cemetery. He confirmed that the city's main cemetery was now inaccessible, with Russian troops surrounding the city on three sides, the nearest about 10km (six miles) away.\n\nCoffins buried in a trench in Chernihiv - photograph courtesy of mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko\n\n\"After the war we will rebury the dead,\" he said, estimating the city's civilian death toll in the Russian bombardment to be about 200.\n\nOne air raid killed 45 people in Chernihiv - the worst toll, Mr Lomako said - adding that nightly bombing was killing seven civilians on average. \"The planes drop three to four bombs on residential blocks. Also one hit the hospital, but it is still working. Dozens of housing blocks have been destroyed on the edge of the city.\"\n\nAs well as evidence of mass burials, there are accounts of makeshift graves.\n\nA mother and son were buried in the courtyard of their new apartment block in Irpin, which has been heavily shelled by the Russians. A photo of the grave was widely shared by Ukrainians, and a tweet by journalist Olga Rudenko showed Marina Met and her son Ivan enjoying life in Kyiv before the invasion.\n\nMakeshift grave of a mother and son in Irpin\n\nFor those whose loved ones have suffered the effects of siege and shelling at the hands of invading forces, burial in makeshift graves will no doubt feel like the final indignity.", "The funding, which will help cover urgent costs, followed a request by the BBC\n\nThe BBC World Service will receive more than £4m in extra funding from the UK government to help counter disinformation about the Ukraine war.\n\nThe BBC made the request for the money, which will also be used by the Ukrainian and Russian language services to cover urgent and unexpected costs.\n\nIt welcomed the announcement and said the money would help relocate staff and operations to safe locations.\n\nThe two language services have had record audiences since the invasion.\n\nThe announcement on Wednesday followed a BBC request to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign Office.\n\n\"The BBC has seen a big demand for clear, fact-based, impartial journalism to counter disinformation and our teams are working around the clock to bring people the very best independent journalism,\" BBC director general Tim Davie said.\n\n\"This funding will also help us with the immediate need to support staff who have been displaced, many of whom are continuing to work and provide vital expertise to the whole of the BBC,\" he added.\n\nIn a statement, the government said it would give the World Service emergency funding \"to help it continue bringing independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state\".\n\nCulture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the funding would help the World Service broadcast directly into both countries.\n\nMs Dorries said: \"The BBC will ensure that audiences in the region can continue to access independent news reporting in the face of systemic propaganda from a dictator waging war on European soil.\"\n\nBefore 2014, the World Service was funded with a grant from the Foreign Office.\n\nBut since then, it has been primarily funded by the licence fee, although in 2016 the government agreed to provide funding for it to expand.\n\nBetween 2016 and 2021, the government has contributed £378m, including £8m announced for 2021/22 to fight disinformation around the world.\n\nRussia restricted access to the BBC on 4 March. But the BBC has since announced several steps to ensure Russian audiences have \"access to its independent journalism\".\n\nThe steps include providing circumvention advice, launching new TikTok accounts in English and Russian, and increasing access to the BBC World News channel.\n\nMoscow's parliament recently passed a law making it a criminal offence to spread \"fake\" or \"false\" news about Russia's war in Ukraine. The offence is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.\n\nThis prompted the BBC to temporarily suspend the work of all its news journalists and support staff in Russia. The BBC's news coverage in Russia has now resumed.", "Alex lowers himself into position on a camping mat - face down - with the careful moves of a man who knows backache. \"It gets painful staying like this for long,\" he says, with a smoker's husky laugh.\n\nBut lying in wait is the task of the sniper.\n\nThat's the wartime role for Alex, who used to have an office job in financial control. The 45-year-old settles in behind the rifle sights, with most of his face covered by a camouflage balaclava. He has been a hunter since boyhood, he says - \"always with a licence\" he quickly adds.\n\nWhen Russian invaded Ukraine, Alex joined the territorial defence force, along with some 100,000 others according to the authorities here. \"I wanted to do something for my motherland,\" he says.\n\nNow, in a forest on the outskirts of Kyiv, he's doing target practice.\n\nHe radios ahead before firing one careful shot at a time. A member of his unit radios back with results: \"You missed the target. It's 15cm (6in) wide,\" he says, to swears from Alex. Tomorrow, he will practise again.\n\nHe knows his role could be crucial.\n\n\"In history, in any war, when snipers appear on the battlefield, their work is very important,\" he says. \"They can protect other troops. This is very hard and very useful.\"\n\nRecruits take a rest from their combat training in the forest\n\nDoes he expect Russian forces to try to enter the city, or just keep bombarding it from the outside?\n\n\"I don't know,\" he says, \"but we must be prepared. We must practise, and we must defend the streets, the fields, and the forests\".\n\nHe is unflinching and unapologetic about his switch from hunting game to hunting the enemy. \"I think there is no difference between the animals which I try to shoot and the animals which come here to kill our people, kill our children, destroy our buildings and destroy our life.\"\n\nNearby, other recruits to the 128th Battalion of the Kyiv territorial defence force are being trained in urban combat by an instructor from Georgia.\n\nLevan - now married with a family in Ukraine - fought the Russians in the war in his homeland in 2008. He's constantly in motion, crouching, shooting, shouting commands to the recruits. The grip of his handgun is decorated with an image of a white skull - from a vigilante character in Marvel comics called The Punisher.\n\nLevan lectures some troops while showing off a hand grenade\n\nHe insists this is a war for freedom, not just a war for Ukraine. \"Nobody knows what the future holds,\" he says, \"but we are here, and we will fight.\n\n\"We have brave hearts. That's the most important thing.\"\n\nWill that be enough to save Kyiv - the city President Putin covets? So far, Ukrainians troops have fought hard and fought well across the country. Russia has failed to take any major city - apart from Kherson in the South - but it is pulverising the strategic port of Mariupol and may soon control the ruins.\n\nWhen it comes to the capital, the defenders have many advantages. Kyiv is a city full of high-rise blocks and bomb shelters. Ukrainian forces can control the heights and take cover below ground.\n\nFor an invading army, a ground assault would be a nightmare scenario. And Russia's slow progress has given the city time to kit up.\n\nSince I arrived in Kyiv - almost a month ago - this ancient city has developed a new architecture. There are sandbagged lookout posts, spiky metal tank traps, barricades, and roadblocks - all aimed at stopping or slowing a Russian ground attack. It's an ugly addition to a city famed for its onion-domed cathedrals and elegant facades.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ukraine war: Anna kept a video diary of her new life under attack in Kyiv\n\nBridges have been blocked. Checkpoints have mushroomed across the city, manned by troops who are often on edge. Passports and press cards are checked and checked again. Driving here these days is a stop-start business.\n\nRussia troops remain about 15km (9 miles) north-west of Kyiv and about 30km to the east - just as they were last week, according to the latest assessment from the Pentagon.\n\nA full-on ground attack looks unlikely, but British defence officials expect Russia to prioritise encircling the capital in the coming weeks. And in the meantime, Russia may keep terrorising the city with missile attacks and shelling. The thud of explosions and the wail of air raid sirens is now the soundtrack of a city that has otherwise fallen largely silent.\n\nBack in the forest, recruits like 32-year-old Arthur prepare for whatever may come, including death. In the midst of war, he's trying to safeguard the future of his four-year-old daughter Leia (he's a Star Wars fan).\n\n\"I am trying to prepare my will, while notaries are still working, so that my money will be transferred to my family,\" he says. \"This is a lottery, like Russian roulette. You may live, and you may not. I am making arrangements with my friends in Ukraine and outside to support my family for some time if I die.\"\n\nArthur speaks to the BBC's Orla Guerin about preparing for the worst\n\nLeia is in the relative safety of the Western city of Lviv, but the separation is hard.\n\n\"Yesterday, I couldn't call her because we were on alert, and now she thinks I didn't want to speak to her. I cannot even explain it to her,\" he says. \"We are in an absolutely parallel universe, an absolutely different world, like a nightmare.\"\n\nArthur is an articulate softly-spoken member of the Maidan generation - the young Ukrainians who spearheaded the pro-European revolution of 2014. He's spent the years since then trying to reform and develop his country. Now he's staying to fight, so that Leia can grow up in her homeland, not in exile.\n\nHis mood is sombre. So too his forecast.\n\n\"What everyone is afraid of,\" he says, \"is that it's going to be a long war. It would be a battle of resources and resilience. How long will we live like this as a society, and how long will they?\"\n\nAnd he has another fear - that \"because of hate\" Russia will raze to the ground what it cannot have.\n\n\"I am not sure that they will be able to besiege Kyiv,\" he tells me. \"It's a very long city with a lot of defences, and it will be really hard to encircle it. But what I am really afraid of is that out of weakness, out of despair, because they are losing this war, they will destroy it as much as possible.\"\n• None Kyiv tower block residents record new life under siege. Video, 00:03:57Kyiv tower block residents record new life under siege", "It was one of the most decisive battles of the war so far - a ferocious two-day struggle for control of the farming town of Voznesensk and its strategically important bridge.\n\nVictory would have enabled Russian forces to sweep further west along the Black Sea coast towards the huge port of Odesa and a major nuclear power plant.\n\nInstead, Ukrainian troops, supported by an eclectic army of local volunteers, delivered a crushing blow to Russian plans, first by blowing up the bridge and then by driving the invading army back, up to 100km, to the east.\n\n\"It's hard to explain how we did it. It's thanks to the fighting spirit of our local people and to the Ukrainian army,\" said Voznesensk's 32-year-old mayor, Yevheni Velichko, standing in body armour with his guards outside the town hall.\n\nBut almost three weeks after that battle, the mayor warned that another attack by Russian forces was probably imminent and that the town's defenders lacked the weapons to hold them off a second time.\n\n\"This is such a strategic location. We're not only defending the town, but all the territory behind it. And we don't have the heavy weapons our enemy has,\" he said.\n\nVoznesensk's strategically important bridge was blown up to stop the Russians using it\n\nAs on so many frontlines in Ukraine, British-supplied anti-tank missiles proved crucial in turning the tide against Russian armour in Voznesensk, leaving the town littered with up to 30 tanks, armoured cars and even a helicopter.\n\n\"It's only thanks to these weapons that we were able to beat our enemy here. And we say thank you to our partners for their support. But we need more. The enemy's convoys will keep coming,\" said Mr Velichko.\n\nVoznesensk's strategic significance became clear soon after Russian forces failed to capture an even larger bridge, further to the south, across Ukraine's second-largest river, the Southern Buh.\n\nToday, Voznesensk is not quite a ghost town, haunted by regular air raid sirens. But thousands have left in recent weeks, by train or on pot-holed country roads that wind through vast, rolling fields of wheat.\n\nMany of those who have chosen to stay behind still seem eager to talk about their remarkable victory.\n\nVoznesensk's mayor, Yevheni Velichko, praised the defenders of his town\n\n\"It was a colossal effort by the whole town,\" said Alexander, a local shopkeeper who filmed himself on the frontlines with an AK47, screaming \"Come on my little beauties!\" as another volunteer fired a rocket-propelled grenade towards Russian positions.\n\n\"We used hunting rifles, people threw bricks and jars. Old women loaded heavy sandbags.\n\n\"The Russians didn't know where to look or where the next attack would come from. I've never seen the community come together like that,\" he said, standing by the twisted wreckage of the bridge, which Ukrainian forces destroyed within hours of the first Russian attack.\n\nThe matted swirl of Russian tank tracks still mark Svetlana Nikolaevna's garden, in the village of Rakove, on the southern edge of Voznesensk, where some of the heaviest fighting took place.\n\nBloody bandages and Russian ration packs litter the hedge rows. The 59-year-old pointed to her husband's tool shed, explaining that two captured Ukrainian soldiers had been held there by the Russians and were only saved from execution by a surge in fighting.\n\n\"Look at the blood stains on my door,\" she said, inviting visitors inside her ramshackle cottage. While she and her family took shelter in a nearby cellar, the Russians converted her entire home into a makeshift field hospital.\n\n\"I came back to get some clothes on the second day. There were wounded people lying everywhere. Ten of them, I think. I've cleared up most of the blood,\" she said.\n\n\"They left in a hurry, one night. They left everything behind - boots, socks, body armour, helmets - and just loaded up their dead and their wounded and ran away.\"\n\nIt fell to the local funeral director, Mykhailo Sokurenko, to hunt in the fields for more Russian bodies and then load them into a train wagon.\n\n\"I don't consider them human beings [after what they did here]. But it would wrong just leave them out in the field, still frightening people even after their deaths,\" he said.\n\n\"These Russians are sick in the head, so we'll have to stay on guard. But victory will come, and we'll push the Russians out of all our lands.\"", "Boris Johnson's cabinet is split over proposals to ease planning rules in England to enable more onshore wind farms, sources have told the BBC.\n\nMinisters are next week due to set out plans to produce more energy in the UK to tackle spiralling household bills.\n\nBusiness secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is in favour of loosening planning regulations to make it easier to approve plans for more onshore wind.\n\nBut the BBC has been told other cabinet ministers strongly oppose the plans.\n\nIn 2015, planning laws were changed to give local councils tougher powers over whether onshore wind turbines were built in their areas. Labour have described this as an effective \"moratorium\" on onshore wind - and have called on the government to end it.\n\nThe government wants the UK to become more \"energy independent\", as the West tries to wean itself off Russian gas and oil.\n\nIts \"energy supply strategy\" will focus on:\n\nThis week, Kwasi Kwarteng told the i newspaper \"the prime minister has been very clear that onshore wind has got to be part of the mix and we've got to look at planning\".\n\nSpeaking ahead of Wednesday's cabinet meeting - the last before the energy strategy is due to be unveiled - he said: \"We are not saying we are going to scrap all planning rules and all of these things have got to be in line with community support.\"\n\nKwasi Kwarteng wants onshore wind to be part of the UK's energy mix\n\nHe described 2015 arguments against more onshore wind as \"historic\", as the government had not then committed to achieving \"net zero\" emissions by 2050.\n\n\"The circumstances today with Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia, all of those things, mean that we've got to have more energy independence and I think onshore renewables are absolutely part of that,\" he added.\n\nDowning Street sources told the BBC the government has \"got to be open\" to more onshore wind where it works, but that the \"big wins are offshore\".\n\nBoris Johnson is thought to be particularly keen on offshore wind and nuclear power, telling nuclear industry leaders on Monday that he was \"insanely frustrated\" that the UK has \"so little\" nuclear capacity and was \"moving so slowly\" on building new reactors.\n\nBut multiple cabinet sources have told the BBC they are against relaxing planning laws for onshore wind, with one saying there was \"very, very little\" support for the idea.\n\nAnother cabinet source said ministers were generally united on the need for more offshore wind and nuclear power, but onshore wind would cause a \"bigger problem\" and needed more discussion.\n\nAmong the cabinet ministers opposed to more onshore wind turbines is Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, but the BBC understands he backs offshore developments.\n\nThe Westminster government has no say over planning laws in Scotland, where the majority of the UK's large scale wind farms are located.\n\nOnshore wind is Scotland's main source of renewable energy, with about 70% of electricity generated in Scotland coming from onshore wind in 2020.\n\nOnshore wind farms have been controversial among Tory MPs in the past, with David Cameron saying in 2014 that people were \"fed up\" with onshore wind farms being built, and Conservative activists criticising the visual impact of them on the landscape.\n\nBut in recent years government surveys have shown public support for onshore wind, albeit not always in the areas where turbines are built.\n\nSome cabinet ministers we spoke to were \"sceptical\", rather than strongly against, more onshore wind.\n\nSeparately, the BBC has been told that Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg would back whatever would bring \"cheap and reliable\" energy to the UK, but has long been frustrated by what he views as its unreliability as an energy source.", "Families of the victims arrived at the crash site on Wednesday\n\nSearch teams have found a black box from the China Eastern flight which nosedived into mountains in southern China this week, state media report.\n\nChinese aviation officials announced the finding at a press conference on Wednesday, after two days of searching.\n\nAuthorities are still yet to report the number of dead, but it is feared none of the 132 people on board survived the high-altitude crash.\n\nInvestigators still do not know why the plane plummeted out of the sky.\n\nMao Yanfeng, director of the civil aviation accident investigation department, told reporters there had been \"no dangerous weather\" on the plane's route at the time of the crash.\n\nHe added the plane's crew and air traffic control had maintained normal communication until the plane's sudden drop in altitude.\n\nAt the same press conference, the chairman of China Eastern Airlines' Yunnan branch Sun Shiying said the plane had been deemed airworthy and had met required maintenance standards, reported Xinhua.\n\nThe crash is likely China's most deadly aviation incident in three decades, and has prompted a national outpouring of grief.\n\nPresident Xi Jinping has called for a full-scale investigation, and the government has dispatched hundreds of rescuers, soldiers, experts and other workers to the site in the remote hills of Guangxi province.\n\nOn Wednesday, the devastated families of the 123 passengers and nine crew on board the flight also arrived at the crash site, gathering in the small village closest to the scene.\n\nThey were escorted by officials carrying umbrellas as they entered Lu village.\n\nOne 57-year-old man, whose sister-in law was on the flight, told the waiting media: \"All I want is hope, the hope of survival.\"\n\nHundreds of search workers have been scouring the forested region of Wuzhou, in search of the plane's black box recorders amid the wreckage and charred debris.\n\nAuthorities have said that they have not found any survivors so far, and rescue crews have yet to find any bodies.\n\nHowever teams have recovered many personal items belonging to passengers and crew, including purses, wallets and even identity cards.\n\nFlight MU5735 had been in the air for more than an hour on Monday and was nearing its Guangzhou destination when it suddenly dropped from its cruising height.\n\nAir controllers had repeatedly called the aircraft during its descent but had received no response, authorities said on Tuesday.\n\nFlight tracker data showed the Boeing 737-800 jet dropped thousands of metres in under three minutes.\n\nAccording to FlightRadar24, the plane was cruising at 29,100ft (about 9,000m), but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075ft. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.\n\nAviation experts say the Boeing 737-800 model has a strong safety record, with thousands in service around the world. The aircraft that crashed was less than seven years old.\n\nInvestigators are expected to look at several possible causes - including deliberate action, pilot error, or technical issues such as a structural failure or mid-air collision.", "Russia's leader Vladimir Putin is trapped in a closed world of his own making, Western spies believe. And that worries them.\n\nFor years they have sought to get inside Mr Putin's mind, to better understand his intentions.\n\nWith Russian troops seemingly bogged down in Ukraine, the need to do so has become all the more necessary as they try to work out how he will react under pressure.\n\nUnderstanding his state of mind will be vital to avoid escalating the crisis into even more dangerous territory.\n\nThere has been speculation that Russia's leader was ill, but many analysts believe he has actually become isolated and closed off to any alternative views.\n\nHis isolation has been evident in pictures of his meetings, such as when he met President Emmanuel Macron, the pair at far ends of a long table. It was also evident in Mr Putin's meeting with his own national security team on the eve of war.\n\nMr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.\n\nIt had been created, they say, by a tight \"conspiratorial cabal\" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing.\n\nWestern spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.\n\n\"The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow,\" explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. And even though his views are often made clear through public statements, knowing how he will act on them is difficult intelligence challenge.\n\n\"It is extremely hard in a system as well protected as Russia to have good intelligence on what's happening inside the head of the leader especially when so many of his own people do not know what is going on,\" Sir John Sawers, a former head of Britain's MI6, told the BBC.\n\nMr Putin, intelligence officials say, is isolated in a bubble of his own making, which very little outside information penetrates, particularly any which might challenge what he thinks.\n\n\"He is a victim of his own propaganda in the sense that he only listens to a certain number of people and blocks out everything else. This gives him a strange view of the world,\" says Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology and co-author of a forthcoming book The Psychology of Spies and Spying. The risk is what is called \"group think\" in which everyone reinforces his view. \"If he's a victim of group think we need to know who the group is,\" says Prof Furnham.\n\nThe circle of those Mr Putin talks to has never been large but when it came to the decision to invade Ukraine, it had narrowed to just a handful of people, Western intelligence officials believe, all of those \"true believers\" who share Mr Putin's mindset and obsessions.\n\nThe sense of how small his inner circle has become was emphasised when he publicly dressed down the head of his own Foreign Intelligence Service at the national security meeting just before the invasion - a move which seemed to humiliate the official. His speech hours later also revealed a man angry and obsessed with Ukraine and the West.\n\nThose who have observed him say the Russian leader is driven by a desire to overcome the perceived humiliation of Russia in the 1990s along with a conviction that the West is determined to keep Russia down and drive him from power. One person who met Mr Putin remembers his obsession with watching videos of Libya's Col Gaddafi being killed after he was driven from power in 2011.\n\nWhen the director of the CIA, William Burns, was asked to assess Mr Putin's mental state, he said he had \"been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years\" and described his views as having \"hardened\" and that he was \"far more insulated\" from other points of view.\n\nIs the Russian president crazy? That is a question many in the West have asked. But few experts consider it helpful. One psychologist with expertise in the area said a mistake was to assume because we cannot understand a decision like invading Ukraine we frame the person who made it as \"mad\".\n\nThe CIA has a team which carries out \"leadership analysis\" on foreign decision makers, drawing on a tradition dating back to attempts to understand Hitler. They study background, relationships and health, drawing on secret intelligence.\n\nAnother source are read-outs from the those who have had direct contact, such as other leaders. In 2014, Angela Merkel reportedly told President Obama that Mr Putin was living \"in another world\". President Macron meanwhile when he sat down with Mr Putin recently, was reported to have found the Russian leader \"more rigid, more isolated\" compared with previous encounters.\n\nDid something change? Some speculate, without much evidence, about possible ill-health or the impact of medication. Others point to psychological factors such as a sense of his own time running out for him to fulfil what he sees as his destiny in protecting Russia or restoring its greatness. The Russian leader has visibly isolated himself from others during the Covid pandemic and this also may have had a psychological impact.\n\n\"Putin is likely not mentally ill, nor he has changed, although he is in more of a hurry, and likely more isolated in recent years,\" says Ken Dekleva, a former US government physician and diplomat, and currently a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.\n\nBut a concern now is that reliable information is still not finding its way into Mr Putin's closed loop. His intelligence services may have been reluctant before the invasion to tell him anything he did not want to hear, offering rosy estimates of how an invasion would go and how Russian troops would be received before the war. And this week one Western official said Mr Putin may still not have the insight into how badly things are going for his own troops that Western intelligence has. That leads to concern about how he might react when confronted with a worsening situation for Russia.\n\nMr Putin himself tells the story of chasing a rat when he was a boy. When he had driven it into a corner, the rat reacted by attacking him, forcing a young Vladimir to become the one who fled. The question Western policymakers are asking is what if Mr Putin feels cornered now?\n\n\"The question really is whether or not he doubles down with greater brutality and escalates in terms of the weapon systems that he's prepared to use,\" said one western official. There have been concerns he could use chemical weapons or even a tactical nuclear weapon.\n\n\"The worry is that he does something unbelievably rash in a vicious press-the button way,\" says Adrian Furnham.\n\nMr Putin himself may play up the sense that he is dangerous or even irrational - this is a well-known tactic (often called the \"madman\" theory) in which someone with access to nuclear weapons tries to get his adversary to back down by convincing them that he may well be crazy enough to use them despite the potential for everyone to perish.\n\nFor Western spies and policymakers understanding Mr Putin's intentions and mindset today could not be more important. Predicting his response is pivotal in working out how far they can push him without triggering a dangerous reaction.\n\n\"Putin's self concept does not allow for failure or weakness. He despises such things\" says Ken Dekleva. \"A cornered, weakened Putin is a more dangerous Putin. It's sometimes better to let the bear run out of the cage and back to the forest.\"", "Girls had arrived at their schools on Wednesday morning before being told that they would be shut once more\n\nThe Taliban have reversed a decision to allow Afghan girls to return to high schools, saying a ruling is still to be made on the uniforms they must wear.\n\nSchools were set to open nationwide after months of restrictions since the Taliban seized power in August.\n\nBut the education ministry abruptly announced girls' secondary schools would stay shut, causing confusion.\n\nSome girls were in tears as parents and students reacted with anger and disappointment to the last-minute move.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"A devastating day\" for Afghan girls: Watch Malala Yousafzai react to the Taliban schools U-turn\n\nMany had earlier talked of how happy and excited they were to be back in the classroom.\n\nThe decision came a week after the education ministry announced schools for all students, including girls, would open around the country on Wednesday.\n\n\"We inform all girls' high schools and those schools that [have] female students above class six that they are off until the next order,\" the notice said.\n\nThe notice added schools would reopen after a decision over the uniform of female students was made in accordance with \"Sharia law and Afghan tradition\".\n\nThe sudden reversal has sparked deep anger from parents of female students.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by TOLOnews This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nA man who did not want to be identified told the BBC his daughter had been in shock and in tears since being refused entry by Taliban officials into the school this morning.\n\n\"If anything happens to my daughter, I will not forgive the Taliban,\" he said.\n\nUnder Taliban rule in the 1990s, girls were banned from getting an education. And since the Taliban took power again last August, only girls' primary schools along with all boys' schools have remained open in most of the country.\n\nPrivately, Taliban members admit female education remains a controversial issue amongst their most hardline elements.\n\nThis chaotic and last-minute policy reversal makes clear the divisions within the group - and underlines how out of touch with the aspirations of modern Afghan society parts of the leadership are.\n\nActivist Mahouba Seraj, founder of the Afghan Women's Network, was bemused by the U-turn.\n\n\"The excuse they gave was 'you don't have the proper hijab on'. There was no ruling, they just decided this morning that the hijab was not proper, for whatever reason,\" she told the BBC.\n\nShe said girls' \"school uniforms in Afghanistan are pretty covered up, always\". Secondary schools in Afghanistan are already segregated by gender.\n\nOne of the demands of the international community was for the Taliban to grant women and girls the right to education before being able to access foreign aid.\n\nMs Seraj said: \"What I want to hear from them and see from them is for them to stand fast and say 'okay, this is what you decided to do? Well, this is what we have decided to do: no recognition, no money. Period!'\"\n\nThe United Nations mission in Afghanistan said it \"deplores today's reported announcement by the Taliban\".\n\nUS diplomats said closing schools undermined confidence in Taliban commitments and assurances.\n\nIt \"further dashes the hopes of families for a better future for their daughters,\" US special envoy Rina Amiri tweeted.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Girls' hopes and fears about returning to school in Afghanistan", "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce on Thursday that the UK will provide Ukraine with about 6,000 extra missiles.\n\nAt the Nato and G7 leaders' meetings in Brussels, Johnson will also unveil £25m ($33m) of funding to help pay Ukrainian soldiers and pilots.\n\nThe UK government will also provide £4.1m for the BBC World Service to help support its Ukrainian and Russian language services in the region.\n\n\"The United Kingdom will work with our allies to step up military and economic support to Ukraine, strengthening their defences as they turn the tide in this fight,\" Johnson said.\n\n\"One month into this crisis, the international community faces a choice. We can keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine, or risk it being snuffed out across Europe and the world.\"\n\nBritain said the new package will come on top of around 4,000 missiles already provided by the UK to Ukrainian forces.\n\nThe latest funding is in addition to £400m already committed in humanitarian and economic aid, said UK officials.\n\nBoris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\" Image caption: Boris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\"", "The chancellor is preparing for Wednesday's Spring Statement\n\nBoris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have proudly described themselves as \"tax-cutting Conservatives\".\n\nThey claim, like most members of their party and its supporters, that as far as possible individuals and not the government should decide how to spend their own money.\n\nAs the chancellor gives an update on the economy in the Spring Statement, while households face acute financial pressure, there is an expectation on him to match his words with actions.\n\nBut the government's record so far suggests that cutting taxes is not always Mr Sunak or the prime minister's first instinct.\n\nFigures compiled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies show how far taxes have risen under Boris Johnson as prime minister and during the Conservatives' time in power since 2010.\n\nAs a proportion of the economy, taxes have gone up as much as they did during Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's time in power and more than the previous three Conservative leaders.\n\nTax rises under the Conservatives since 2010 have outstripped the previous Labour government's and contrast starkly to an overall reduction during Margaret Thatcher's tenure.\n\nThere are many caveats to these broad headline figures, not least the pandemic which prompted huge state intervention - and the fact that Boris Johnson's government may yet cut taxes on several fronts.\n\nBut as the IFS notes, the trajectory for now is upwards: \"If the chancellor's plans remain unchanged, next month will mark the beginning of a steep ascent in the path of UK taxation.\"\n\nBoth the chancellor and prime minister have cited the pandemic as justification for an increase in taxes.\n\nRishi Sunak has said that while he \"firmly believes in cutting taxes\", he had to take \"difficult decisions\" to get the economy back on track post Covid.\n\nBut some argue that even before the pandemic there was clear evidence of political decisions being behind the trend toward higher taxation.\n\n\"The rising tax burden is not purely, or even primarily, a response to Covid. Mr Johnson had announced an end to austerity in 2019,\" Helen Miller, deputy director of the IFS told the BBC.\n\n\"There were already various pressures to spend more, including to provide more healthcare for an ageing population, to meet the net zero pledge and to achieve the levelling-up agenda.\n\n\"Mr Johnson has now chosen to permanently increase taxes in order to fund a permanently larger state.\"\n\nThe rise in National Insurance contributions due to take effect in April has become a test case for the tolerance of Conservative MPs to higher taxes.\n\nWhile most agreed on the need to fund the NHS and social care, many have questioned the timing of the rise earmarked to pay for it and argued for the policy to be scrapped or delayed.\n\nThe chancellor and prime minister committed to going ahead with the rise, but it's possible that the threshold could be changed to protect those on lower incomes from paying it for now.\n\nAmong other things Tory backbenchers would like to see are a cut in fuel duty, a reduction in the rate of VAT or environmental taxes on energy bills being scrapped.\n\nRishi Sunak has pledged to \"stand by\" households feeling the squeeze, but the Spring Statement is not usually the time for big tax and spending decisions.\n\nIn fact, any major tax cuts are far more likely to come closer to a general election.", "Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nA terror suspect had a look of \"self-satisfaction\" moments after stabbing an MP to death, a parliamentary aide said.\n\nSir David Amess, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed 21 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, on trial at the Old Bailey, denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nJulie Cushion, a long-term member of Sir David's team, told the jury she heard a \"piercing scream\".\n\nThe court heard Ms Cushion had been the first to call 999 from the scene at 12:07 BST.\n\nSir David was attacked in a back room of Belfairs Methodist Church during an appointment made by the defendant, the prosecution said.\n\nGiving evidence from behind a screen, Ms Cushion said: \"A piercing scream was the first thing I heard. Then a very loud crash which I assumed was furniture going over.\n\n\"I got up and walked through, I assumed something structurally had happened.\"\n\nShe said that another aide, Rebecca Hayton, ran from the room \"screaming that Sir David had been stabbed\".\n\n\"At that moment I picked up my phone to call for help,\" Ms Cushion added.\n\nAsked how Mr Ali looked, she told the jury: \"Self-satisfaction, I would describe it.\"\n\nThe jury also watched a police interview with Ms Hayton four hours after the attack where she described seeing Mr Ali stand up and stab Sir David.\n\nShe said: \"He [Mr Ali] leans over and stabs him straight in the stomach.\"\n\n\"I saw it [the knife] go in once and as I got up he [Mr Ali] kept going,\" she added.\n\nMs Hayton said Mr Ali had been \"smiling\" during the five-minute meeting with Sir David, adding: \"He seemed relaxed and nice.\"\n\nHowever, she went on to tell police he kept playing with his phone and wanted to talk about foreign policy despite father-of-five Sir David's attempts to steer him towards local issues.\n\nShe said she then saw Ali stand up, say \"sorry\", pull a knife from his clothing, and stab Sir David.\n\nFollowing the attack, she ran outside the church to raise the alarm and returned with Yvonne Eaves and Darren King.\n\nSir David was lying prone on the floor and Mr Ali was standing in the doorway clutching a knife, she told police.\n\nSir David was pronounced dead at the scene in Leigh-on-Sea in his Southend West constituency in Essex\n\nMs Eaves said in police interview that when she arrived at the scene two women were outside looking \"really frantic\".\n\nShe said at one point Mr Ali was pacing and \"seemed like he knew what he'd done. He wasn't remorseful\".\n\nIn another interview played to the jury, Mr King told police he tried to calm down Mr Ali, who was still holding a knife, while he waited for police to arrive.\n\nHe said: \"I could see David in the corner, he was crumpled up on the floor.\n\n\"I could see some blood, a gentleman standing there with a knife in his right hand threatening to stab me, and I could see some blood on the knife.\"\n\nHe said he then heard a woman on the phone to Mr Ali, who he believed to be the suspect's sister, discussing Iraq and Syria.\n\nMr King said he kept watching Sir David to check if he was moving while also keeping an eye on the armed man.\n\nHe added: \"You wanna work out whether you can beat him or not, I weighed up his build, my build; he had a knife, I hadn't.\"\n\nMr Ali repeatedly said \"I want to be shot\", said Mr King.\n\nThe witness said: \"I said 'They [police] do that in America, not so much over here'.\"\n\nMr King also said Mr Ali tried to justify his actions, which jurors previously heard was to do with the government's Syrian bombing campaign.\n\nMr King told police he eventually persuaded Mr Ali to step to one side so he could treat Sir David, but retreated the moment he heard police sirens.\n\nThe trial previously heard how Mr Ali had spent years plotting an attack, researching a range of potential victims including high-profile politicians Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Sir Keir Starmer, before choosing the 69-year-old backbencher.\n\nMs Cushion said Sir David had moved the meeting from his constituency office, where there was security, into the community after coronavirus restrictions were lifted because he \"wanted to be accessible to his constituents\".\n\nAli Harbi Ali was seen on CCTV walking between Leigh-on-Sea railway station and Belfair's Methodist Church on the day Sir David Amess was killed\n\nMr Ali had claimed to be a healthcare worker moving to the area who \"wanted to get to know his new MP\", aides were told.\n\nOn Tuesday, jurors were played a 999 call from the aftermath of the attack where a witness said Mr Ali was threatening to kill four other people.\n\nThey were also shown CCTV footage of Mr Ali making the journey from his home in Kentish Town, north London, by train and on foot along busy high streets and residential areas.\n\nThe court heard Mr Ali had a \"warped\" ideology and sought to exact \"revenge\" over Britain's recent foreign policy, notably bombings in Syria in the mid-2010s, allegedly telling bystanders at the scene: \"I want him dead. I want every Parliament minister [sic] who signed up for the bombing of Syria who agreed to the Iraqi war to die.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Swiss food giant Nestle is pulling its popular brands out of Russia but will still sell essential foods.\n\nThe firm stopped investment in the country earlier this month but has now suspended sales of brands such as KitKat and Nesquik.\n\nIt follows fierce criticism of the firm by Ukrainian politicians.\n\nA growing number of Western brands have suspended operations in Russia in protest at the war but a few are staying put.\n\n\"As the war rages in Ukraine, our activities in Russia will focus on providing essential food - not on making a profit,\" Nestle said.\n\n\"We are fully complying with all international sanctions on Russia,\" it added.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticised Nestle for still conducting business in Russia in a streamed speech to protesters on Saturday.\n\nAnd earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal tweeted that Nestle boss Mark Schneider \"shows no understanding\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Denys Shmyhal This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe wrote: \"Paying taxes to the budget of a terrorist country means killing defenceless children and mothers. Hope that Nestle will change its mind soon.\"\n\nThat led to #BoycottNestle trending on Twitter.\n\nThe company has been gradually reducing its activity in Russia since the the start of the Ukraine war, but has been under pressure to pull out altogether.\n\nIt scrapped advertising and capital investments and earlier this month stopped shipments of non-essential products like Nespresso coffee capsules and San Pellegrino water.\n\nBut it continued to sell many of its brands saying: \"We have a responsibility toward our more than 7,000 employees in Russia - most of whom are locals\".\n\nThe latest move will leave it selling just infant food and medical and hospital nutrition.\n\n\"While we do not expect to make a profit in the country or pay any related taxes for the foreseeable future in Russia, any profit will be donated to humanitarian relief organisations,\" it said.\n\n\"We stand with the people of Ukraine and our 5,800 employees there.\"\n\nSo far international brands such as McDonald's, cosmetics firm L'Oreal, fashion retailer H&M and tech giant Apple have suspended or limited their activities in Russia.\n\nA minority of others continue to produce non-essential goods in the country, while companies such as M&S and Burger King say complex franchise agreements make it impossible to close their shops in Russia.", "Marzia had been happy and hopeful when she heard schools were reopening\n\nEarly this morning, at her home on a hilltop in the west of Kabul, 15-year-old Marzia packed her bag for school, for the first time since the Taliban took power last August.\n\n\"I became so, so happy when I heard school was restarting,\" she told the BBC. \"It makes me hopeful about the future again.\"\n\nAround 200 other girls had also made their way to the Sayed ul Shuhada school, far fewer than usual, as pupils and their families debated whether or not lessons would actually start and whether it would be safe for them to attend.\n\nSince August, in most of Afghanistan, only girls' primary schools have remained open, along with all boys' schools.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"A devastating day\" for Afghan girls: Watch Malala Yousafzai react to the Taliban schools U-turn\n\nToday as a new academic year began, girls' secondary schools were finally expected to re-open along with other institutes.\n\nIt felt a particularly poignant moment for students here. Last year more than 90 of their classmates and school staff were killed in an attack by the local affiliate of the Islamic State group.\n\n\"The first suicide bombing happened very close to me,\" says Sakina, as her eyes fill up with tears. \"There were lots of dead people in front of me… I didn't think I would survive.\"\n\nSakina wants to rebuild her life after last year's bombing and the Taliban takeover\n\nShe pauses, overwhelmed with emotion, before continuing, \"Our revenge on the people who did this, will be continuing our education. We want to succeed in our lives, so we can fulfil the dreams of our martyrs.\"\n\nAs they entered the classrooms, the students wiped the dust off the desks but already some of the teachers were murmuring that, unexpectedly, the school would have to shut down again.\n\nThe local Taliban education official, who had given us permission to film at the school earlier this week, forwarded the headteacher a WhatsApp message, saying girls' secondary schools would in fact remain closed until further notice.\n\nThe students reacted with shock and horror. Some began to cry. \"We just want to be able to learn and serve our people,\" Fatima told us. \"What kind of country is this? What is our sin?\"\n\nShe asked, addressing the Taliban whilst visibly distraught. \"You're always talking about Islam, does Islam say to harm women like this?\"\n\nIt's difficult to fathom the Taliban's rationale. A Ministry of Education ceremony marking the start of the academic year went ahead despite the development.\n\nAziz-ur-Rahman Rayan, spokesman for the ministry, said all preparations had been made for the re-opening of schools, but that the group's central leadership had ordered them to stay closed until, \"a comprehensive plan has been prepared according to Sharia and Afghan culture\".\n\nGirls had arrived at the school on Wednesday morning before being told that it would be shut once more\n\nHowever, even before the Taliban took power, secondary schools in Afghanistan were already segregated by gender, whilst the uniform consisted of a modest black outfit and white hijab, or headscarf.\n\nWhat's more, in a number of provinces local Taliban officials had already begun allowing girls' secondary schools to re-open last year, despite the lack of a central official policy.\n\nPrivately, Taliban figures admit the issue of female education is a controversial one amongst their most hardline elements.\n\nThe chaotic nature of this policy reversal, suggests the groups' central leadership decided at the last minute to overrule their own Ministry of Education, nervous about alienating their most ultra-conservative members.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Yalda Hakim This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe divergence of views within the Taliban at times correlates to their geographic location.\n\nIn one part of the more cosmopolitan north of the country, even under the \"shadow government\" the Taliban established during their insurgency, a local leader once proudly showed off still-functioning girls schools to me during a visit.\n\nBy contrast, in a rural part of the conservative, southern province of Helmand, one Taliban fighter whose views on female education I asked, replied with a smile, \"if girls want to learn, their brothers can go to school and then teach them at home\".\n\nBut even in the most conservative areas, the majority of ordinary Afghan families appear to now be in favour of female education.\n\nMany have long questioned whether the Taliban have changed since they were in power in the 1990s when all women were forced to wear the all-encompassing burka and even girls' primary schools remained closed?\n\nNowadays, the picture is more nuanced. A recent study by the World Bank found that there had actually been a rise in female primary school attendance since the Taliban takeover as security improved. Meanwhile, the group has allowed women to attend university as long as classes are segregated.\n\nBut today's decision to keep girls' secondary schools closed, appears to underline the gulf that still exists between the Taliban leadership and contemporary Afghan society.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Girls' hopes and fears about returning to school in Afghanistan", "Jakub and Gosia Golata are in Poland helping vulnerable woman and children fleeing Ukraine\n\nA couple has rented out an entire hotel to house Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.\n\nJakub and Gosia Golata, from Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire, emigrated to the UK in 2004 but have returned to Poland to aid humanitarian efforts.\n\nMr Golata started by driving refugees in a minibus to and from the Ukrainian border, but said he wanted to do more.\n\nHe has taken over the 180-bed hotel near Bydgoszcz, in northern Poland, for those waiting to be rehomed.\n\nAt first, Mr Golata picked up refugees on eight-hour minibus treks to the border and found friends and family happy to host them, but wanted to do more.\n\n\"I came up with this idea that if I would be able to rent an entire hotel and place these vulnerable mothers and children in a hotel, and then allow them to settle, feel safe, looked after and be able to come to terms with what's happening, then that would be the best thing,\" he said.\n\n\"And that would also allow me to find the local community volunteers so they can be taken care of a bit more.\"\n\nThe hotel has 180 beds, and is acting as a hub for Ukrainian refugees in Poland\n\nHe has been focusing on those from eastern parts of Ukraine where much of the worst of the violence has occurred.\n\n\"It was mentally very challenging because the mothers were crying - they were uncertain about what's going to happen,\" he said.\n\nMr Golata said the purpose of the converted hotel would be to act as a \"refugee hub\" to provide support for those fleeing invasion and the Polish families offering to take them in.\n\n\"It's a risk reduction and also a support for both, so much as we are worrying about the refugees we are also worrying about the adopting families, because they also need support,\" he said.\n\nThey have hired the whole of the Park Hotel to act as a hub for refugees\n\nMrs Golata, a serving officer with Lincolnshire Police, was in Poland on sabbatical caring for her mother when the invasion began. Her husband travelled over to be with her and help in the humanitarian effort soon after.\n\n\"We cannot carry on keep drinking tea and thinking about the crisis - now we've got hundreds of thousands of people exposed to potential abuse and sleeping rough,\" Mr Golata said.\n\nMr Golata, who works on the HS2 rail project as a logistics manager, received backing from his bosses at Skanska, who contributed funds as well as giving him time to work on the project.\n\nHe has rented the hotel - which closed due to the Covid pandemic - with his own money and also linked up with the Polish arm of Sue Ryder to help with fundraising.\n\nHe hopes the hub will be taken over by government and the model replicated in towns all over Poland.\n\nFollow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The CJI report says inspectors considered cells at three locations to be potentially unsafe - Magherafelt, Lisburn and Limavady\n\nCustody cells in many of Northern Ireland courts \"are not fit for purpose\", according to a report.\n\nCriminal Justice Inspection (CJI) found some issues \"were impossible to rectify\" in centuries-old court buildings.\n\nThat is despite significant investment having been undertaken.\n\nIt said problems included cramped conditions and a lack of natural light or ventilation.\n\nThere are cells in 17 courthouses, where individuals are usually held for an hour or more before appearing in the dock.\n\nCJI found nine court buildings have cells which failed to meet expectations.\n\nThey are Ballymena, Downpatrick, Enniskillen, Limavady, Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Newtownards and Omagh.\n\nThe CJI report went on to state that inspectors considered cells at three locations to be potentially unsafe - Magherafelt, Lisburn and Limavady.\n\n\"They were built in an era when the standards of accommodation for holding people accused of offences were very different,\" Jacqui Durkan, from the CJI, said.\n\n\"However, they are still in use today.\n\n\"During the Covid pandemic significantly fewer detainees were required to appear in court in person.\n\n\"The potential to sustain these arrangements and reduce detention in unsuitable courthouse cells could be explored.\"\n\nAn attempt to close some \"unsuitable and underutilised\" courthouses was halted by legal action in 2016, but the CJI said that course of action is still required.\n\nThe report also found staff treated detainees \"respectfully and with dignity\".\n\nA spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service said they welcomed \"the recognition of the challenges faced by operating an aged estate and the ongoing investment to improve the condition of it\".", "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has married his long-term partner at a high-security prison in London.\n\nMr Assange, 50, married Stella Moris on Wednesday in Belmarsh prison, where he has been held since 2019.\n\nThe couple were granted permission to marry last year, and the ceremony was attended by four guests as well as two official witnesses and two guards.\n\nMr Assange is in prison while US authorities seek to extradite him to face trial on espionage charges.\n\nHe is wanted over the publication of thousands of classified documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He denies any wrongdoing.\n\nEarlier this month, the UK Supreme Court refused to allow his latest appeal against extradition.\n\nMs Moris, a 38-year-old lawyer, was greeted by a crowd of supporters as she left the ceremony in south-east London. They threw confetti and shouted \"congratulations\" and \"free Julian Assange\".\n\nShe wore a wedding dress designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood - who has campaigned to stop the extradition of Mr Assange.\n\n\"I am very happy and very sad. I love Julian with all my heart, and I wish he were here,\" Ms Moris told the crowd, before describing her husband's detention as \"cruel and inhuman\".\n\n\"The love we have for each other carries us through,\" she said. \"He's the most amazing person.\"\n\nThe couple began a relationship in 2015 and have two children together.\n\nFour guests were allowed to attend the wedding at the high-security prison\n\nBoth children attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with Mr Assange's father and brother.\n\nMr Assange's case will now go back to District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, the original judge who assessed the American extradition request.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel is then expected to make a final decision.\n\nMr Assange faces an 18-count indictment from the US government, which accuses him of conspiring to hack into military databases to acquire sensitive information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The information was then published on the Wikileaks website.\n\nDocuments relating to the war in Afghanistan revealed how the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. Further documents from the Iraq war revealed that 66,000 civilians had been killed - more than previously reported.\n\nThe US says the leaks broke the law and endangered lives, but Mr Assange claims the case is politically motivated.\n\nA crowd of supporters gathered outside the prison on Wednesday", "Evan Neumann told Belarusian state TV he faced \"political persecution\" in the US\n\nA California man suspected of taking part in the US Capitol riots last year has been granted asylum in Belarus.\n\nEvan Neumann fled the US after being charged in connection with the riots.\n\nThe 48-year-old first settled in Ukraine, before reaching Belarus where he asked for asylum - claiming he faced \"political persecution\" in the US.\n\nA Belarusian official said Mr Neumann has been granted permission to remain in the country \"indefinitely\".\n\nState officials also alleged that Mr Neumann had been forced to cross the Belarusian border \"illegally\" after attracting \"interest from local secret services\" in Ukraine.\n\n\"I am glad Belarus took care of me. I am upset to find myself in a situation where I have problems in my own country.\"\n\nIn July last year, Mr Neumann was charged on six different counts, including violent entry and assaulting police officers. He was accused of punching two police officers and using a metal barrier as a \"battering ram\" against police during the riots at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021.\n\nBut, according to Mr Neumann, he had already sold his house and travelled across Europe to Ukraine.\n\nAfter worrying the Ukrainian authorities were watching him, Mr Neumann says he crossed the border into Belarus on foot in August. Belarus does not have an extradition treaty with the US.\n\nIn November, Mr Neumann gave an interview to Belarusian state TV and rejected the charges against him.\n\n\"I do not believe that I have committed any crime,\" he said. \"One of the accusations was very upsetting. It is alleged that I hit a police officer. That is baseless.\"\n\nHe said he was asking for \"government protection\" from Belarus because of the \"political persecution\" he faced in the US, including the FBI questioning his family and using a photo of him on its most-wanted list.\n\nA video released by Belta on Tuesday showed an immigration official handing Mr Neumann a document confirming his refugee status and the head of the Brest police migration directorate, Yuryy Brazinski, told state TV that he will eventually be entitled to apply for citizenship.\n\n\"Now you are completely under the protection of the Republic of Belarus,\" the official says.\n\nMr Neumann is among more than 650 people who have been charged for their actions on 6 January, when supporters of then-US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to protest against the result of the 2020 election.\n\nBelarus, led by authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, has faced multiple US sanctions over alleged human rights abuses and its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Neumann told state TV he planned to stay in the Belarusian city of Brest.\n\n\"I have started a life here,\" he said.\n\nHe added that he has plans \"to move my family here,\" but noted that the decision would ultimately be up to his wife.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ros Atkins on... the US Capitol riot anniversary", "Madeleine Albright, a Czech immigrant who went on to become the first female secretary of state in US history, has died aged 84.\n\nA long-time foreign policy veteran, Albright became America's top diplomat in 1997 during the Clinton government.\n\nOften hailed as \"a champion of democracy\", Albright was instrumental in efforts to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.\n\nHer death from cancer was confirmed by her family in a statement.\n\n\"She was surrounded by family and friends,\" the statement said. \"We lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend.\"\n\nAmong those to pay tribute to her after the announcement of her death were former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who later followed in her footsteps as Secretary of State.\n\n\"Few leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served,\" the Clintons said. \"Because she knew first-hand that America's policy decisions had the power to make a difference in people's lives around the world, she saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity.\"\n\nNato's current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said after the announcement that Albright \"was a force for freedom\" and an \"outspoken champion of Nato\".\n\nFormer US President George W Bush said that Albright \"understood first-hand the importance of free societies for peace in our world\".\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the world \"needs to stand by\" Albright's values \"more than ever\".\n\nBorn Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague in 1937 - in what was then Czechoslovakia - Albright was the daughter of a Czechoslovak diplomat who was forced into exile after the occupation of his country by Nazi Germany in 1939.\n\nShe moved to the United States in 1948, the same year her family applied for political asylum, arguing that they were unable to return home as opponents of their country's communist regime. She became a US citizen in 1957.\n\nAlbright went on to work at the White House during the Jimmy Carter administration and later as foreign policy adviser to a number of vice-presidential and presidential candidates.\n\nSoon after Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993, Albright was appointed ambassador to the United Nations - her first diplomatic posting.\n\nA refugee who fled to the US with her family as a child, she made history by becoming the first woman to serve as secretary of state - the highest-ranking woman in US government up to that point.\n\nAs a diplomat, Albright helped shape the post-Soviet world during the Clinton administration, employing what she called \"pragmatic idealism\" to navigate uncharted geopolitical waters. That included, at times, an aggressive foreign policy that used US military might - in places like Iraq and the Balkans - when diplomacy failed.\n\nThe Nato bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslav states helped define a post-Soviet role for the Western alliance at a time when Nato's future was very much in doubt.\n\nAlbright was also champion of Nato expansion, overseeing the addition of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999 - a move whose repercussions are being keenly felt today.\n\nIn 1997, she became secretary of state, overcoming opposition from what some later termed the \"anything but Albright\" faction of the White House.\n\nShe became most famous during this time for her efforts to push the Clinton administration to intervene to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo being carried out by the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.\n\nSome critics termed the subsequent Nato bombing campaign \"Albright's War\".\n\n\"I take full responsibility... for believing it was essential for us not to stand by and watch what Milosevic was planning to do,\" she said at the time. \"We cannot watch crimes against humanity.\"\n\nKosovo eventually declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after the allied intervention.\n\nIts President, Vjosa Osmani, said on Wednesday the country had lost an \"invaluable friend\", adding that Albright's \"contribution to our freedom and democracy will never be forgotten\".\n\nIn 2012, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the highest award available to a civilian - for her work in the Balkans. Paying tribute on Wednesday, Mr Obama lauded her \"trailblazing career\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In 2015, Albright told the BBC that society is more stable if women are politically empowered\n\nJust a month ago, on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, Albright stepped back into the public spotlight with a New York Times editorial taking aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she first met soon after he took office in 2000.\n\n\"Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbours happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr Putin,\" she wrote. \"This is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy.\n\n\"It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.\"", "The children travelled to by plane from Warsaw to London\n\nA group of 52 children from orphanages in Dnipro in Ukraine have arrived at their temporary new home in Scotland.\n\nThe children and their guardians were supposed to leave Poland on Monday, but a vital document from the Ukrainian government was not ready in time.\n\nThey will stay in the Callander area, near Stirling, before moving to Edinburgh in small family-style groups.\n\nSteven Carr from Dnipro Kids, which arranged the evacuation, said he was \"ecstatic\" to get them to safety.\n\nThe Edinburgh charity, which was set up by Hibernian fans and has been supporting the orphanages for many years, enabled the children to flee Ukraine for Poland.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted a welcome, and wrote: \"I know you'd all rather be at home in Ukraine but you'll find love, care and support here for as long as you need it.\"\n\nDnipro Kids has arranged accommodation for the children, who range in age from one to late teens, as well as two older \"sisters\" and their seven legal guardians.\n\nThey will stay in a rural hostel while they acclimatise to life in Scotland, then move to Edinburgh to live within the smaller household groups they had at home in Dnipro until it is safe for them to return to Ukraine.\n\nMr Carr told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland they were \"ecstatic\" to finally get the children to the \"quiet and secluded\" hostel where they can be together and the orphanage \"mothers\" can support each other.\n\nHe said: \"Dnipro Kids has got a fantastic committee in place that has been working non-stop to make sure everything is in place for the kids when they arrive.\n\n\"It's just great to finally get over the line.\"\n\nDnipro Kids chairman Steven Carr led the evacuation effort from Lviv in Ukraine\n\nAlthough the charity was initially set up by Hibs fans following a UEFA cup match in Dnipro in 2005, he said it had gained \"phenomenal\" support since beginning the evacuation from Ukraine.\n\nMany people have offered money, time and services, including members of the Ukrainian community in Edinburgh who are helping with language issues.\n\nThe children will continue their education with an online Ukrainian programme being used by displaced students during the conflict.\n\n\"We just take care of them, we make sure everything is in place,\" Mr Carr said.\n\n\"It's very traumatic [for the children] - I wouldn't say they are excited to be here, hopefully that will happen over the next few days.\n\n\"I think at the moment it's just relief they are now here, they know they are no longer in limbo, they know they can now settle down and get themselves adjusted.\"\n\nLast minute visas were arranged on Wednesday for two young women who belonged to one of the orphanages after someone connected to Dnipro Kids offered to sponsor their visas.\n\nThe 19 and 21-year-olds thought they would be separated from their \"brothers and sisters\" and the woman they called mother.\n\nMr Carr said: \"The UK government was brilliant at fast-tracking their visas.\"\n\nThe children stayed in Warsaw until they were able to fly to the UK\n\nDaniel Burger, chief executive of Magen David Adom UK helped organise the Virgin flight from Warsaw to London.\n\nHe said the flight attendants made sure there was a \"celebration\" on the flight from Warsaw.\n\n\"The plane was full of toys and other goodies and sweets and chocolates and other goodies for them,\" he said.\n\nSally Becker, the founder of Save a Child, was also on the flight from Warsaw on Monday.\n\n\"As it touched down they all started to clap,\" she said. \"The main thing is they're here, they have sanctuary, temporary sanctuary and they're safe.\"\n\nSNP MP Ian Blackford has been supporting Dnipro Kids deal with the applications for the children to seek sanctuary in Scotland.\n\nHe said it had taken time to get the paperwork in order because they had to address all safeguarding concerns before they could be moved to another country.\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, he thanked the Scottish and UK governments for helping make arrangements for the children.\n\n\"This is a good day for these 50 young Ukrainian orphans arrive in Scotland after delay people but let's hope it's the beginning of something much more significant for more young people that we can offer sanctuary to,\" he said.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel tweeted about their arrival: \"Huge thanks to my team at the UK Home Office, the Ukraine and Poland authorities, the Scottish Government and Virgin Atlantic who worked urgently on their swift arrival.\n\n\"The care they will receive will go some way to heal their suffering.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicola Sturgeon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nUp to 3,000 people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine will be offered immediate temporary accommodation in Scotland.\n\nThe Scottish government has also announced a further £15m of funding will be made available to help refugees, including £11m for local councils and £2.5m for temporary accommodation.\n\nAbout 3.6 million people, mostly women, children and elderly people, have fled Ukraine since Russian army invaded last month.", "The coastguard bring a baby to shore in Dover on Tuesday\n\nAlmost 400 migrants were brought into Dover after crossing the Channel on Tuesday, the Home Office confirmed.\n\nSome 394 people arrived in Kent on 11 boats, including babies wrapped in blankets, while a further 467 people were intercepted by French authorities after attempting to make the journey.\n\nCrossings have taken place this week amid warm weather and calm seas.\n\nIt means 2,354 people have arrived via small boats this month, almost three times as many as March last year.\n\nSeveral children were among those to be brought ashore on Tuesday.\n\nThe Home Office said that 213 people were rescued on six boats and brought to shore on Monday, while on Tuesday last week 405 people made the crossing - in what is thought to have been the highest daily total so far in 2022.\n\nThe number of people attempting to make the journey tends to increase during warmer and calmer weather.\n\nTom Pursglove, minister for tackling illegal migration, said the rise in crossings was \"unacceptable\".\n\nHe said Channel crossings impacted UK taxpayers, risked lives and the UK's ability to help refugees who come to the UK via legal routes.\n\nMr Pursglove said the government was cracking down on people smugglers through the Nationality and Borders Bill, which would also make it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally.\n\nThe government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords over its borders bill, which has come in for criticism and attracted protests.", "Mariia, who was volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross, tried to help those injured in the attack but her kit was inside the theatre\n\nAs the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and - within seconds - the building had been split in two and left in ruins. We still do not know how many died, but the BBC has spoken to survivors who described for the first time what happened when the bomb fell.\n\nAll morning, Russian planes had been circling the skies above the city.\n\nMariia Rodionova, a 27-year-old teacher, had been living in the theatre for 10 days, having fled her ninth-floor apartment with her two dogs. They camped next to the stage in an auditorium near the back of the building.\n\nThat morning she had got some fish scraps from an outdoor field kitchen to feed her dogs, but then realised they had not drunk any water. So at about 10:00, she tied her dogs to her luggage and made her way towards the main entrance where a queue was forming for hot water.\n\nThere was the sound of a clap, thunderous and loud. Then the sound of broken glass. A man came from behind and pushed her to a wall, protecting her with his own body. The blast was so loud that she felt intense pain in one of her ears, so intense she thought her eardrum must have split. She only realised it had not because she could hear the screams of people. The screams were everywhere.\n\nThe force of the blast threw another man against a window. He fell on the ground, his face covered with broken glass. A woman, who also had a wound on her head, tried to help him. Mariia, who had been volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross in Mariupol, gathered her senses enough to shout over, telling her to stop.\n\n\"I said 'Wait, don't touch him. I'll bring my first aid kit and I'll help you both',\" she recalled. But her kit was inside the theatre, and that part of the building had collapsed.\n\n\"There was only rubble,\" she said. It was impossible for her to get in.\n\n\"For two hours, I couldn't do anything,\" she said. \"I just stayed there. I was in shock.\"\n\nVladyslav, a 27-year-old locksmith who does not want to use his full name, had also wandered into the building that morning. He had some friends there and went to look for them. He was near the main entrance when the explosion hit. He ran with others into a basement and, 10 minutes later, heard the building was on fire and emerged to a scene of chaos.\n\n\"Terrible things were happening,\" he said.\n\nHe saw plenty of people bleeding. Some had open fracture wounds. \"One mother was trying to find her kids under the rubble. A five-year-old kid was screaming: 'I don't want to die'. It was heartbreaking.\"\n\nIt is likely to have been just one bomb that fell on the theatre that morning, bringing all that destruction with it, analysis by McKenzie Intelligence Services for the BBC has concluded.\n\n\"Due to the missile appearing to accurately hit the centre of the building, we believe it is a laser-guided bomb, likely the KAB-500L or similar variant, launched from an aircraft,\" the London-based group said.\n\n\"The nature of the explosion indicates it was armed with an instantaneous fuse, so was unable to penetrate the ground floors.\"\n\nFrom the accuracy of the strike it is very likely that the theatre was the chosen target.\n\nSatellite imagery released by the US company Maxar, from the days before the attack, show the word \"children\" in Russian was clearly painted on the lawn in front of the theatre, visible to any passing bomber.\n\nRussia denies attacking the theatre. It has also denied hitting civilian sites in Ukraine, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country and nowhere more brutally than in Mariupol.\n\nAndrei Marusov, an investigative journalist from Mariupol, had visited the theatre two days before the attack. \"Everybody knew that it was a focal point for many women and children,\" Marusov, who is a former chairman of the advocacy group Transparency International Ukraine, said. \"There were only civilians there.\"\n\nThat Wednesday, the day of the bombing, he had gone up to the top of his building at 06:00 to survey the city. The planes were still buzzing through the air. He said Russian planes had been shelling and bombarding the area where the theatre was, that Sea of Azov waterfront all morning.\n\n\"I saw that the city centre was covered by fire and constant explosions,\" he said.\n\nMariia also remembers military planes \"making circles\" near the theatre that morning, and \"throwing bombs somewhere else\". But it was not unusual for her to spot military planes flying in the area. She had got used to their sound.\n\nThere are still many details that remain unclear about the attack. It is thought that up to 1,000 people were sheltering in the drama theatre. Some appeared to have based themselves in its underground bunker or bomb shelter, according to others who hid in the building and city authorities. Mariia saw others living in crowded corridors on overground floors.\n\nOne thing which is clear from the accounts of the people the BBC spoke to, is that people would wander around the complex, its corridors and grounds, and others would come and go.\n\nThe destroyed theatre that Mariia walked away from\n\nThe day after the attack, the city council said 130 people had been rescued. A further update said it was possible that many had survived. But there has been no news since then. The city is in such a desperate state that there may never be a clear picture of how many were there and how many survived.\n\nMariia's home inside the theatre for the days she was there was in an auditorium hall with a chandelier, and she nestled right next to the stage because her dogs had drawn some complaints. She said there were about 30 people in that hall and it is her belief that they must have all perished when the bomb hit. It was sheer luck that she had stepped outside at that moment.\n\nAfter the blasts she was unable to find her dogs and it was a moment of desperation: \"For me,\" she said, \"my dogs were more important than anything.\"\n\nVladyslav said he saw many people coming out of the building, something that Mariia saw as well.\n\n\"Some were with their luggage,\" she said. \"No-one knew what to do, and the area was still being shelled.\"\n\nStanding outside the theatre, she too looked at the damage. She realised it made no sense to look for another shelter. It had been a few stunned hours and she eventually left.\n\nShe tried to stop any car leaving the city. \"People were in panic,\" she said, \"no-one took me in their car.\" She started to walk along the coast.\n\n\"I needed to get out of the city.\"\n\nFirst, she got to the village of Pishchanka. \"I met a woman,\" she said, \"who asked if I was OK. I started to cry.\" She was offered tea and food, and invited to spend the night. The next morning, she kept walking, until she reached Melekyne. A curfew meant she had to stop at 20:00. A day later, she walked to Yalta. The following one, to Berdyansk. \"I walked all that time,\" she said.\n\nMariupol has seen the worst horrors of Russia's aggression on Ukraine. The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it relentlessly for almost a month, from the air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea. About 100,000 people remain trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege. No electricity, no gas, no running water.\n\nWhen Mariia left her flat for the theatre, her grandmother, who lived with her, refused to go. \"She just said: 'It's my apartment, my home. I'm going to die here'.\"\n\nMariia is still waiting to hear whether she is alive.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nTwenty-nine people were taken to hospital with breathing problems and a major incident was declared following a gas leak at the London Aquatics Centre.\n\nAbout 200 people were evacuated from the venue at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, on Wednesday after a large amount of chlorine gas was released.\n\nAlmost 50 people were treated by paramedics for breathing difficulties.\n\nPeople could be seen being placed in ambulances while others wore blankets.\n\nResidents in the area were asked to close windows and doors.\n\nAbout 200 people were evacuated from the London Aquatics Centre\n\nThe London Aquatics Centre was one of the main venues for the London Olympic Games in 2012, and was used for swimming, diving and synchronised swimming. It opened to the public in 2014.\n\nSurrounding roads were also cordoned off once the alarm was raised and members of the public were denied access to the park.\n\nThe London Fire Brigade said the gas leak had been caused by a chemical reaction, causing a \"high quantity of chlorine gas\" to be released.\n\nHomerton Hospital in east London said it had admitted 12 adults and seven children with respiratory problems, while nearby Newham Hospital and The Royal London Hospital also said they were treating patients.\n\nThere are thousands of homes in and around the former Olympics site, including several high-rise developments.\n\nLocal resident Usman Hussain lives in the 28th floor of a nearby block with his baby. He told BBC London: \"It's quite scary and we are quite concerned.\"\n\nThe London Fire Brigade said \"positive pressure ventilation fans\" would be used to disperse chlorine gas into the atmosphere.\n\nCommander Shaun Coltress said: \"We've not taken that decision lightly, we've got our scientific adviser and our hazardous materials adviser on scene.\"\n\nLocal people should keep their doors and windows closed for the \"next few hours\", he added, but stressed people living nearby should not be worried.\n\n\"We've got the right people here, we're used to responding to chemical incidents, we've taken the right advice, we've got the right cordons in place.\"\n\nThe centre is operated by Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), which said the release of gas occurred when \"the facilities management company that operates the plant room took delivery of pool chemicals\".\n\n\"We are working to support all those affected,\" it said.\n\nLondon Ambulance Service said it was attending a major incident in Stratford\n\n\"We are awaiting guidance from the facilities management company, London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and the emergency services on when the centre will be able to reopen.\"\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan said: \"Please avoid the area which has been cordoned off and evacuated.\n\n\"I remain in close contact with our emergency services who are dealing with a gas-related incident at the London Aquatics Centre this morning,\" he added.\n\nLondon Ambulance Service said it had sent a number of resources\n\nIt looks and feels like a major incident - emergency service resources are huge and there is a cordon in place.\n\nThere are lots of fire engines and ambulance personnel I can see, and it looks like they've created a makeshift centre to treat those with medical problems.\n\nI am standing about 800m away from the Aquatics Centre, but I have been able to speak with one woman who was there this morning.\n\nShe was there for a morning swim and there was quite a few people there with children. They were told there was an issue with chlorine and they had to be evacuated quickly.\n\nAs they were leaving, she could see some people struggling to breathe, but she said the evacuation was efficient and emergency services were quick on scene to help.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nWere you in the area? Did you witness the incident? Please share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces that income tax will be cut by 2024\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak has set out measures aimed at combating soaring energy, food and fuel prices, in his Spring Statement.\n\nHe cut fuel duty by 5p but resisted calls to scrap April's National Insurance rise of 1.25p in the pound.\n\nHe warned the UK's post-pandemic recovery had been blown off course by the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut he held out the promise of an income tax cut in 2024 when he said the economy would be in better shape.\n\nLabour said he had made an \"historic mistake\" by pushing ahead with next month's National Insurance increase, which the party warned would hit workers hard.\n\nBut the chancellor said the money raised was needed for the NHS - and instead he said he would raise the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance from £9,600 to £12,570.\n\nThis would amount to \"a £6bn personal tax cut for 30 million people across the United Kingdom, a tax cut for employees worth over £330 a year,\" said the chancellor.\n\nMr Sunak warned the economic outlook was uncertain and the full impact of the war in Ukraine was not yet clear.\n\nThe Office for Budget Responsibility painted a bleak picture of the UK's immediate economic prospects, saying that living standards are set to take the biggest hit since records began in the 1950s.\n\nIt said inflation was set to peak at 8.7% at the end of this year and this - combined with rising taxes - will \"weigh heavily on living standards in the coming 12 months\".\n\nThe watchdog said the UK's tax burden will be at the highest level since the 1940s.\n\nOther measures in the chancellor's mini-Budget include:\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak had failed to appreciate the scale of the cost of living crisis facing workers and pensioners.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nShe told MPs: \"In eight days, people's energy bills will be rising by 54%, two weeks today the chancellor's tax hike will start hitting working people and their employers.\n\n\"His National Insurance tax rise was a bad idea last September and he's admitted it's an even worse one today.\"\n\nShe repeated Labour's call for a windfall tax on energy companies.\n\nLater, the chancellor answered questions on a phone-in on LBC radio.\n\nOne woman said that despite a good salary \"on paper\", she was leaving her heating and lights off - and her family were wearing coats at home, to try to save on energy bills.\n\nShe also said she was taking on extra cleaning and delivery jobs, and had cut her grocery shop down to £15 a week for her and her two children - and she often went without.\n\n\"Please tell me what else I can be doing,\" she asked.\n\nMr Sunak paid tribute to her for working her \"socks off\" - and pointed to the energy bill rebate and higher national insurance threshold that will give a tax cut in July.\n\nWhat's deeply unusual is that Mr Sunak chose to announce this giveaway, a penny off income tax, two years before it would kick in.\n\nIt's certainly unusual to announce election goodies this far out, not just because it kills any element of political surprise, but also it ties the Chancellor's hands in the years ahead.\n\nWhile the moves seem to designed to polish up Mr Sunak's credentials as a tax cutter, the black and white of the statement documents beg to differ.\n\nAs chancellor, he has increased taxes massively more than he has just reduced them.\n\nThe SNP criticised Mr Sunak over his decision not to reverse the removal of the £20-a-week top-up to Universal Credit payments, or to increase other benefits, \"at a time when people need it the most\".\n\nPaul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said \"the very poorest\" could see their cost of living increase by 10%, despite a \"small amount of extra cash\" promised by the chancellor for local authorities to help those on benefits.\n\nSir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the Spring Statement was a \"total swindle\" by Mr Sunak, who he said was \"giving with one hand and taking with another\".\n\nAnd the Green Party criticised him for not mentioning climate issues. Its co-leader Adrian Ramsay accused Mr Sunak of \"[looking] after the interests of fossil fuel companies\".\n\nMr Sunak promised the government would \"stand by\" families struggling with the cost of living.\n\nAnd in a surprise announcement at the end of his statement, he said his ambition was to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p in the pound.\n\n\"It would clearly be irresponsible to meet this ambition this year,\" he told MPs, but official forecasts said inflation would be \"back under control\" and national debt falling by 2024, making a cut possible then, he added.\n\n\"I can confirm, before the end of this Parliament, in 2024, for the first time in 16 years, the basic rate of income tax will be cut from 20p to 19p in the pound.\n\n\"A tax cut for workers, for pensioners, for savers. A £5bn tax cut for 30 million people. It is fully costed and fully paid for in the plan announced today.\"", "Corrie Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was based at RAF Honington which is about 10 miles (16km) north of Bury St Edmunds\n\nThe missing RAF gunner Corrie Mckeague who vanished on a night out in 2016 died after climbing into a commercial waste bin, an inquest concluded.\n\nThe airman, from Dunfermline, Fife, was 23 when he disappeared in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on 24 September 2016.\n\nHe was last seen on CCTV going into a bin loading area but his body has never been found despite extensive searches.\n\nInquest jurors in Ipswich concluded he died after climbing into the bin which was then tipped into a waste lorry.\n\nIn a narrative conclusion they said Mr Mckeague died at about 04:20 BST in Bury St Edmunds as a result of \"compression asphyxia in association with multiple injuries\".\n\nThey said Mr Mckeague's \"death was contributed to by impaired judgment due to alcohol consumption\".\n\nMr Mckeague was last seen on CCTV on his own walking past The Grapes public house in Bury St Edmunds town centre\n\nHe was captured heading towards a bin loading area behind some shops, including Greggs, in Bury St Edmunds town centre\n\nThe jurors, who had heard two weeks of evidence at Suffolk Coroner's Court, said there were \"ineffective bin locks\" and an \"ineffective search of the bin\" before it was tipped.\n\nDuring the inquest, it was heard Mr Mckeague, who was stationed at RAF Honington, had slept in a bin before.\n\nHe had also slept under bin bags on a previous night out, using them \"like a blanket\", and was a \"heavy sleeper\" when drunk, the hearing was told.\n\nMr Mckeague was described as being \"significantly under the influence of alcohol\" on the night he went missing.\n\nHe was seen asleep in a shop doorway earlier on 24 September before he awoke and walked to the bin loading area, known as \"the horseshoe\", where he was last seen.\n\nMr Mckeague's father Martin said he hoped the conclusion would enable his son to \"rest in peace\"\n\nWaste firm Biffa initially told police the weight of the bin was 11kg (1st 10lbs), and therefore not heavy enough to contain a person, but it was later recorded as 116kg (18st 3lbs).\n\nThe force said the movement of Mr Mckeague's mobile phone mirrored the movement of the waste lorry that collected the bin from the service area where he was last seen.\n\nMr Mckeague was not seen on CCTV leaving the area on foot.\n\nHis mother Nicola Urquhart said the \"most obvious thing\" was her son got into a bin that was later tipped into a waste lorry.\n\nBut she said before the inquest she had \"other questions, though, and until they could be answered we couldn't get to that conclusion either\".\n\n\"However, we've heard information in the inquest [so] that we now completely believe in the verdict that the jury have given today, 100%,\" she said,\n\nStanding next to Mr Mckeague's brothers, Daroch and Makayen, she said: \"As a family, we've now all walked out of there with a huge weight lifted off our shoulders.\"\n\nNicola Urquhart, Corrie Mckeague's mother, said his legacy was his five-year-old daughter\n\nHis father, Martin Mckeague, said after the ruling that he hoped his son could \"finally be left to rest in peace\", with the inquest shining \"a new light on the truth for everyone\".\n\nHe did, however, criticise \"conspiracy theorists\" who he said had misled people.\n\n\"They've suggested Corrie may have gone AWOL or got lost on his way home to his RAF base,\" he said in a statement.\n\n\"We knew the facts and evidence could unfortunately only mean one horrible conclusion - Corrie climbed into the bin in the horseshoe area and tragically died in the waste disposal process.\"\n\nMr Mckeague described his son as a \"loveable rogue who loved to socialise and party\", and said he was \"very much missed by all\".\n\nCorrie Mckeague, who was based at RAF Honington near Bury St Edmunds, was last seen wearing light-coloured trousers and a pink shirt\n\nSuffolk's senior coroner Nigel Parsley said he could not imagine the \"distress and anguish\" Mr Mckeague's family had felt since he disappeared.\n\nMr Parsley expressed concerns about viewing panels, used to see inside the back of bin lorries, and said he would write to the British Standards Institute, bin lorry manufacturer Dennis Eagle and waste firm Biffa about these concerns.\n\nHe said he would also order a prevention of future deaths report in respect of \"ineffective locks on bins\".\n\nA Biffa spokesperson said: \"Our deepest sympathies are with Corrie's family and friends in this tragic case.\n\n\"This incident highlights the important, waste industry-wide issue, of people sleeping in waste containers, an issue which we have been actively campaigning on for the last 10 years.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Britain has imposed “sanctions of unprecedented scale and scope” after Russia invaded Ukraine, the UK chancellor has said.\n\nOpening his Spring Statement, Rishi Sunak said these actions were “not cost-free”, and posed a risk to the recovery of the UK and international economies.", "Makariv had previously fallen to Russian forces (pictured: a Ukrainian soldier near the town)\n\nUkrainian troops are counter-attacking Russian forces in some areas of the country, with reports that they have gained ground near the capital, Kyiv.\n\nLocal authorities in the town of Makariv, west of Kyiv, said Ukrainian flags were flying there once more.\n\nA US defence spokesman said Ukrainians were also reversing momentum in some parts of the south.\n\nIn the small southern town of Voznesensk, Russian forces were pushed back and an armoured convoy destroyed.\n\nAnd in Kherson, close to the Crimean peninsula and the first city to fall to Russia, Ukrainian forces are also trying to recapture territory.\n\nA UK defence analyst told the BBC the fightback could force Moscow to change its tactics.\n\nHowever, the latest assessment from the UK Ministry of Defence says Russian troops in Ukraine are moving in from the north and south to \"envelop Ukrainian forces in the east of the country\".\n\nThe note says \"Russian forces are likely reorganising before resuming large-scale offensive operations\".\n\nRussian forces are also continuing to bombard the southern port city of Mariupol, although the port area itself is said to have suffered relatively little damage.\n\nJustin Bronk, from the UK defence and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said the Ukrainian pushback came as the Russians were trying to compensate for their lack of progress so far.\n\n\"The Russians have quite visibly failed to take the whole of Ukraine across multiple positions of advance,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"So now they are trying to pull their resources back and consolidate them and concentrate them on one push at a time - in particular around Mariupol and the south.\"\n\nHe said that if the Russians took Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks and is low on supplies, then they might look to redistribute troops and ammunition, first to Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and then perhaps to the north-eastern city of Kharkiv.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Drone footage shows extent of devastation in the city of Mariupol\n\nBut as Ukraine pushes Russian troops back around Irpin, about 20km (12 miles) from Kyiv, and other suburbs along with Makariv, it could hamper Moscow's plans to capture the capital, he added.\n\n\"Essentially, what [Ukrainian forces] are trying to do is cut off an entire side of the attempted encirclement of Kyiv, which would force the Russians to either try to break north and abandon those positions, or for Russia to reroute significant combat power to try to break through and release their own forces there.\"\n\nThe Pentagon gave more details of the Ukrainian counter-offensive on Tuesday, saying it has seen increasing signs in recent days that Russians are being dislodged from areas they previously held.\n\nSpokesman John Kirby told CNN that he was unable to confirm reports from Ukrainian officials that they had retaken at least one town and expected to take more in coming days.\n\nHowever, he said it would be \"consistent with the kind of fighting and the kinds of capabilities we have seen the Ukrainians use\".\n\nHe said Russian forces had \"stalled\" and were running out of fuel and food.\n\nThere were also communication problems between air and ground forces, with some Russian fighters resorting to mobile phones to speak to each other, Mr Kirby said.\n\n\"They are slowed,\" he said, adding that this was partly due to \"their own ineptitude\".\n\nAnother Pentagon official, speaking anonymously, told the AFP news agency that some Russian soldiers had been laid low with frostbite, because they did not have the appropriate cold weather clothing for the terrain.\n\nThe official said that because of losses and other problems, Russian forces inside Ukraine were now below 90% of their available combat power.", "A superyacht linked to sanctioned billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has been met by a protest as it arrived at port in Bodrum, Turkey.\n\nMembers of the Optimist Sailing Team Ukraine confronted the vessel in a small boat, chanting \"no war in Ukraine\" and waving their country's flag.\n\nThey were part of a junior sailing team that was in Turkey to compete in an annual competition, having left Ukraine before the Russian invasion.", "Boris Johnson carries official documents in a briefcase known as a red box\n\nBoris Johnson gets details of vital government business sent to him via WhatsApp, court papers have revealed.\n\nThe material, from the PM's ministerial \"red box\", is sent to his phone for \"administrative ease\", officials say, and does not break the rules.\n\nBut campaigners challenging \"government by WhatsApp\" in the High Court say it is a security risk.\n\nThey claim the use of insecure apps and message deletion by ministers and officials is \"rampant\".\n\nCampaigning law groups the Good Law Project and Foxglove are challenging the government's use of such services in the High Court, saying that it breaks the law on keeping public records.\n\nThe government says it has secure channels for exchanging sensitive information, and ministers are obliged to record important decision-making discussions with officials.\n\nDocuments released on the first of a three-day judicial review reveal:\n\nThe screenshot messages, published by Mr Cummings on his blog, include discussions with the PM on the procurement of ventilators, testing in care homes, and Mr Johnson's description of then health secretary Matt Hancock as \"hopeless\".\n\nNo official record has been kept of these messages\n\nIt also emerged that all messages on Boris Johnson's phone were wiped in April 2021, after it emerged his number had been freely available on the internet for 15 years.\n\nIn a witness statement, the Cabinet Office's chief operating officer Sarah Harrison said: \"In light of a well-publicised security breach, the prime minister implemented security advice relating to a mobile device. The effect was that historic messages were no longer available to search and the phone is not active.\"\n\nLegal campaigners say records of vital decision-making have been lost to the public record, which could undermine next year's inquiry into the government's handling of the pandemic.\n\nCori Crider, director of Foxglove, said: \"Our democracy can only work if the decisions of those who represent us are open to scrutiny.\n\n\"That can't happen if officials govern by secret WhatsApp chats that vanish into thin air.\"\n\nFoxglove is bringing the case on behalf of non-profit media group The Citizens.\n\nThey say the government is potentially in breach of its own data security guidelines and the Public Records Act of 1958, which requires legal checks to be made on messages in case they need to be kept for the public interest.\n\nThe government argues that a record is kept of all substantive discussions and only ephemeral messages are deleted.\n\nIn her witness statement, Ms Harrison said: \"In my view, it is not realistic to suggest that those working in government should refrain from interacting with one another online in the same way everyone else does, subject always to the compliance with government policy on the use of such tools and in line with information records management policy.\n\n\"This is particularly the case where teams are now much more dispersed - between home and the office as well as geographically.\"\n\nThe Foxglove and Good Law Project law suits started out as separate cases but the High Court decided to hear both of them together.\n\nThe government is expected to challenge the standing of the Good Law Project in court, after the High Court found against the organisation in a separate case in February.", "George Montague was a well-known figure at Brighton Pride parades over many years\n\nTributes have been paid to a \"tireless\" and \"inspirational\" gay rights campaigner who died at the age of 98.\n\nGeorge Montague fought for and won an apology from the government after his criminal conviction under the Sexual Offences Act was repealed.\n\nMr Montague regularly appeared at Brighton Pride on his rainbow-draped mobility scooter and called himself \"the oldest gay in the village\".\n\nPride director Paul Kemp said he was \"a lovely spirit\" who \"died a happy man\".\n\nBrighton Pride tweeted that he was an \"important part of the parade\" and a \"tireless campaigner for equality\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Brighton & Hove Pride This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nFormer defence minister and ex-Hove MP Ivor Caplin said it was a \"sad day for the city\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Ivor Caplin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAnd human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell called him \"inspirational and a \"hero\" he was \"honoured to know\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by Peter Tatchell This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn 2016, the government announced that gay and bisexual men convicted of abolished sexual offences would receive pardons.\n\nMr Montague had been convicted of gross indecency with a man in 1974.\n\nHowever, he challenged the government for an apology, not just a pardon, and won.\n\nHe told the BBC at the time: \"It really made my day, I was over the moon.\"\n\nMr Montague said he \"came out officially\" in his 80s but the father-of-three and grandfather said he had no regrets.\n\n\"There's nobody luckier or happier or has lived as long as I have so happy,\" he said.\n\nHe married his civil partner Somchai Phukkhlai at Brighton Town Hall in 2015.\n\nMr Kemp, of Brighton Pride, told BBC Radio Sussex: \"He found himself in his later years and was very happily married. He just loved the community he had become part of.\n\n\"He died a happy man and we can all celebrate that. Certainly at Pride this year, we will be remembering him.\"\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The RMT union has not offered proof of the hourly rate and P&O will not comment on agency workers' pay\n\nIndian agency workers hired to replace P&O Ferries crews in Dover are being paid £1.81 an hour, a union claims.\n\nThe Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said the low pay was a \"shocking exploitation\" and \"a betrayal of those who have been sacked\".\n\nP&O said the figure was inaccurate but said it could not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.\n\nSome of P&O's ferries are registered in Cyprus, meaning they do not have to pay the minimum wage required by UK law.\n\nFirms using UK ports often register ships in other countries, allowing them to pay lower wages.\n\nThe minimum wage in the UK for people aged 23 and above is £8.91 per hour.\n\nTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told Parliament: \"Maritime employees have not, in this country, indeed throughout much of the world, received some of the same benefits and protections that exist otherwise for workers and this is simply not good enough and it's a practice we have been seeking to end.\"\n\nHe said ships in UK waters operated under international law governed by treaties, so UK law did not always apply.\n\n\"These complications allow for employers to take advantage in a way that we've seen I think with P&O Ferries,\" Mr Shapps added.\n\nMr Shapps told MPs that he first found out about the prospect of P&O redundancies at 20:30 GMT the evening before the workers were being sacked, but he said it wasn't until he was at the despatch box the next day that he was made fully aware of the scale.\n\nPreviously, officials at the Department of Transport had told the BBC that Mr Shapps and the maritime minister Robert Courts had not been informed until Thursday.\n\nShadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said government ministers had \"completely failed to act\" and the reported rates of pay were \"nothing short of a betrayal of the workers who protected this country's supply chain during the pandemic\".\n\nA spokesman for P&O said safety was the utmost priority and the new crewing management model was used by many competitors.\n\n\"They have recruited high-quality experienced seafarers, who will now familiarise themselves with the ships, going through all mandatory training requirements set out by our regulators,\" he said.\n\nMr Shapps said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O Ferries.\n\nHe had asked the insolvency service whether P&O had followed rules for redundancies - and if they had not, \"that would be a matter for criminal prosecution and unlimited fines\".\n\nMr Shapps also told MPs P&O Ferries should remove British references from their ships if they replace sacked workers with non-UK staff.\n\nThe Spirit of Britain, Pride of Canterbury and Pride of Hull are among the names used for the operator's ferries.\n\nThe Transport Secretary told MPs it would be \"completely inappropriate\" for the company to \"attach themselves to this country\" without having British workers.\n\nProtests took place close to Parliament and also outside the London offices of P&O owners, DP World on Monday.\n\nJohn, a former seafarer with P&O Ferries based in Dover said the redundancies were \"a catastrophe\" for all crew involved and he wants the company's chief executive to resign.\n\n\"A company who had built up its reputation over 180 years just to be trashed in one single morning of madness by those responsible.\n\n\"It's not just a job, it's a home and to be kicked off the ship in the most unceremonious way...it's a catastrophe for all our lives,\" John, who did not want to give his surname, added.\n\nHe expects to lose his severance pay for speaking out to media, but said he \"knew the difference between right and wrong\".\n\nRMT general secretary Mick Lynch said P&O staff were \"being replaced by exploited workers, vulnerable workers from overseas\".\n\n\"We have no beef with those people. We want those people to be paid the wages that we've negotiated for in this country,\" he said.\n\nThe union has called for a boycott of P&O services and is urging the government to look at legal options to reinstate the sacked workers.\n\nFerries between Liverpool and Dublin have restarted and other routes are expected to follow by the end of the week.\n\nProtests have taken place over the sackings\n\nServices were stopped on Thursday after P&O announced in a video call that 800 staff were being sacked with immediate effect.\n\nThe M20 in Kent will close between junctions 8 and 9 from 20:00 GMT while a barrier system is put in place to manage any disruption caused by P&O freight, National Highways said.\n\nThe motorway is expected to reopen at 06:00 GMT on Tuesday when lorries heading for the Port of Dover or the Eurotunnel will use the coastbound carriageway on the M20, where they will be queued if necessary.\n\nAll other traffic - including local freight and car drivers headed for the continent - should follow the signs and cross over to enter the contraflow on the M20 London bound carriageway, National Highways said.", "The Treasury shared pictures of Chancellor Rishi Sunak preparing his statement\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak will unveil his Spring Statement later, against a backdrop of rising energy, fuel and food costs.\n\nHe is expected to announce measures to help people with the cost of living, including a cut to fuel tax.\n\nHe has come under increasing pressure to act, with prices rising by 6.2% in the 12 months to February - the fastest for 30 years.\n\nLabour wants him to go further and scrap a planned tax hike next month.\n\nNational Insurance is set to rise by 1.25p in the pound to pay for healthcare - but the party has said the increase is the wrong way to fund investment.\n\nMr Sunak has ruled out scrapping the increase to NI, but there is speculation he could allow people to earn more before they have to start paying it.\n\nHowever, the full details of Mr Sunak's speech will not be known until he takes to the dispatch box at 12:30 GMT.\n\nThe Spring Statement, one of two financial statements the chancellor makes every year, does not normally see big tax and spending decisions announced.\n\nHowever, this year Mr Sunak is facing pressure to act on living standards amid soaring energy costs and rising household bills due to increasing inflation.\n\nMillions of households are facing sharp rises in energy bills from next month, when the government's price cap to contain recent rises is set to go up.\n\nPetrol prices have also soared in recent weeks, while inflation is also pushing up the price of household food items.\n\nOn Monday, Environment Secretary George Eustice said surging oil and gas prices would lead to \"inevitable\" rises in food prices this year, with the increasing price of wheat also feeding through into higher prices for products such as chicken.\n\nThe chancellor is expected to say the war in Ukraine will make these price pressures worse - but add that a stronger British economy is vital in responding to the \"challenge to our values\" presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nHis statement is also expected to set out government plans \"to create a new culture of enterprise\", including more training and investment.\n\nExpectation has been more muted than normal - given the horror of events in Ukraine - but the Spring Statement is still a significant event that matters for all of us.\n\nThe decisions he announces at the dispatch box will affect the prices we pay; the pound in our pocket.\n\nBefore the conflict, there was already a squeeze on everyone's wallet coming. Since the outbreak, day by day, the uncertainty around the economy, and the impact of what's unfolding, has only become more acute.\n\nAlthough every day brings new calls for more help with rocketing energy bills, the Treasury has been reluctant to move from the extra support they promised already, which was only announced last month.\n\nThat's in part because the Treasury is instinctively cautious with cash.\n\nBut also because price rises are so hard to predict and may go on for many, many months.\n\nLabour has criticised Mr Sunak ahead of his speech, branding him \"the high-tax chancellor\" and saying there is no evidence to believe his frequent claims that he wants to cut taxes in the long term.\n\nThe SNP has also called for the National Insurance rise to be scrapped, dubbing Mr Sunak \"the poverty chancellor\" for removing the £20 uplift for universal credit and breaking his pledge to keep the pension triple lock.\n\nSome Conservative MPs have also called for the NI rise to be cancelled, with the official budget watchdog expected to say the UK's deficit - the difference between the government's income and what it spends - is better than last predicted in the autumn.\n\nPaul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said this would give Mr Sunak room to help households with costs, but he would not be able to help people on \"average sorts of incomes\" with the increases.\n\nA cut to fuel duty has also been a key demand of Tory MPs in recent weeks, with more 50 Tory writing to Mr Sunak last week to make the demand.\n\nTory MP Robert Halfon, who led the charge, said the country was \"heading to a de facto lockdown, where parents can't afford to take their kids to school [and] where workers can't afford to commute by car and have to stay at home\".\n\nBut the Green Party said cutting fuel duty would not fix the cost of living crisis, and would be the wrong policy at the time of a climate emergency.\n\nCo-leader Adrian Ramsay said: \"We absolutely know people need help right now - but cuts to fuel duty aren't targeted to support the poorest and the greatest numbers of people.\"\n\nInstead, the party wants a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies to pay for the restoration and doubling of the universal credit uplift, and to extend emergency fuel payments.\n\nThe Conservative Environment Network of Tory MPs is also making its own request, calling on Mr Sunak to cut VAT for energy-saving products and home installation to 5%.\n\nThe group said the move would cut the cost of installing cavity insulation by £142 and loft insulation by £120 for the average household, helping to lower energy bills by up to £399 and £493 at the current energy price cap - and going even further when the rise kicks in.\n\nTory MP Stephen Crabb said: \"Insulating homes is one of the quickest ways to lower people's energy bills and reduce our reliance on imported energy.\n\n\"With millions of draughty British homes and soaring energy bills, we should cut this tax on energy efficiency.\"", "Taxes on working families will be cut, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said, closing his Spring Statement to cheers from Conservative benches.\n\nHe said the basic rate of tax would fall from 20p to 19p before end of this Parliament in 2024, and that it was \"fully costed and fully paid for\" in his tax plans given to the Commons on Wednesday.\n\nEarlier in his statement he said the income threshold at which point people start paying National Insurance would rise to £12,570 in July, which Mr Sunak said was tax cut for employees worth over £330 a year", "The memorial to William Collins appeared at Shiregreen Cemetery in Sheffield about a week ago\n\nA huge marble memorial featuring a solar-powered jukebox has been built in a city cemetery without permission.\n\nThe monument honouring William Collins, who died in Spain in 2020, is thought to have been erected about a week ago at Sheffield's Shiregreen Cemetery.\n\nIt is adorned with four Irish flags, boasts CCTV and is flanked by two life-sized statues of the 49-year-old.\n\nSheffield City Council said it was considering its next steps in light of its rules around memorials.\n\nVideos of the monument, which also includes a stone seat engraved with the word \"king\" in gold block capitals, have amassed more than five million views on TikTok.\n\nAccording to the Sheffield Star, the tribute to the dad of nine is made from Italian marble and weighs 37 tonnes.\n\nMultiple videos of the headstone gained millions of views on TikTok, with the jukebox said to play some of Mr Collins' favourite songs\n\nMr Collins was born in Athlone in County Westmeath, Ireland, and died on the island of Majorca on 7 July 2020, according to the memorial.\n\nRules set out by Sheffield City Council's bereavement service state memorials must be under 3ins (75mm) thick and no taller than 4.4ft (1.35m), with applicants required to provide details such as materials to be used and any proposed inscriptions before permission is given.\n\nCouncillor Alison Teal, executive member for sustainable neighbourhoods, wellbeing, parks and leisure, said: \"This memorial was built without permission and we are currently considering our next steps.\n\n\"We understand memorials are deeply personal, however we must have rules in place to ensure fairness.\"\n\nWilliam Collins was born in the town of Athlone in Ireland in 1970 and died in July 2020, aged 49\n\nOne visitor to the cemetery, Mandy Stratford, said she had seen the memorial while going to a loved one's grave and was aware people were travelling to the cemetery just to have a look at it.\n\n\"I think it's beautiful. It doesn't offend me at all and I think it'd be a shame if they did take it down,\" she said.\n\n\"I don't think it's offending anybody in the position it's in. If it was in the middle near everyone's loved ones I could understand it.\"\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Man Utd\n\nManchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says he experienced depression after falling out with Jose Mourinho during the Portuguese manager's time in charge at Old Trafford.\n\nThe France player, 29, had a difficult relationship with Mourinho and lost the vice-captaincy in September 2018.\n\nMourinho was sacked as United manager in December 2018.\n\n\"I've experienced depression many times in my career, but you don't talk about it,\" he told La Figaro.\n\n\"Sometimes, you don't know you're depressed, you only want to isolate yourself, be alone, and these are signs that don't deceive.\n\n\"Personally, it started when I was with Jose Mourinho in Manchester. You ask yourself questions, wonder if you're at fault, because you have never lived moments like these in your life.\"\n\nPogba re-joined United for a then-world record £89m in 2016, the same summer Mourinho succeeded Louis van Gaal as Red Devils boss.\n\nHe helped United win the League Cup and Europa League in 2017 under the former Chelsea boss but their relationship soured at the start of the following season.\n\nMourinho told Pogba he would never captain the side again under his management, reportedly because of concerns about his attitude, before he was sacked two months later after a run of poor results.\n\nPogba says focusing on his family and talking to former players who also experienced depression, including former Manchester United team-mate Patrice Evra, helped him cope.\n\n\"I don't want these negative moments to make me forget all my achievements, but it's not necessarily easy,\" he said.\n\n\"And when you can't do it all alone I talk a lot with 'Uncle Pat' [Evra], former players who lived it, because they'll understand you right away.\n\n\"Talking, being listened to, getting out all this anger and depression that gnaws at you, it's mandatory for me.\n\n\"Of course, we earn a lot of money and we can't complain, really, but it doesn't stop you from going through these moments.\n\n\"Just like everyone in life, some moments are more difficult than others.\n\n\"Because you earn money, you should always be happy? That's not how life is. But, in football, it's not accepted, even though we're not superheroes, only human beings.\"\n\n\"Football is the most individual team sport, you're judged every three days, you have to be good all the time although we have problems just like everyone has.\n\n\"Obviously, you'll feel it in your body, in your mind, and you can feel unwell for a month or even a year. But you can't say it. At least publicly. Everything's in your mind, your mind controls everything and every high level athlete go through these moments, but only a few talk about it.\n\n\"If you're not mentally strong, you're dead, in this sport. These trials forge you, but you can't give up.\"\n\nPogba's Manchester United future is uncertain with his contract set to expire at the end of the season.\n\nThe midfielder says he is unsure of the role he plays in the Red Devils side, unlike with the national team under boss Didier Deschamps.\n\n\"The coach [Deschamps] and I get along very well,\" said Pogba, who is in a camp with France before friendlies against Ivory Coast and South Africa.\n\n\"He gave me a role that I know, but at Manchester United, do I really have a role? I'm asking the question and I don't know the answer.\"\n\nAsked about his hopes when his contract is up, Pogba replied: \"To keep on winning, progressing, and catch up all these years I couldn't win trophies.\n\n\"To be honest, I'm not satisfied by the five last seasons, I'm really not. For this year it's over, we still won't win anything. Whether it's with Manchester or in another club, I want to win trophies.\"\n\nPogba also says burglars stole his World Cup winner's medal when they broke into his home.\n\nHe spoke of his \"family's worst nightmare\" last week when his home was burgled during his side's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid.\n\nHis two young children and their nanny were in the house at the time.\n\n\"The main thing is that my children are well,\" he said.\n\nSpeaking about what was taken, Pogba added: \"There were jewels from my mother, my world champion medal.\n\n\"What scared me the most was that my two children were at home with the nanny during this incident.\n\n\"She overheard everything, called my wife and security, then locked herself with the boys in a room. For several days, she was shocked.\"\n• None Our coverage of Manchester United is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything United - go straight to all the best content", "The 54-year-old tennis star - who denies all the charges - is on trial at Southwark Crown Court\n\nBoris Becker, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, offered his wedding ring in a bid to pay off his debts, a court has heard.\n\nMr Becker also wanted to sell his Mallorca estate in an effort to cancel his bankruptcy, the jury was told.\n\nThe 54-year-old German national was declared bankrupt in June 2017 after borrowing more than £3m from a bank.\n\nHe is on trial at Southwark Crown Court charged with 24 offences under the Insolvency Act. He denies all charges.\n\nThe former men's world number one is accused of hiding, or failing to hand over, assets including nine trophies and medals from his tennis career.\n\nHis 1985 and 1989 Wimbledon men's singles titles, his Australian Open trophies from 1991 and 1996 and his 1992 Olympic gold medal are among the items he is alleged to have concealed.\n\nAs the third day of his trial began on Wednesday, the court heard that Mr Becker had been interviewed at his London home in July 2017 by Michael Bint from the Insolvency Service.\n\nThe prosecution is being brought by the Insolvency Service on behalf of the business secretary.\n\nIn court, Mr Bint agreed with Mr Becker's barrister - Jonathan Laidlaw QC - that the tennis star had been \"co-operative\" during the hour-long discussion, which happened amid time pressures due to Mr Becker working for the BBC at a nearby tennis tournament.\n\n\"He offered to let you walk around the house in Wimbledon to see what was there, he volunteered an expensive wedding ring to you,\" Mr Laidlaw said.\n\nThe barrister added that Mr Becker's \"overriding concern was to seek an annulment of the bankruptcy\".\n\nBut the former tennis champion is accused by prosecutors of failing to hand over various high-value items.\n\nThe jury was told the tennis star was interrupted on about 20 occasions by his adviser, who allegedly spoke of \"work in progress\" or \"investigations being in hand\" at least 14 times.\n\nMr Bint said he had failed to get Mr Becker to sign a preliminary information questionnaire document - the only time he has forgotten in hundreds of cases since 2007 - because \"Mr Becker had to simply run away to go to Wimbledon\".\n\n\"Normally I would ask for a signed copy,\" Mr Bint added.\n\nMr Becker is also alleged to have hidden €1.13 million (£940,000) from the sale of a Mercedes car dealership he owned in Germany, which was paid into his Boris Becker Private Office (BBPOL) account.\n\nOn Tuesday, Prosecutor Rebecca Chalkley said: \"It is the prosecution case that Mr Becker used the BBPOL sterling account as an extension of his own account, effectively as his own piggy bank, for everyday personal expenses such as school fees for the children and such like.\"\n\nMs Chalkley told the jury that the former world number one spent hundreds of pounds at Harrods, bought online groceries at Ocado and treated himself to Ralph Lauren clothes.\n\nAt the start of the trial, Judge Deborah Taylor instructed the jury of 11 men and one woman to ignore Mr Becker's celebrity.\n\n\"You must treat him in exactly the same way you would treat someone you have not heard of and is not in the public eye,\" she said.\n\nThe 24 charges Mr Becker has been accused of include:\n\nThe trial, which is expected to last up to three weeks, continues.", "The Ford family, from the West Midlands, have noticed \"significant rises\" in their bills.\n\nThey spoke to the BBC about their experiences and reacted to the chancellor's Spring Statement.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Angel Lynn: Woman's kidnap by then boyfriend caught on camera\n\nThe abusive former boyfriend of a woman left with life-changing injuries in a fall from a van has had his sentence for kidnapping her increased.\n\nAngel Lynn was bundled into the van by Chay Bowskill before she was found injured on the A6 near Loughborough, Leicestershire, in 2020.\n\nBowskill's sentence of seven and a half years in a young offender institution has been increased to 12 years.\n\nHis sentence was reviewed following concerns it was too lenient.\n\nRocco Sansome, who was driving the van, had previously been sentenced to 21 months in a young offender institution and his sentence remains unchanged.\n\nThe Court of Appeal judges decided Bowskill's original sentence had \"failed to reflect the seriousness\" of the kidnap offence, and too much of a discount had been given to the sentence because of his age.\n\n\"Miss Lynn is likely to be severely disabled, mentally and physically, for the rest of her life, and will be dependent on others for all aspects of her care,\" Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the Queen's Bench Division, said.\n\nShe added the kidnap had been the \"culmination of a pattern of abuse at the hands of Bowskill\".\n\nAngel Lynn, now 21, was left with serious brain damage as a result of the kidnap\n\nSpeaking following the ruling, Angel Lynn's aunt Jackie Chamberlain said the family had got \"exactly what we wanted\".\n\n\"We're absolutely elated at the result and we want to thank everybody involved, from the police to the judges today, the lady judge in charge, she's amazing. We really felt she got us as a family,\" she told BBC Radio Leicester's Ady Dayman.\n\n\"We can rest in the fact and know he [Bowskill] will not be anywhere near us for a very long time.\n\n\"We want to thank every person that complained about the sentence being unduly lenient.\n\n\"It gladdens your heart, it's amazing.\"\n\nShe said the family could now \"move on\" and concentrate on bringing Angel home.\n\n\"We don't want to think about those people anymore,\" she said.\n\n\"We've given them two years nearly of our lives and we don't want to give them any more thoughts whatsoever.\"\n\nAngel Lynn is likely to be mentally and physically disabled for the rest of her life\n\nBowskill was previously sentenced to three years and three months for kidnap, two years for coercive and controlling behaviour, and two years and three months for perverting the course of justice - after he put pressure on his mother to withdraw her police statement.\n\nThese sentences were consecutive, meaning they were all added up to a total of seven and a half years.\n\nThe judges have now changed his sentence for kidnap to 12 years, but the sentences for the other charges are concurrent, meaning they all run at the same time.\n\nDame Sharp told Bowskill he must serve two-thirds of the sentence before he is eligible to be released.\n\nThe judges said they did not change Sansome's sentence for kidnap because \"his role was a subsidiary one\", he was remorseful, and there were no aggravating features of domestic abuse against Miss Lynn in relation to him.\n\nChay Bowskill, now 20, was also found guilty of coercive and controlling behaviour\n\nThe original trial at Leicester Crown Court heard Bowskill, of Empingham Drive, Syston, kidnapped Miss Lynn following an argument on 17 September 2020.\n\nCCTV footage showed him lifting her up and carrying her across a road before putting her in the van.\n\nBoth were 19 at the time and had been in a relationship for about a year.\n\nJudge Timothy Spencer QC described Bowskill's treatment of Miss Lynn during their relationship as \"vile\" and added: \"She was belittled by you to a point she must have felt on a regular basis, worthless.\n\n\"You bombarded her with repulsive, degrading messages, sometimes within a timespan of a few hours.\n\n\"You controlled her freedom of movement by a variety of means and she was not allowed any sort of life apart from you.\"\n\nIt is still not clear whether Miss Lynn fell from the van accidentally, or whether she was trying to get away from Bowskill.\n\nHowever, the jury did not think Bowskill had deliberately pushed her, and he was therefore found not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and an alternative charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm.\n\nThe case was referred to the Court of Appeal by Solicitor General Alex Chalk QC MP.\n\n\"Angel Lynn was subjected to prolonged abuse by her partner, Chay Bowskill, which culminated in her suffering devastating and life-changing injuries,\" he said after the sentence was increased.\n\n\"No sentence can repair the damage caused by the cowardly actions of Bowskill, but I welcome the decision of the court to increase the punishment for his crimes.\"\n\nJackie Chamberlain (second from right) said the family could now \"move on\" and concentrate on bringing Angel home\n\nMiss Lynn's family also thanked Women's Aid for their support in the appeal.\n\nFarah Nazeer, chief executive of Women's Aid, said she welcomed the increased sentence.\n\n\"Lenient sentences in domestic abuse cases send a dangerous message - both to perpetrators and survivors of domestic abuse - about how seriously we treat violence against women in this country,\" she said.\n\n\"It is clear that better understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control will bring about improved sentencing in the future, which will ultimately lead to keeping more women safe.\n\n\"To prioritise the safety of women and girls, judges must send out a clear message that domestic abuse will not be tolerated.\"\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.", "Shape of You won the Grammy Award for best pop solo performance in 2018\n\nEd Sheeran faces a wait of \"days and weeks\" to learn the outcome of a High Court trial over his hit Shape of You.\n\nThe star has been accused of copying part of the song from another artist.\n\nIn closing arguments, grime artist Sami Chokri's barrister said there was an \"indisputable similarity between the works\". But Mr Sheeran's lawyer said the case against him was \"so strained as to be logically unintelligible\".\n\nMr Justice Zacaroli said he would \"take some time to consider my judgment\".\n\nThe 11-day trial ended on Tuesday. Ian Mill QC, representing Mr Sheeran, said it had been \"deeply traumatising\" for the star and his co-writers, Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac.\n\nHe described the dispute as \"terribly, terribly unfortunate\" and argued that the case \"should never have gone to trial\".\n\nMr Sheeran, who has attended the court throughout, listened attentively to the closing arguments with his hands clasped together. During the trial, the superstar has been described as a \"magpie\" who \"borrows\" ideas from other artists.\n\nThe dispute revolves around similarities between Shape of You and Oh Why by Mr Chokri, who performs under the name Sami Switch.\n\nThe contentious part is the \"Oh I, oh I, oh I\" hook that follows the chorus in Shape of You. Mr Chokri and his co-writer Ross O'Donoghue say it is almost identical to the chorus of their song, which was released two years earlier.\n\nThis YouTube post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on YouTube The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts. Skip youtube video by Ed Sheeran This article contains content provided by Google YouTube. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Google’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTube content may contain adverts.\n\nTheir barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC suggested the chances of the two songs being written independently were \"minutely small\" and accused Mr Sheeran of \"inconsistencies\" and \"evasiveness\" in his testimony.\n\nMr Sutcliffe also claimed \"material documents\" linked to the writing of Shape of You \"have been lost or deleted, with no adequate explanation\".\n\nMr Sheeran and his co-authors said they had disclosed all relevant material at their disposal.\n\nThe court heard how Shape of You was written \"extraordinarily quickly\" in October 2016, with the basic track completed in under an hour.\n\nMr Sutcliffe claimed this meant Mr Sheeran had entered the studio with the melody from Oh Why \"consciously or unconsciously in his head\".\n\n\"Such speed is indicative of copying,\" he said in a written closing statement.\n\nSami Chokri has described the High Court case as \"the worst few weeks of my life\"\n\nMr Sheeran's lawyer disagreed. \"Speed is indicative of the genius of Mr Sheeran and his ability to work at a speed no-one else can,\" he told the court.\n\nHe added that all three writers \"were categorically clear that they went into the writing session\" with \"no preconceived ideas as to whatever it was that they would write that day\".\n\nMr Mill also argued that the similarities between the two songs were too \"generic\" to be protected by copyright.\n\n\"They comprise, in substance, the use of the first four notes of the minor pentatonic scale combined with the use of octaves and harmonies in a vocal chant,\" he argued.\n\nHowever, Mr Sutcliffe argued that Oh Why's chorus was \"extremely memorable\" and an \"earworm\".\n\nIf Mr Sheeran did not consciously copy it, he said, a likely explanation was that it became \"part of the echo chamber of references, songs and ideas that [he] holds in his mind, which re-surfaced in October 2016 without him realising it\".\n\nAt the heart of the trial was the issue of whether Mr Sheeran had ever heard Oh Why. On the witness stand, he and his co-writers all denied prior knowledge of the song, saying they only became aware of it when the legal proceedings began.\n\nThe defendants insisted Mr Sheeran would have had the chance to hear it, describing a \"concerted plan\" to get the track into his hands in the hope of an endorsement.\n\nTo that end, they promoted Oh Why to several people in Mr Sheeran's circle, although not the star himself.\n\nGiving evidence, Mr Chokri said he was certain one of them would have played Oh Why to the musician - but \"I can't tell you exactly which because I don't know\".\n\nSheeran's writing partner Johnny McDaid is also a member of chart-topping band Snow Patrol\n\nMr Sutcliffe said the chance that Mr Sheeran was not aware of Mr Chokri in 2016 was \"vanishingly small\" because they had both appeared on YouTube channel SBTV in 2010, they shared friends, and Mr Chokri had tweeted him and allegedly met him.\n\nMr Mill countered that there was no evidence that anyone had ever played Oh Why to Mr Sheeran.\n\nFurthermore, he noted that no-one who had been sent the track had been specifically asked to pass it on to the star.\n\nHe claimed there were \"hundreds of videos\" on SBTV that Mr Sheeran \"never saw or watched\", and that Oh Why itself had never featured on the channel.\n\nThe implication that the star had \"remembered, followed and sought out Sami Switch on another platform\" six years after they had appeared on SBTV was a \"preposterous jump\", he said, adding: \"It is quite clear from all the evidence that the promotion of Oh Why was an absolute failure\".\n\nShape of You was the biggest hit of 2017 and remains the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify, with more than three billion plays.\n\nIt earns Mr Sheeran, Mr McDaid and Mr Mac about £5m a year, the court heard, despite almost 10% of the payments being frozen due to the ongoing dispute.\n\nThe case dates back to 2018, when the writers asked the High Court to declare they had not infringed Mr Chokri and Mr O'Donoghue's copyright.\n\nIn July 2018, the pair issued their own claim for \"copyright infringement, damages and an account of profits in relation to the alleged infringement\".\n\nAs the trial ended on Tuesday, Mr Justice Zacaroli told both sides he would deliver his judgment \"as soon as I can\".\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Fuel prices have stabilised for the first time this month after Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused a surge.\n\nAverage fuel prices slipped from record highs on Monday, with petrol at nearly £1.67 a litre and diesel at £1.79.\n\nCrude oil surged to $139 per barrel in the first week of March, then slid back the following week.\n\nThe RAC said the settling of prices could be an indication that retailers may have \"finished\" passing on their higher wholesale costs to customers.\n\nHowever, it is unclear if and when the cost of fuel will go down.\n\nSimon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC, said Monday's prices had \"steadied with very slight reductions in both petrol and diesel\".\n\nUK fuel prices have increased at the fastest rate on record in recent weeks, with petrol rising 13p since the start of the month and diesel increasing by nearly 21p.\n\nFuel prices, which were already rising as global economies recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, surged after the war in Ukraine pushed up oil prices.\n\nChanges in prices at the pump are mainly determined by crude oil prices and the dollar exchange rate, because crude oil is traded in dollars.\n\nRussia is one of the world's major oil exporters and it is being targeted by economic and trading sanctions.\n\nAfter Brent crude oil - a global benchmark for prices - hit a near 14-year high of $139 a barrel during the early stages of the conflict, prices fell back to around $100, but have since risen again to $115 on Tuesday.\n\nThe most recent increase was driven by the European Union discussing a ban on the purchase of Russian oil, which countries in the bloc rely heavily on.\n\nSome countries, such as the US and Canada, have already banned on Russian oil imports, but the EU has so far stopped short of that action.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK government has vowed to phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of its crude oil from Russia, but is affected by the global shifts in price.\n\nMr Williams said the wholesale price of petrol for retailers currently stands at £1.30 a litre for petrol and £1.48 for diesel.\n\n\"With prices this high before retailer margin and 20% VAT are added it's clear we are in a tough place when it comes to being able to afford to drive,\" he said.\n\n\"This is why it's crucial the chancellor takes decisive and meaningful action in his Spring Statement that helps hard-pressed drivers and businesses.\"\n\nMore than 50 Conservative MPs have called for a cut in fuel duty, which is currently 57.95p per litre, and has VAT of 20% applied on top.\n\nSeveral newspapers have also reported that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is considering a temporary cut of as much as 5p per litre, but some opposition MPs have questioned whether this would go far enough.\n\nFollowing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there were warnings of potential global oil supply problems.\n\nThe International Energy Agency (IEA) has said high commodity prices and sanctions against Russia were \"threatening to create a global oil supply shock\".\n\nIt estimated three million barrels per day of Russian oil could be taken out of the global market as a result of international sanctions.\n\nThe agency warned only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have enough spare production capacity to offset the shortfall in Russian output.", "Last updated on .From the section Swimming\n\nFlorida governor Ron DeSantis has signed a proclamation recognising runner-up Emma Weyant as the winner of the highest US national college swimming title - an event she lost to transgender athlete Lia Thomas.\n\nLast week Thomas became the first known transgender athlete to win the title.\n\nShe took victory in the women's 500-yard freestyle in Atlanta.\n\nBut on Tuesday Republican governor DeSantis said the result \"undermined the integrity of the competition\".\n\nThomas, who swims for the University of Pennsylvania, secured the title in four minutes 33.24 seconds in Atlanta.\n\nWeyant, of Sarasota, Florida, who won 400m individual medley silver at the Tokyo Olympics, finished 1.75secs behind in second.\n\nDeSantis criticised the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for allowing Thomas to compete.\n\nHe said: \"The NCAA is basically taking efforts to destroy women's athletics, they're trying to undermine the integrity of the competition and they're crowning somebody else the women's champion and we think that's wrong.\n\n\"They are putting ideology ahead of opportunity for women athletes and I think that there are just some people that are afraid to speak out and say what they are doing, but that is what they are doing.\"\n\nThomas swam for the Pennsylvanian men's team for three seasons before starting hormone replacement therapy in spring 2019.\n\nUS swimming updated its policy in February to allow transgender athletes to swim in elite events, alongside criteria that aims to reduce any unfair advantage.\n\nThe NCAA - which governs college-level swimming - ruled it would be wrong to implement the new rules mid-season, thus allowing Thomas to compete.\n\nOn Monday World Athletics president Lord Coe issued a warning over the future of women's sport if sporting organisations get regulations for transgender athletes wrong.\n\n\"I think that the integrity of women's sport if we don't get this right, and actually the future of women's sport, is very fragile,\" Coe said.", "William joined Raheem Sterling (not pictured) and some young footballers in a kickabout\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have arrived in Jamaica as part of their tour of the Caribbean.\n\nPrince William and Catherine visited the neighbourhood where reggae legend Bob Marley lived and played football with England forward Raheem Sterling, who was born on the island.\n\nThe couple travelled from Belize on the Voyager ministerial jet.\n\nThe Caribbean tour comes four months after Barbados removed the Queen as head of state.\n\nOn day four, the royals received a warm official welcome to Jamaica in blustery conditions, and the duke took a salute from a guard of honour formed by the Jamaica Defence Force.\n\nThey later visited Trench Town, the Kingston neighbourhood where Marley grew up, and went to the Trench Town Culture Yard museum - which celebrates reggae music.\n\nThe duke and duchess played drums with some local musicians in the courtyard where the singer learned to perform.\n\nRaheem Sterling moved from Jamaica to England as a young boy\n\nThe duke and duchess also met the Jamaican bobsleigh team\n\nPrince William, who is president of the Football Association, also enjoyed a kickabout with some young footballers and Manchester City forward Sterling.\n\nSterling said he had been given special dispensation by England manager Gareth Southgate to travel ahead of the national team playing Switzerland in a friendly in London at the weekend.\n\nHe was there as part of his efforts to improve social mobility for young people through his Raheem Sterling Foundation, which works with partners in Jamaica, Manchester and London to give disadvantaged youths opportunities to break out of poverty.\n\nJamaica international Leon Bailey, who plays for the prince's beloved Aston Villa, was also present for the visit and chatted with fans.\n\nThe Cambridges also met the island's bobsleigh team, and talked about the film Cool Runnings which immortalised the 1988 Jamaican Winter Olympics team.\n\nThe duke said it was \"one of our favourites\".\n\nThe couple were the subject of a small protest, which called for reparations from the British monarchy for slavery.\n\nProtesters gathered at the British High Commission in Kingston with placards and accused the monarchy of benefitting from the \"blood, tears and sweat\" of slaves.\n\nLike in Barbados, there have been some calls in recent years for Jamaica to drop the Queen as the head of state and become a republic, as well as for a formal acknowledgement of slavery.\n\nThe duke is expected to address the issue of slavery during a speech at a dinner hosted by the Governor General of Jamaica.\n\nWow. Not for a long time have William and Kate had a reception like they did in Trench Town. This was an explosion of pleasure and joy in downtown Kingston.\n\nThe sun was still hot and high as the crowds built up, pressed against the wire fencing around a city centre football pitch, perched on walls and buildings overlooking the pitch.\n\nAs the sun sank and the shadows lengthened, with the sound of sirens - and then wild cheering - the couple were here.\n\nThe duke took to the football pitch: a pass to Raheem Sterling produced one goal; a rather wilder kick almost took out one of the travelling royal correspondents. The crowd cheered every time the duke got the ball.\n\nAnd then a walkabout down to the next engagement produced something close to hysteria - a throbbing circle of cheering admirers surrounded Kate and William and almost drove the couple down the road and into the Trench Town Culture Yard museum.\n\nThere are lots of important topics to discuss - Prince William will address slavery on Wednesday.\n\nBut whatever he says or the couple do next, Trench Town will remember their visit for a long time to come.", "The final preparation is done. The photographs of the chancellor getting ready have been released.\n\nIn one, life imitating political art at least, Rishi Sunak appears to be gazing at an interview and picture of himself - one of the previews of his big day.\n\nExpectation has been more muted than normal - given the horror of events in Ukraine - but the Spring Statement is still a significant event that matters for all of us.\n\nThe decisions he announces at the dispatch box will affect the prices we pay, the pound in our pocket.\n\nBefore the conflict, there was already a squeeze on everyone's wallet coming. Since the outbreak, day by day, the uncertainty around the economy, and the impact of what's unfolding, has only become more acute.\n\nAs the chancellor practised a final run through of the speech on Tuesday evening, with aides and pizza, his intention was not to reveal a massive financial package to meet this moment.\n\nIf the size of his dinner matches the scale of the spending, the opposition will be disappointed - he only had one slice.\n\nThe big decisions were, in the main, taken several weeks ago.\n\nDon't roll the drums for big financial drama at lunchtime. Despite lots of chatter about increasing defence spending, for example, I'm told there wasn't actually a formal request from the Ministry of Defence for any extra funding.\n\nAlthough every day brings new calls for more help with rocketing energy bills, the Treasury has been reluctant to move from the extra support they promised already, which was only announced last month.\n\nThat's in part because the Treasury is instinctively cautious with cash. But also because price rises are so hard to predict and may go on for many, many months.\n\nThe caution will also come because it is a matter of political choice.\n\nFor Mr Sunak, Wednesday's speech is also a continuation of a path he set out in the autumn Budget.\n\nHe talked then, in what was an echo of Margaret Thatcher, about the limitations of government, saying: \"There's a reason we talk about the importance of family, community, and personal responsibility.\n\n\"Not because these are an alternative to the market or the state… it's because they are more important than the market or the state.\n\n\"The moments that make life worth living aren't created by government, aren't announced by government, aren't granted by government.\"\n\nIt was a message to his party that despite presiding over months of mammoth spending during the pandemic, he was reluctant to splurge.\n\nIt was a message to his next door neighbour too, that No 11 wouldn't release the purse strings to pay for all of No 10's political desires.\n\nAnd it was a message to the country that the government's money man was serious about trying to get the books under control.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The headlines of Rishi Sunak's Budget last October\n\nThere was a contradiction then, in October, because the man who was standing at the despatch box arguing the case for small government was a tax raising, billions spending, big borrowing chancellor.\n\nHis justification for his temporary political personality transplant was, of course, the pandemic, an emergency that called for it.\n\nHe wanted to draw a line under that period, and call the end of that economic emergency.\n\nBut even before the war in Ukraine, many families and firms faced different financial emergencies of their own. And that situation seems only likely to get worse.\n\nOf course, the details of the statement in black and white will be what matters on Wednesday lunchtime, more important than any of the warm up in advance.\n\nEvery chancellor likes to keep something under wraps, and there could of course yet be a big surprise.\n\nYet there's a risk that Rishi Sunak could be accused of creating another contradiction - a chancellor that is at pains to say he wants to help with the cost of living however he can, but won't act boldly enough to help people when it really hurts.\n\nYou'll be able to follow everything that's announced and what it means for you on the BBC News channel, website and our Twitter feed @BBCPolitics.", "The cost of living continued to soar last month, according to official figures.\n\nPrices rose by 6.2% in the 12 months to February - the fastest for 30 years - as fuel, energy and food costs surged.\n\nPrices are rising faster than wages and the Bank of England thinks it could hit double digits this year.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Boris Johnson have been under pressure to do more to help struggling households.\n\nInflation is the rate at which prices rise. If a bottle of milk costs £1 and that rises by 5p, then milk inflation is 5%.\n\nSince December last year, prices have been rising at their fastest rate since the 1990s.\n\nInflation is expected to speed up in April when the energy price cap is increased.\n\nThis will push up the average household fuel bill up by £693 a year in England, Scotland and Wales, while a planned rise in National Insurance will also put pressure on household budgets.\n\n\"Rising inflation remains a significant concern for the economy, squeezing household incomes and increasing cost pressures on retailers,\" said Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium.\n\nPaul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said the pick up in inflation \"adds to the pressure on the chancellor to offset more of the cost of living crisis\".\n\nIn his Spring Statement, Mr Sunak said that the war in Ukraine had a \"significant impact\" on the cost of living in the UK.\n\nIn the statement he cut fuel duty by 5p per litre, raised the threshold for National Insurance to £12,570, and announced a cut to the basic rate of income tax to 19% from 20% in 2024.\n\nBut Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak's choices \"were making the cost of living crisis worse, not better\".\n\nShe said he should have put a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and scrapped the national insurance hike.\n\nThe Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gas prices were almost a third higher in February than a year earlier, and electricity prices were up by nearly a fifth.\n\nAverage diesel prices hit their highest on record during the month, while food prices rose nearly 1% - the largest monthly increase since 2012.\n\nONS chief economist Grant Fitzner said prices of other goods such as toys, clothing and furniture also climbed.\n\n\"The price of goods leaving UK factories has also been rising substantially and is now at its highest rate for 14 years,\" he added.\n\nWhat these figures lay bare is that the cost of living crunch is unavoidable.\n\nConsumers have already been facing the financial reality of more expensive food, fuel and energy - all of which are necessities for pretty much every household.\n\nNow the ONS has confirmed that price rises are more widespread.\n\nBuying your child a toy for their birthday is more expensive than it was a year ago.\n\nGetting a new sofa takes a bigger chunk of your disposable income.\n\nThe worry is that there is more of this to come, not least that analysts are predicting that a typical household energy bill will rise by £500 a year in October, on top of the annual £693 increase which takes effect at the start of April.\n\nAs pandemic restrictions have eased around the world, firms have faced higher energy, shipping and wage costs, which they have passed on to consumers.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine is now driving the price of oil and other commodities even higher.\n\nAverage petrol and diesel prices hit new record highs on Tuesday, according to the RAC, with petrol hitting 167.30p per litre and diesel hitting 179.72p.\n\nRAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said cheaper wholesale prices had yet to be passed on to consumers.\n\n\"The cost of filling an average 55-litre family car with petrol is now more than £92 and nearly £99 for diesel, making the £100 tank inevitable,\" he said.\n\nHow is the rising cost of living affecting you? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nStevie Hall has been batch-cooking to save money, and may have to borrow from her auntie Pauline\n\nStevie Hall in Halifax says rising food, fuel and energy bills have nudged her into debt already.\n\nShe told the BBC she had been batch cooking to save money and is only driving when there is a real need.\n\n\"We're just trying to get by, I'm trying to stay upbeat about it,\" she said.\n\nAndrew Selley is chief executive of Bidfood, one of the largest UK food wholesalers, which supplies more than 45,000 caterers and food firms.\n\nHe told the BBC's Today programme that food prices were rising fast. \"We're seeing much bigger increases on things like cooking oil, chicken, cheese, butter. Nothing exotic - these are standard food staples and we're seeing much bigger increases in those at the moment.\"\n\nMr Selley said that compared with last year the price of diesel was up by 40% and electricity by 250%, \"and those two things together make up over 10% of our total costs\".\n\nHe added that a cut in fuel duty would help: \"I mean, fuel is obviously a driver across the whole industry, both from getting [food] from the farmer to the manufacturer, from the manufacturers to ourselves and from ourselves to the customers, so any relief on fuel would help to mitigate some of those increases coming through.\"", "Firefighters tackled fires on mountains in the Mournes\n\nFirefighters have extinguished fires on the Mourne mountains in County Down.\n\nThe blaze had been described as \"significant\", with the fire front measuring about two miles (3km) long at midnight.\n\nCrews were first called to the area on Tuesday evening.\n\nBut the blaze posed no risk to life or property, so the situation was monitored overnight. The public was asked to avoid the area.\n\nIn an update at about 20:00 GMT on Wednesday, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said that fires at Spelga and the Hen and Cock mountains had been extinguished, and that crews had been withdrawn.\n\nIn an earlier update on Wednesday, the fire service said firefighters had responded to a number of wildfires, \"including two significant ones in the Mourne mountains\".\n\n\"At the height of both of these incidents, six appliances and over 30 personnel were in attendance at each incident,\" the NIFRS said.\n\n\"Our firefighters have not only worked really hard when responding to these incidents but have also continued to provide cover and respond to incidents across the wider Mournes area.\n\n\"These incidents do put an additional strain on our resources and therefore we are asking for the public to support us by not starting fires in the countryside.\"\n\nNIFRS said earlier that firefighters used \"beaters and knapsack sprayers\" to extinguish the blaze.\n\nBBC News NI south east reporter Cormac Campbell, at the scene, said the landscape was completely black.\n\nAfter monitoring the situation overnight, NIFRS group commander Mark Smyth said crews returned on Wednesday morning to assess the situation.\n\n\"At midnight there was an approximate size of the fire front of two miles long, so it's a fairly significant fire,\" Mr Smyth said.\n\n\"That's just the fire front itself. How deep it went into the mountain and down the side of it, we weren't sure last night due to not being able to get on to the mountain.\"\n\nMr Smyth said crews worked hard to limit the damage.\n\nThe fire front in the Mournes was approximately two miles long at midnight\n\nWhen asked why crews held off until the morning to tackle the fire, Mr Smyth said it was for the safety of firefighters.\n\nMr Smyth also described any deliberate harm to the environment and wildlife as \"vandalism\".\n\nThe cause of the blaze is still unknown.\n\nHowever, Mr Smyth said wildfires in Northern Ireland were rarely accidental.\n\n\"We will be concentrating on suppressing the fire if we can and getting it under control.\n\n\"And then after, as a multi-agency approach with Environment Agency and PSNI, we might consider an investigation into how it started.\"\n\nThe fires in the Mournes are the latest in a number of gorse fires this week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Belfast's Cave Hill was one of two sites in the city scorched by fires\n\nA fire in Belfast's Cave Hill broke out on Monday night.\n\nOthers were put out on nearby Black Mountain and in Rathfriland, County Down.\n\nMr Smyth says they caused significant damage to wildlife and the environment.\n\n\"A couple of our fires in the Belfast area this week, the reports came back from the crews that it was a deliberate fire,\" he said.\n\n\"Every fire is a deliberate fire, we have very few natural fires that happen in the wild in Northern Ireland.\"", "The remains of a shoe factory in Dnipro\n\nI'm writing this in a city where there is no shelling. No Russian missiles slam into homes and there's no air raid siren with a wail that churns your stomach and saps your energy.\n\nI wish Ukrainians could say the same. After a month reporting from their country, I have just left a nation under brutal attack and I have no idea when it will end.\n\nIt's not like I didn't know what Vladimir Putin was capable of. I reported on the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then the war in eastern Ukraine that was whipped up by Russia's proxies and propaganda.\n\nI also reported for many years from Russia itself, covering the murder and poisoning of opposition figures, wars in Chechnya and Georgia and horrors like the Beslan school siege, until I was expelled last summer as a \"security threat\".\n\nStill, I arrived in the capital Kyiv last month convinced that Russia's president would not launch all-out war on Ukraine. The very idea seemed ludicrous, irrational, disastrous - and everyone I spoke to in both countries agreed.\n\nBut on 24 February I was woken by the thud of an explosion that proved us all wrong.\n\nWhen the war began, Nika was so terrified that she sat at her piano and played crashing chords as loud as she could, yelling at the top of her voice. The 15-year-old couldn't stand the sound of the bombs.\n\nNika is from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, but we met in a small-town motel filled with families who had fled and were living in the dark, scared of being spotted by Russian fighter jets.\n\nWhen we arrived, the receptionist rushed us to the canteen urging us to eat quickly as the staff had to get home before curfew. Anyone out after nightfall risked getting shot.\n\nNika spent the first week of the war mainly in her aunt's cellar\n\n\"Don't turn on any lights and don't use too much hot water,\" she instructed. When we asked about the nearest bomb shelter, she signalled to somewhere behind the kitchen.\n\nNika had been there a couple of nights but was hardly sleeping. The teenager said her first thought each morning was: \"Thank God I'm alive.\"\n\nShe spoke in English, and the directness of her language was disarming.\n\n\"We were in panic because we had to hide as our life was in danger,\" Nika said, describing how she had spent the first week of the war in her aunt's cellar.\n\n\"It was cold and small. We didn't have lots of food. This was a very traumatising period,\" she said. \"Now I'm scared of every sound. If someone claps, I think I will cry. I start shaking.\"\n\nBy torchlight, the teenager scrolled through pictures on her phone of life before the war - smiling poses with friends, in the park, at her home.\n\n\"We just want to go back,\" she said. \"We want to know our families will be alive tomorrow. We want peace.\"\n\nKharkiv is just 40km from the Russian border. Most people there speak Russian as a first language, not Ukrainian, and have friends and relatives on the other side. That's presumably why Vladimir Putin thought his troops could roll into Kharkiv and take over - or into Mariupol, Sumy or Kherson. But he misjudged the mood.\n\nA sign in Dnipro with a direct and crude insult for Russia's Vladimir Putin\n\nThe war that Russia fomented in eastern Ukraine in 2014 had already transformed the country and forged a far stronger national identity, even among Russian speakers. But now that war has exploded into an open invasion, it has destroyed every shred of \"fraternal\" relations. It's killing the very people Vladimir Putin claims he is saving.\n\nSo as we crisscrossed a landscape now covered with checkpoints and trenches dug into wheat fields, we also saw dozens of giant billboards telling Russia, or Putin himself, to get lost.\n\nOther messages lining the roads addressed Russian soldiers directly: \"Think of your families,\" one said.\n\nFor much of the first three weeks of fighting, we were based 200km south of Kharkiv in Dnipro, a city that straddles the giant river which cuts Ukraine into east and west.\n\nDnipro was a haven of relative safety in the region as Russia attempted to bomb other cities into submission. But on 11 March we woke from a night of long air raid sirens to reports of a strike in the city centre.\n\nWe were soon standing beside the smouldering wreckage of a shoe factory where Russian missiles had killed a pensioner working as a security guard.\n\nThere was a sudden rush to leave Dnipro\n\nSweeping shattered glass from the stairway of her nearby apartment block, Natasha broke down describing the terrified screams of her son. \"What are they killing us with?\" she cried, her hands covering her face.\n\nA Russian-speaker, she demanded to know why Russia was doing this. \"We didn't ask to be saved.\"\n\nIt was a statement I heard over and over again.\n\nBy that point, people had already begun leaving Dnipro. The exodus began a day after the university in central Kharkiv was shelled. Suddenly noone felt safe, even away from the front lines.\n\nSo crowds piled onto evacuation trains. There were women screaming, pets getting squashed and men in tears which they tried to hide from their families. I heard one repeating to himself that everything would be ok as he laid a palm on the window of a train carrying his wife and child away from him, who knew for how long.\n\nLike all men, he had to stay and wait to be called up to fight.\n\nFleeing Kharkiv itself was harder, as we found out when I got a call about a little girl named Polina.\n\nThe three-year-old has cancer and her medicine was running out. The family needed to leave Kharkiv urgently, but the city was under heavy Russian fire and Polina's parents did not dare to step outside.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Three-year-old Polina's family is desperate to flee Kharkiv to help treat her cancer\n\nWhen I first spoke to her mother Kseniya, the little girl herself popped up on the video call. She had been playing in a bath filled with cushions because Kseniya hoped she would be safer there if the building were hit.\n\nThe shelling did not let up, so Polina's parents steeled themselves and made the dangerous dash across town to the train station. Days later, Kseniya sent me videos of the little girl bouncing happily on a trampoline in the garden of a host family in rural Poland.\n\nShe said she had burst into tears when they were met by volunteers at the border.\n\n\"After four days running, we suddenly stopped and I was so sad,\" Kseniya explained. \"I'm relieved my children are safe, but our whole life has been left in Kharkiv.\"\n\n\"Polina keeps asking where her daddy is and I don't know what to say.\"\n\nSoon we were heading for Kharkiv ourselves. Driving north, we passed a 6km queue of cars heading in the opposite direction. Many had hand-scribbled signs taped to the windscreens that read \"deti,\" or children in Russian, in the hope that might protect them.\n\nAt the checkpoints around Kharkiv itself we heard explosions and we soon saw the destruction.\n\nThe Kharkiv metro is now home to thousands of families hiding from Russia's bombardment\n\nBeside an apartment building with half its side blown away and the wreckage of a shopping arcade, a huddle of people were waiting in the melting snow for a bus out of town. There was no timetable, only a rumour.\n\nSvitlana, a fitness instructor, told me a missile had landed 50m from her flat the day before and she didn't want to risk her life a moment longer. \"We haven't slept for a week,\" she said, hugging a shivering miniature dog inside her coat. \"They're blowing up our houses.\" I could hear the thuds as we spoke.\n\nA short distance away, thousands of people had moved underground. There were families living on the stairs, platforms and carriages of a nearby metro station. Volunteers brought soup and bread, but young and old - including babies - spent their days curled on the floor beneath blankets.\n\nAlive, but in a dazed limbo since the war had brought all normal life to a halt.\n\nOn my flight home, I sat beside a couple who had fled Kyiv and were going to stay with their daughter in London. They had been forced to travel by road across Ukraine then Moldova and Romania and were exhausted.\n\nBut they were also angry. In Russian, their first language, the couple explained that their relatives in Russia refused to believe what happened to them.\n\nNikolai sent them pictures of Kyiv apartment blocks destroyed by Russian missiles, and of Mariupol under siege, its residents starved and murdered in their streets.\n\nBut his cousin told him the images were fake. He blamed the \"Nazi\" government in Kyiv. He said Ukrainians were bombing themselves.\n\nI know many brave Russians have been arrested for protesting against this war; others have fled the country.\n\nBut a few hours before my flight, I also saw a video of Vladimir Putin addressing a crowd packed into a Moscow stadium with Zs pinned to their chests, the sinister-looking symbol of his war.\n\nRussia's president hailed the troops he had sent to \"save\" Russian-speakers from \"genocide\".\n\nI thought of Nika, Natasha and Polina - of everything I'd witnessed since that first explosion had jolted me awake in Ukraine on 24 February - and I felt sick.", "Last updated on .From the section Tennis\n\nCracking open a beer on live television, shortly after ending Australia's long wait for a home singles champion, will - for many - have further cemented Ashleigh Barty's reputation as a national hero.\n\nThe 25-year-old, of course, had already long achieved that status through her tennis achievements.\n\nWinning her first Grand Slam at the 2019 French Open was backed up by success at Wimbledon last year.\n\nThen, on Saturday, to the ecstasy and relief of a nation, she became the first home player to win the Australian Open men's or women's singles title in 44 years.\n\nLater that night, while she was doing the rounds of post-victory interviews, there was further home success in Melbourne when Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis clinched the men's doubles title.\n\nIn a city which has endured one of the toughest lockdowns in the coronavirus pandemic, and for a tournament which was clouded in controversy at the start, it brought a welcome feel-good factor.\n\n\"As Aussies, we're exceptionally lucky to be a Grand Slam nation,\" said Barty.\n\n\"To get to experience playing at home is really special, and to be here as a champion of the tournament is really exciting.\"\n\nThe level-headed Barty is rarely overcome by emotion, either on court or during her media interviews. When she clinched victory on Rod Laver Arena with a cross-court winner, there was an uncharacteristic outburst when she screamed her delight.\n\n\"It was a little bit surreal,\" said the world number one.\n\n\"I think I didn't quite know what to do or what to feel, and I think just being able to let out a little bit of emotion, which is a little bit unusual for me.\n\n\"I think it just kind of all came out at once. It was a really, really special moment.\"\n\nBarty's triumph means she has won major titles on clay, grass and now hard courts. Serena Williams is the only other active female player to have achieved that feat.\n\nOn the men's side, only Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have done the same.\n\n\"I feel very humble to be in such a select group. I don't really feel like I belong with those champions of our sport,\" said Barty.\n\n\"I'm still very much learning and trying to refine my craft to get better and better.\n\n\"To have a Grand Slam title on each surface is pretty amazing. I never probably thought it would ever happen to me.\"\n\nAn estimated two million Australians were set to watch television coverage of Saturday's final, according to Channel Nine.\n\nThat's said to be a high figure in a country with a population of little over 25 million, and showed how desperate the nation was to watch history be made.\n\nInside Rod Laver Arena, there were 12,000 people watching. The noise and atmosphere made it feel like there were thousands more.\n\nIllustrious names from the Australia's rich sporting past including 11-time major singles champion Laver, 400m runner Cathy Freeman and swimmer Ian Thorpe watched from the comfy seats, as did internationally renowned celebrities such as Dannii Minogue and Russell Crowe.\n\nFlags, whether Australian, Aboriginal or green and gold, were waved in most sections of the stadium. Splashes of yellow were dotted around the arena from fans wearing Barty T-shirts, provided by a popular yeast extract brand.\n\nWhile people either love or hate that stuff, there was nothing but overwhelming affection for the player.\n\n\"She's a sweet and loved girl across Australia. Her relaxed personality makes her hugely popular - nobody doesn't like her,\" said Pat Cash, the Australian who famously won Wimbledon in 1987.\n\n\"Even people who don't like tennis, say: 'Oh Ash? Yeah, she's cool.'\n\n\"She's a wholesome character who everyone thinks is their mate.\"\n\n\"Getting an Australian sportswoman to win the Open is massive for us,\" said Amy Creasey, a Melburnian sports fan.\n\n\"She's so down to earth. She's a real Aussie. That's great to see.\"\n\nAnother of the group, Susie Hadgkiss, added: \"She's open, inviting, fun, carefree. If you met her, she'd talk to you like a normal person.\"\n\nUnsurprisingly, considering her success and standing, Barty has been the poster girl of the Australian Open.\n\nAdvertisements around Melbourne Park are plastered with the Queenslander's face, so too is a 20ft billboard in the shadow of the famous Flinders Street station, and a big screen in the city's main shopping area.\n\nBarty has struggled to get over the line at the Australian Open in recent years, most notably in the 2020 semi-finals, but her Wimbledon success perhaps helped her overcome the expectation.\n\n\"The more you play under pressure the better you get,\" Cash, a beaten Australian Open finalist in 1987 and 1988, told BBC Sport.\n\n\"Of course, there is a lot of expectation. When you're playing at home people expect great things and you're on the front page every time you win.\n\n\"It's not easy but you find ways around it to manage it.\"\n\nReflecting on his appearances in Melbourne, Cash said being able to stay in his family home had enabled him to switch off from any scrutiny.\n\n\"Ash does that very well,\" he said. She's very easy going and happy to stay in her room. She doesn't listen to too much talk and just hangs with her team.\n\n\"She just rolls with it. It's water off a duck's back.\n\n\"She loves to go out and challenge herself but it's not the end of the world: it's a tennis match.\"\n\nOnce Barty had sealed victory there was a surprise for her, when her mentor Evonne Goolagong Cawley came out to present her with the Australian Open trophy.\n\nLike Barty, four-time champion Goolagong Cawley is from an indigenous background and she has often spoken of her pride at her heritage.\n\nA recent report by The Age newspaper highlighted how the number of Australian kids playing tennis had climbed by nearly 30% in the past year. Many of them are from indigenous communities and many are girls.\n\n\"I'm really proud that I can be a small part of getting more kids into sport and chasing their dreams,\" Barty told BBC Sport.\n\n\"From an indigenous standpoint, the work Evonne has done, she's created this pathway and this guide for so many kids to try different things and try different things they thought wouldn't have the opportunity to do.\n\n\"Being a small part of that is amazing.\"\n• None Alerts: Get tennis news sent to your phone\n• None What are the biggest rumours as deadline day approaches?\n• None Want to book holiday this year? Here are some do's and don'ts of booking your trip abroad", "Gavin Hamilton was among the crew brought in to replace sacked P&O Ferry staff\n\nAgency seafarers who were unwittingly hired to replace sacked P&O staff at Cairnryan turned and left when they realised what the job entailed.\n\nGavin Hamilton, from Paisley, and Mark Canet-Baldwin, from Lincolnshire, said they were given no information about the vessel they would be working on.\n\nThe two only realised it was a P&O vessel when their coach pulled up at the dock.\n\nThey were accompanied by a dozen security guards with handcuffs.\n\nP&O Ferries staff are now staging protests after the firm sacked 800 employees across the UK without giving them any notice.\n\n\"It was news to us,\" said Gavin. \"We were told the crew on board wouldn't lose their jobs, they were going to be offered contracts.\n\n\"We later discovered through the news that wasn't going to be the case and this wasn't exactly the friendly handover we were told it was going to be.\"\n\nGavin told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme an agency offered him a job on Saturday for an \"entirely new vessel\". He had recently worked with P&O Ferries, but said he had requested work elsewhere for the time being.\n\nThe firm put him up in a hotel on Monday and on Thursday he and other workers were sent by coach to an undisclosed location.\n\n\"I didn't know I was being sent back to the exact same boat from three weeks before,\" he said. \"I knew a lot of people on board that were going to be losing their jobs and that just didn't sit right with me.\n\n\"When we realised the RMT were involved and this was a big union dispute, we didn't want to be part of that. To us, boarding that ship was like crossing a picket line.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMark, who is originally from Australia, was hired by Clyde Marine Recruitment to take over the running of P&O's European Highlander - which normally sails from Cairnryan, in Dumfries and Galloway, to Larne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.\n\nSimilarly, he was given no information about the vessel or its location - just that it was a \"good opportunity, with the possibility of future full-time work\".\n\nHe was also on the coach which stopped to pick up a security detail of a dozen guards - who were dressed in black, equipped with handcuffs.\n\nThe crew were accompanied to Cairnryan dock by a security detail\n\nAfter arriving at the dock, the crew were asked to wait for around six hours - again with no information. Because Gavin knew the P&O workers as former colleagues, they heard what was unfolding on board by text message.\n\n\"It was appalling, they were just devastated.\" said Mark. \"They had literally come in to basically get off the ship and were informed there was no job, they were all fired and compensation would be talked about at another time. It was just horrible.\n\n\"There was just a general feeling of uneasiness on the bus,\" Mark said. \"We felt like we were traitors to the cause or something. We knew what we were doing - we were taking those people's jobs.\n\n\"We were parked where the people on the ship could see us and we could see them. I just made the decision that I've got to look at this man in the mirror tomorrow. I took off the PPE gear and I got off the bus.\n\n\"I've got kids and I started thinking about them - in this day and age you've got to have morals and principles. My kids are proud of me and that's the main thing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. P&O Ferries workers were told via video that it \"was their final day of employment\"\n\nEconomy Minister Gordon Lyons said it would be another week before P&O ships can operate from Larne Port.\n\nStaff were told in a video call that Thursday was their \"final day of employment\", but some refused to leave their ships in protest and were removed by security guards.\n\nP&O said it was a \"tough\" decision but it would \"not be a viable business\" without the changes.\n\nThe government said it would review its contracts with P&O Ferries, with unions calling it a \"dark day\" in the shipping industry.\n\nDiscussing the decision to lay-off 800 workers, P&O Ferries said: \"We have made a £100m loss year-on-year, which has been covered by our parent DP World. This is not sustainable.\n\n\"Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.\"", "Protests have been held in east London over the student's treatment\n\nThe head teacher of the school where a black pupil was strip-searched should resign, Hackney's mayor says.\n\nA safeguarding report found the search of the girl, 15, known as Child Q, in east London, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nChild Q is suing the Met Police and her school in Hackney over the incident.\n\nPhilip Glanville said it was clear that \"school leadership has lost the confidence of the school, myself and the community\".\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio London, Hackney's mayor said removing the head teacher could be \"part of a process\" to bring about change.\n\n\"I do think individuals and institutions have the power to heal, to listen, to change, to move on,\" he added.\n\nIn a tweet Hackney's mayor said: \"[We] ask that the head teacher should stand down and allow that school and its community the new start it needs to heal from this traumatic experience and by doing so also fully recognise the traumatic impact on Child Q and her family.\"\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: \"When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will\"\n\nNo other adult was present, her parents were not contacted and no drugs were found.\n\nHer intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review.\n\nScotland Yard has admitted the officers' actions were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nOn Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government is taking this matter \"extremely seriously\".\n\nHe added the government would wait for the outcome of an Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation before announcing any changes to police training around strip searches.\n\nThe IOPC said a report on the incident is being \"finalised\".\n\nThe incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, near the site of Child Q's school.\n\nThe school has not responded to repeated requests for comment.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.\n\nIt's two years since the first lockdown was introduced in the UK. In Scotland there were 83 confirmed cases of coronavirus and two years on we're recording thousands of infections across the UK on a daily basis. There's a UK-wide day of remembrance organised by charity Marie Curie, which sees Northern Ireland among those marking the lockdown anniversary. Meanwhile, in Wales we've focused on one village's pandemic recovery.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Doctor remembers casualties two years on from pandemic\n\nScrapping face masks outdoors and easing compulsory vaccinations are some of the key changes set to be introduced in New Zealand as it looks to significantly relax its Covid restrictions. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is calling it a \"new beginning for the country\", which had some of the world's toughest rules.\n\nNew cases of Covid have fallen to the lowest levels in nearly two year in India. But there's a global surge of infections, and a controversial modelling study has predicted a fourth wave in the country. Many epidemiologists are sceptical about it, and are in fact cautiously optimistic. So, should India be bracing itself for a fourth wave? Find out here.\n\nFace coverings in communal areas and when moving around secondary schools in Scotland will need to be worn after the Easter holidays. The rules will remain in place amid a rising number of cases which have resulted in high levels of staff absences. So far six schools have closed and moved to remote learning. Read more here.\n\nFor the two year anniversary since lockdown was first introduced in the UK we've spoken to residents in aptly named Corona Road in London. They reflected on that period and told us how they coped when their lives changed. Watch what they had to say.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nHere's a guide to how testing for Covid will be changing across the UK.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Laura Kuenssberg, Faisal Islam and Simon Jack react to the headlines from the chancellor's update on the UK economy.\n\nThe BBC’s political editor explained the significance of a National Insurance rise and pledges for future tax cuts in Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement.\n\nWhile our economics editor examined the effect of rising inflation and the effect on pay packets, and the BBC business editor looked at growth level cuts alongside rising corporation tax.\n\nThey were speaking to Politics Live presenter Jo Coburn.", "The chancellor has announced a 5p a litre cut to fuel duty as motorists struggle with record fuel prices.\n\nRishi Sunak said the move, which kicked in at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday and will last until next March, was \"the biggest cut to all fuel duty rates ever\".\n\nHowever, motoring company the RAC said the 5p cut only took prices \"back to where they were just over a week ago\".\n\nIt said the reduction would take £3.30 off the cost of filling a typical 55-litre family car.\n\nMotorists have been hit by record pump prices since Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to an increase in the cost of oil because of supply fears.\n\nAverage pump prices hit new records on Tuesday, with petrol topping £1.67 a litre and diesel close to hitting £1.80 for the first time, the RAC said.\n\nThat left the cost of filling an average family car with petrol at more than £92 and nearly £99 for diesel.\n\nFuel duty - a government tax which makes up part of the price when you buy petrol or diesel - is currently 58p per litre and has been for 11 years.\n\nThe Treasury said the fuel duty cut - the first is more than a decade - would cost it £2.4bn and means a one-car family will save £100 on average over the next 12 months.\n\nThe average van driver will save £200, it said, while hauliers will save £1,500.\n\nBut RAC head of policy Nicholas Lyes said the cut was \"a drop in the ocean\" given the recent huge rise in fuel costs, which have not fallen despite crude oil coming off its record highs of earlier in March.\n\nHe also warned there was a \"very real risk retailers could just absorb some or all of the duty cut themselves by not lowering their prices\".\n\n\"If this proves to be the case it will be dire for drivers,\" Mr Lyes said. \"It also wouldn't be totally unexpected based on the biggest retailers not reducing their prices late last year when the oil price fell sharply.\"\n\nThe RAC added although fuel duty had been cut to 53 per litre, it could take time to be reflected in pump prices due to it being charged on wholesale purchases by retailers, who are yet to buy new fuel at the lower rate.\n\nIn response to Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement, supermarket chains Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys cut pump prices by 6p a litre, including a 1p reduction in VAT, but smaller independent fuel retailers have said they have to wait until current levels are depleted, before they can benefit from the tax relief in their next orders.\n\nThe average price of a litre of petrol has risen by more than 40p since last year's Spring Statement, which means the government is getting an extra 7p per litre in VAT, which is the other tax the government imposes on fuel.\n\nDiesel prices are up by nearly 50p a litre, almost 9p of which is VAT.\n\nThe fuel duty cut will be welcomed by many drivers, particularly those with large vehicle or who drive long distances - but it also runs counter to environmental goals.\n\nThe website Carbon Brief calculated that the decision in 2010 to freeze fuel duty had led to an increase in emissions of up to 5%.\n\nThe Treasury said it had acted to cut fuel duty now because: \"Unique circumstances globally, including the war in Ukraine, have pushed pump prices up to unprecedented levels.\"\n\nAA president Edmund King said he was concerned that the benefit would be lost unless retailers passed it on. \"Since the start of the year, the 20p-a-litre surge in pump prices has been the shock that rocked the finances of families.\"\n\nHe said there had been a substantial reduction in wholesale fuel costs since 9 March.\n\n\"That needs to drive lower pump prices also,\" he added. \"The road fuel trade shouldn't leave the Treasury to do the heavy lifting when cutting motoring costs.\"\n\nFuel prices, which were already rising as global economies recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, surged after the war in Ukraine pushed up global oil prices.\n\nChanges in prices at the pump are mainly determined by crude oil prices and the dollar exchange rate, because crude oil is traded in dollars.\n\nRussia is one of the world's major oil exporters and it is being targeted by economic and trading sanctions.\n\nAfter Brent crude oil - a global benchmark for prices - hit a near 14-year high of $139 a barrel during the early stages of the conflict, prices fell back to around $100, but have since risen again and were trading at about $120 a barrel on Wednesday.", "The UK had hoped for a free trade deal with the US\n\nThe US has agreed to ease Trump-era tariffs on UK steel and aluminium shipments, resolving an issue that had strained relations between the allies.\n\nThe move follows earlier deals with the European Union and Japan over the controversial taxes, which were imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 in the name of national security.\n\nIn exchange, the UK will suspend extra taxes it had put on US products such as bourbon and Levi's jeans.\n\nUnder the agreement, the US will replace the 25% tariffs on steel with a quota system.\n\nThe policy will let UK metal imports into the country duty-free up to a certain level - the quota - before taxes kick in again.\n\nThe deal will come into effect on 1 June.\n\nInternational Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the deal had removed a \"very frustrating irritant\", calling the agreement \"good news for the steel and aluminium sectors, which support the jobs of over 80,000 people across the UK\".\n\n\"It means our manufacturers can now enjoy a high level of tariff-free access to the US market once again,\" she said.\n\n\"Hopefully we can now move forward and focus on deepening our thriving trading relationship with the US.\"\n\nUS officials also welcomed the suspension of the UK retaliatory tariffs, which they said affected about $500m (£377m) worth in annual trade.\n\n\"The historical deal announced today delivers on President Biden's vision to repair relationships with our allies while also helping to ensure the long-term viability of our steel and aluminium industries,\" said Ambassador Katherine Tai.\n\nHowever, in an interview with the BBC, Ms Tai, the top US trade negotiator, refused to be drawn as to when or if discussions for a formal free trade agreement might start.\n\n\"I think the issue is what kind of collaboration is going to be fit for the purpose of addressing the challenges that we have today,\" she said. \"I'm not going to exclude any options.\"\n\nThe Biden administration has prioritised domestic goals ahead of trade, said economist Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.\n\nWhile that could change as the US seeks stronger relations with allies in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said there's no evidence of that happening yet.\n\n\"The US administration has not made any signs that they want to do trade agreements with anybody anytime soon,\" he said. \"That would be a big change.\"\n\nThe Biden administration's low prioritisation of trade matters marks a major shift from former president Donald Trump, who made it a signature area of focus, using tariffs as bargaining chips in diplomacy.\n\nHe set off a firestorm of criticism in the US and abroad when he announced the 25% tax on foreign steel shipments and 15% tax on foreign aluminium, citing a need to preserve America's manufacturing base and rejecting concerns that tariffs raise prices.\n\nAfter allies, including the UK, hit US products such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles in retaliation, Mr Trump backed off the duties for certain countries, including Canada, opting for quotas instead.\n\nUS President Joe Biden later reached similar deals with the European Union and Japan.\n\nThe approach has won praise in the US, including from groups like United Steel Workers for responding to the concerns of allies while still providing protection for US manufacturers.\n\nWith many steel plants located in key election states, maintaining support from those workers is important for Mr Biden.\n\nOn Tuesday the union praised the new deal for measures it said would help safeguard against unfairly subsidised steel production, such as mandatory annual audits of British Steel, which has a Chinese parent company.\n\nBusiness lobby UK Steel also praised the deal, saying it would be \"felt by steel companies and their employees right across the UK and is immensely welcome\".\n\nBut with the quotas in place, consumers are unlikely to see benefits like lower prices, said Phil Levy, economist for Flexport.\n\n\"Replacing tariffs with a system of quotas is actually moving away from transparency on these things and it does not get you the benefits of free trade,\" he said.\n\nAmerican spirits exporters toasted the deal, which should make their bourbon whiskeys cheaper for UK shoppers. \"Distillers throughout the United States are cheering the end of this long tariff nightmare,\" Distilled Spirits Council President Chris Swonger said.\n\nThe US and UK traded more than $260bn worth of goods last year, of which the majority were exports from the US such as metals, aircraft parts, oil and gas.\n\nWhile America accounts for nearly one fifth of total UK trade, the UK market represents just 5% of US exports.\n\nMr Bown said the US imports too little British steel for a deal to have significant impact on prices. For UK consumers of American products, the impact on prices is also likely to be marginal, he said.\n\n\"It can't hurt the consumer, so it will make them better off, but by how much is I think unclear,\" he said.\n\nWith America buying £1 in every £6 of British exports, the cooling of tensions over steel has raised hopes of a reheating of the wider transatlantic trade relationship.\n\nLevi's jeans, Harley Davidson motorbikes, steel bars and bourbon whiskey became unlikely weapons in a painful battle that has waged since 2018, with their producers and consumers paying a hefty price. For them this ceasefire will be welcome, if overdue.\n\nAt the heart of the dispute was the protection of American jobs. And if - and it's by no means certain - these developments are the first step towards the resumption of wider free-trade talks, that theme will continue to loom large, even if the man in the White House has changed.\n\nThe Biden administration struck a deal with the EU over steel almost five months ago. There's been speculations that the UK was made to wait due to unease over the way Boris Johnson's government has handled post-Brexit trading arrangements in Ireland.\n\nThe UK is keen to demonstrate its Brexit-era agility by notching up more trade agreements - but the US will be keen to continue showing it's calling the shots .", "Mr Chubais was made a special representative to Mr Putin in December 2020\n\nAnatoly Chubais has stepped down from his role as an international envoy for President Vladimir Putin, the most senior official to resign since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nRussian reports said he was currently in Turkey with his wife.\n\nMr Chubais was given the job of coordinating Russia's sustainable development goals internationally.\n\nAfter the war began he posted a picture of a murdered opposition figure, in what was seen as a critical gesture.\n\nThere was no comment to accompany his Facebook photo of Boris Nemtsov, on the anniversary of his killing in view of the Kremlin. He has also made no comment yet on his resignation.\n\nA source told the Tass news agency that he had left Russia as well as resigning as a special representative to President Putin.\n\n\"Yes, Chubais has resigned of his own will. But whether he has left [Russia] or stayed, that's his personal affair,\" said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.\n\nOther than Mr Peskov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, few members of the president's circle have appeared in public in recent weeks.\n\nUkrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Wednesday that it was interesting that the two top security figures, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, were \"nowhere to be seen\", along with the heads of Russia's secret services.\n\nChubais was not seen as a Kremlin insider, despite having the post of special representative for ties with international organisations.\n\nHe is best known for his controversial role in helping to reform Russia's economy in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. The raft of privatisations under President Boris Yeltsin helped create a large number of very wealthy oligarchs.\n\nOpposition figures were unimpressed by Mr Chubais's resignation. Jailed leader Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, cast doubt on claims that it was an anti-war protest, rather than \"out of fear for his own skin and his own money\".\n\nRussia has clamped down on criticism of the invasion, which began on 24 February, requiring state-run media to describe it as a \"special military operation\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSeveral state TV journalists have resigned, including Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a poster saying \"Stop the War!\" during a prime-time news broadcast, telling Russians they were being lied to.\n\nA new law bans the dissemination of \"false news\" about the war and political journalist Alexander Nevzorov became the most prominent figure yet to be prosecuted, after he posted details on social media about Russia's deadly attack on a maternity hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.", "Among the foreign fighters heading to Ukraine to fight against Russia are dissidents from Belarus living in exile.\n\nThey see the war as a battle both against Vladimir Putin’s forces but also against the regime of the Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko, which has heavily backed Moscow.\n\nThe BBC met Pavel Kulazhanka, who left his life in New York to join the fight.", "Anne Frank's diary, written in hiding from the Nazis, is widely read more than 70 years after her death\n\nA book that claimed to have solved the question of who betrayed Anne Frank has been recalled by its Dutch publisher after its findings were discredited.\n\nThe book's investigating team suggested a Jewish man called Arnold van den Bergh was responsible for her and her family's arrests during World War Two.\n\nBut since it was published in January, the work has been widely criticised.\n\nNow a new report by a team of World War Two experts and historians has said its research does not stand up to scrutiny.\n\nAnne Frank was a Jewish girl who wrote a diary about her two years in hiding before she died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945.\n\nThe book - called The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation - said Jewish notary Van den Bergh had probably given up the Franks' hiding location to save his own family.\n\nIts investigating team, led by a retired FBI investigator, spent six years to try to crack the cold case.\n\nBut the book, by Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan, prompted a backlash from Jewish groups and historians. The European Jewish Congress urged publisher HarperCollins to pull its English language edition, saying it had tarnished Anne Frank's memory and the dignity of Holocaust survivors.\n\nThe new report into the book contradicted its findings, calling its work \"amateurish\".\n\n\"There is not any serious evidence for this grave accusation,\" the experts found.\n\nIn response, Dutch publishing house Ambo Anthos said the book would no longer be available and asked bookshops to return their stocks.\n\nThe publisher offered its \"sincere apologies\" to those offended by the book's content, while the granddaughter of Van den Bergh has called on HarperCollins to drop the English-language edition.\n\n\"With this story, you are exploiting the story of Anne Frank, you are falsifying history and you are contributing to great injustice,\" she said.\n\nThe BBC has contacted HarperCollins for comment.\n\nThe book's investigating team has previously stood by their research, saying they never claimed to have uncovered the complete truth.\n\n\"Our theory is a theory and nothing more,\" chief investigator Pieter van Twisk told Dutch news agency ANP.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "The UK is facing its biggest drop in living standards on record as wages fail to keep pace with rising prices.\n\nSoaring energy prices could push inflation to a 40-year high of 8.7% in the final three months of 2022, the government forecaster said.\n\nRising prices and tax hikes mean living standards will not recover to their pre-pandemic level until 2024-25, the Office for Budget Responsibility said.\n\nThe chancellor said government would \"stand by\" people hit by higher prices.\n\nLiving standards - disposable household incomes when adjusted for inflation - are expected to drop by 2.2% this year, the OBR said.\n\nThat would be their largest fall in a financial year since records began in 1956.\n\nIn the Spring Statement, Rishi Sunak said a 5p a litre fuel duty cut would take effect at 18:00 GMT, and he raised the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance from £9,600 to £12,570.\n\nBut the OBR, which publishes its economic forecasts twice a year, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine had \"major repercussions for the global economy, whose recovery from the worst of the pandemic was already being buffeted by Omicron, supply bottlenecks, and rising inflation\".\n\nThe jump in oil and gas prices brought about by the conflict would \"weigh heavily on a UK economy that has only just recovered its pre-pandemic level\", it added.\n\nPetrol prices had already risen by 20% since the OBR's previous forecast, and household energy bills are set to increase by 54% in April.\n\nIf wholesale energy prices remained as high as expected, then energy bills would rise by another 40% in October to take the bill for a typical household to £2,801 a year.\n\nThe energy regulator Ofgem has already said bills will increase 54% to £1,971 for a typical household from April.\n\nWith prices rising at such a rapid rate, wages would not keep up and and people would spend less, according to the OBR.\n\nAs a result, it has dramatically slashed its growth forecast.\n\nIn October prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine it expected the UK economy to grow 6% this year. Now it expects growth of just 3.8% this year.\n\nThe chancellor promised to \"stand by\" families - but some of those families may feel more like he's put his arms around them - only to pick their pockets.\n\nMuch of their increased burden isn't the government's fault, reflecting global energy and food costs and supply issues. Come April the average household has to find nearly £1000 extra per year - just to afford the same stuff they did a year ago.\n\nAnd that's without counting the National Insurance increases, which are still going ahead.\n\nIn total, the extra government help announced since October, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility will only compensate for a third of the prospective blow to living standards in the next 12 months.\n\nAnd it's not just household's fortunes that are at stake but the entire recovery - upon which the chancellor has pinned his hopes of rebuilding the public purse.\n\nThe following year will also see slower growth than the OBR predicted five months ago. In 2023, the UK is expected to grow 1.8%, down from 2.1%.\n\nHowever, from 2024 growth is expected to accelerate faster than expected, rising 2.1% that year and 1.8% in 2025, up from 1.6% and 1.3% respectively.\n\nGDP or Gross Domestic Product is one of the most important ways of showing how well, or badly, an economy is doing.\n\nIt's a measure - or an attempt to measure - all the activity of companies, governments and individuals in an economy.\n\nStevie Hall in Halifax says rising food, fuel and energy bills have nudged her into debt already.\n\nShe told the BBC she had been batch cooking to save money and is only driving when there is a real need.\n\n\"We're just trying to get by, I'm trying to stay upbeat about it,\" she said.\n\nGDP allows businesses to judge when to expand and hire more people, and for government to work out how much to tax and spend.\n\nThe OBR said the cut in living standards would have been worse without government support for households, including today's temporary 5p cut in fuel duty; the increase in the National Insurance contributions threshold; and a £9bn energy bill rebate scheme announced in February.\n\n\"Taking account of both energy and non-energy pressures on household incomes, the policy measures announced since October offset a third of the overall fall in living standards that would otherwise have occurred in the coming 12 months,\" it said in its report.\n\nBut Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson said: \"Perhaps what really stands out today is what was missing.\n\n\"In the face of what the OBR calls the biggest hit to household finances since comparable records began in 1956-57, [Mr Sunak] has done nothing more for those dependent on benefits, the very poorest, besides a small amount of extra cash for local authorities to dispense at their discretion.\n\n\"Their benefits will rise by just 3.1% for the coming financial year. Their cost of living could well rise by 10%.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says it looks to him as if P&O Ferries has \"broken the law\"\n\nDoubts have been cast on a claim by Boris Johnson that the sudden sacking of 800 workers by P&O Ferries may have broken UK employment law.\n\nThe prime minister told the Commons the firm could face fines \"running into millions of pounds\" if found guilty.\n\nBut employment lawyers told the BBC Mr Johnson had misunderstood the law and P&O had not broken the rules.\n\nIt came as the boss of the ferry firm apologised for the mass sacking, saying he understood the \"anger and shock\".\n\nThe sackings - along with claims that workers paid as little as £1.81 an hour will replace the fired staff - have sparked outrage.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"Under section 194 of the trades union and labour relations act of 1992, it looks to me as though the company concerned has broken the law.\n\n\"And we will be taking action therefore, and we will be encouraging workers themselves to take action under the 1996 employment rights act.\"\n\nAccording to Section 194 of the act, firms are meant to notify the Secretary of State before they sack 100 people or more.\n\nHowever, Tim Tyndall, employment partner at Keystone Law, told the BBC the law had changed in 2018 due to the implementation of an EU directive. Chris Grayling was the Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019 when the change was made.\n\nFirms no longer need to inform the UK government about mass dismissals but instead must tell the governments of the countries where boats are registered, he said.\n\nEight P&O Ferries ships are registered overseas in countries including Cyprus and The Bahamas.\n\n\"The obligation to notify the government of P&O actions has not been breached as the competent authority for these foreign registered ships is the government of where they are registered,\" Mr Tyndall said.\n\n\"It would appear the government did not understand its own legislation when writing in the terms that it did to P&O.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Transport said: \"The requirement to inform the flagged authorities of workforce changes was introduced in 2018 in order to implement a directive from the European Union.\n\n\"The government is strongly committed to protecting UK seafarers and those who work in UK waters continue to be protected by National Minimum Wage laws despite the 2018 legal change.\"\n\nSeparately, Nautilus International, the trade union for maritime professionals, has accused P&O Ferries of breaking UK law because it did not notify the relevant flag states of its decision to sack workers.\n\nIt said under UK Law, P&O Ferries was \"obliged to provide 45 days' notice to the Cypriot authorities, and 30 days' notice to the Bahamian and Bermudan authorities\".\n\n\"We believe the government must penalise P&O Ferries for their omission,\" said general secretary Mark Dickinson.\n\nThe BBC has approached P&O for comment following the union's claim.\n\nOn Wednesday, P&O boss Mr Hebblethwaite said he understood people's anger.\n\n\"I want to say sorry to the people affected and their families for the impact it's had on them, and also to the 2,200 people who still work for P&O and will have been asked a lot of difficult questions about this,\" he said.\n\n\"Over the last week, I've been speaking face-to-face to seafarers and their partners. They've lost their jobs and there is anger and shock and I completely understand.\"\n\nHe added that the sackings were necessary to keep the loss-making firm afloat.\n\n\"This was an incredibly difficult decision that we wrestled with but once we knew it was the only way to save the business, we had to act,\" Mr Hebblethwaite said.\n\n\"I wish there was another way and I'm sorry.\"\n\nIt comes after reports that Indian agency workers paid as little as £1.81 an hour have already replaced sacked P&O workers at the Port of Dover.\n\nLast week, P&O said the figure was inaccurate but said it could not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the government should immediately cancel a £50m freeports contract awarded to P&O's owner, DP World.\n\nMinisters have said such contracts are under review.\n\n\"DP World must be quaking in their boots,\" the Labour leader said. \"The prime minister says how disappointed he is in them whilst handing them £50m.\"", "Protests against the sackings have been held at ports around the UK\n\nP&O Ferries has said 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe firm has also denied that it broke the law when it sacked the workers without warning last week.\n\nHowever, unions said the compensation package being offered was \"pure blackmail and threats\".\n\nMinisters had questioned whether the move was legal - but P&O said those affected were employed outside the UK.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nThe video message in which the company sacked workers last Thursday prompted widespread outrage, with unions claiming some staff would be replaced by Indian seafarers on £1.81 an hour.\n\nMinisters had threatened the firm with \"unlimited fines\" but in a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, its chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite said the 786 sacked workers were employed by three Jersey-based arms of P&O Ferries.\n\nThe eight ships they worked on, which service routes including Dover-Calais and Larne-Ciarnryan, are all registered in Cyprus, the Bahamas or Bermuda.\n\nSacked staff had told the BBC about their experience of being \"treated like criminals\" - but in the letter Mr Hebblethwaite denied \"rumours\" that security staff who boarded vessels to manage the situation wore balaclavas or were directed to use handcuffs or force.\n\n\"The teams accompanying the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task,\" he said.\n\nThe company said its settlement with its workers is believed to be \"the largest compensation package in the British marine sector,\" and more than 40 staff would get severance packages of more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe transport and freight company said 575 seafarers affected were in discussions to progress with the severance offers.\n\nHowever, the RMT union, which has been organising protests over the redundancies said \"the pay in lieu of notice is not compensation\".\n\n\"If staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them,\" general secretary Mick Lynch said.\n\nP&O Ferries had until Tuesday at 17:00 to respond to the letter from Mr Kwarteng - in which he said that P&O Ferries \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, by not consulting with unions and notifying the government in time.\n\nMr Kwarteng pointed out that failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nSeparately, Business Minister Paul Scully said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O ferries and its owner DP World, including a £25 million subsidy to DP World to help develop London Gateway as a freeport.", "On the day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Svetlana found it hard to believe that what she was watching on the news was really happening.\n\nThings were calm in her home town, Bila Tserkva, a historic city on a winding river 80km (50 miles) south of Kyiv.\n\nSvetlana and her husband dragged their mattresses into the corridor of their apartment building and huddled there with their three children. The noise of the sirens was constant and they didn't sleep for days.\n\nThousands of miles away in Australia, Emma Micallif was frantically messaging. The two women are intimately connected because Svetlana is pregnant with Emma's second child. As rockets fell on Bila Tserkva Emma felt angry and helpless.\n\nFor six months the two mums had chatted back and forth using a translation app. They shared pictures of their children, discussed the things they liked to bake with their kids or moaned about the stress of pandemic home-schooling.\n\nNow they were trying to co-ordinate an evacuation.\n\n\"I thought having cancer was stressful or having a baby while having treatment was stressful or having round after round of IVF and it not working was stressful,\" Emma says. \"But it just does not compare.\"\n\nWith the help of the surrogacy agency, Emma got in touch with two other parents who had surrogates in Ukraine. They found a bus that would take the three women and their 10 children on an 18-hour trip to the Moldovan border.\n\nWhen they finally got to the Moldovan capital they were crammed into a small apartment. Emma was horrified when she heard that there weren't enough beds. \"Our lovely, pregnant Svetlana was sleeping on the floor,\" she says.\n\nBut Svetlana was too devastated to care. She had left her husband behind in Ukraine and her mother had fled to Germany. When her mother calls she just cries down the phone.\n\n\"It hurts so much that this war is tearing families apart,\" she told me. \"I feel safe in Moldova but my heart is in Ukraine.\"\n\nMore than 2,000 children are born through surrogacy every year in Ukraine, the majority to foreign couples. The country has around 50 reproductive clinics and many agencies and middle-men who match couples - known as \"intended parents\" - to surrogates.\n\nUkraine is a popular choice because of the way its laws on surrogacy are written. In many European countries, including the UK, when a surrogate gives birth she is listed as the mother on the birth certificate. If she is married, her husband will be listed as the father. In Ukraine the intended parents are listed as mother and father. That means getting the baby a passport and bringing them home is much simpler.\n\nThe agency that Emma and Svetlana are using is small - it is currently managing nine surrogacies - but Ukraine's biggest agency currently has 500 surrogates at different stages of pregnancy.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Surrogate babies waiting for parents in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine\n\nForty-one babies in its care are stranded in Kyiv, because their intended parents, from all over the world, have been prevented from collecting them by the war. Many of these children are being cared for in a basement nursery in Kyiv as Russian forces sit outside the city and shell it.\n\nEvery day more children are born, but since the invasion only nine sets of parents have risked the journey to Kyiv to pick up their babies. Another five have arranged remote pick-ups. \"If nothing changes in the near future, we may have 100 babies under our care,\" says Denys Herman, the agency's legal adviser.\n\nThe company has been grappling with whether to move the babies out of Kyiv to a safer location in western Ukraine, but transporting them in a war zone also carries risks.\n\nIt's not just Denys Herman who has a problem with stranded babies.\n\nNastya was saving up to buy a house in Kharkiv, where she lives with her two young boys, and coming to the end of her second surrogate pregnancy. When the war broke out she was only weeks from her due date and went into labour to give birth to twins a few days later.\n\n\"We spent the entire time in the hospital in a bomb shelter,\" she says. Kharkiv was under heavy bombardment and the hospital's basement was packed from wall to wall with mattresses and baby cribs. She camped out in a storage room with her two children, sleeping on sofa cushions on the floor, underneath shelves piled high with files and paperwork.\n\n\"But the doctors were wonderful, I am very grateful to them,\" she says. She gave birth to two healthy boys.\n\nA week later she left the hospital. Kharkiv was still under attack and the foreign parents couldn't get there to collect the twins.\n\nSo, together with some staff from her agency, Nastya, her two sons and the new-born twins travelled across Ukraine. She cared for the babies while delivering them to their parents at the border. That was more than a week ago, and she hasn't heard from them since.\n\nWhen Emma envisages the family she wants, she thinks of the drive from her home in Canberra to her parent's place in Sydney. She imagines looking into the back seat and seeing a gaggle of children. Instead, she has one. \"It just feels like a hole in my life,\" she says.\n\nFive years ago while she was pregnant with her son, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The tumour was growing at an alarming rate, helped along by the hormones she produced in pregnancy. It was a rare medical event and when her son was born doctors crowded into the delivery room to observe.\n\n\"He came out perfect, he didn't have to go into the neonatal ICU, so I felt very lucky,\" she says. When her son was only five weeks old, she started intense radiation and chemotherapy which damaged her reproductive organs.\n\n\"I went into early menopause at 29. So that was delightful,\" she says wryly.\n\nIn the five years since her cancer diagnosis, Emma's every waking moment has been consumed by thoughts of how to conceive her second child. She and her husband went through 13 cycles of IVF which were traumatic and expensive, but none of the embryos would ultimately take. \"Surrogacy is never anyone's first pick but it comes as a result of a deep loss beforehand,\" she says.\n\nEmma and her husband, Alex, struggled to find a surrogate in Australia where only altruistic surrogacy is allowed. When they first heard about the option of Ukraine they were hesitant but they were reassured by other Australians who'd had a good experience.\n\nWith their first surrogate, two attempts at pregnancy didn't take, causing further heartbreak. When they were matched with Svetlana and she got pregnant right away it felt like the battle was finally over.\n\n\"It was such a relief that we could stop fighting. We'd been in a state of fight or flight, as husband and wife, for so long.\"\n\nBefore the war, the whole family had planned to travel to Ukraine. Emma had hoped to spend time with Svetlana so that she could tell her new child about her birth mother. With the baby due in a month that's unlikely to happen now.\n\nBut for some intended parents the war is making the relationship with their surrogates even closer.\n\nChristine (not her real name) woke up on the day of the invasion and felt sick. Her surrogate was in Zaporizhzhia, in the south-east of Ukraine, which would make headlines a few days later when its nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, was attacked by Russian forces.\n\nHer surrogate, Tatiana (also not her real name) left for Poland that day with her six-year-old son. Christine marvels at her strength.\n\nWhen she asked Tatiana if she was interested in coming to England Christine wasn't sure how she would react. But she was delighted. \"We can come next week,\" she said. She is one of only four or five women applying for a bespoke visa created by the Home Office for surrogate mothers.\n\n\"The past few days have been unbearably traumatic in what's already been a traumatic year,\" Christine says.\n\nLast January she and her husband lost a child, a daughter who was born prematurely and died at five weeks old. At one point during the delivery her husband was told he might have to choose between Christine and the baby. She was advised not to try again but she did and miscarried again. \"Because I was impatient and grieving and wanting it now, we looked abroad.\"\n\nThey found out Tatiana was pregnant in January this year. \"It was kind of too good to be true,\" she says.\n\nOn Sunday Christine flew to Poland to meet Tatiana for the first time. Both were nervous, but relaxed when a Polish doctor said the results of the first scan were good.\n\nNow they are working hard to get to know each other, using Google translate. \"Yesterday, we had a discussion about our spiritual beliefs, whether we believe in clairvoyance and all those things. It's not just all about pregnancy,\" she says.\n\nThe visa will last three years and Christine and her husband have invited Tatiana to stay with them for as long as she wants to, beyond the birth of their child.\n\nSurrogacy is legal in the UK, but under English law the surrogate's name will be on the birth certificate, along with Christine's husband's. Legal parenthood will then have to be transferred from Tatiana to Christine.\n\nIf the baby is born in a third country there are even more legal complications. And that's left Svetlana, Emma and Alex with a dilemma.\n\nSurrogacy is not permitted in Moldova. If the baby is born there, Svetlana will be its legal guardian. She could place it for adoption but then it could be years before Emma and Alex are allowed to take their child home.\n\nSo together they have come up with a plan for Svetlana to deliver the baby in a city close to the border.\n\nSvetlana has mixed feelings about going back to Ukraine. \"There's shooting everywhere, homes are being reduced to rubble and the Russians are shelling maternity hospitals, kindergartens and schools,\" she says.\n\nOn the other hand, she is desperate to see her husband, who can't leave the country under the terms of Ukraine's martial law.\n\nA mother waits to give birth in a hospital basement in Mykolaiv\n\nFor Emma, the idea of Svetlana returning to a war zone is hard to take. \"If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd say 'No, I wouldn't do that.' Because it's just not what we should be doing. It's not what should be happening,\" she says.\n\nOne possible snag is that it could take weeks for the baby's birth certificate to be issued. If that happens Emma and Alex are not sure what they will do.\n\nThe war has left thousands of surrogates and intended parents in equally terrible positions.\n\nCyrille, who is French, struggled to get in touch with his surrogate in Kharkiv for two weeks after the invasion. When eventually he did, he helped her to come to Paris where he hopes she will stay until she gives birth in August. But she has left her children in western Ukraine with their father, who didn't want them to leave.\n\nNatasha, a surrogate in Cherkasy is 10 weeks pregnant with the baby of a couple in the US. She is tormented by sirens, shelling and morning sickness. \"This is not life, it's a nightmare,\" she says.\n\nJust a few days before the war, I spoke to another surrogate who is pregnant with a baby girl for a couple in Spain. Maryna lived close to Svetlana in the town of Uzyn. When we spoke she was getting ready to move to Kyiv for the last two months of her pregnancy.\n\n\"Kyiv is always going to be a safe place because it's so far from the Donbas,\" she said.\n\nEven after Russia invaded she struggled to imagine how bad things could get. \"I really hope that a brain will appear in Putin's head and he will start to withdraw his troops. Because Ukrainian and Russian mothers didn't give birth to children so that they would fight.\"\n\nJust after Svetlana arrived safely in Moldova, Emma felt a moment of bittersweet relief.\n\n\"She sent me a photo of her youngest daughter with a soft-serve ice cream from McDonalds and a balloon and the biggest smile on her face. And I just completely broke down,\" Emma says.\n\nIt reminded her of what every child should be doing, enjoying her life safely, with her family.", "Amanda Bynes, pictured in 2011, said she had \"been working hard to improve my health\"\n\nFormer actress Amanda Bynes has been released from her nine-year conservatorship by a judge in California.\n\nThe one-time child star was placed under the legal guardianship - similar to that of Britney Spears - in 2013, while undergoing psychiatric care.\n\nBynes, now 35, was known for The Amanda Show and films like What a Girl Wants, She's the Man and Easy A, but suffered drug and mental health problems.\n\nOn Tuesday, Judge Roger L Lund said the conservatorship was no longer required.\n\n\"She's done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,\" he said, according to the New York Times.\n\nA conservatorship is granted by a court for individuals who are unable to make their own decisions. Under the arrangement, Bynes' mother supervised her daughter's financial and personal affairs including her medical decisions.\n\nIn a statement to People, Bynes thanked fans \"for their love and well wishes during this time\".\n\n\"I would also like to thank my lawyer and my parents for their support over the last nine years,\" she said.\n\n\"In the last several years, I have been working hard to improve my health so that I can live and work independently, and I will continue to prioritize my well-being in this next chapter.\"\n\nBynes' drug use started with marijuana at the age of 16, but her problems deepened when she started taking Adderall, a prescription medicine used to treat people with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).\n\nShe retired from acting in 2010, and the conservatorship came about after Bynes was taken to hospital for a mental health assessment, having thought to have started a small fire in the drive of a home in California.\n\nThere had also been erratic behaviour and brushes with the law including charges of drink-driving, hit and run and driving with a suspended licence. She was eventually sentenced to three years probation.\n\nBynes also made headlines for her Twitter rants, which she later said left her \"ashamed and embarrassed\".\n\n\"I can't turn back time but if I could, I would. And I'm so sorry to whoever I hurt and whoever I lied about because it truly eats away at me,\" she told Paper Magazine in 2018.\n\nMore recently she has got herself clean, been living in a \"structured community for women\" and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, as well as getting engaged to her partner, Paul Michael.", "Sunak only cuts back on one sixth of taxes he raised\n\nThere are some interesting measures that have been announced by the chancellor today. But the figure that courses through all of this is that very high inflation. It affects everything - how much borrowing there is, the debt interest payments too - and the prediction of it reaching 9% by the end of the year is pretty extraordinary. Rishi Sunak has kept the National Insurance rise to pay for the NHS and social care - starting next month. But he announced today that in July, after three months, half of that gets given back mainly to lower earners in the form of a higher National Insurance threshold. Then the rest of it goes back via a tax cut, but only if the conditions are met in his tax plan in a couple of years time. Overall, it means he hasn't had to reverse the National Insurance rise he had already announced and he continues to go big on being a \"tax cutting chancellor\". But if you look at the OBR's documentas, he has only cut back about one sixth of all the taxes that have been raised since he came into No 11. You still have corporation tax going up, you still have NI going up in people's pay packets this April, and you still have council tax going up.", "\"Russia does not start wars, it ends them\" reads a poster of Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, 10 March\n\nVladimir's Putin's invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. We are living in new and more dangerous times - the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\n\nIt is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.\n\nIn November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.\n\nThe peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.\n\nIn Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.\n\nHow many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.\n\nBut that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a \"paradigm shift\". The age of complacency, she said, was over.\n\nQuentin Sommerville, one of the BBC's most experienced war reporters walked through the wreckage in Kharkiv recently and said of the Russian bombardment: \"If these tactics are unfamiliar to you, then you haven't been paying attention.\"\n\nHe should know, he spent enough time under Russian rockets in Syria to be paying very close attention. But the governments of the democratic world - how much attention have they been paying to the nature of the Putin regime?\n\nThe evidence has been building for years.\n\nTwo decades have passed since he sent troops into Georgia claiming he was supporting breakaway regions.\n\nLater, he sent spies into British cities armed with nerve agents to murder exiled Russians.\n\nIn 2014, he invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.\n\nDespite all this, Germany, and much of the EU, were locking themselves into an unhealthy dependence on Russian gas. A year after the annexation of Crimea, they approved the building of a new pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to boost supplies.\n\nThe \"complacency\" Liz Truss refers to also indicts her own country. London has been a safe haven for Russian money since John Major was prime minister. Russian oligarchs have parked billions here, laundered their money, bought up the most prestigious private homes in the capital, socialised with politicians and donated to their campaign funds. Few questions were asked about where their vast wealth, acquired so suddenly, had come from.\n\nSo, no. The Western democracies have not been \"paying attention\" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.\n\nBut Putin, too, has seemed complacent.\n\nReceiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near Lubmin, Germany\n\nFirst, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.\n\nSecond, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.\n\nThird, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this \"special military operation\" to be over in a few days.\n\nRussia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.\n\nIn 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.\n\nA Bosnian special forces soldier and civilians come under fire from Serbian snipers, Sarajevo, 6 April 1992\n\nLike Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.\n\nSo instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?\n\nBut nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt \"liberated\" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.\n\nScrambling for rationed food during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992\n\nIn 1994, while the war in the Balkans was still raging, the rest of Eastern Europe was looking to the future - each nation eager to take what it saw as its natural place in a Europe of independent sovereign states at peace with each other. But it was still far from certain that any of them would be allowed to join Nato.\n\nThere was a debate, back then, about whether a third security block should be formed by the newly-liberated East European nations, to act as a buffer between Nato and Russia. Russia was weak in the 1990s, and the nations that had endured Soviet occupation for 40 years did not trust it to stay weak for long. In the end, they wanted nothing short of Nato membership.\n\nUnder President Bill Clinton, the US pressed ahead with Nato expansion. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who saw himself as a loyal ally of Clinton's, was said to be furious when he found out - at a press conference - that Nato was planning to admit new members without consulting Moscow.\n\nAnd the tearing down of the Iron Curtain had raised a new question in geopolitics - how far east does the Western world extend? I was commissioned by the BBC to take a road trip through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to address the question, \"Where is the eastern edge of the Western world now?\"\n\nI went to the hunting lodge in Belarus where, in late 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, had met his counterparts from Ukraine and Belarus. Here, they agreed to recognise each other's Soviet Republics as independent nation-states. They then rang the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him that the country of which he was head of state - the Soviet Union - no longer existed.\n\nIt was a moment fraught with both danger and opportunity. For Belarus and Ukraine, it was the chance to liberate themselves from Moscow rule - domination by Russian imperialism in both its Tsarist and Soviet forms.\n\nFor Yeltsin, it represented the chance to liberate Russia too - from its historic role as an imperial power. The UK and France had both ceased to be imperial powers after World War Two - as Austria had done after WW1. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk had built a modern European secular republic - a Turkish nation-state - after the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire had been defeated and dismembered in 1918.\n\nUS President George HW Bush with Boris Yeltsin in Maryland, 1992\n\nCould Boris Yeltsin do the same thing - build a modern Russian nation-state, at peace with its sovereign neighbours, on the ruins of the Soviet Empire? In the early 1990s, he began his Westernising experiment, to try to turn an imperial power into a democratic state.\n\nBut the rush - encouraged by the Western democracies eager for investment opportunities - to turn a sclerotic, state-owned command economy into a free-market system was disastrous. It created gangster capitalism. A tiny elite became fabulously rich by plundering the assets of the major industries - especially oil and gas.\n\nThe wheels finally came off the experiment in 1998. The economy collapsed, the rouble lost two-thirds of its value in a month and inflation hit 80%.\n\nI stood with a middle-aged couple in a queue at a Moscow bank. They wanted to take their money out in dollars or pounds - anything other than roubles. The queue was long and slow-moving and, every few minutes, a bank employee changed the displayed exchange rate, as the rouble plunged further. People could see their life savings dropping in value by the minute. The couple got close to the head of the queue when suddenly the shutters came down - there was no cash left.\n\nI went to a former coal-mining region near the Ukraine border, where the mines were barely functioning. I met a graduate mining engineer who had lost his job - a man in his 30s with a young family. He took me to his dacha outside the city, which had about an acre of land. \"About 80% of what my family eat in the year,\" he said. \"I grow on this patch of land. The rest, like coffee and sugar, I barter for. I haven't used or even seen cash in about 18 months.\" Nothing spoke more powerfully about Yeltsin's failure to transform Russia than the sight of this highly educated man digging for his own dinner.\n\n\"Stalin turned a nation of peasants into an industrial superpower in a generation. Yeltsin is doing the same thing in reverse,\" he told me.\n\nOrdinary Russians felt robbed. The great westernising experiment had been a con trick that had enriched a criminalised elite and impoverished everyone else. Many of the reports we filed from Russia at that time boiled down to a single question: \"What are the political consequences of the profound disenchantment that Russians now feel?\"\n\nThe answer was that Russia, eventually, would revert to type - a retreat from democracy and a return to authoritarian rule. A retreat from nation-statehood and return to a more assertive imperial attitude to its \"near abroad\" - the countries that had previously been part of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said that Russia could be a democracy or an empire, but it could not be both. The Russian emblem, the double-headed eagle, looks both east and west. History has pulled Russia in opposing directions - democratic nation statehood in one direction, domineering imperial power in the other.\n\nGo to St Petersburg and you will see another aspect of this dual character. It is the country's beautiful bay window on the Gulf of Finland. It is an 18th Century city, facing west. It is the European Enlightenment in architectural form. Under the Tsars it was the imperial capital.\n\nAfter the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks moved the capital back to Moscow and power retreated behind the high, crenellated walls of the Kremlin. It is the architecture of defensiveness, of suspicion, even fear. When Russian leaders look west from here, they see flat open countryside rolling away to the south and west for hundreds of miles. There are no natural frontiers.\n\nThe crenellated red walls of the Kremlin in Moscow\n\nWhen I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent in the late 1990s, there was a driver who could remember, as a boy, seeing German troops on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1940s. Every time he took us to Sheremetyevo Airport, we would pass a monument designed to look like metal anti-tank defences - so-called Czech hedgehogs - and he would say: \"This is how close they came, the Germans.\"\n\nNapoleon's army had gone further the previous century. That experience - that chronic sense of an insecure western frontier - informs the way Russian leaders have thought about their \"near abroad\".\n\nIn another conversation about the \"near abroad\", a friend recited a rhyming couplet to me. In Russian it rhymes nicely, but in English it goes: \"A chicken's not really a bird; and Poland's not really abroad.\" Russia's sense of what it is entitled to in the lands to its west penetrates popular consciousness, too.\n\nI will borrow an anecdote from another friend in Moscow at the time. The same driver picked her up from the airport and asked her where she had been. \"I've been for a weekend in Prague,\" she said. \"Oh Prague,\" came the reply. \"That's good. That's ours.\"\n\nBut it wasn't. The Berlin Wall had come down nine years earlier and the nations of Eastern Europe had ceased being \"ours\".\n\nExcept Ukraine. Putin regards it not as a neighbouring country, but as the frontier land of Russia itself - and he wants it brought back into the Russian fold.\n\nWhat would it take to do that? How can a nation that has put up so unified a resistance be subdued? Almost certainly he has overreached himself. Several factors must now be alarming him.\n\nThe first is the state of his own armed forces.\n\nThe second is the resilience of the Ukrainian defence. Did Putin really expect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine to welcome his troops as liberators? Did he really believe that the uprising of 2014 - which replaced the pro-Moscow government with one oriented to the West - was all a Western plot? If he did, then it reveals how little the Kremlin understands about its \"near abroad\".\n\nBut his biggest miscalculation has been to underestimate the resolve of the West. And this is what makes 2022 one of those pivotal years - the zeitenwende, in the words of Chancellor Scholz.\n\nAlmost overnight, Germany has transformed its attitude to its role in the world. Traditionally reluctant - for sound historical reasons - to throw its weight around, it had preferred the exercise of soft power to hard. Not now. It has announced a doubling of defence spending, and is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Gone, too, is the ostpolitik - the decades-old German policy of seeking peace through engagement, especially trade.\n\nGermany, along with the rest of the democratic world, will now move to end its dependence on Russian gas. The Nord Stream 2 project is suspended - though not yet scrapped. We are seeing a root-and-branch redrawing of the map of global energy distribution, aimed at cutting Russia out of it.\n\nRussia is highly integrated into the global economy. But now it has been expelled from the system the world uses to exchange payment for goods and services. Its industries, including oil and gas, depend on imported goods and components. Soon production will grind to a halt. Employers will have to lay off their workers. Unemployment will rise.\n\nNo-one expected the West to sanction the Russian Central Bank. Already, the rouble has collapsed and interest rates have doubled. No other major economy has ever been subjected to a package of sanctions this punitive. It amounts to the expulsion of Russia from the global economy. More workers will be laid off. Major industries will find it hard to carry on. Unemployment will rise further. Soaring inflation will erode life savings.\n\nWe will all be affected. Potentially, this is the rolling back of the globalised economy that emerged after the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe US and the EU have, in effect, divided the world up. Those states and companies that continue to trade with Russia will find themselves punished - also frozen out of trade with the rich world.\n\nIt amounts to a new economic iron curtain separating Russia from the West.\n\nMuch will depend on how China negotiates this new landscape. China and Russia are bonded by their shared antipathy to American power, and their conviction that the greatest threat is from a resurgent, more unified democratic world.\n\nChina does not want Putin weakened, or the West strengthened. Yet that is exactly what the effect the war in Ukraine has had.\n\nSome China watchers believe Beijing will try to challenge the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency by carving out a distinct yuan zone as an alternative space in the global economy that can be protected from any future attempt by the US to sanction China. Putin's war, therefore, could redraw the international financial map.\n\nBut above all, this is a war that pits the world's democracies against the world's authoritarian regimes.\n\nIt is also a war between two conflicting conceptions of the rules by which international relations should function.\n\nThe Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash says these two world views can be expressed in short form by two words - Helsinki versus Yalta.\n\nAt Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved post-war Europe into \"spheres of influence\" - most of Eastern Europe to Russia, the West to the trans-Atlantic alliance that would set about rebuilding Europe's democracies.\n\n\"Helsinki\", by contrast, describes a Europe of independent sovereign states, each of which is free to choose its own alliances. This grew out of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and gradually evolved into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.\n\nUkraine's defenders are fighting for Helsinki. Putin has sent his troops in to impose a modern version of Yalta - which would kill off Ukraine's independence and leave it under Russian domination.\n\nGarton Ash argues that the West has been too half-hearted in defending the values of Helsinki - that it has formally acknowledged Ukraine's right to join Nato at some unspecified date in the future without ever intending to make it happen.\n\nBut Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled a readiness to compromise on Helsinki principles, by agreeing to abandon Ukraine's ambition to become a Nato member. With all the risks that entails, it may yet be the price Ukraine pays for the survival of its statehood.\n\nMy generation grew up with the existential terror of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The conflict has brought that fear back to public consciousness. Putin has threatened to use Russia's nuclear arsenal.\n\nThat makes this the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to its ally Cuba. The US assembled a fleet to blockade (or \"quarantine\") Cuba and was considering an attack on the island by air and/or sea.\n\nWhat the Americans did not know is that the Soviets didn't only have long-range strategic missiles. They also had smaller, tactical nuclear missiles - so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. And that Soviet military doctrine delegated first-use decision making to commanders on the ground.\n\nHad the threatened invasion gone ahead, it would have triggered a nuclear exchange.\n\nThe then American Defence Secretary Robert McNamara only found out about this when the Soviet archives opened in 1991. Only then, did he understand how close the world had come to catastrophe.\n\nIn a remarkable film called Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, he explained how the world had avoided destroying itself. Was it skilled diplomacy? Wise leadership? No.\n\n\"Luck,\" he said. \"We lucked out.\"\n\nThat experience, now fading from memory, should focus minds.\n\nCorrection: This article previously referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski as a former US secretary of state, rather than former national security adviser", "Bella-Rae Birch's family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\"\n\nA 17-month-old girl has died after being attacked by a dog in her home.\n\nBella-Rae Birch died in hospital after the attack in St Helens at about 15:50 GMT on Monday, Merseyside Police said.\n\nHer family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\" and thanked the community for its support.\n\nOfficers said her \"absolutely devastated\" family had only bought the dog, which was killed by police, a week ago and tests would be carried out to see if it was an illegal breed.\n\nPolice said they would also try to identify its previous owners as part of the investigation.\n\nSupt Steve Brizell said the toddler's death had \"left a family and a community grieving and in complete shock\".\n\n\"Bella-Rae has lost her life in the most unimaginably terrible circumstances,\" he said.\n\n\"At this stage we understand that the family dog they had bought just a week earlier has attacked Bella-Rae inside the family home.\n\n\"Bella-Rae was taken by ambulance to hospital by paramedics but despite the best efforts of police officers at the scene, paramedics and doctors sadly Bella-Rae died as a result of her injuries.\"\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in St Helens on Monday afternoon\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in Bidston Avenue in the Blackbrook area of St Helens.\n\nOne neighbour, who gave her name as Jordan, said the child's parents were \"hysterical\".\n\n\"We pulled up from school and heard screaming. I just ran over to try to help and started CPR until the paramedics took over,\" she said.\n\n\"I didn't see the dog, I was just focusing on helping the baby.\"\n\nAnother neighbour who helped to give CPR said: \"The parents doted on the children. It's too upsetting to say anything else.\"\n\nJoanne Matthews said she saw an ambulance outside the house and then about 10 police vehicles arrived.\n\n\"I saw them bring the dog out. I couldn't tell what breed it was but from the back it looked like a Staffordshire bull terrier or pit bull,\" she said.\n\nBella-Rae's death has \"left a family and a community grieving and in complete shock\", police said\n\nMs Matthews, 53, said the toddler was \"a beautiful little girl\".\n\n\"I'd see the family in passing, just to say hello, and they were always very pleasant,\" she said.\n\nAnother neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she got home when the area was busy with police.\n\n\"The mum was on the field at the front of the house crying. She was hysterical,\" she said.\n\n\"It is usually very quiet here and safe for children, but when you hear something like this has happened it is so distressing.\"\n\nFloral tributes have been left outside the family's home\n\nTwo police officers remain at the family's home.\n\nThe streets were quiet this morning as people come to terms with the tragedy.\n\nIt is the early stages of the investigation and police were carrying out house-to-house inquiries and looking at CCTV footage.\n\nAs officers conduct tests to see what breed of dog it was, and try to trace its previous owners, they were also reassuring neighbours who are shocked and distressed at the attack.\n\nIn a statement, Bella-Rae's family said they would \"like to thank the community for their support\".\n\n\"We would ask that we are now allowed some space and time to try and come to terms with the tragic loss of our much-loved Bella-Rae,\" they added.\n\nAnyone who witnessed anything in the area at the time, or who has information about the dog, has been asked to contact police.\n\nSupt Brizell said the force was providing the family with support and officers would remain in the area in the coming days to provide \"further reassurance and support\" to the wider community.\n\nMerseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell said she was \"devastated to hear news that a young girl tragically lost her life\".\n\n\"Thoughts are with her family and loved ones,\" she tweeted.\n\nMs Spurrell said the police and St Helens Council were supporting the family and the local community.\n\nSt Helens Labour councillor Jeanie Bell said the girl's death was \"absolutely awful\".\n\nShe tweeted: \"I cannot begin to imagine the heartbreak for their family.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The man pulled out on Saturday is one of the luckiest as the barracks has been reduced to rubble\n\nScores of Ukrainian soldiers are feared to have been killed after an attack on a military barracks on Friday.\n\nAbout 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks when three Russian missiles hit the base on the northern edge of Mykolaiv, a source told the BBC. Some 57 injured people were being treated in hospitals, another source said.\n\nThere are no official casualty figures.\n\nRescue workers crawling over giant piles of rubble found a survivor on Saturday - 30 hours after the attack.\n\nThe man was carried down the steep mountain of rubble in a stretcher and taken away by ambulance towards the city centre.\n\nHowever, the temperature in Mykolaiv last night was minus 6C and it's feared there may not be many more survivors.\n\nVitaly Kim, head of the regional administration, blamed Russians for hitting \"sleeping soldiers with a rocket in a cowardly manner\".\n\n\"At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble,\" a soldier named Maxim was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.\n\nAnd the rescue work at the site is being carried out amid fears of new Russian attacks.\n\nWith a crane pulling away chunks of concrete and twisted metal, suddenly soldiers guarding the base shouted at journalists to run for cover, as the sound of a plane, or possibly a missile, could be heard overhead.\n\nSeconds later a dull explosion could be heard somewhere to the north-east.\n\nNear the army base is the site of an attack which killed nine civilians queueing outside a shop. There we meet Yulia, who is in tears as she tells the BBC what happened.\n\n\"I can't tell you how scared we are,\" she says. \"We all live in the cellar now. When the bombs hit the army base - everything shook.\"\n\nTwo blocks away, Andre Ansimov is trying to clear up from another Russian strike. The crater is so big, a car and a house fell into it.\n\nOnly by chance were Andre and his family away when the bomb hit.\n\n\"This isn't a war between armies,\" he said. \"The Russians are trying to destroy us all.\"\n\nMykolaiv has been blocking Russia's advance west along the Black Sea coast for weeks. Overnight there was more heavy shelling in the south of the city.\n\nThere are also reports that Russian reconnaissance teams, sent in to locate military targets for attack, have been found there.", "More than £42.7m has been raised in Comic Relief's latest Red Nose Day broadcast, with a host of stars taking part in sketches and stunts.\n\nThe charity show was broadcast from BBC studios in Salford for the first time.\n\nHighlights included Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders visiting The Repair Shop, and Matt Lucas and David Walliams reviving their Rock Profiles sketches.\n\nBut stars Zoe Ball, Kylie Minogue and Joel Dommett had to pull out of the show after catching Covid.\n\nAt shortly after midnight, Red Nose Day announced it had raised £42,790,147 for good causes in the UK and around the world.\n\nSome of the money will benefit organisations providing aid in Ukraine.\n\nComic Relief co-founder Richard Curtis thanked the \"extraordinary public\" for their \"outpouring of generosity\". He said the charity helped 11 million people last year.\n\nThe show's presenters sent their love to Ball, who was due to be one of the hosts, with actor David Tennant saying: \"We will miss you tonight Zoe, we are sending you loads of love.\"\n\nBall said she would be \"watching & supporting from bed\".\n\nThe Vivienne, Nikki Lily, Roman Kemp, Maya Jama, Lady Leshurr and Snoochie Shy in Glow Up Does Red Nose Day\n\nMinogue told followers she wouldn't be able to take part in a planned sketch with the cast of BBC sitcom Ghosts.\n\nAnd the event's co-host Dommett said he was \"super annoyed\" to have caught the virus before Red Nose Day.\n\nDommett was replaced by Vernon Kay, while Ball said Alesha Dixon would \"work the double shift tonight\" to fill in for her.\n\n\"I owe you lady love,\" she told her on Twitter.\n\nCovid-19 infections have continued to increase in England, with about one in 20 people in private households estimated to have had the virus in the week to 12 March, according to the Office for National Statistics.\n\nRob Rinder, Claire Richards, Deborah Meaden and Ricky Hatton in a This Is My House celebrity special\n\nSir Lenny Henry, Tennant, AJ Odudu and Paddy McGuinness were Comic Relief's other presenters, and were rotated during the broadcast which lasted nearly four hours.\n\nIt was announced during the programme that Tom Daley's Hell Of A Homecoming challenge - in which the Olympic diver rowed, swam, cycled and ran for 290 miles over four days from London to his hometown of Plymouth - had raised £1,027,111.\n\nThe show also saw comedian Jack Whitehall playing England footballers Declan Rice and Mason Mount in a mini-golf challenge - with Whitehall coming in last place as West Ham midfielder Rice won.\n\nThe lifelong Arsenal fan was forced to post a photo on Instagram of himself in a West Ham shirt as a forfeit.\n\nFrench and Saunders pay a visit to The Repair Shop\n\nStrictly Come Dancing champions Rose Ayling Ellis and Giovanni Pernice performed to a rendition of How Long Will I Love You.\n\nReviving their Rock Profile comedy sketch show for a one-off special, Lucas and Walliams impersonated stars such as Adele, Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga.\n\nFrench and Saunders reprised characters from their sketch show - two overacting film extras - as they visited the Repair Shop, asking host Jay Blades and his team of skilled artisans to fix their toaster, \"a family heirloom\".\n\nThe sketch also featured Dame Judi Dench as a character who arrived at the shop to have an old doll from her childhood repaired, only for French and Saunders to smash its head to pieces.\n\nLast year, the annual event raised more than £55m for good causes in the UK and around the world.\n\nMatt Lucas and David Walliams doing a Rock Profile of Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus\n\nOther famous faces to appear during the fundraising show include Tom Holland, Courteney Cox, Lulu, Paul Rudd, Chris Kamara, Vic Reeves, Jeff Goldblum, Clive Myrie, Jamie Dornan and Gordon Ramsay.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nCoverage: Listen to live commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Ulster; text commentary and match highlights on BBC Sport website and app.\n\nIreland hope to snatch the Six Nations title when they complete their campaign at home to Scotland on Saturday.\n\nVictory would move Ireland top of the standings but their title hopes would still rely on England upsetting Grand Slam-chasing France in the evening kick-off in Paris.\n\nA win would also grant them their sixth Triple Crown in the Six Nations era.\n\nScotland head coach Gregor Townsend has dropped fly-half Finn Russell and chosen Blair Kinghorn to start instead.\n\nHaving only lost to France, Ireland go into the final round in second place in the table, two points behind the leaders.\n\nAndy Farrell's side had to dig deep to overcome 14-man England last week but are clear favourites to beat Scotland after scoring 20 tries and only conceding three in their four games.\n\nScotland's campaign has stuttered after starting so well with a win over England, but after losing to Wales and France and an unconvincing win over Italy they will be hoping to finish on a high.\n• None Ireland summon ghosts of 2015 in push for Six Nations glory\n• None How France and Ireland can win the Six Nations\n\nMack Hansen is recalled to the right wing for Ireland in place of Andrew Conway who misses out with a knee injury.\n\nIain Henderson starts at lock, replacing James Ryan who went off following his head collision against England.\n\nJack Conan starts at number eight, meaning Caelan Doris moves to blindside flanker and Peter O'Mahony returns to the bench.\n\nFor Scotland, Kinghorn will make his first start of this Six Nations in place of Russell who is dropped to the bench.\n\nIn the only other change to the starting XV, lock Jonny Gray returns from his ankle injury and Sam Skinner moves to the replacements.\n• None Maybe it's the rocket Finn Russell needs\n\nAlastair Eykyn: \"Ireland's title challenge is still alive. They know that if they take care of business in Dublin, they will have won the Triple Crown - and then it's in England's hands to do them a favour in Paris.\n\n\"The Scots haven't won in Dublin for 12 long years and this looks like another tough assignment for them. They might just be the team to feel the heat, as the Irish have promised to rectify their issues from a week ago.\n\n\"Despite their record victory at Twickenham, Ireland's scrum was dismantled, and their accuracy was miles off.\n\n\"Townsend has rolled the dice and left Russell on the Scottish bench. Much rests on the shoulders of Kinghorn, named at fly-half with only half an hour's action under his belt in this year's Six Nations.\"\n\nIreland head coach Andy Farrell: \"We've put ourselves in a position to win silverware which is nice but as you would expect to me say it's just about this game isn't it?\n\n\"We're under no illusions that Scotland are going to be at their best with nothing to lose. They're a great side coming to the Aviva hoping to spoil a little bit of a party. Hopefully we're after our best performance of the tournament.\n\n\"We're growing in many areas, the experiences that we've had this Six Nations will certainly stand us in good stead for the next 18 months.\"\n\nScotland head coach Gregor Townsend on dropping Russell: \"I prefer to focus on what Blair has done and how well he's played. He has deserved this opportunity with his performances throughout the season.\n\n\"He played 10 for us against Tonga and he has built on that performance with his club side. We thought he performed well off the bench against France and Wales and his last game for Edinburgh was probably his best game of the season, so we feel the time is right for Blair to start at 10.\n\n\"It's great to have the experience and ability of Finn on the bench as well.\"\n• None Ireland have won seven of their last eight Six Nations matches against Scotland\n• None Scotland's only victory in Ireland in the Six Nations was 23-20 at Croke Park in 2010\n• None These two sides have met 22 times in the Six Nations with Ireland winning 18 to Scotland's four\n• None Ireland have scored 54 tries in their last nine matches - averaging six tries a game\n• None Ireland are the only team whose average breakdown speed is under three seconds at 2.88 seconds per ruck\n• None Johnny Sexton needs 10 more points to overtake Ronan O'Gara (who scored 116 points) as the top scorer in this fixture\n• None Flanker Josh van der Flier is the only Irishman to have played every minute of this year's tournament\n• None Scotland have won five of their last six away games in the Six Nations\n• None They haven't lost a round five game since 2016, which was a 35-25 loss away in Ireland\n• None Only Monty Ioane from Italy has beaten more defenders than Darcy Graham, Ali Price (both on 13) and Stuart Hogg (12)", "UK PM pledges to do more to help Ukraine in call with Zelensky\n\nBoris Johnson pledged to do more to help Ukraine, in a telephone call with President Zelensky on Friday morning. The prime minister vowed to stand with Ukraine at a time when its people were \"facing such horror with such courage\". Mr Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky: \"We know that we must do more to help. I pledge to you that we will.\" Speaking at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, he said he told the president that he knew Ukraine was fighting \"not just for your lives and your homes, but for the cause of democracy and freedom itself\". He said the UK had \"led the way\" in providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia. But he added: \"I think that we all feel that we can, and we will, do more.\"", "A dogged unbeaten century from West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite and Jermaine Blackwood's 102 blunted England on day three of the second Test in Barbados.\n\nBrathwaite batted all day, combining with Blackwood for a stand of 183 as the hosts ground their way to 288-4 at the close, trailing by 219 runs.\n\nThat partnership thwarted England for 68.3 overs until Blackwood misjudged a leave to part-time off-spinner Dan Lawrence and was out lbw with five overs to go.\n\nAfter claiming two early wickets, England struggled to create opportunities and the tourists wasted the rare chances they created.\n\nBlackwood would have been out for a duck had England reviewed an lbw decision and on 65 he was bowled by a Saqib Mahmood no-ball, which would have been the debutant's first Test wicket. There was also a missed stumping chance when Brathwaite was on 109.\n\nIt means a second consecutive draw in this series is the most likely result with two day to play, despite Lawrence's late intervention.\n\nWhen Shamarh Brooks sliced a cut to backward point off Jack Leach for 39 and first-Test centurion Nkrumah Bonner was lbw to Ben Stokes for nine before lunch, England had a real chance to push themselves into a match-winning position.\n\nInstead, it turned into another day where an inexperienced England attack looked tame.\n\nAgain there is the caveat of a pitch that has offered little, particularly to pace bowlers. But England will still be disappointed to only claim three wickets all day.\n\nLeach, who gained credit with a good performance in the first Test, started solidly but, as the day wore on, sporadic good balls were interspersed with ones that were too easily cut for four.\n\nThe pitch is offering some slow turn but Leach did not land enough balls in difficult areas to Brathwaite and Blackwood.\n\nOn the day Mark Wood was ruled out of the series with injury, Mahmood bowled a good spell with the old ball but was largely played comfortably, while Matthew Fisher, also on debut, was unthreatening despite showing decent accuracy. Chris Woakes, England's senior seamer, was anonymous.\n\nThings may have been different, especially had England reviewed when Ben Stokes hit Blackwood on the pad with a rare ball that swung in. It was Stokes himself who immediately intimated the ball would have missed the stumps when instead the technology later suggested it would have hit leg stump flush.\n\nThe Blackwood-Brathwaite partnership was already worth 129 when Mahmood bowled the West Indies number five. It was a perfect yorker from the Lancashire seamer but he had overstepped by a couple of inches and celebrations were cut short.\n\nIn the end it took Lawrence's unconventional spin to prise out a West Indies centurion, the 24-year-old backing his dismissal of Bonner in the first Test.\n\nOnce England declared on 507-9 on day two, West Indies have always realistically been playing for a draw.\n\nThey still have further work to do on day four, but the six-hour stand between Brathwaite and Blackwood has set them well on their way to a result that will see both teams head to Grenada for the third Test with the series still 0-0.\n\nIn the series opener Brathwaite scored his fastest Test fifty but here he reverted to type. He scored his slowest Test half-century before reaching three figures from 278 balls - a knock of great application rather than flowing shot-making.\n\nBlackwood is someone who loves batting against England. His average against them is 45.77, compared with 30.66 across his career, and two of his three Test tons have come against England.\n\nHe batted quicker than Brathwaite but showed similar grit. He was also involved in a heated exchange with Stokes after which the umpires had a stern word with the England all-rounder and captain Root.\n\nWhen shouldering arms to Lawrence he thought the ball would have gone over the stumps but the technology showed it would have hit three quarters of the way up middle stump.\n\n'We are still well in this game' - reaction\n\nEngland spin bowling coach Jeetan Patel: \"A long, hard day of Test cricket. Today wasn't our day but we did a lot of good thigs. We created a lot of opportunities. We were a little unlucky at times and we made some mistakes. We are still well in this game.\"\n\nWest Indies batter Jermaine Blackwood: \"I'm very pleased. Coming into this knock I was feeling the pressure. I thought it [his lbw decision on nought] was going down but that is how it goes.\n\n\"There was a bit of banter [between him and Stokes]. That helped me to feel motivated batting. It was fun. We have to bat as long as possible tomorrow.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"Terrific effort by West Indies. It was not easy out there, and that was an excellent partnership between Blackwood and Brathwaite that clearly frustrated England, who will have wanted more than just three wickets throughout the day.\"\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Russia to meet for talks, saying it was time to restore \"territorial integrity and justice\" for Ukraine.\n\nHis appeal appeal came as fierce fighting continued, 23 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson has been criticised for comparing the struggle of Ukrainians fighting Russia's invasion to people in Britain voting for Brexit.\n\nIn a speech he said Britons, like Ukrainians, had the instinct \"to choose freedom\" and cited the 2016 vote to leave the EU as a \"recent example\".\n\nThe comments have caused anger among politicians both in the UK and Europe.\n\nDonald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, called the comments offensive.\n\nConservative peer Lord Barwell said voting in a referendum was not \"in any way comparable with risking your life\" in a war, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said it was an \"insult\" to Ukrainians.\n\nThe row comes as the prime minister strongly urged China to condemn the Russian invasion in an interview with the Sunday Times. He suggested Beijing was having \"second thoughts\" about its neutral stance.\n\nMr Johnson likened the Ukrainians' fight to Brexit in a speech to the Conservative Party's spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday.\n\nHe said: \"I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples.\n\n\"When the British people voted for Brexit in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners.\n\n\"It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.\"\n\nMr Johnson also cited as an example British people choosing to get vaccinated against coronavirus because they \"wanted to get on with their lives\" and \"were fed up with being told what to do by people like me\".\n\nBut his remarks, intended to rally the Tory faithful, attracted criticism from political figures in the UK and Europe.\n\nMr Tusk tweeted \"Boris, your words offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense\", while Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, said the comparison was \"insane\".\n\nAsked about Mr Johnson linking the plight of Ukraine to Brexit, Chancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: \"I don't think the prime minister was making a direct comparison between these two things - clearly they're not directly analogous.\"\n\n\"He was making some general observations about people's desire for freedom,\" he added.\n\nMr Sunak said the prime minister had been galvanising global opinion to send a strong message to Vladimir Putin, and \"that's the thing we should be focused on\".\n\nShadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called for the prime minister to withdraw his comments and apologise.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The people of Ukraine, who are fighting for their lives - in any way to draw a parallel to voting to leave the European Union, it is shameless.\"\n\nShe pointed out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to join the EU - and that \"he clearly sees no such parallel\".\n\nLord Barwell, who served as Theresa May's chief of staff in No 10, said: \"Apart from the bit where voting in a free and fair referendum isn't in any way comparable with risking your life to defend your country against invasion, and the awkward fact the Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom to join the EU, this comparison is bang on.\"\n\nUkraine applied for fast-track membership of the European Union last month, shortly after the Russian invasion.\n\nMr Zelensky said on Friday he had spoken to the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and expected progress to be made on its application in the coming months.\n\nOthers who criticised Mr Johnson's comments included Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, who tweeted: \"Comparing the Ukrainian people's fight against Putin's tyranny to the British people voting for Brexit damages the standard of statecraft we were beginning to exhibit.\"\n\nThe Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed called the prime minister a \"national embarrassment\", adding: \"To compare a referendum to women and children fleeing Putin's bombs is an insult to every Ukrainian. He is no Churchill: he is Basil Fawlty.\"\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said Mr Johnson's comments were \"crass and distasteful\".\n\nMeanwhile in his interview with the Times, Mr Johnson has urged China to join in the global condemnation of Vladimir Putin's invasion.\n\nHe warned Beijing that supporting Russia was akin to choosing the wrong side in World War Two, describing it as a battle between good and evil.\n\nMr Johnson told the paper that he believed some in Xi Jinping's administration were having \"second thoughts\" about the neutral stance adopted by Beijing.\n\nIt comes just a few days after the US warned China that it would face consequences if it helped Russia evade sanctions.\n\n\"As time goes on, and as the number of Russian atrocities mounts up, I think it becomes steadily more difficult and politically embarrassing for people either actively or passively to condone Putin's invasion,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"There are considerable dilemmas now for people who thought they could sit this one out, who thought they could sit on the fence.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says he has told Volodymyr Zelensky he will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nUkraine's second city Kharkiv has been the constant target of Russian attacks for three weeks. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway report from the front line where Ukrainian troops continue to repel the enemy advance.\n\nWe enter the house where the back door used to be. Now there is just a blanket flapping in the freezing wind. The owners, long gone, would have had a view across the rich farmland north of Kharkiv, but much of that is unrecognisable, too.\n\nIn the garage, beside an abandoned skateboard, are a dozen or so empty packing cases for some of the world's best anti-tank weapons. A dead Russian soldier lies face down in the front garden.\n\nThe house has become a frontline base, and the spent cases are an indication that the soldiers here have had the fight of their lives - a fight for Ukraine's independence.\n\nWe have gained rare access to the Ukrainian army, who after three weeks of hard fighting, are still holding firm on the outskirts of Kharkiv, preventing Russian forces from capturing Ukraine's second-largest city.\n\n\"Do you want to go further ahead?\" asks Yuri, a commander with the Ukrainian army's 22 Motorized Infantry Battalion, pointing at the ruins of two Russian armoured personnel carriers, and the shattered pieces of two of their tanks. The battalion was reconstituted in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea and backed Donbas separatists.\n\n\"They've used drones, aircraft, attack helicopters, everything,\" says Yuri, as Russian shells thunder overhead, striking nearby roads and apartment blocks.\n\nMoments after Russian Grad rockets - multiple rockets launched in quick succession - fell on a residential neighbourhood\n\nThe Russians have continued to attack again and been repelled many times. In their frustration at being denied entry, they bomb the city, which was once home to 1.4 million people, day and night.\n\nThe ground is churned up and thick mud sucks on your boots. A backward glance shows the ruined shells of the line of houses we just passed through. Suburban gardens have become battlefields from Europe's past.\n\n\"The first three days were the worst. It was raining, we were covered in mud, we looked like pigs,\" says Olexander, 44, who is standing nearby.\n\nBy one of the destroyed armoured personnel carriers, its Z marking already faded, is a large crater, 20ft (6m) across. On the first day of the invasion, 24 February, a Russian strike killed six Ukrainian soldiers at this exact place. Many more died here since, but official figures aren't being released.\n\nA green army boot is perched on the crater's edge, a Russian corpse beyond that. A large black crow sits nearby, untroubled by the roar of shelling and Grad rockets from Russian positions.\n\nThe men here can tell you the precise date and time they came to the front - the implication being that if you weren't here the first three days, you don't know real fighting. \"Jump in the crater if there is more shelling,\" says Uri.\n\nConstantine, 58, was a pilot in the Ukrainian air force until he retired and became a journalist. Now he's back at the front, walking with a limp and using a broken broom handle for support. Russian shrapnel wounded his leg, but he refuses to leave the front.\n\n\"This is the last line of defence for the city, if they get through here, they will enter Kharkiv. This road takes you from Russia to the very heart of the city,\" he says.\n\nOlexander, 44, who fought in Donbas - \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on\"\n\nThere is a boom and whoosh, and a wire-guided missile flies just over our heads. We scramble into the crater. It strikes along the roadside, a gas pipeline bursts into flames.\n\nWhile we shelter, a tall reconnaissance soldier with blue tape across his helmet tells us to stay down. Roman is 34 years old, though he jokes that he was 24 when the war started three weeks ago.\n\nHe says the Russians won't show themselves now. \"They are chickens. We will respond good and proper.\" He stops and asks for a selfie. Later we learn that he transported the dead bodies of his fallen comrades in his own vehicle - which was just a month old - from the front to the city morgue.\n\nAs we leave, Constantine catches something in the air - thin copper wire, which stretches for miles. It was used to guide the Russian missile which just flew over our heads.\n\nWaiting for us is Olexander, 44, from nearby Poltava region. He's been with the unit since its founding and has fought in Donbas. \"This is much worse,\" he says, adding: \"For the first three days, we couldn't understand what was going on. We were lost and we couldn't believe it was happening. But after that we got better and we are standing our ground and will hold our positions.\"\n\nI ask him why he is fighting. He gives a laugh and responds, \"For a free Ukraine, for my family, and for you guys as well. For our independence and for peace.\"\n\nYuri, the commander, drives us back to the collection of Soviet-era apartment blocks, still inhabited. Russia says it came to Ukraine to demilitarise the country, but here we see what that means for civilians. A 20-storey block is still smoking from a Russian strike - it was two days ago, according to Yuri.\n\nThe official number of civilian deaths in Kharkiv stood at 234, including 14 children, on 16 March. The past few days have been punishing - as we were reminded in an instant.\n\nA volley of Russian Grad rockets rained down on the neighbourhood, striking just metres away. The soldiers around us had taken cover and were unharmed.\n\nSvitlana. 72, and her husband sleep two hours a night in their bomb-damaged flat\n\nIn the same housing complex lives husband and wife Svitlana and Sasha. Svitlana is 72, and welcomes us into her home, saying they haven't spoken to anyone in weeks. \"We're glad you came,\" she says.\n\nTheir building has already been hit, the back windows are gone, and they sleep in a central room on sofas. They manage two hours of sleep a night, the shelling is relentless. \"When it stops, it is like a thaw in spring,\" she says.\n\nI ask if she has a message for Vladimir Putin. \"No,\" she replies, firmly. \"No, it seems to me that this man has already lost his sanity and he does not think clearly. Because a sane human can not do something like this - bomb old people, kids, kindergartens, schools, hospitals. He wouldn't understand what I say.\"\n\nBut then, when I ask about the men not far from her home who are defending the city, she cries. She says, \"Yes, I'm very grateful to them for protecting their homeland. Hold on guys. We will always support you. They are so brave, both boys and girls.\"\n\nThere are still hundreds of thousands of people living in Kharkiv, despite the shelling. If Russia and Ukraine are brothers, as the Kremlin professes, then this is fratricide.\n\nAs we leave the neighbourhood, much of it is alight. Russia's fury with this city is both seen and heard. By evening, all of Kharkiv is covered in a cloud of smoke, the relentless pounding of guns continues, but the defenders of Kharkiv still keep the enemy from the city gates.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Kinzhal missiles have been fitted to Russian MiG-31K fighter jets, as shown in this defence ministry handout\n\nRussia's military has fired a hypersonic ballistic missile and destroyed a big underground arms depot in western Ukraine, the defence ministry in Moscow has said.\n\nIf confirmed it would be Russia's first use in this war of the Kinzhal, or Dagger, ballistic missile launched from the air, most likely by a MiG-31 warplane.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin has repeatedly highlighted Russia's investment in hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.\n\nThe statistics are impressive: according to Russian officials the Kinzhal can hit a target up to 2,000km (1,240 miles) away and can fly faster than 6,000 km/h. But does that make them any more dangerous than other missiles or even artillery which can cause just as much death and destruction?\n\n\"I don't view it as that significant,\" says James Acton, nuclear policy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \"I don't know how much of an advantage Russia is getting from using hypersonic missiles.\"\n\nPresident Putin boasted last December that Russia was leading the world in hypersonic missiles, which are hard to track because they can change direction while mid-flight.\n\nRussia posted a video of what it said was its missile strike on the arms depot in Deliatyn, a village in south-western Ukraine only 100km from the border with Romania.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Минобороны России This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"It's a sign of showmanship. Even if it's used we should consider it as an isolated moment because Russia doesn't have a large number of these missiles,\" said Dominika Kunertova of the Center for Security Studies in Zurich.\n\nThe Russian leader unveiled the Kinzhal four years ago as one of a series of \"invincible\" weapons that he said would evade enemy defences. The other hypersonic missiles are the Zirkon and the Avangard, which is both faster and has a far greater range.\n\nThe Kinzhal can carry a nuclear warhead as well as a conventional one and recent reports said MiG-31 fighters had been sent to Kaliningrad, bringing numerous European capitals within reach. There is no indication from where the attack on the arms depot was launched.\n\n\"It's a signal to the West, because Putin is annoyed that the West is daring to shift all these weapons [to Ukraine],\" Ms Kunertova told the BBC. \"It's questionable that it's so accurate, so it's not a game changer.\"\n\nJames Acton said the Kinzhal was thought to be an Iskander missile that had been modified for fighter jets, and Iskander-M missiles have already been fired by Russian ground launchers since the start of the war.\n\nAlthough the Iskander-M has a far shorter range than the air-launched missile, Ukraine's defence ministry claimed this week that Russia had fired almost all its Iskander missiles during the first 20 days of the war.\n\nA US defence official was quoted as saying on Friday that Russian forces had fired more than 1,080 missiles since 24 February.\n\n\"[That] is an astonishing number and a very significant fraction of Russia's pre-war inventory,\" Mr Acton told the BBC, pointing to the increasing use of unguided bombs in Russian aerial attacks. \"They may very well be running short of accurate munitions.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Russian cosmonauts arrive at the ISS in Ukrainian colours\n\nRussia's space agency has rejected claims that three Russian cosmonauts boarded the International Space Station wearing Ukrainian colours, in a possible statement against the war.\n\nThe first arrivals since Russia's war began were shown wearing bright yellow suits with blue trimmings.\n\nThey were warmly welcomed on board, hugging and greeting their fellow American, Russian and German crew.\n\n\"Sometimes yellow is just yellow,\" said the Roscosmos space agency.\n\nThe ISS is a joint project between Russia, America, Canada, Japan and several European countries.\n\nIt is led by a US-Russian partnership that has continued for two decades despite fluctuating tensions between the two world powers.\n\nRussian cosmonauts Denis Matveyev, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov docked at the ISS after a three-hour flight which blasted off from a Russian-owned facility in Kazakhstan.\n\n\"Congratulations on the successful docking,\" a voice from Russia's mission control said.\n\nA few hours later, two sets of hatches were opened and the three smiling men floated into the space station one by one in their yellow suits.\n\nThe standard-issue Russian uniform is plain blue, and at least one of the men was seen wearing this before take-off.\n\nThe moment was live-streamed by both Roscosmos and Nasa, the American space agency.\n\n\"It became our turn to pick a colour,\" Mr Artemyev said when he was asked about the suits in a live-streamed press conference.\n\n\"We had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it,\" he joked. \"That's why we had to wear yellow.\"\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine, people around the world have used the colours of its national flag to show solidarity and support.\n\nBut Roscosmos's press service dismissed the reports as a \"funny invention\" by foreign bloggers and media.\n\n\"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy.\"\n\nThe head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, is a strong supporter of the invasion and he suggested the claims that the cosmonauts were wearing Ukrainian colours had come from Ukrainian nationalists.\n\nRoscosmos later published another picture of Oleg Artemyev wearing an obviously Russian suit.\n\nMr Artemyev was later seen posing in a white suit with the colours of the Russian flag\n\nThe three Russians will begin a science mission on the ISS that is set to last just over six months.\n\nThey will replace three current crew members who are scheduled to fly back to Earth on 30 March.\n\nThe colours certainly speak to the moment, but what is the real motivation in wearing them? Does it signal support for Ukraine or the opposite? After all, the suits do display Russian flags.\n\nPerhaps neither view is correct.\n\nIt has been suggested that the colours are a reflection of the fact that all three cosmonauts attended the Bauman Moscow State Technical University which has a similar colour scheme. It's a \"Bauman crew\", the university has been trumpeting.\n\nThe cosmonauts themselves, however, said noticeably little.\n\nWhat we do know is that 400km (248 miles) above the Earth, East and West have no choice but to continue friendly relations.\n\nWhile space co-operation is falling apart elsewhere - witness the ExoMars rover, for example - on the ISS the partners are joined at the hip. Russia provides the propulsion for the station, the Americans provide the power. The ISS cannot exist without either party.", "This is the damage caused when a car reversed into a shop window in Gorseinon on Friday evening\n\nTwo teenage girls aged 15 and 16 are being held in custody after a car reversed into a shop front.\n\nSouth Wales Police was called at 22:52 GMT on Friday after a car drove into Gorseinon Eye Centre, High Street, Gorseinon, Swansea.\n\nBoth girls have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated vehicle taking.\n\nThe younger girl has also been arrested on suspicion of driving a motor vehicle while over the legal alcohol limit.\n\nThis Facebook post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Facebook The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts. Skip facebook post by Gorseinon Eye Centre This article contains content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Facebook cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts.\n\nOwner Helen Silverberg, who runs the business with her husband Jeremy, and David and Mandy Griffiths, praised neighbouring businesses and residents for their support.\n\n\"From the staff at Greggs bringing us coffees to the Crossroads clinic offering us space if we need it next week - so many residents and passers-by have wished us well,\" she said.\n\nIn a Facebook post, the business said it would remain closed on Saturday and, as it had been unable to access its appointment diary, it apologised to anyone with an appointment who had not been contacted.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Russia has accused Canada of \"kindergarten-level\" diplomacy in a Twitter tiff over a social media post by Canada's United Nations mission.\n\nThe diplomatic spat is over a letter seeking support for a draft Russian resolution about aid in Ukraine.\n\nCanada posted the letter to Twitter with \"suggested edits\", which led to retweets from other UN missions.\n\nAn image of the letter - annotated in red type - was posted on Canada's official UN mission Twitter account on Thursday. The letter, signed by Russian diplomat Vassily Nebenzia, had been sent to all UN members the previous day.\n\nIn it, Mr Nebenzia says he is \"reaching out with regards to an urgent matter related to the dire humanitarian situation in and around Ukraine\".\n\nCanada's annotation adds to that line: \"which we have caused as a result of our illegal war of aggression\".\n\nThe letter goes on to say that \"Western colleagues\" are \"politicising the humanitarian issue\". Canada adds \"Do you think the UN membership actually believes this? Please explain.\"\n\nDmitry Polyanskiy, first deputy permanent representative of Russia to the United Nations, responded to the tweet, saying it \"shows that your diplomatic skills and good manners are at lowest ebb\" and reminding Canada that it twice failed to secure enough support to win a non-permanent seat on the powerful UN Security Council.\n\nThe letter was meant to boost support for a draft resolution on providing humanitarian relief in Ukraine, which was scheduled for a vote on Friday at the UN Security Council. The resolution has been criticised by Western nations for its failure to mention Russia's responsibility for the war.\n\nThat scheduled vote was cancelled by Russia on Thursday. The United States' envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Russia's resolution was \"farcical\" and \"doomed to fail\", according to the AFP news agency.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nFrance strutted to a first Grand Slam in 12 years as they ran in three tries to comfortably see off England in front of a jubilant Stade de France.\n\nTries from Gael Fickou and Francois Cros gave the hosts a healthy half-time lead and left England playing catch-up in the Six Nations finale.\n\nEngland's Freddie Steward, deployed on the wing, stepped and swooped to score after Joe Marchant's break after the interval.\n\nBut it was a rare moment of danger from England, who were kept at arm's length.\n\nFrance captain Antoine Dupont darted under the sticks soon after and the hosts played out the final 10 minutes in comfort as their fans started the party.\n\nLa Marseillaise reverberated round the stands and tricolores fluttered from every seat as the final scrum was set with the clock in the red.\n\nGregory Alldritt's kick to the stands moments later was the signal for his team to drop to their knees and savour a clean sweep that has been brewing for the last couple of campaigns.\n\nEngland finish third in the Six Nations, but this contest revealed the chasm that separates them from the champions.\n\nFrance were superior in every area. Stronger up front, more accurate in the backs, tighter in defence, more clinical in attack.\n\nFor England, defeat is a sobering reality check. There are still 18 months until the start of the Rugby World Cup, but to close the gap on France in that timeframe requires swift, steep improvement.\n\nThere was little sign of it at the Stade de France. A campaign that started with Eddie Jones' side stifled by Scotland, ended with them overwhelmed in Paris, and there have been precious few positives in between.\n\nFrance shoot for the stars at the Stade\n\nEngland had creaked long before the opening score. Fickou knocked on as an intricate pre-planned move prised open a hole for him before Jonathan Danty's offload went to ground on a dangerous broken-field counter.\n\nThe visitors' luck could not hold. France duly got a grip of the ball and the match. Gabin Villiere's dart down the left dragged England's defence out of shape and Romain Ntamack's looping mispass found an unguarded Fickou, who dived over on the opposite wing.\n\nEngland's kick-heavy tactics worked on occasion. Twice in the first half, Freddie Steward chased Marcus Smith's hoofs and managed to win the aerial battle.\n\nBut on both occasions, France were quicker into the breakdown to turn over possession and stem the momentum. The rest of the bombardment was eagerly gobbled up by full-back Melvyn Jaminet and his two wings.\n\nFrance's threat was never far from the surface, but England dredged in vain for a way through the defence.\n\nThe visitors rarely looked like stringing together a series of profitable phases to build pressure and only clung within range thanks to a pair of Smith penalties as half-time loomed.\n\nCros ensured the difference between the sides was better represented on the scoreboard by the break though as he stretched over to make it 18-6 after a sky-hooked one-hand pass from Fickou had sent Villiere scampering clear.\n\nEngland's toil suddenly, unexpectedly bore fruit early in the second half. Marchant barrelled through a hole, Smith and Henry Slade combined to get the ball wide and Steward stepped inside the covering Ntamack to score.\n\nSmith converted from the touchline. The lead was trimmed to five points.\n\nIt could have been where the Stade de France got twitchy. It could have been there the pressure of ending a Grand Slam drought bore down on the players. This generation is different though. Just as when Ireland threatened a comeback in round two, they found another gear.\n\nNumber eight Alldritt picked and went round the fringe and slipped the ball inside to Dupont, with whom he has played on and off since the pair were boys at the small-town southern club of Auch.\n\nWorld Player of the Year Dupont did the rest, shrugging off two tacklers on his way in.\n\nThey are both stars on the biggest stage now. Few would bet against them or their team for the biggest prize either when France hosts the Rugby World Cup next year.\n\n'Two wins not acceptable for England' - best of the reaction\n\nFormer England wing Ugo Monye on Radio 5 Live: \"Third place is a fair reflection of where England are. Will the fans be frustrated? Absolutely.\n\n\"This England team have been in a cycle of boom or bust. Last year was a clear bust but to back it up with the same number of wins, for the level of players we have, for the player pool we have, the financial backing we have and the coach we have, it's just not good enough.\n\n\"France are streets ahead of every other team in this competition. They have a brilliant style. They have flair with work rate and physicality, but they're also devoid of those big moments that have cost them down the years.\"\n\nFormer England scrum-half Matt Dawson on BBC Radio 5 Live: \"Dupont is not even halfway in his career and goodness me, he's just going to get better and better.\n\n\"He's one of those, it doesn't matter what sport it is, the best players make it seem like they are playing in slow motion.\"\n\n'We wanted to write our names in history'\n\nFrance scrum-half and captain Antoine Dupont said: \"This is our third tournament together as a team. We were very close twice so we know how difficult it is to win.\n\n\"We wanted to write our place in history.\n\n\"Of course we have next year's World Cup in mind, we discuss it between us, but for now we'll enjoy the Grand Slam and we'll start thinking about the World Cup later.\"\n\nFrance team manager Raphael Ibanez, speaking to ITV: \"Twelve years is a very, very long time and this was an intense final game but we have a fantastic group of players.\n\n\"We were thinking we needed to hold on and fair play to England, they tried to break us down.\"\n\nBest of the pictures\n\nFrance: Jaminet; Penaud, Fickou, Danty, Villiere; Ntamack, Dupont; Baille, Marchand, Atonio, Woki, Willemse, Cros, Jelonch, Alldritt.Replacements: Ramos for Jaminet (76), Lucu for Dupont (76), Gros for Baille (49), Mauvaka for Marchand (49),Haouas for Atonio (54), Flament for Woki (71), Taofifenua for Willemse (49), Cretin for Cros (71).England: Furbank; Steward, Marchant, Slade, Nowell; Smith, Youngs; Genge, George, Stuart, Itoje, Isiekwe, Lawes,Underhill, Simmonds.\n\nReplacements: Ford for Furbank (76), Daly for Nowell (25), Randall for Youngs (64), Marler for Genge (64),Sinckler for Stuart (49), Chessum for Isiekwe (61), Dombrandt for Underhill (64).\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nRomelu Lukaku scored his 12th goal of the season as Chelsea beat Championship side Middlesbrough to reach the FA Cup semi-finals.\n\nMiddlesbrough had knocked out Manchester United and Tottenham on their way to the quarter-finals but their hopes of claiming another Premier League victim were dealt an early blow when Lukaku tapped in from Mason Mount's cross after a quick Chelsea counter.\n\nHakim Ziyech made it 2-0 midway through the first half with a superb dipping effort from the edge of the box before Lukaku was denied a second when Anfernee Dijksteel cleared off the line.\n\nMiddlesbrough showed plenty of endeavour in the second half as they looked to mount an unlikely comeback, with Arsenal loanee Folarin Balogun shooting wide after a promising counter, while Duncan Watmore also sent an effort over the bar from a good position.\n\nHowever, Chelsea could have grabbed a late third when substitute Timo Werner met a free-kick but Middlesbrough goalkeeper Joe Lumley did well to palm away.\n\nChelsea will find out who they will play in the semi-finals, which will be played at Wembley on 16 and 17 April, when the draw is made before Sunday's quarter-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool (18:00 GMT).\n\nThere had been a bit of needle before this game with Chelsea having had to make an awkward U-turn over their request for the game to be played behind closed doors for \"sporting integrity\".\n\nThe club were unable to sell their entire 4,500 ticket allocation for the fixture because of sanctions that have been imposed by the government on Russian owner Roman Abramovich because of his connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nIt meant they were backed by around 700 supporters who had got their tickets before the sanctions were brought in, while Middlesbrough were cheered on by a sell-out crowd at the 34,000 capacity Riverside Stadium.\n\nChelsea players have responded well amid the uncertainty surrounding the club off the pitch. They had been unsure if they would have a 10-hour round trip by coach to get to Middlesbrough just hours after returning from a Champions League tie in Lille because of financial constraints.\n\nSince Abramovich had his assets frozen on 10 March as part of sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Chelsea have won all three games they have played and this was an ultimately routine victory against a side who have performed well against Premier League opponents in this year's FA Cup.\n\nLukaku has endured a difficult campaign in which he has not looked completely happy at Chelsea but he was handed a start in this game.\n\nAnd he made a key contribution, opening the scoring for a third FA Cup goal in four games, making an important clearance from a Marcus Tavernier free-kick with the score 1-0, and was denied a second only by a goalline clearance.\n\nThe Belgian's celebration of his goal was muted, doing little to quash speculation about his long-term future, but he did what he was asked to do as Chelsea kept alive their hopes of a ninth FA Cup title.\n\nIt has been an excellent run in the FA Cup by Middlesbrough, who have been rejuvenated since Chris Wilder took charge on 7 November.\n\nThey started this game well and were not afraid to press high against a side who had won seven of their last eight games.\n\nUltimately, that bold start proved costly as they were caught on the counter for the opener but their run in the competition and their performances against Premier League opposition will give them confidence as they now switch focus to joining their recent FA Cup opposition in the top flight next season.\n\nMiddlesbrough are eighth in the Championship, two points off sixth but with two games in hand over most of those above them.\n• None Offside, Chelsea. César Azpilicueta tries a through ball, but Harvey Vale is caught offside.\n• None Kenedy (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Lee Peltier (Middlesbrough) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Jonny Howson (Middlesbrough) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt blocked. Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Attempt blocked. Timo Werner (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Blocks of flats and a shopping mall have been completely destroyed in Mariupol, Ukraine.\n\nThe besieged port city has faced constant shelling since the war started three weeks ago.\n\nThe Mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko told the BBC that fighting has reached the city centre.\n\nRead more on the attack on Mariupol here.\n\nThis video has no sound", "Thousands of families have been separated in the chaos of fighting in Ukraine. Power cuts and disruption to internet and mobile phone services mean many have gone weeks without hearing news of loved ones in areas hit by intense Russian shelling.\n\nSergey was sheltering with his family in a bomb shelter when he left to get food. Fierce fighting meant he couldn't get back to them, and the next day his phone went dead.\n\nDesperate for news, his brother Vladimir turned to a Telegram group set by a Ukrainian TV presenter which shares information about missing people.\n\nThe group, called Search for the Missing, has grown to more than 80,000 members since it launched earlier this month, and receives thousands of pleas for help every day.\n\nHours after he posted about his brother, and four days after Sergey went missing, Vladimir got a phone call from the family of Sergey's wife in Kyiv, who had seen the message. \"By the end of the day, they called to tell me that my brother had made his way to them,\" Vladimir said.\n\nSergey was traced via the group\n\nSergey had made it to another shelter, but with no food and water, he and the people he was with decided to surrender to Russian troops. \"They took a white flag and went out to the Russians. After a search, they were released. Then with the help of volunteers, he drove to Kyiv,\" Vladimir says.\n\nThe rest of Sergey's family eventually made it out of Bucha and to safety in Gdansk, Poland. \"I experienced feelings that I have never experienced in my life,\" Vladimir says. \"It was such welcome news in these difficult days.\" Sergey has since returned to Ukraine to join the army, he says.\n\nSearch for the Missing was started by Katya Osadcha, a former model, journalist and popular reality TV presenter. She was desperate to help when the war started, but felt she \"couldn't shoot or be a soldier\" because she has two small children.\n\nInstead, she asked friends on Instagram to help and now she and 15 volunteers run the group 24 hours a day, checking each message for details, and filtering out duplicates.\n\nKatya says they have helped about 300 people find missing relatives, each one a happy update - a flurry of red hearts, praying and crying emojis - among the channel's endless stream of desperate pleas for information.\n\n\"You receive pictures of happy people on holidays, and their friends and family are writing to us saying that they are missing and the last call was five days ago from a shelter, and there has been a lot of bombing.\"\n\nEmma Shymanovych, who helps run the channel, says the small team of volunteers has been overwhelmed: \"It's extremely painful to read enquiries about lost children, or about children looking for their parents. It's hard to express what we feel.\"\n\nWhen Yulia (left) escaped Mariupol the rest of her family stayed behind\n\nYulia, 25, left her mother, brother and sister behind when she escaped the city of Mariupol with her husband and two-month-old baby: \"The last time I spoke to them, they had not had electricity, water, heating and communications for several days.\"\n\nWhen she couldn't get through to them, Yulia contacted local authorities and friends who might still be in the city to see if they knew anything, but got nowhere, and posted on the Telegram channel.\n\n\"I push the worst thoughts away from me,\" she said. \"I really hope they're safe and they just don't have a connection. I only hope for an immediate ceasefire.\" Not long after we spoke, Yulia sent me a message to tell me her mother had finally been able to make contact, but was still in Mariupol. \"She spoke for just a minute. Thank God!\"\n\nIryna posted a picture of her friend's 23-year-old daughter Julia, after she went missing in Kyiv. \"Her mother was crying constantly,\" she says. She tried asking for news on Facebook and other Telegram channels, eventually turning to Search for the Missing.\n\nJulia had dropped her phone when she was running to a bomb shelter\n\n\"Within 24 hours I started getting responses from people who knew her. Some said they didn't know anything, but then her friends got in touch and said Julia had broken her phone and hadn't been able to make contact.\"\n\nJulia had dropped her phone when she was running to a bomb shelter and she didn't know her mother's phone number off by heart.\n\nThousands more are still trapped in Mariupol. Olga, who lives in Istanbul, posted in the channel after losing contact with her 31-year-old daughter Daria and her two grandchildren Mark, 4, and Lydia, 5, who live there.\n\nOlga has lost contact with her daughter Daria (right) and grandchildren Mark and Lydia\n\nOlga last heard from her daughter on 28 February. In a text message, Daria wrote that a shell had hit their apartment building, and there was no electricity or heating. \"I don't know what to do at all\" the message said. \"I'm scared. The children are dressed, there are a lot of blankets. Mariupol is encircled by the enemy. We have a very bad connection.\"\n\nOlga has almost given up hope of hearing from them. Monday was her daughter's birthday. \"I'm terrified of everything and I never thought that my family would be affected by war\" she says.\n\nOlga, from Bakhmut, posted in the group to try to find news of her daughter, Alice, and eight-month-old grandson, Timofey, in Mariupol. The last she heard from them, they were sheltering with neighbours in the basement of a supermarket without electricity, water or heating.\n\nAlice and Timofey were last heard of sheltering in a supermarket basement\n\nSince then, she has received a message that the building they were hiding in was bombed, and she is anxiously waiting for more news. \"Whether they are alive and where they are now - I don't know.\"", "Protests were held over the teenager's treatment at a north London police station\n\nA black pupil who was strip-searched after being wrongly suspected of carrying drugs is suing the Met Police.\n\nThe 15-year-old, also known as Child Q, is also taking civil action against her school, the law firm Bhatt Murphy said.\n\nScotland Yard has apologised after a safeguarding report found the search was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nSpeaking via her lawyers, the girl said she wanted \"cast-iron commitments to ensure this never happens again\".\n\nIn a statement, she said: \"I want to thank the thousands of people across the world of all backgrounds who have offered me support - both publicly and through messages conveyed to my legal team - following everything I've been through.\n\nHundreds of people attended a protest organised by Hackney Cop Watch at Stoke Newington police station.\n\nThe protest started at 16:00 GMT on Friday\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nNo other adult was present and her parents were not contacted.\n\nHer intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review. No drugs were found.\n\nThe victim's mother told the safeguarding review that after the strip-search, her daughter had been \"asked to go back into the exam\" she had been sitting with no teacher asking about her welfare.\n\nHer family said the girl had changed from \"top of the class\" to \"a shell of her former bubbly self\", and she was now self-harming and required therapy.\n\nOne of Friday's protesters told the BBC \"she can't even fathom\" the \"disgusting\" treatment of the teenager.\n\nShe said: \"What they did to that child has brought tears to my eyes every day because I'm thinking 'could that have been my daughter once upon a time, could that be my granddaughter?\"\n\nThe Met Police's treatment of the pupil has provoked anger\n\nLondon's mayor Sadiq Khan has written to the head of the police watchdog urging them to consider a case of gross misconduct.\n\nHowever, the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said its investigation was complete and its report was being \"finalised\".\n\nIt added three police constables had been served with notices last year advising them they were under investigation for misconduct, \"over their roles in either carrying out the strip search or involvement in supervising it\".\n\nScotland Yard has said the officers' actions were \"truly regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nMet Police Commander Dr Alison Heydari said: \"While we await the findings of the IOPC investigation, we have already taken action to ensure that our officers and staff have a refreshed understanding of the policy for conducting a 'further search' and advice around dealing with schools, ensuring that children are treated as children.\"\n\n\"We love you Child Q… and we pray for resolve. Keep your head up\".\n\nThat was the message of solidarity from Ayesha, one mother on this march.\n\nHundreds of people stood outside Stoke Newington police station, holding placards and banners. The crowds stopped traffic and buses were diverted.\n\n\"No police in schools\" and \"schools + cops = violence\" were some of the messages people posted on the walls of the police station.\n\nAmid chants of \"protect black girls\", nearby cars beeped their horns. Hackney MP Diane Abbott spoke of a community \"confronted by brutality from police officers all over again\".\n\nSeveral other people made speeches and demanded justice. But while there's a clear sense of anger, this is also a community feeling traumatised.\n\nMany here say they are worried about the current safeguarding measures in place in schools.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nIreland's pack starred as they beat Scotland to clinch their first Triple Crown in four years but their Six Nations title hopes were later dashed when France defeated England.\n\nAndy Farrell's side would have been crowned champions had England beaten France on Saturday night, but the French were too strong as they lifted the trophy.\n\nIreland's victory over Scotland came courtesy of tries from Dan Sheehan, Cian Healy, Josh van der Flier and Conor Murray.\n\nThe defeat ends another disappointing tournament for Gregor Townsend's side - one that started so brightly with a brilliant win over England - in which they finished fourth.\n\nTrailing Ireland by three points in the standings going into their Paris encounter, France knew any manner of victory over the English would secure what was a first Grand Slam since 2010.\n\nThe Triple Crown, Ireland's sixth since the turn of the century, is Farrell's first piece of silverware since being elevated from assistant coach to the top job after the 2019 World Cup.\n\nDuring his time at the helm he has overseen the reinvention of Ireland's attack, which although initially a bumpy transition has blossomed into a recognisable and fruitful system.\n\nWhile not always as free-flowing, it has along with an aggressive defensive structure yielded 12 wins from Ireland's past 13 games.\n\nAgainst Scotland it was for large parts an imperfect display as they struggled to find the edge and stretch the visiting defence with any regularity.\n\nThere was however still enough quick ball and aggressive carrying to see the hosts take control of the game in the opening half.\n\nAfter conceding an incredible six penalties at Twickenham last week eyes were on the Irish scrum, which held up well barring one Scottish win late in the half.\n\nFront rows Sheehan and Healy provided the finishing touches to the two opening tries, with the hooker peeling away from a rolling maul for the opener after 17 minutes.\n\nHealy burrowed over for the second 10 minutes later after strong carries from Sheehan and Jack Conan.\n\nWhile Ireland enjoyed the better of the opening half, the last 10 minutes belonged to Scotland and provided them with a route back into the contest as Schoeman profited from some excellent counter-rucking to put his side on the board.\n\nScotland arrived in Dublin under a cloud following revelations that six players including captain Stuart Hogg and star fly-half Finn Russell were disciplined for breaching team protocols by visiting a bar last weekend.\n\nHogg retained his place in the starting line-up while Russell was demoted to the bench with Blair Kinghorn handed the number 10 jersey.\n\nThe visitors may feel the margin of defeat does not accurately reflect their contribution to the contest, and indeed they did produce flashes of promise but too often robbed themselves of the chance to build momentum with poor decision making.\n\nDarcy Graham and Schoeman made big breaks in the early exchanges that ultimately came to nothing, while both Graham and Kyle Steyn botched promising kick chases by running directly into the Irish receiver.\n\nWhen they put together multiple phases they were dangerous, with Schoeman scrambling over to bring them back into the contest after ferocious counter-rucking saw them win possession in the Irish half.\n\nNine minutes into the second half they had a golden chance to bring themselves within two points of Ireland when Hogg burst clear on the wing and opted to go for the line himself as opposed to passing inside only for Hugo Keenan to produce a sensational try-saving tackle and drag the Scottish captain into touch.\n\nThe close shave appeared to refocus Ireland, who moved up the pitch and knocked on the door for 10 minutes before Jamison Gibson-Park's smart inside ball sent Van der Flier crashing across the line.\n\nGiven their superior points difference over France, a bonus point was inconsequential to Ireland's title challenge but still they pushed for a fourth score.\n\nWhen replacement Scotland scrum-half Ben White was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock on with two minutes remaining, Ireland threw caution to the wind one last time and found a gap for Murray to dart through for the final score.\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "Joanne Tulip was murdered by Steven Ling on Christmas Day 1997 in Stamfordham, Northumberland\n\nA bid to move the killer of Joanne Tulip to an open prison has been blocked by Dominic Raab.\n\nThe Justice Secretary rejected the transfer of Steven Ling, overruling a Parole Board recommendation.\n\nLing was jailed for life in December 1998 after he admitted to the murder of Ms Tulip in Stamfordham, Northumberland, on Christmas Day 1997.\n\nA spokesman for Mr Raab said he had acted \"in the interest of public protection\".\n\nThis is the first intervention of its kind made by the Justice Secretary after he promised to personally review requests to move high-risk offenders to open prisons.\n\nSteven Ling was jailed for a minimum of 20 years in 1998\n\nLing, 23 at the time, stabbed 29-year-old Ms Tulip 60 times at his home, having met her at a pub earlier in the day.\n\nParole Board papers said the panel assessing his case \"took account of Mr Ling's consistent good behaviour in prison over many years and his good working relationships with professional staff\", noting he had participated in programmes to address his behaviour.\n\nThey did not think he was suitable for release, but had recommended a move to \"open conditions\", which the justice secretary rejected.\n\nNow 47, this was Ling's fourth review before the Parole Board, with a similar request being blocked by Ministry of Justice officials in 2020 when his case last came up.\n\nHe will be eligible for another parole review in two years' time.\n\nLing was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court and initially ordered to serve at least 20 years in prison, However, the minimum term was reduced to 18 by a High Court judge.\n\nLast month Ms Tulip's mother, Doreen Soulsby, said she believed her daughter's killer was still \"a very dangerous man\".\n\nShe said her family felt \"terrified and devastated\" Ling was even being considered for a move to an open prison.\n\nFollow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThe Ricketts family, who own Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs, a consortium featuring Lord Coe and another group led by British property investor Nick Candy have all submitted offers to buy Chelsea.\n\nA deadline for bids was set for 21:00 GMT on Friday after the Premier League club had been put up for sale by Russian owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nChelsea fan Candy said that he had secured additional investment from South Korea and that his bid is \"over £2bn\".\n\nAlso among the confirmed bidders is a group consisting of Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, US businessman and Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly, American PR executive Barbara Charone, British businessman Jonathan Goldstein and British journalist Daniel Finkelstein.\n\nThe consortium is working with America-based investment firm Clearlake Capital, which has about $60bn (£45.6bn) of assets under management.\n• None Is this a moment of reckoning for ownership in English football?\n\nAbramovich's attempt to sell the club was halted after he was sanctioned by the UK government and his assets, including Chelsea, were frozen.\n\nThat move came in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Abramovich understood to have strong ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.\n\nAmerican investment firm Raine Group has been tasked with selling Chelsea and the UK government is expected to issue a new licence, allowing the club to be sold, once a preferred buyer had been highlighted.\n\nAlthough the official deadline to purchase the west London Premier League club was 21:00 GMT on Friday, some final bids are likely to be submitted into the weekend.\n\nThere are still more than 20 interested parties, but the number of confirmed bids is likely to be 10 to 15.\n\nChelsea and Raine Group will make a shortlist next week, with the preferred bidder then requiring government approval, which will involve proving the source of funds and where the money goes next.\n\nAny sale will also need to be signed off by the Premier League's owners' and directors' test - known as the 'fit and proper person's test'.\n\nOne of the bids was submitted by a consortium led by ex-Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton and Lord Coe.\n\n\"I remain the only person [in the bidding process] to have effected a change of ownership at a major football club in a similar situation, which I did at Liverpool 12 years ago,\" Broughton, who is also a former British Airways chairman, said.\n\n\"As a lifelong fan, I am committed to ensuring Chelsea maintains its preeminent position at the top of European football and making sure we put fans first.\"\n\nThe consortium said fans would be \"at the heart of decision making\" if the bid was successful and it would \"guarantee the club is never beholden to a single individual or sovereign wealth fund\".\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday, Broughton said the consortium were \"fully on board\" with the recommendations made by a fan-led review into the sport last year.\n\nFormer sports minister Tracey Crouch chaired the review, which stated supporters should be consulted on all key off-field decisions through a 'shadow board'.\n\n\"All the ideas Tracey Crouch put forward are on the table,\" Broughton said.\n\n\"We don't want to tell the fans which elements of the report we want to introduce, we want to sit down with them.\n\n\"We absolutely think that the winning bid needs to be fan friendly and it needs to take on board the philosophy of the Tracey Crouch report.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Candy's Blue Football Consortium said: \"I can confirm that the two South Korean firms Hana Financial Group and C&P Sports Group are a significant part of Mr Candy's global consortium of investors.\n\n\"Their involvement is representative of Chelsea's global brand and huge loyal fanbase in Asia.\"\n\nCandy added: \"Football clubs are vitally important community and cultural assets, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give football back to the fans and put them at the heart of the operations and strategy of a leading global football club.\"\n\nThe bid from the Ricketts family is backed by billionaire hedge fund entrepreneur Ken Griffin.\n\nTurkish businessman Muhsin Bayrak, who had previously expressed an interest in the club, said late on Friday that his company AB Group Holding had not filed a bid.\n\nBayrak attributed AB Group's failure to meet the deadline to a misunderstanding with his lawyers over the auction procedure, telling news agency Reuters that he was \"very upset\" by the situation.\n\nWho are the potential bidders for Chelsea?\n• The Ricketts family , who own Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs, are leading a bid from a group of investors.\n• Hansjorg Wyss Todd Boehly have formed part of a consortium to try to take over Chelsea. Now joined by American PR executive Barbara Charone Jonathan Goldstein Daniel Finkelstein\n• Nick Candy, Gianluca Vialli , who co-owns Tifosy, a mergers and acquisitions company for the football sector, and joined by Hana Financial Group and C&P Sports Group.\n• None Other parties reported to be interested include US billionaire and Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris, who has a stake in Crystal Palace,\n\nWhat is the club worth?\n\nAbramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140m but in his statement announcing his intention to sell he said his ownership had \"never been about business nor money, but about pure passion for the game and club\".\n\nHe values the club at £3bn and has loaned the club £1.5bn - but said he will not ask for any loans to be repaid. Abramovich has also said proceeds of the sale would be donated to war victims.\n\nThe funds from the sale could go to a charitable organisation or into a frozen account.\n\nFootball finance expert Kieran Maguire has said the £3bn price tag \"does seem excessive\" given the size of Stamford Bridge.\n\n\"Most commentators take the view that it's not big enough to generate the money that somebody would want going forward,\" Maguire said. \"There is no capacity to increase Stamford Bridge given where it's located in London so therefore moving elsewhere in London would be very expensive indeed.\"\n• None The Sports Desk podcast: Exit Abramovich as sport turns its back on Russia\n• None How Abramovich rewrote the rules on how to run a successful club\n\nCan some of the potential buyers afford Chelsea?\n• None Chelsea: Aethel Partners become latest group to submit bid to buy club\n• None Chicago Cubs owners and consortium featuring Lord Coe intend to bid for club\n• None British businessman Nick Candy says he is planning takeover bid\n\nChelsea have lost more than £900,000 a week since Roman Abramovich acquired the club, with a wage bill of £28m a month.\n\nMost of the organisations that have come forward are linked to American investors, who have franchise investments in the NFL, NBA and so on.\n\nWhat they will be looking to do there is change the model so there is better cost control at Chelsea, or trying to generate additional money.\n\nWe're now reaching close to a critical mass of American investment in the Premier League, so they could be looking to change the culture in the Premier League, perhaps with the aim of cutting back levels of expenditure to make it more profitable from a day-to-day basis.\n\nTaking a look at Aethel's own accounts it is unusual how a company with relatively few assets could make a bid as large as we're talking about, in the £2-3bn arena.\n\nHow quickly could the sale go through?\n\nAbramovich has owned Chelsea since 2003, with the club winning 21 trophies during his tenure. He had his British assets, which include Chelsea, frozen by the UK government and was disqualified as a director of the club by the Premier League.\n\nThe Blues are allowed to continue operating after a special licence was issued by the UK government,\n\nThis also ensures Chelsea's 800 staff - plus hundreds more on matchdays - are paid and allows existing season ticket holders to attend matches, but a new licence will need to be issued for the club to be sold.\n\nPremier League chief executive Richard Masters said earlier this month: \"The quickest one [sale of a club] we've done is 10 days, but that's not to say it can't be beaten.\n\n\"Normally it's a matter of weeks but it depends on the complexities and the number of potential owners.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "While Russian advances across Ukraine have slowed in recent days, people in the strategic port city of Odesa are preparing for an expected and imminent Russian attack.\n\nDecision-time is fast approaching in Odesa. As Russian warships circle off the coast, air-raid sirens wail over the cobbled streets, and Russian ground forces seek to advance west along the shores of the Black Sea, civilians in this historic, famously cosmopolitan port city are facing the same hard and urgent choices that millions of other Ukrainians have already confronted.\n\nSome residents have left Odesa, heading west towards the nearby border with Moldova or taking a crowded train north to Lviv. The city's elegant boulevards, with their cafes, trams, and theatres, now stand mostly empty and littered with tank traps, while protective sandbags crowd around some of the most famous monuments.\n\nBut like many Odesans, Valentin Kartashova is staying put - for now. She runs a state orphanage, looking after 90 children, including both newborns and 18 others with severe disabilities.\n\n\"These children are dependent on oxygen, on respiratory support to keep them alive. I've had many offers of help from abroad. But they want to meet us at the border. I can't take these children by train or car. How can I move them from here? Must I leave them? Must I abandon them? And only take the healthy ones?\" asks Kartashova, shaking her head.\n\nChildren at the city's state-run orphanage will remain in the city, unless they come under direct fire\n\nShe's prepared a cellar in the orphanage compound, with supplies to last a week or more, and has decided the children will be safer staying in Odesa, unless they come under direct fire.\n\nA few miles closer to the city centre, Olga Pavlova has also reached a similar decision.\n\n\"I'm afraid - and not only me. I think other people are just as afraid of the situation. But we'll stay here. We love our city and we'll stay. I've become a volunteer. Who else will feed the animals?\" says Pavlova, a veterinarian scientist who works at Odesa's municipal zoo.\n\nHundreds of families have already left pets at the zoo before fleeing, but almost all the staff have decided to remain at work.\n\n\"We've decided it is better to stay put. The animals are our responsibility. We'll win this war soon, I believe. People will return and we need to make sure the zoo is still here, and the theatres, the libraries. We need to guard all that - to protect our culture,\" says the zoo's director, Igor Beliakov. He explains that some of the more nervous animals - a 43-year-old African elephant known as Daisy, several bears, and zebras - are being kept inside in case the sound of explosions makes them panic.\n\nPlaying their regular game of chess in a park near the city's Russian Orthodox cathedral, in sub-zero temperatures, two ethnic Russian pensioners, Alexander Nikrasov and Nikolai Ivanov, describe the invasion as \"worse than the Nazis\", who occupied Odesa during World War Two.\n\n\"At least the Germans didn't destroy the city when they left Odesa, but now there's every chance it will be destroyed,\" says Ivanov.\n\n\"Mykolaiv [a city under Russian attack, to the east] is already suffering for defending us. Of course, the war will come here. People are dying in their thousands and for what? Because Putin wants to take something from us?\" asks Nikrasov, brandishing a walking stick which he calls, \"my only weapon.\"\n\nSpeaking by phone from Italy, one of Odesa's most renowned Russian-speaking poets, Boris Khersonsky, says he is \"not a refugee\", but left the city a few days earlier after receiving a literary invitation.\n\n\"It's a really difficult decision. What do you have to keep you in Odesa? What is waiting for you abroad?\" says Khersonsky, adding that he plans to return imminently, assuming the city remains under Ukrainian control.\n\n\"If the city is under Putin's rule, I won't return. If Putin succeeds in capturing Mykolaiv then he has a straight path to Odesa. It's always been a volatile city with a big cultural heritage. Over the years, many writers - who are the glory of Odesa - have left. Odesa can give birth to talent, but very often it doesn't take care of it,\" he says.\n\nAs in so much of Ukraine, many people are volunteering to join the local defence forces.\n\n\"I love my country. I want to live in a free country. Russian is my language, but now Russia is the enemy. Maybe it's a surprise, but maybe it was expected,\" says Ruslan Prihodka, who usually works in a chemist, but is now learning to assemble an AK47 in a classroom near the city centre.\n\n\"I don't know how to fight yet. But we'll have to do our best. Maybe there's something wrong in Putin's head,\" says Dima, a construction worker, standing nearby.\n\nDuring one air raid, volunteers working at a food-collection centre near the city's grand old opera house rushed to the basement, where a local singer brought out a guitar to play Ukrainian folk songs.\n\n\"Having watched how Russian forces have already destroyed other historic towns like Kharkiv, I have no hope that our Russian heritage will spare us from their bombs,\" says Alexei Kostrzhitski, an IT expert now serving as a captain in a local defence group.\n\n\"Mariupol and Kharkiv are very pro-Russian cities,\" adds a young city councillor, Petro Obukhov. \"Most citizens here speak in Russian not Ukrainian. And still Putin bombs them. It makes no sense but still I hope he will not bomb us.\"", "Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters Image caption: Pavel has been taking pictures in bomb shelters\n\nPavel Gomzyakov usually photographs the happiest days of people’s lives. He is an award-winning wedding photographer from Mariupol, southern Ukraine.\n\nBut, recently, he has been documenting life in the city as it has come under heavy Russian attack.\n\n“Before the start of the war, Mariupol was a peaceful Ukrainian city, a city in which 95% of people were Russian speaking, like me. My daughter used to study at a Russian school,” he tells BBC Panorama.\n\nAt the end of last week, he escaped, along with his wife and nine-year-old son. His elderly parents stayed behind and he hasn’t been able to contact them for days, as electricity has been cut.\n\nHe is now trying work out how he can unite with his eldest daughter, 17, who is alone in Germany. She was in the north-eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv at ballet school when the war started.\n\nPavel says it is if they have all woken up to a new, terrible reality.\n\nMore on Panorama Ukraine's Resistance: Standing Up to Putin on BBC One at 20:00 GMT", "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have arrived in Belize for their week-long tour of the Caribbean - their first joint overseas trip since the start of the pandemic.\n\nThe couple were all smiles as they stepped off the plane following an 11-hour flight from the UK.\n\nThey were welcomed by Belize's governor general ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Johnny Briceno.\n\nBut part of their tour has been axed amid reported opposition from locals.\n\nThe trip is to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this year, and will see William and Catherine also visit Jamaica and the Bahamas.\n\nThe royal couple were greeted by a guard of honour from the Belize Defence Force as they landed at Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport.\n\nAfter military tunes were played by the unit's band, William inspected the personnel.\n\nLater in the day, Catherine and William met Mr Briceno and his wife Rossana. The prime minister told the couple: \"We're so happy you're here.\"\n\nA Kensington Palace spokeswoman said the couple were \"very much looking forward to visiting the Caribbean region\" and to having the opportunity to thank communities across Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas for the support they had shown the Queen.\n\nHowever, a visit to the Akte 'il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, has been removed from the couple's schedule.\n\nA protest opposing the trip took place on Friday, according to reports.\n\nBelize media outlet Channel 7 said there was a claimed dispute between residents of Indian Creek village and Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which has William as patron, over land owned by the conservation organisation.\n\nThere were also reported to be concerns about the landing site earmarked for the Cambridges' helicopter, with residents claiming they were not consulted about the location, a local football pitch.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet with Belize's Prime Minister Johnny Briceno and his wife Rossana\n\nA Kensington Palace spokeswoman said: \"We can confirm that due to sensitive issues involving the community in Indian Creek, the visit has been moved to a different location - further details will be provided in due course.\"\n\nThe Belize government said in a statement: \"Indian Creek was one of several sites being considered. Due to issues in the village, the government of Belize activated its contingency planning and another venue has been selected to showcase Maya family entrepreneurship in the cacao industry.\"\n\nAnd a spokesman for FFI said the charity would \"support the livelihoods, educational opportunities and the customary rights of local people\" as part of its project in the area.\n\n\"We are establishing a dialogue with key stakeholders about the future ownership and management of land and want to work with - and in support of - the indigenous community, respecting traditional Mayan rights,\" he added.\n\nArtist Alex Sanker prepares for William and Kate's arrival in Belize City by painting a portrait of the couple\n\nThe trip has been replaced with a similar visit that will see them tour a chocolate producer on Sunday. They will later travel to the cultural centre of the Garifuna community in Hopkins, a beachfront village.\n\nThey will also spend time learning about efforts to preserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nAmong other highlights of their Caribbean tour will be a sailing regatta in the Bahamas in honour of the Queen's 70-year reign, which is expected to see the couple renew their friendly sporting rivalry when they take to the water.\n\nTheir tour will also see them celebrate Jamaica's musical and sporting heritage.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nCivilians are said to be emerging alive from the ruins of a theatre that, according to Ukrainian authorities, was bombed by Russia in the city of Mariupol. Despite pictures of devastation at the scene, many who were sheltering there are thought to have survived in a basement that withstood Wednesday's attack.\n\nFor 10 days, that basement was a refuge for Kate, a 38-year-old Mariupol native, and her son, who is 17. Their own home, like many others in the besieged city, had been destroyed by Russian attacks, and they thought the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama was a place where they would be relatively safe.\n\nMother and son squeezed in the building's dark rooms, corridors and halls with dozens of other families. Some women, Kate said, carried babies that were just four or five months old.\n\n\"In the beginning, it was really tough, because we didn't have a well-organised food supply. So on the first two days, adults didn't have any food,\" Kate, who used to work at the city's zoo shop and did not want to give her full name, said. \"We gave food only to the children.\"\n\nThey slept on improvised beds made with soft parts of auditorium seats which had been put together on the floor. The seats made of wood, she said, were cut in parts and used as firewood for them to cook. \"Around the theatre there wasn't enough trees we could use, and it was too dangerous to go outside\".\n\nFor almost three weeks, Mariupol has been under constant shelling by Russian forces, which have completely surrounded the city. About 300,000 people are trapped, with no electricity, gas or running water. Food and medicine are running low, as Russia has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nFour days after she arrived, Kate said, Ukrainian forces managed to send some food supplies and a field kitchen to the theatre, and \"we [started] cooking something\". They would have soup, and sometimes oatmeal, for lunch, and tea with biscuits for dinner.\n\nThe imposing Soviet-era building in Mariupol's city centre, next to the Sea of Azov waterfront, had been designated as a shelter for civilians. Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, said up to 1,200 people had been there. Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with evacuees, put that number at between 500 and 800.\n\nAs Russia's relentless assault continued, Kate said the buildings around the theatre had been either damaged or destroyed. \"We knew we had to run away because something terrible would happen soon,\" she said.\n\nA day before the attack, Kate and her son left the site. \"We jumped in a car while the theatre and the area were being shelled,\" she said. They shared the vehicle with a family of four, who had brought four dogs and a cat.\n\n\"We asked to go with them, because we didn't have our own [car],\" she said. They were part of convoy of about 2,000 cars that escaped Mariupol on Tuesday.\n\nMariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack \"deliberate and cynical\". Russia denied it had targeted the site but, in Mariupol alone, its attacks had already hit several civilian buildings including a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks.\n\nSatellite images released by the US company Maxar taken on Monday showed that the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters in two locations outside the building, to warn Russian jets away.\n\nA convoy of cars carrying evacuees from Mariupol arrives in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nVideo of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the building's collapsed façade. But with communications with the city almost completely cut off, the numbers of survivors or possible casualties were still not clear, almost 20 hours later.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and originally from Mariupol, said the shelter in the basement of the building withstood the attack, and that teams were trying to clear the rubble which covered the entrance to the site. \"It looks like most of them have survived and are OK,\" he said.\n\nBut the rescue efforts were tricky, he said, as Russia had continued to attack the area. \"Shelling never stops and artillery never stops and airplanes are dropping bombs,\" he said, \"so it's really difficult\".\n\nThe city council estimates about 80% to 90% of the city's buildings have either been damaged or destroyed by Russia, which has attacked the city almost non-stop since it invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned into wasteland.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAfter leaving Mariupol, Kate was headed to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, a region that has been largely spared of attacks. \"The first day after we managed to get out, I couldn't talk. We all just cried\", she said. \"But now it feels like there are no tears left. I don't think this pain will ever disappear.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Russian attacks have damaged or destroyed 80% of Mariupol's residential buildings, the mayor says\n\nEfforts to rescue hundreds of people trapped in the basement of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol are being hampered by intense battles in the area, the mayor says.\n\nVadym Boychenko told the BBC teams were only able to clear the rubble of the building during lulls in the fighting.\n\nUkrainian officials say Russia attacked the site, which was clearly marked as a civilian shelter. Moscow denies it.\n\nRussian forces have encircled the city, which has no electricity, water or gas.\n\nAbout 300,000 people are trapped inside, as food and medical supplies run out and Russia blocks the entry of humanitarian aid. Russian attacks have hit a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks, with local officials estimating that about 80% of residential buildings are either damaged or destroyed, a third of them beyond repair.\n\nMariupol has seen some of the fiercest battles since Russia invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. The location of the port city, on the Sea of Azov, is strategic for Russia, as it would help it create a land corridor between the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, controlled by Russian-backed separatists, and Crimea, the peninsula it invaded and annexed in 2014.\n\n\"[There is] street fighting in the city centre,\" Mr Boychenko said, confirming a claim made by Russia on Friday, when it said it was \"tightening the noose\" around the city.\n\n\"There are tanks... and artillery shelling, and all kinds of weapons fired in the area,\" the mayor said. \"Our forces are doing everything they can to hold their positions in the city but the forces of the enemy are larger than ours, unfortunately.\"\n\nCommunication with the city is difficult, with the phone network said to be operational only a few hours a day. Amid unrelenting Russian attacks, residents spend most of their days in shelters and basements, rarely coming outside.\n\nMr Boychenko said, in a previous interview, that there was no city centre left. \"There isn't a small piece of land in the city that doesn't have signs of war,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe intense fighting means it is too dangerous for teams to clear the rubble of the destroyed theatre and rescue people from the basement, which withstood Wednesday's attack. \"There's no opportunity to do that,\" Mr Boychenko said. \"When it gets quiet for a bit, rubble is being cleared and people get out.\"\n\nHe said he could not provide an update on how many had already left the site. A day earlier, the country's human rights ombudsman said 130 people had been rescued, and that about 1,300 remained trapped.\n\nSatellite images showed the Russian word for \"children\" had been emblazoned on the ground in two locations outside the imposing Soviet-era building, indicating the place was being used as a civilian shelter. Most of those inside are elderly people, women and children, who are living squeezed in dark rooms and corridors.\n\nIn a video address released on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the people rescued were \"seriously wounded\" but that, at the moment, there was no information of deaths.\n\nA picture of the theatre in Mariupol before the bombing, with the word \"children\" in Russian clearly visible\n\nPresident Zelensky also accused Russia of a \"war crime\" for blocking the access of humanitarian aid to the besieged cities. \"This is a totally deliberate tactic,\" he said. \"They [Russian forces] have a clear order to do absolutely everything to make the humanitarian catastrophe in Ukrainian cities an 'argument' for Ukrainians to co-operate with the occupiers.\"\n\nThe authorities in Mariupol say at least 2,500 people have been killed in the city since the start of the war, although they acknowledge that is an underestimate. Some of the dead are being left on streets, as it is too risky to collect them. Many end up being buried in mass graves.\n\nMr Boychenko, the Mariupol mayor, said 40,000 people had managed to leave the city in the last five days, and that 20,000 others were waiting to be evacuated. Residents are fleeing in private vehicles, he said, as attempts to create official humanitarian corridors have broken down, with Ukraine accusing Russia of attacking the city despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n• None 'We knew something terrible was coming'", "Omar Sy, who was reportedly on set at the time, plays master thief Assane Diop in the hit Netflix series\n\nSeven people have been charged after an armed robbery was staged last month on the French film set of hit Netflix series 'Lupin'.\n\nAround twenty hooded thieves attacked the film crew by launching fireworks at them, a Netflix spokesperson said.\n\nThey stole more than €300,000 (£250,000; $330,000) worth of equipment during the heist, in broad daylight.\n\nNone of the cast or crew who were on set - reported to include the show's star Omar Sy - were injured.\n\nThe crew were attacked while they were filming in the Nanterre district, west of central Paris, forcing production to briefly pause.\n\nThe seven accused, aged between 13 and 21, now face charges of armed robbery as part of an organised gang and receiving stolen goods, according to Agence France-Presse.\n\nThree of them are being held in custody while four are under judicial supervision. Police say they are still looking for more of the assailants, and have recovered some of the stolen equipment.\n\nInspired by the fictional French master of disguise Arsène Lupin, the show tells the tale of professional thief Assane Diop who is played by Omar Sy.\n\nThe show's first season, released last year, was watched by millions around the world and is the first French series to enjoy such huge success on Netflix.\n\nLupin is not the only high-profile Netflix production to be targeted by thieves this year.\n\nThe day before the Paris heist, robbers in South Yorkshire in the UK stole more than 200 antique props from the set of The Crown TV series.\n\nThe stolen items were valued up to £150,000 and included a replica of a Fabergé egg which was owned by the Queen's grandfather George V in 1933.\n• None Antiques stolen during filming of The Crown", "Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as \"dismal\".\n\nIts military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, \"the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day\". So what has gone wrong? I have spoken to senior Western military officers and intelligence officials, about the mistakes Russia has made.\n\nRussia's first mistake was to underestimate the strength of resistance and the capabilities of Ukraine's own smaller armed forces. Russia has an annual defence budget of more than $60bn, compared with Ukraine's spending of just over $4bn.\n\nAt the same time, Russia, and many others, appear to have overestimated its own military strengths. President Putin had embarked on an ambitious modernisation programme for his military and he too may have believed his own hype.\n\nA senior British military official said much of Russia's investment had been spent on its vast nuclear arsenal and experimentation, that included developing new weapons such as hypersonic missiles. Russia is supposed to have built the world's most advanced tank - the T-14 Armata. But while it has been seen on Moscow's Victory Day Parade on Red Square, it has been missing in battle. Most of what Russia has fielded are older T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and rocket launchers.\n\nAt the start of the invasion Russia had a clear advantage in the air, with the combat aircraft it had moved near the border outnumbering Ukraine's air force by more than three to one. Most military analysts assumed the invading force would quickly gain superiority in the air, but it has not. Ukraine's air defences are still proving effective, limiting Russia's ability to manoeuvre.\n\nMoscow may have also assumed its special forces would play an important role, helping deliver a quick, decisive blow.\n\nA senior Western intelligence official told the BBC that Russia thought it could deploy lighter, spearhead units like the Spetsnatz and VDV paratroopers, \"to eliminate a small number of defenders and that would be it\". But in the first few days their helicopter assault on Hostomel Airport, just outside Kyiv, was repelled, denying Russia an airbridge to bring in troops, equipment and supplies.\n\nOn the parade ground but not the battleground - Russia's T-14 Armata tank\n\nInstead, Russia has had to transport its supplies mostly by road. This has created traffic jams and choke points which are easy targets for Ukrainian forces to ambush. Some heavy armour has gone off road, only to get stuck in mud, reinforcing an image of an army that has become \"bogged down\".\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's long armoured column from the north that was captured by satellites has still failed to encircle Kyiv. The most significant advances have come from the south, where it has been able to use rail lines to resupply its forces. The UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC that President Putin's forces \"have lost the momentum\".\n\n\"They're stuck and they are slowly but surely taking significant casualties.\"\n\nRussia had amassed a force of around 190,000 troops for this invasion and most of those have already been committed to the battle. But they have already lost about 10% of that force. There are no reliable figures for the scale of either Russian or Ukrainian losses. Ukraine claims to have killed 14,000 Russian troops, though the US estimates it is probably half that number.\n\nWestern officials say there is also evidence of dwindling morale among Russian fighters, with one saying it was \"very, very, low\". Another said the troops were \"cold, tired and hungry\" as they had already been waiting in the snow for weeks in Belarus and Russia before they were given the order to invade.\n\nRussia has already been forced to look for more troops to make up for its losses, including moving in reserve units from as far afield as the east of the country and Armenia. Western officials believe it is also \"highly likely\" that foreign troops from Syria will soon join the fight, along with mercenaries from its secretive Wagner group. A senior Nato military official said this was a sign it was \"scratching the bottom of the barrel\".\n\nRussia has struggled with the basics. There is an old military saying that amateurs talk tactics while professionals study logistics. There is evidence that Russia has not given it enough consideration. Armoured columns have run out of fuel, food and ammunition. Vehicles have broken down and been left abandoned, then towed away by Ukrainian tractors.\n\nWestern officials also believe Russia may be running low on some munitions. It has already fired between 850 and 900 long-range precision munitions, including cruise missiles, which are harder to replace than unguided weapons. US officials have warned Russia has approached China to help address some of its shortages.\n\nDefence support announced by the US is expected to include the Switchblade \"kamikaze\" drone\n\nIn contrast, there has been a steady flow of Western-supplied weapons going into Ukraine, which has been a boost for its morale. The US has just announced it will be providing an additional $800m in defence support. As well as more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, it is expected to include Switchblade, which is a small, US-developed, \"kamikaze\" drone that can be carried in a backpack before being launched to deliver a small explosive at targets on the ground.\n\nWestern officials still warn that President Putin could \"double down with greater brutality\". They say he still has enough firepower to bombard Ukrainian cities for a \"considerable period of time\".\n\nDespite the setbacks, one intelligence official said President Putin was, \"unlikely to be deterred and may instead escalate. He likely remains confident that Russia can militarily defeat Ukraine\". And while the Ukrainian forces have shown fierce resistance, that same official warned that without significant resupplies they too could \"eventually be spent in terms of ammunition and numbers\". The odds may be better than when the war first started, but they still seem stacked against Ukraine.", "Covid cases have continued to rise in the UK, with an estimated one in every 20 people infected, figures from the Office for National Statistic suggest.\n\nAll age groups are affected, including the 75s and over, who are due a spring booster jab to top up protection.\n\nHospital cases are also rising, but vaccines are still helping to stop many severe cases, say experts.\n\nAn easily spread sub-variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is now causing most cases.\n\nRecent easing of restrictions and waning immunity from the vaccines could be factors behind the rise too.\n\nThe ONS infection survey, which tests thousands of people randomly in households across the UK, estimates that 3.3 million people would have tested positive in the week ending 12 March - up from 2.6 million the previous week.\n\nScotland has seen infection levels rise for seven weeks in a row. They have now reached a new record high, with 376,300 people estimated to have had Covid last week, or one in 14.\n\nInfection rates across the nations were:\n\nIt comes as the UK continues to lift previous Covid restrictions. As of Friday, people arriving in the UK will no longer need to take a Covid test, even if they haven't been vaccinated.\n\nIt is part of the government's Living with Covid strategy that relies on personal responsibility and mass vaccination to protect the public, rather than laws and limits on what people are allowed to do.\n\nScotland's rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will, however, remain in place until April due to the rise in Covid.\n\nSarah Crofts, head of analytical outputs for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said Scotland was showing the highest level of infections yet.\n\n\"It's notable also that infections have risen in all age groups, with the over-70s reaching their highest estimate since our survey began,\" she added.\n\nProf James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and Professor of Structural Biology, University of Oxford, said the high infection rates around the UK currently, with few Covid restrictions, meant that almost anyone could catch the virus.\n\nHe said: \"My main concern is for the vulnerable for whom this disease is serious.\n\n\"Every effort must be made to triple vaccinate as many people as possible, quadruple vaccinate the most vulnerable.\"\n\nPublic health expert Prof Linda Bauld told the BBC: \"Let's hope we are heading towards the peak or we are already at it in terms of infection because the problems in our hospitals are, once again, pretty acute.\"\n\nShe said Scotland might soon be reaching a new high for Covid hospital admissions.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "RMT union members protesting the P&O Ferries redundancies in Dover on Friday\n\nAll P&O Ferries contracts across government will be reviewed in response to the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nStaff have been protesting after many were told without warning by video message on Thursday that it would be \"their final day of employment\".\n\nIn a letter to the company, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move and questioned whether it was legal.\n\nP&O said it was a \"last resort\" to save the business.\n\nPassengers have been left stranded with services cancelled since the announcement. The ferry company said it was aiming to have the first ones \"running again in the next day or two as we lose £1m a day for each day they are not moving\".\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson could not provide details on the current value of government contracts awarded to P&O Ferries, but Labour Party analysis of the public sector contracts database Tussle found the company had received £38.3m in taxpayer-funded contracts since December 2018. One government contract for freight between Tilbury and Zeebrugge for nine months was worth £10.9m.\n\nMr Shapps urged the company to pause the redundancies announced and instructed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to inspect all vessels to make sure replacement crews \"rushed through\" were safe to go to sea.\n\nHe has also asked the Insolvency Service to look at the laws around notification requirements to see if P&O followed correct and legal processes so the government \"can consider if further action is appropriate\".\n\nProtests have been staged in Dover, Liverpool, Hull and elsewhere in the UK against the P&O redundancies, while the vessels stay docked at ports and ferry cancellations cause travel disruption.\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has also written to the ferry operator's chief executive demanding answers to P&O Ferries' handling of the redundancies.\n\nMr Kwarteng's letter to its boss Peter Hebblethwaite says the company \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, which would include consulting with unions and staff representatives and notifying him through the Insolvency Service and the Redundancy Payment Service.\n\nThe letter says failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Kwarteng's questions to P&O Ferries include asking for details on the exact number of redundancies and how many of these involved any consultation, as well as the location of work for each staff member dismissed.\n\nAdditionally, he asked if staff made redundant were offered alternative roles directly for P&O Ferries or similar roles on new terms and conditions through an agency.\n\nWorkers have spoken of their \"utter dismay\" after hearing the news and of feeling abandoned by the company.\n\nAndrew Smith, who had worked for the company for 22 years, said: \"It's our lives. It's how our families have grown up, knowing that this is what we do, and it's just been turned on its head within a matter of hours.\"\n\nAnd James, who has worked for P&O Ferries in Dover for about four years, said all he received \"was a three minute pre-recorded message saying we are out of a job. Nothing else.\"\n\n\"It was a complete surprise. I would have understood if it was at the height of Covid, but now we're seeing the end of travel restrictions and the start of summer bookings. So this has come completely out of the blue,\" he said.\n\nThe business secretary also raises the company's previous application for government support when Covid lockdowns disrupted travel.\n\n\"It is particularly depressing that this should happen given the millions of pounds of British taxpayer support P&O companies received from the furlough scheme,\" he wrote.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Sacked P&O employee Andrew Smith said he felt \"utter dismay\" at losing his job after 22 years\n\nP&O Ferries is owned by Dubai-based DP World which also owns ports at London and Southampton.\n\nDP World recently announced £8bn in revenues last year. During the Covid pandemic the company claimed more than £15m in grants and furlough assistance.\n\nIn a new statement on Friday, P&O Ferries said: \"We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn't survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.\"\n\nThe RMT union labelled the move one of the \"most shameful acts in the history of British industrial relations\".\n\nIts national secretary Darren Procter told a crowd of about 250 demonstrators in Dover: \"We're going to make sure our workers get back on board their vessels.\"", "Scientists are concerned that the allowable levels of toxic PFAS - known as \"forever chemicals\" - in drinking water are too high.\n\nA BBC study found PFAS levels exceeded European safety levels in almost half of the samples taken. However, none exceeded the current safety level in England and Wales.\n\nLinked to cancer and other diseases, PFAs are in many products such as non-stick pans, food packaging, carpets, furniture, firefighting foam.\n\nGuidelines from the Drinking Water Inspectorate, which covers England and Wales, state drinking water must contain PFAS chemicals at no more than 100 nanograms per litre (ng/l). Above that, action must be taken to reduce levels.\n\nScotland is committed to enforcing European guidelines next year.\n\nWorking with the University of Greenwich and Manchester Metropolitan University, the BBC took 45 tap water samples from sites in England. Laboratory analysis found that none exceeded the 100ng/l level.\n\nBut 25 samples did contain PFASs, and four had levels that exceeded 10ng/l, which, under the current guidelines, means local healthcare professionals must be consulted, and levels monitored.\n\nAnd almost half of the samples exceeded the European Food Standards Agency tolerable limit of 2.2ng/l.\n\nProfessor Roger Klein, a chemist and PFAS expert, said: \"The significance of your results, even though they're small, is that it underlines that this stuff is everywhere and that it's in drinking water.\n\n\"It's ridiculous that the Drinking Water Inspectorate has a level of 100ng/l before action is taken.\"\n\nRita Lock-Caruso, Professor of toxicology at the University of Michigan, also said the results raised a potential health concern: \"We're finding health effects at lower and lower concentrations - in the single digits.\"\n\nResearch has found the most common PFAS chemicals, PFOA and PFOS, have probable links to high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, and pregnancy-induced hypertension.\n\nThere is particular concern about the effect on children. Professor Philippe Grandjean, of Harvard University, said: \"A woman may build this up in her body and when she gets pregnant, she shares that with her foetus. She eliminates part of her body burden into her milk. So, the next generation will get a huge dose, and the baby may end up having up to 10 times as much PFAS in the blood as her mother has.\"\n\nThe US is considering reducing its regulatory level, from 70ng/l.\n\n\"We are beginning to think that there's no such thing as a safe level and we want them to be as low as possible, because water is not the only source of exposure,\" said former head of the National Institute of Environmental Sciences, Linda Birnbaum.\n\nHowever, there is little public data about its presence or impacts in the UK.\n\nSome residents on the Channel Island of Jersey believe they are suffering adverse health impacts from drinking water contaminated with PFAS.\n\nIn the 1990s the government of Jersey discovered PFAS had polluted St Ouen's Bay aquifer, which was used by locals for drinking water.\n\nAfter years of local lobbying, the government of Jersey has recently agreed to offer free blood tests for people with health issues in the area.\n\nSarah Simon is convinced PFASs have damaged the health of local people\n\n\"I have an autoimmune disease, my father has kidney disease, and my mother has thyroid disease,\" says Sarah Simon, a lifelong Jersey resident turned citizen scientist.\n\n\"When I started talking to our neighbours, I found that many of the men had kidney stones and the women had thyroid disease. This can't be a coincidence.\"\n\nPFOS and PFOA has been restricted and neither are manufactured in the UK now. However, there are still a raft of other PFASs which are still being used and aren't regulated.\n\nThe BBC study found 18 different types of PFAS chemicals in the tap water samples.\n\nIn a statement, the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs said: \"We have robust systems in place to identify the impact of a range of chemicals on the environment and human health and are working closely with regulators to better assess the presence of PFAS in our natural environment and their sources.\"\n\nCorrection 5 April 2022: We mistakenly referred to the UK Drinking Water Inspectorate in our original article. This has been amended to make clear the DWI covers England and Wales and that the water samples were only taken in England.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA large fire on marshland on the Wirral Peninsula is thought to have been started deliberately.\n\nCheshire Fire Service sent six fire engines to the blaze at Neston after it started just before 18:30 GMT on Saturday.\n\nThe fire covered about 1 sq km (0.4 sq miles) and was \"mainly extinguished\" by midnight, the fire service said.\n\nCheshire Police said they were keen to speak to a group of teenagers regarding the fire.\n\nThey said three boys and a girl, aged between 14 and 15, were seen in the area when the blaze began.\n\nThey said the girl had long dark hair and was wearing a dark jacket and two boys were wearing dark jackets, while the third boy was wearing a light blue jacket and trousers.\n\nHundreds of residents and pubgoers came out to see the fire\n\nA police spokeswoman said investigators believed the fire was caused deliberately and they were treating it as arson.\n\nEyewitness Peter Guy, 43, who was visiting nearby Parkgate on a day trip, said he had just finished having fish and chips when he noticed the fire.\n\nHe said there was no explosion, but the fire took hold rapidly, creating a \"wall of flames\" across the marshland.\n\n\"It started off looking like a regular bonfire and then I noticed the fire getting closer to us,\" he said.\n\nThe fire started out small before the flames spread across the marshland, said an eyewitness\n\n\"There were so many people there enjoying the beautiful sunset. I've never seen anything like it. It was like the sky was on fire.\"\n\nOn Saturday evening, the fire service said there were two areas of fire spreading around the marshland, a site of special scientific interest.\n\nFire breaks were put in place to protect nearby properties.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jon Ironmonger This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBy 22:00 GMT the huge flames had died down along with the crowds, which earlier lined the Parkgate front, said the BBC's Jon Ironmonger who was at the scene.\n\nHundreds of pubgoers and residents spilled onto the seawall to see the fire, which surged across marshland in the Dee estuary.\n\nCheshire Police said it had received a report about a man being attacked while trying to disperse spectators.\n\nA spokeswoman said he sustained a minor injury to his lip.\n\nBy midnight, all but one fire engine had been withdrawn to safety as the tide came in, with the fire mainly extinguished.\n\nBy 07:00 on Sunday, crews confirmed the fire was out by carrying out a sweep of the area with a thermal imaging camera.\n\nFire crews said the blaze covered about a square kilometre of the area\n\nA spokeswoman for RSPB, which owns the nature reserve, said: \"We're shocked and saddened by the fire that has devastated the Neston Reedbed part of our reserve.\"\n\nShe said marsh harriers were \"beginning to build their nests on the marshland which has sadly been lost to fire\".\n\nThe RSPB said the scale of the damage was being assessed and thanked the emergency services for their response.\n\nChris Tynan, from RSPB Liverpool, added that the Dee estuary was \"internationally important\" and \"one of the top 10 river estuaries in the UK\".\n\n\"There's a huge numbers of birds that come in there because it's got lots of food, it's got lots of habitat. If you dig down into the mud levels, the invertebrates, the food sources… are phenomenal.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "In Kostroma, friends, family, and an armed guard of honour gathered for the funeral of Mikhail Orchikov\n\nIn the Church of Alexandra and Antonina lies a coffin. It is draped with a Russian tricolour. Resting on the casket: a service cap and a photograph.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was deputy commander of a motor-rifle brigade. He was killed in action in Ukraine. Armed Russian soldiers form a guard of honour.\n\nAn Orthodox priest walks around the casket reciting prayers and swinging an ornate metal vessel emitting burning incense. The pungent scent fills the chapel, mixing with the sweet cadences of the church choir. The dead soldier's widow, head covered in a black scarf, is being comforted by relatives.\n\nHow many Russian servicemen have been killed in Ukraine? It is a criminal offence in Russia to report anything other than the official figures.\n\nAccording to information released by Russia's Defence Ministry, 498 soldiers have lost their lives in what the Kremlin calls its \"special military operation\". Those are the latest figures, from 2 March. There has been no update for two weeks.\n\n\"The situation in our country isn't simple,\" the priest tells the congregation. \"Everyone understands that.\"\n\nThe Kremlin wants the public to believe that the Russian soldiers in Ukraine are heroes and that Russia's offensive there is an act of self-defence.\n\nIn a recent edition of state TV's flagship weekly news show, the anchor claimed that if Russia \"hadn't intervened now, in three years' time Ukraine would have been in Nato… with a nuclear bomb. [Ukraine] would definitely advance on Crimea, then on southern Russia.\" An alternative reality, in which Ukraine is the aggressor.\n\nOn the streets of Kostroma, many appear to believe the official Kremlin line.\n\nMikhail Orchikov was laid to rest as \"a defender of the Fatherland\"\n\nThat's partly due to the power of television in shaping public opinion. But also, at moments of crisis, many Russians instinctively rally around its leader - as if they don't want to believe that their president may have made the wrong decision.\n\n\"Nato wants to set up shop right next to us [in Ukraine] and they've got nuclear weapons,\" Nikolai tells me. \"Well done Putin. He didn't let them.\"\n\n\"Russia needs to push on till the end,\" declares pensioner Nina Ivanovna.\n\n\"How much do you trust the information you're getting on Russian TV about this?\" I ask her. \"I trust it. Why shouldn't I? It's the internet I don't trust.\"\n\nNot everyone supports Russia's offensive in Ukraine. In the village of Nikolskoye, I visit the home of Orthodox priest, Father Ioann Burdin. He recently delivered an anti-war sermon and voiced his criticism on the church website.\n\nHe was later detained and fined under a new law for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.\n\nFather Ioann Burdin says he believes bloodshed of any kind \"is still a sin\"\n\n\"I believe that any bloodshed, whatever the cause and however you try to justify it, is still a sin,\" Father Ioann tells me. \"Blood is on the hands of the person who spilled it. If an order was given, it's on the hands of whoever gave the order, supported it or stayed silent.\"\n\n\"The worst thing of all is that hatred has appeared. It will grow deeper and deeper, because we can see that the situation [with Ukraine] isn't ending. There is no political will to stop this. Hatred on both sides will strengthen and become a wall between our peoples for decades to come.\"\n\nAt a cemetery in Kostroma, eight soldiers bear Mikhail's coffin to the grave. A military band plays solemn music. Then a gun salute and, to the Russian national anthem, the casket is lowered into the ground.\n\nThere is a brief speech: \"The loss of a son, brother, father is always a tragedy, but we are proud that he died defending our people, our children, our country.\"\n\nIn Kostroma, they call Mikhail \"a defender of the Fatherland\".\n\nMikhail's coffin was wrapped in the national flag before burial\n\nAnd yet it was Russia's army that crossed the border into a sovereign nation and attacked Ukraine on the orders of President Putin. The Kremlin leader claims that the aim of his \"special military operation\" is to \"demilitarise and de-Nazify\" Ukraine, as if the Ukrainian government is overrun with fascists - which is simply not true.\n\nIn recent days Russian officials have barely concealed their wider objectives. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that what's happening in Ukraine \"…is a life-and-death battle for Russia's right to be on the political map of the world with full respect for their legitimate interests\".\n\nIn other words, this is about geopolitics, and Moscow's determination to force Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence.\n\nThat's something the government in Ukraine is determined to prevent.", "The sanctioned aircraft include Boeing jets being used by Russian flag carrier Aeroflot\n\nNearly 100 planes with ties to Russia have been effectively grounded by the US government, including one owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe US Commerce Department has said the planes are in contravention of US sanctions on Russia.\n\nProviding service to these aircraft anywhere in the world - including inside Russia - may lead to heavy fines and potential jail time, it says.\n\nWhile most are Boeing aircraft, a Gulfstream private jet owned by Mr Abramovich - the current owner of Chelsea football club - is also included.\n\nThe Russian was among seven oligarchs sanctioned by the UK government earlier this month in response to the Ukraine war.\n\nMr Abramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nIn a statement, the department said any refuelling, maintenance or repair work of any of the listed aircraft - as well as the provision of spare parts - violates US export controls.\n\nCommerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the move was in response to \"Russia's brutal war of choice against Ukraine\".\n\nShe added: \"We are publishing this list to put the world on notice - we will not allow Russian and Belarusian companies and oligarchs to travel with impunity in violation of our laws.\"\n\nThe department said violators face \"substantial jail time, fines, loss of export privileges, or other restrictions\".\n\nThe regulations apply to any aircraft which has more than 25% US-origin content that was re-exported to Russia after new controls came into effect on 24 February, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.\n\n\"By preventing these aircraft from receiving any service, for example, including from abroad, international flights from Russia on these aircraft are effectively grounded,\" the statement added.\n\nDeputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves said the US government hoped the move highlighted Russia's increasing isolation from the global economy.\n\n\"Our actions aren't idle words or dead letters on the page,\" he said. \"They have real teeth and as Putin's vicious war continues, they will continue to bite harder on the Russian and Belarusian economies\".\n\nThe US, Canada and European allies have already banned Russian aircraft from operating in their airspace, forcing Russian airlines to largely abandon their international routes.", "DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has branded P&O Ferries \"a disgrace\" for the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nMany workers were told without warning by video message on Thursday that it would be \"their final day of employment\".\n\nP&O sailings between Larne and Cairnryan have been disrupted since then.\n\nHowever, on Saturday the company resumed its service between Liverpool and Dublin.\n\nIt's unclear whether the staff on board are cheaper agency workers.\n\nIt could be another week before the company's ferries can operate from the County Antrim port.\n\n\"I think that the way that these workers were treated by P&O is an absolute disgrace,\" Sir Jeffrey said.\n\n\"We will do everything in our power at Stormont and at Westminster to ensure that they [the workers] get support and that we help Larne Port recover from this situation, so that ferry services - the vital links between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom are sustained going forward.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Consumer Council has said customers who have had sailings cancelled or re-routed should be entitled to compensation as well as reimbursement.\n\nThe council's Richard Williams said if a ferry is cancelled the company has to offer a full reimbursement or a re-routing on the same route\n\n\"As P&O had been unable to arrange a re-routing they have asked customers to book through Stena as an alternative,\" he said.\n\n\"In doing that, P&0 will treat them as they've re-routed them themselves as if they're actually using the P&O ticket in which case they'll be entitled to make an application for compensation for delay and any expenses.\"\n\nP&O sailings between Larne and Cairnryan have been disrupted since Thursday when 800 staff were sacked without notice.\n\nAlternative routes have been offered elsewhere in the UK.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told about the job cuts via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday\n\nIn a statement, a spokesperson for P&O said: \"To try to minimise disruption for our customers, we contacted everyone we could reach.\n\n\"If any passengers have any queries about travelling with us, we encourage them to get in touch with our customer services team.\n\n\"Our aim is to have the first of our services running again in the next day or two as we lose £1m a day for each day they are not moving.\"\n\nAll P&O Ferries contracts across government will be reviewed in response to the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson could not provide details on the current value of government contracts awarded to P&O Ferries.\n\nHowever, Labour Party analysis of the public sector contracts database Trussle found the company had received £38.3m in taxpayer-funded contracts since December 2018.", "Gordon Brown and Sir John Major want a new international tribunal to be set up to investigate Vladimir Putin for his actions in Ukraine.\n\nThe former PMs are among 140 academics, lawyers and politicians to sign a petition calling for a legal system modelled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after World War Two.\n\nThe International Criminal Court (ICC) is already investigating Mr Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.\n\nBut some say its powers are limited.\n\nThe ICC cannot pursue the crime of aggression without a referral from the UN security council, which Russia could veto.\n\nFormer Labour Prime Minister Mr Brown told the BBC that since the fall of the Berlin Wall \"we've assumed that democracy and the rule of law will prevail\", but that Mr Putin \"is replacing that by the use of force\".\n\n\"If the message is not sent out now then we face aggression in other countries which may go unpunished as well,\" he told Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nAsked if he considered the Russian president to be a war criminal, he replied: \"That's what President Biden said, and that's my view.\"\n\nUS President Joe Biden this week called Mr Putin a \"war criminal\" for the first time.\n\nThe Kremlin denounced the comments as \"unacceptable and unforgiveable rhetoric\". Other leaders to accuse Russia of carrying out war crimes include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.\n\nMr Brown said the war had seen the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, which is against international law, as well as breaches of humanitarian ceasefires and \"nuclear blackmail\".\n\nRussian forces have bombed civilian areas in a number of cities in Ukraine.\n\nA warning should be sent out that Mr Putin \"will face the full force of international law\" said Mr Brown, adding that the Ukrainian government was asking for such a move.\n\nIt is hoped the tribunal will act in addition to the ICC's current investigations into war crimes.\n\nThe campaign has already been backed by 740,000 people - including dozens of public figures.\n\nUkrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and the former president of the UK Supreme Court Lady Hale have added their signatures to the petition - as have professor of international law Philippe Sands QC, former prosecutor for the Nuremberg Military Tribunal Benjamin Ferencz, Labour peer Helena Kennedy QC and former president of the European Court of Human Rights Sir Nicolas Bratza.\n\nWriting in the Daily Mail, Mr Brown said creating a new tribunal would close off this \"loophole\" in international law \"that Putin could use to dodge justice\".\n\n\"We must move with speed, to assure the people of Ukraine that we are committed to action and not just warm words - and we must make Putin's collaborators aware that the noose is tightening. If they do not distance themselves from Putin, they face prosecution and prison,\" Mr Brown wrote.\n\nThe Nuremberg trials - named after the German city they were held in - were the first ever international war crime trials and saw the most notorious Nazis tried for their crimes. The offences included waging a war of aggression, violating the customs of warfare and committing crimes against humanity.\n\nMr Brown continued: \"From Britain - which rightly prides itself on democracy and the rule of law - the message must go out. At Nuremberg we held the Nazi war criminals to account. Eight decades on, we must ensure there will be a day of reckoning for Putin.\"\n\nUkrainian MP Dmytro Gurin told the BBC he was sceptical about whether the proposal would actually lead to a trial for Mr Putin.\n\n\"You have to catch him first,\" he said. \"The tribunal, it's a nice idea when they happen and all the European countries like Great Britain and America we thank you for all your help, but you know, we are at a totally different stage of war now.\n\n\"When this war started it was just a conditional war - army against army - and now we don't have a conditional war, we have mass murder in the last two weeks.\"\n\nPeace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been taking place - but UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has warned that the Kremlin might be using the negotiations as a \"smokescreen\".\n\nIn an interview with the Times newspaper, she said: \"If a country is serious about negotiations, it doesn't indiscriminately bomb civilians that day.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Conservative MP Johnny Mercer revealed on Friday that he recently travelled to Ukraine, where he witnessed \"total carnage\" alongside demonstrations of \"incredible human spirit\".\n\nThe Army veteran, who travelled to the capital Kyiv, tweeted photographs of himself visiting injured people in hospital.\n\nHe wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he decided to travel to Ukraine after being invited by a former MP in the Donetsk region. Government advice warns against travelling to the country.\n\nMr Mercer told The Times: \"I didn't tell anyone, I just disappeared. I decided it was the right thing to do.\"\n\nThe UK government has said that two million medical items have been donated to Ukraine, including painkillers, insulin shots and intensive care equipment.\n\nA convoy of 18 fire engines set off from Kent on Saturday, bound for Ukraine. The engines - along with thousands of pieces of equipment - have been donated by fire services from across the UK.\n\nA Ukraine flag was waved from the window of a fire engine as the convoy set off\n\nAnd former prime minister David Cameron is on his way to Poland to deliver donations to Ukrainian refugees.\n\nHe is joining an Oxfordshire food project which is taking a lorry filled with items such as clothes and first aid kits to the country.", "A man was rescued from the rubble of a teaching building in the north eastern city of Kharkiv, after it was shelled by Russia on Friday.\n\nThe attack killed one person and wounded several others, according to Ukrainian authorities.", "Aircraft owned, operated or chartered by Russians are banned from flying or landing in the UK.\n\nA private jet has been grounded while \"possible Russian links\" are probed, the transport secretary has said.\n\nGrant Shapps said ministers were taking decisive action against Vladimir Putin and his \"illegal war\" in Ukraine.\n\nAll aircraft owned, operated or chartered by Russians are banned from flying or landing in the UK.\n\nThe jet has been held at London Biggin Hill airport while officials investigate if it falls foul of UK sanctions.\n\nThe official notice grounding the flight on Saturday morning relates to a Cessna plane owned by a company named as Brooker Holdings.\n\nThe Department for Transport said it would not comment on any links to individuals while it investigated the issue further.\n\nThe latest plane seizure comes 10 days after it emerged that the UK had impounded a private jet linked to a billionaire Russian oligarch.\n\nThe Luxembourg-registered aircraft had flown from the US into Farnborough airport, Hampshire, on 3 March. UK officials believe the oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler was on board when it arrived.\n\nThe plane had been due to fly from the UK to Dubai, but UK authorities prevented this while they investigated whether it was permanently leased to Mr Shvidler and fell under UK sanctions.\n\nMr Shvidler himself has not been personally sanctioned by the UK at any stage.\n\nThe UK and other western nations opposed to the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine have introduced a raft of sanctions designed to cripple Russia's economy and hurt its wealthiest citizens.\n\nThe UK has made it a criminal offence for planes owned, operated or chartered by Russians - including private jets - to fly or land in the UK.\n\nNew trade sanctions have also been introduced banning UK exports of aviation or space-related technology to Russia.\n\nOther measures introduced by the UK include:", "Coventry is the current UK City of Culture\n\nBradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham have made the shortlist to be named UK City of Culture for 2025.\n\nA different location is given the title every four years.\n\nThe winning place will be announced in May and will be the fourth holder, after Derry-Londonderry, Hull and the current City of Culture, Coventry.\n\nThe title has brought £172m to Coventry, according to the government, as well as events like BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend and the Turner Prize.\n\n\"We have seen a huge positive impact in this year's host city, Coventry, with millions of pounds in investment and thousands of visitors,\" said Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.\n\nThe government said the finalists would have to show how they would use culture \"to transform a place through social, cultural and economic regeneration\" and recover from the Covid pandemic.\n\nFor the first time, groups of towns, areas and counties have been able to bid, as well as single urban areas.\n\nThe four locations that missed out on progressing from the longlist were Cornwall, Derby, Stirling and a bid covering Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.\n\nThe city with the youngest population in the UK, Bradford says winning would \"leave a lasting legacy of increased visitor numbers and a more vibrant, sustainable cultural sector\".\n\nIt would also increase opportunities for local people and \"bring greater community engagement across the district and celebrate our diverse communities\", the bid says.\n\nBradford 2025 organisers have already backed a string of events in West Yorkshire that they say give a glimpse of what to expect, such as a new public artwork programme, a light festival visited by more than 20,000 people in November, and mentoring network FilmMakers 2025.\n\nCounty Durham includes the towns of Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle as well as Durham. It says being UK City of Culture would attract 15 million visitors, spending £700m and creating 2,500 jobs in the creative industries and 1,800 in tourism.\n\nIt would also \"empower residents and help to improve community well-being\" and \"strengthen our reputation nationally and internationally as a place to live, work, visit and invest\", organisers promise.\n\nThe year would include spectacular opening and closing events, the bicentenary of the world's first public steam railway, a travelling fair asking \"big questions\" about the local economy, and a 12-month space programme.\n\nThe south-coast city is \"uniquely positioned, facing outwards to the world\", it boasts.\n\nIts bid organisers say the contest is \"a real chance to put our city on the map - to change perceptions, showcase our diversity and give a voice to every part of our community\".\n\nThey say: \"If our bid wins, we'll attract visitors, enterprise and trade that will boost our own homegrown businesses and cultural organisations, bring in investment and boost opportunities for young people. We'll get the support we need to tackle the challenges we face, too.\"\n\nHollywood stars Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds took control of Wrexham AFC in February 2021\n\nCovering Wrexham and the surrounding area, the borough would be the first Welsh UK City of Culture. It says success would allow \"communities that don't usually have a platform to share their stories\".\n\nIf it wins, it says it \"will explore how culture can reanimate our public spaces and shopping areas, and work on how we can best upgrade our civic and artistic infrastructure\".\n\nIt wants to use the bid to become known as the \"capital of play for the UK\", it pledges \"a world-class events programme\" and to use culture \"as a catalyst for improving health and well-being, local knowledge and pride, and improved educational outcomes\".\n\nClaims to fame: Wrexham AFC, owned by Hollywood A-listers Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Focus Wales music festival.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Thousands gather in Moscow to celebrate annexation of Crimea\n\nEight years after Russian troops seized Ukraine's southern region of Crimea, the event is being celebrated with flag-waving crowds in Moscow's Luzhniki stadium and special lessons in schools.\n\nState workers said they had been told to take part. In schools, teachers held lessons marking the \"Crimean spring\".\n\nThe Russian army has used its bases in Crimea to seize towns and cities on Ukraine's south coast.\n\nMr Putin has regularly used the anniversary to highlight love of the motherland.\n\nOfficials said more than 200,000 people had gathered at the stadium, although the numbers could not be verified. The stadium's official capacity is 81,000, but there were also large crowds outside.\n\nPresident Putin praised the military, who he said had demonstrated Russian unity: \"When needed, they shield each other from bullets with their bodies like brothers. Such unity we have not had for a long time.\" He also repeated the false claim that Russian troops were protecting people in areas of eastern Ukraine from genocide.\n\nWe know what we need to do next, how to do it and at what cost. And we will definitely carry out all the plans we have made\n\nBut as he spoke on stage, his address on almost every major state TV channel suddenly cut to singer Oleg Gazmanov belting out the words \"Forward, Russia\", in what the Kremlin later called a technical glitch.\n\nMoscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin also addressed the event along with top state TV journalist Margarita Simonyan and foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.\n\nI spoke to dozens of people queueing to enter the venue for the pro-Kremlin rally.\n\nMany told the BBC they worked in the public sector, and that they had been pressured into attending by their employers.\n\nOne man who works in the Moscow metro, told us that he and other employees had been forced to attend the rally.\n\n\"I'll be here for a while and then I'll leave… I think most people here don't support the war. I don't,\" he said.\n\nAmong the flags in the Luzhniki stadium were signs bearing the letter Z, a symbol of Russia's war\n\nMany people didn't want to be filmed or answer questions.\n\nStudents told us they had been given the option of a day off from lectures if they attended \"a concert\". Some of the students we spoke to didn't even know that the event was dedicated, in part, to support the war in Ukraine.\n\nThere were doubtless some people in attendance who genuinely support President Putin and the \"special military operation in Ukraine\", as the Kremlin prefers to call it.\n\nSpecial lessons on the war entitled \"My Country\" began at the start of March, for students in the final six years of school. Pupils were played a video of Mr Putin from 21 February, in which he detailed his vision of Ukraine's history, BBC Russian reports.\n\nPhotographs emerged earlier this week of children lining up to form the letter Z, a symbol painted on Russian military vehicles that have invaded Ukraine.\n\nThe education ministry then sent out lesson plans specifically geared to 18 March, the date that Russia annexed Crimea after an internationally discredited referendum.\n\nAccording to a memo sent to schools by the education ministry, lessons for children in Years 6-8 (12-15 year-olds) should focus on \"heroes of our time... to help form a stable and grounded understanding of the feeling of patriotism\".\n\nPupils were to be asked to sit in a circle to hear an explanation of how ideas of \"duty, dignity and patriotism are inextricably linked with the concepts of exploits and heroism\". Teachers would then show a video to show that people with military roles were more likely to become heroes than anyone else.\n\nA separate video was sent out to schools giving Russia's version of the events surrounding the annexation of Crimea.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn the video, two uniformed teenagers from Crimea are asked if they know what happened on 18 March 2014. One says that for him, as a resident of Sevastopol in Crimea, it was a day of celebration, when the \"Crimean Spring\" was accomplished.\n\nAnother teenager, Anna, is asked why the events are known as spring: \"Spring is the start of new life. It is renewal, warmth, the sun. And of course, a cosy home.\"\n\nOne teacher in Moscow region spoke of taking the day off out of disgust.\n\n\"I don't like history being used for propaganda. I think this is dangerous, because there are a lot of children here who have relatives in Ukraine. This can provoke conflicts among children,\" said the teacher, who prefers to remain anonymous.\n\nMost of her colleagues said they were in favour of the lessons. \"Even those with relatives under the bombs approve. They say the Nazis should have been kicked out a long time ago,\" the teacher said, referring to Russia's false characterisation of Ukraine's leadership.\n\nA number of teachers have complained about the \"My Country\" lessons. One teacher from Volgograd called Svetlana said that for some of the children war was something of an adventure. \"I explained there's nothing good in war,\" she told BBC Russian.", "In the video, the actor spoke of his affection for the Russian people\n\nA video address by Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Russian people was trending on Russian Twitter on Friday and has sparked reaction.\n\nIn it, Schwarzenegger warns Russians they are being fed misinformation about their country's assault on Ukraine.\n\nAddressing Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, he says: \"You started this war, and you can stop it\".\n\nHis intervention has been praised by Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine.\n\nWriting on the Telegram app, opposition politician Lev Shlosberg said it had been filmed \"with respect towards us, Russian people\".\n\n\"Arnold Schwarzenegger has a unique ability to talk to anyone with persuasion, respect and on equal terms. Wits, power and justice. Have a listen. Think about it. Understand,\" Mr Shlosberg said.\n\nAlso on Telegram, liberal journalist Anton Orekh said his message contained no \"Russophobia\".\n\n\"We are outcasts in the world.. Arnold is one of the few people who addressed Russians not as savage orcs, but as good people who have lost their ways,\" Mr Orekh said.\n\nBut a pro-Kremlin spoof account, Barack Obmana on Twitter, derided it, saying \"the opinion of paid US talking heads\" mattered little to Russians.\n\nRussia has consistently said the war in Ukraine was a \"special operation\" to protect Russian-speaking Ukrainians.\n\nBut in his video, Schwarzenegger said the Kremlin was lying to Russians when it said the invasion was intended to \"denazify\" Ukraine.\n\nUkraine did not start the war, but \"those in power in the Kremlin\" did, he said.\n\nBy 13:00 GMT the video had been viewed nearly 25m times and had been retweeted 325,000 times.\n\nSchwarzenegger is one of the few accounts followed by the Kremlin's official Russian- and English-language Twitter accounts.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Arnold This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn the nine-minute video, which also shows footage of the destruction in Ukraine, the actor-turned-politician calls on people to see through disinformation and propaganda.\n\n\"I'm speaking to you today because there are things going on in the world that are being kept from you, terrible things that you should know about,\" he says.\n\n\"Ukraine did not start this war, neither did nationalists or Nazis,\" the former California governor says, noting that the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish. \"This is not the Russian people's war.\"\n\nThe Austrian-born former bodybuilding champion - whose film Red Heat was the first US film shot in Moscow's Red Square - speaks of his affection for the Russian people and talks about being inspired as a youth by Russian Olympic weightlifter Yuri Vlasov.\n\nHe also talks about his father, who was among Nazi German troops who attacked St Petersburg - then called Leningrad - during World War Two. He returned a \"broken man\" full of pain from a wound he sustained during fighting and the guilt he felt at having taken part.\n\n\"The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me,\" he says. \"That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nHe goes on to say: \"This is an illegal war. Your lives, your limbs, your futures have been sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the entire world.\"", "\"Russia does not start wars, it ends them\" reads a poster of Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, 10 March\n\nVladimir's Putin's invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. We are living in new and more dangerous times - the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\n\nIt is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.\n\nIn November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.\n\nThe peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.\n\nIn Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.\n\nHow many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.\n\nBut that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a \"paradigm shift\". The age of complacency, she said, was over.\n\nQuentin Sommerville, one of the BBC's most experienced war reporters walked through the wreckage in Kharkiv recently and said of the Russian bombardment: \"If these tactics are unfamiliar to you, then you haven't been paying attention.\"\n\nHe should know, he spent enough time under Russian rockets in Syria to be paying very close attention. But the governments of the democratic world - how much attention have they been paying to the nature of the Putin regime?\n\nThe evidence has been building for years.\n\nTwo decades have passed since he sent troops into Georgia claiming he was supporting breakaway regions.\n\nLater, he sent spies into British cities armed with nerve agents to murder exiled Russians.\n\nIn 2014, he invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.\n\nDespite all this, Germany, and much of the EU, were locking themselves into an unhealthy dependence on Russian gas. A year after the annexation of Crimea, they approved the building of a new pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to boost supplies.\n\nThe \"complacency\" Liz Truss refers to also indicts her own country. London has been a safe haven for Russian money since John Major was prime minister. Russian oligarchs have parked billions here, laundered their money, bought up the most prestigious private homes in the capital, socialised with politicians and donated to their campaign funds. Few questions were asked about where their vast wealth, acquired so suddenly, had come from.\n\nSo, no. The Western democracies have not been \"paying attention\" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.\n\nBut Putin, too, has seemed complacent.\n\nReceiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near Lubmin, Germany\n\nFirst, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.\n\nSecond, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.\n\nThird, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this \"special military operation\" to be over in a few days.\n\nRussia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.\n\nIn 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.\n\nA Bosnian special forces soldier and civilians come under fire from Serbian snipers, Sarajevo, 6 April 1992\n\nLike Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.\n\nSo instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?\n\nBut nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt \"liberated\" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.\n\nScrambling for rationed food during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992\n\nIn 1994, while the war in the Balkans was still raging, the rest of Eastern Europe was looking to the future - each nation eager to take what it saw as its natural place in a Europe of independent sovereign states at peace with each other. But it was still far from certain that any of them would be allowed to join Nato.\n\nThere was a debate, back then, about whether a third security block should be formed by the newly-liberated East European nations, to act as a buffer between Nato and Russia. Russia was weak in the 1990s, and the nations that had endured Soviet occupation for 40 years did not trust it to stay weak for long. In the end, they wanted nothing short of Nato membership.\n\nUnder President Bill Clinton, the US pressed ahead with Nato expansion. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who saw himself as a loyal ally of Clinton's, was said to be furious when he found out - at a press conference - that Nato was planning to admit new members without consulting Moscow.\n\nAnd the tearing down of the Iron Curtain had raised a new question in geopolitics - how far east does the Western world extend? I was commissioned by the BBC to take a road trip through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to address the question, \"Where is the eastern edge of the Western world now?\"\n\nI went to the hunting lodge in Belarus where, in late 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, had met his counterparts from Ukraine and Belarus. Here, they agreed to recognise each other's Soviet Republics as independent nation-states. They then rang the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him that the country of which he was head of state - the Soviet Union - no longer existed.\n\nIt was a moment fraught with both danger and opportunity. For Belarus and Ukraine, it was the chance to liberate themselves from Moscow rule - domination by Russian imperialism in both its Tsarist and Soviet forms.\n\nFor Yeltsin, it represented the chance to liberate Russia too - from its historic role as an imperial power. The UK and France had both ceased to be imperial powers after World War Two - as Austria had done after WW1. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk had built a modern European secular republic - a Turkish nation-state - after the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire had been defeated and dismembered in 1918.\n\nUS President George HW Bush with Boris Yeltsin in Maryland, 1992\n\nCould Boris Yeltsin do the same thing - build a modern Russian nation-state, at peace with its sovereign neighbours, on the ruins of the Soviet Empire? In the early 1990s, he began his Westernising experiment, to try to turn an imperial power into a democratic state.\n\nBut the rush - encouraged by the Western democracies eager for investment opportunities - to turn a sclerotic, state-owned command economy into a free-market system was disastrous. It created gangster capitalism. A tiny elite became fabulously rich by plundering the assets of the major industries - especially oil and gas.\n\nThe wheels finally came off the experiment in 1998. The economy collapsed, the rouble lost two-thirds of its value in a month and inflation hit 80%.\n\nI stood with a middle-aged couple in a queue at a Moscow bank. They wanted to take their money out in dollars or pounds - anything other than roubles. The queue was long and slow-moving and, every few minutes, a bank employee changed the displayed exchange rate, as the rouble plunged further. People could see their life savings dropping in value by the minute. The couple got close to the head of the queue when suddenly the shutters came down - there was no cash left.\n\nI went to a former coal-mining region near the Ukraine border, where the mines were barely functioning. I met a graduate mining engineer who had lost his job - a man in his 30s with a young family. He took me to his dacha outside the city, which had about an acre of land. \"About 80% of what my family eat in the year,\" he said. \"I grow on this patch of land. The rest, like coffee and sugar, I barter for. I haven't used or even seen cash in about 18 months.\" Nothing spoke more powerfully about Yeltsin's failure to transform Russia than the sight of this highly educated man digging for his own dinner.\n\n\"Stalin turned a nation of peasants into an industrial superpower in a generation. Yeltsin is doing the same thing in reverse,\" he told me.\n\nOrdinary Russians felt robbed. The great westernising experiment had been a con trick that had enriched a criminalised elite and impoverished everyone else. Many of the reports we filed from Russia at that time boiled down to a single question: \"What are the political consequences of the profound disenchantment that Russians now feel?\"\n\nThe answer was that Russia, eventually, would revert to type - a retreat from democracy and a return to authoritarian rule. A retreat from nation-statehood and return to a more assertive imperial attitude to its \"near abroad\" - the countries that had previously been part of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said that Russia could be a democracy or an empire, but it could not be both. The Russian emblem, the double-headed eagle, looks both east and west. History has pulled Russia in opposing directions - democratic nation statehood in one direction, domineering imperial power in the other.\n\nGo to St Petersburg and you will see another aspect of this dual character. It is the country's beautiful bay window on the Gulf of Finland. It is an 18th Century city, facing west. It is the European Enlightenment in architectural form. Under the Tsars it was the imperial capital.\n\nAfter the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks moved the capital back to Moscow and power retreated behind the high, crenellated walls of the Kremlin. It is the architecture of defensiveness, of suspicion, even fear. When Russian leaders look west from here, they see flat open countryside rolling away to the south and west for hundreds of miles. There are no natural frontiers.\n\nThe crenellated red walls of the Kremlin in Moscow\n\nWhen I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent in the late 1990s, there was a driver who could remember, as a boy, seeing German troops on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1940s. Every time he took us to Sheremetyevo Airport, we would pass a monument designed to look like metal anti-tank defences - so-called Czech hedgehogs - and he would say: \"This is how close they came, the Germans.\"\n\nNapoleon's army had gone further the previous century. That experience - that chronic sense of an insecure western frontier - informs the way Russian leaders have thought about their \"near abroad\".\n\nIn another conversation about the \"near abroad\", a friend recited a rhyming couplet to me. In Russian it rhymes nicely, but in English it goes: \"A chicken's not really a bird; and Poland's not really abroad.\" Russia's sense of what it is entitled to in the lands to its west penetrates popular consciousness, too.\n\nI will borrow an anecdote from another friend in Moscow at the time. The same driver picked her up from the airport and asked her where she had been. \"I've been for a weekend in Prague,\" she said. \"Oh Prague,\" came the reply. \"That's good. That's ours.\"\n\nBut it wasn't. The Berlin Wall had come down nine years earlier and the nations of Eastern Europe had ceased being \"ours\".\n\nExcept Ukraine. Putin regards it not as a neighbouring country, but as the frontier land of Russia itself - and he wants it brought back into the Russian fold.\n\nWhat would it take to do that? How can a nation that has put up so unified a resistance be subdued? Almost certainly he has overreached himself. Several factors must now be alarming him.\n\nThe first is the state of his own armed forces.\n\nThe second is the resilience of the Ukrainian defence. Did Putin really expect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine to welcome his troops as liberators? Did he really believe that the uprising of 2014 - which replaced the pro-Moscow government with one oriented to the West - was all a Western plot? If he did, then it reveals how little the Kremlin understands about its \"near abroad\".\n\nBut his biggest miscalculation has been to underestimate the resolve of the West. And this is what makes 2022 one of those pivotal years - the zeitenwende, in the words of Chancellor Scholz.\n\nAlmost overnight, Germany has transformed its attitude to its role in the world. Traditionally reluctant - for sound historical reasons - to throw its weight around, it had preferred the exercise of soft power to hard. Not now. It has announced a doubling of defence spending, and is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Gone, too, is the ostpolitik - the decades-old German policy of seeking peace through engagement, especially trade.\n\nGermany, along with the rest of the democratic world, will now move to end its dependence on Russian gas. The Nord Stream 2 project is suspended - though not yet scrapped. We are seeing a root-and-branch redrawing of the map of global energy distribution, aimed at cutting Russia out of it.\n\nRussia is highly integrated into the global economy. But now it has been expelled from the system the world uses to exchange payment for goods and services. Its industries, including oil and gas, depend on imported goods and components. Soon production will grind to a halt. Employers will have to lay off their workers. Unemployment will rise.\n\nNo-one expected the West to sanction the Russian Central Bank. Already, the rouble has collapsed and interest rates have doubled. No other major economy has ever been subjected to a package of sanctions this punitive. It amounts to the expulsion of Russia from the global economy. More workers will be laid off. Major industries will find it hard to carry on. Unemployment will rise further. Soaring inflation will erode life savings.\n\nWe will all be affected. Potentially, this is the rolling back of the globalised economy that emerged after the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe US and the EU have, in effect, divided the world up. Those states and companies that continue to trade with Russia will find themselves punished - also frozen out of trade with the rich world.\n\nIt amounts to a new economic iron curtain separating Russia from the West.\n\nMuch will depend on how China negotiates this new landscape. China and Russia are bonded by their shared antipathy to American power, and their conviction that the greatest threat is from a resurgent, more unified democratic world.\n\nChina does not want Putin weakened, or the West strengthened. Yet that is exactly what the effect the war in Ukraine has had.\n\nSome China watchers believe Beijing will try to challenge the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency by carving out a distinct yuan zone as an alternative space in the global economy that can be protected from any future attempt by the US to sanction China. Putin's war, therefore, could redraw the international financial map.\n\nBut above all, this is a war that pits the world's democracies against the world's authoritarian regimes.\n\nIt is also a war between two conflicting conceptions of the rules by which international relations should function.\n\nThe Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash says these two world views can be expressed in short form by two words - Helsinki versus Yalta.\n\nAt Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved post-war Europe into \"spheres of influence\" - most of Eastern Europe to Russia, the West to the trans-Atlantic alliance that would set about rebuilding Europe's democracies.\n\n\"Helsinki\", by contrast, describes a Europe of independent sovereign states, each of which is free to choose its own alliances. This grew out of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and gradually evolved into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.\n\nUkraine's defenders are fighting for Helsinki. Putin has sent his troops in to impose a modern version of Yalta - which would kill off Ukraine's independence and leave it under Russian domination.\n\nGarton Ash argues that the West has been too half-hearted in defending the values of Helsinki - that it has formally acknowledged Ukraine's right to join Nato at some unspecified date in the future without ever intending to make it happen.\n\nBut Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled a readiness to compromise on Helsinki principles, by agreeing to abandon Ukraine's ambition to become a Nato member. With all the risks that entails, it may yet be the price Ukraine pays for the survival of its statehood.\n\nMy generation grew up with the existential terror of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The conflict has brought that fear back to public consciousness. Putin has threatened to use Russia's nuclear arsenal.\n\nThat makes this the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to its ally Cuba. The US assembled a fleet to blockade (or \"quarantine\") Cuba and was considering an attack on the island by air and/or sea.\n\nWhat the Americans did not know is that the Soviets didn't only have long-range strategic missiles. They also had smaller, tactical nuclear missiles - so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. And that Soviet military doctrine delegated first-use decision making to commanders on the ground.\n\nHad the threatened invasion gone ahead, it would have triggered a nuclear exchange.\n\nThe then American Defence Secretary Robert McNamara only found out about this when the Soviet archives opened in 1991. Only then, did he understand how close the world had come to catastrophe.\n\nIn a remarkable film called Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, he explained how the world had avoided destroying itself. Was it skilled diplomacy? Wise leadership? No.\n\n\"Luck,\" he said. \"We lucked out.\"\n\nThat experience, now fading from memory, should focus minds.\n\nCorrection: This article previously referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski as a former US secretary of state, rather than former national security adviser", "Flowers were laid at the police cordon at Arbour House in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell\n\nA 19-year-old woman has been killed at student accommodation in central London.\n\nShe was found with serious injuries when police and medics were called to Arbour House in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell, at about 05:10 GMT.\n\nThe teenager, who is believed to have been a student, was later pronounced dead at the scene, the Met Police said.\n\nA murder investigation has been launched and detectives are trying to identify the woman's next of kin.\n\nNo arrests have been made and a police presence remains at the scene.\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone, of the Met Police, said he understood the student community would be concerned.\n\n\"I share their sadness and concerns, and I can assure them that a thorough homicide investigation is under way, led by skilled and experienced detectives who will work tirelessly to identify and arrest whoever is responsible.\"\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone said officers would work tirelessly on the case\n\nStudent William Fereyre Guerra, who lives at the halls, said they were told to stay in their rooms in the early hours of the morning.\n\n\"There's been a helicopter during the night as well,\" he said.\n\n\"We were told to stay in the room because they didn't know if the suspect was still there hiding.\"\n\nWilliam Fereyre Guerra said people in his halls were told to stay in their room\n\nA spokesman for Unite Students, which runs Arbour House, said: \"As this remains an ongoing police incident, we are unable to comment on their investigation.\n\n\"Our priority at this time is the safety and wellbeing of students at Arbour House. We are working closely with the police and City, University of London.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the university said it was supporting the police's investigation and working with Unite Students.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Olena Kurilo became the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Bloodied and bandaged, the 53-year-old teacher said she couldn't believe what had happened to her and her town of Chuhuiv.\n\nHer picture was on the front pages of newspapers across the world.\n\nOver the next few days, Russia's government social media accounts began to post a video claiming that Olena hadn't been injured at all.\n\n\"Great photos by the way, they were all over the news,\" the Russian narrator says.\n\nThe video then claims Olena was photographed two days later, uninjured.\n\n\"A couple of days later, good for her, not a scratch.\"\n\nThis claim is baseless, the BBC has verified the photo as genuine, as has Reuters. Wild conspiracy theories like these are not uncommon on social media.\n\nBut what makes this conspiracy theory so odd is that it was shared by an official Russian government Twitter account - the Russian Mission in Geneva. Two weeks on, the tweet is still live.\n\nThe Russian government has a huge network of official Twitter accounts - the BBC found more than 100 of them. They range from accounts that represent foreign missions or embassies, with a few thousand followers, to those with more than a million followers. President Putin has his own account. Many of the accounts are labelled as Russian government organisations by Twitter.\n\nThe Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs account, with Twitter's label\n\nYet, while many of these accounts have spread disinformation, Twitter deals with them differently to Russian state media - like RT or Sputnik.\n\nOn 28 February, Twitter announced it would prevent tweets from Russian state-affiliated media outlets from being eligible for \"amplification\" - meaning they wouldn't be recommended in the home timeline, notifications, and other places on Twitter. But Twitter has confirmed to the BBC that this policy does not include Russian government accounts.\n\nTim Graham, a social media analyst at QUT Digital Media Research Centre in Australia, describes this as a \"loophole\" in Twitter's moderation policies, which lets the Russian government pump out misinformation.\n\n\"It's certainly a blind spot in Twitter's defences against disinformation,\" he says.\n\nIntrigued by this spider web of Russian government accounts, Mr Graham - who specialises in analysing co-ordinated activity on social media - decided to investigate further. He analysed 75 Russian government Twitter profiles which, in total, have more than 7 million followers. The accounts have received 30 million likes, been retweeted 36 million times and been replied to 4 million times.\n\nHe looked at how many times each Twitter account retweeted one of the other 74 profiles within an hour. He discovered that the Kremlin's network of Twitter accounts work together to retweet and drive up traffic. This practice is sometimes called \"astroturfing\" - when the owner of several accounts uses the profiles they control to retweet content and amplify reach.\n\nA visualisation of Tim Graham's data - showing Russian Government accounts retweeting each other within 60 minutes\n\n\"If these accounts weren't retweeting stuff at the same time, the network would just be a bunch of disconnected dots. So what the network shows, very clearly, is that there's a very dense amount of connections to the way these accounts are retweeting.\n\n\"They are using this as an engine to drive their preferred narrative onto Twitter, and they're getting away with it,\" he says.\n\nCoordinated activity, using multiple accounts, is against Twitter's rules.\n\n\"You can't artificially amplify conversations through the use of multiple accounts,\" Twitter's rules state.\n\nBut Twitter doesn't treat all accounts equally. Tweets from government and elected officials can be given more leeway when it comes to moderation. The company says on its website that there may be a public interest in seeing tweets that would otherwise violate its rules.\n\nHowever, the company doesn't treat official accounts differently when it comes to coordinated behaviour - there is no exemption.\n\nThe BBC put Mr Graham's research to Twitter, however the company did not respond directly to his findings.\n\nThe BBC also asked the Russian Embassy in the UK about the suggestion that official Russian Twitter accounts behave in a coordinated way - and that many share misinformation. The BBC has not received a response.\n\nOn 10 March, the embassy itself tweeted that the bombing of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol had been faked. The account claimed that women pictured at the scene were actors.\n\nA photo was posted of a woman being carried on a stretcher, with the words \"FAKE\" plastered over the image. The claim was false. A few days later it was reported that both she and her baby had died.\n\nScreengrab from the account of the Russian Embassy in the UK - the fake claim was removed by Twitter\n\nTwitter deleted several tweets making the \"FAKE\" claim, after the BBC flagged them. Yet there are many other examples of Russian disinformation still up on the Russian government's Twitter accounts.\n\nThe unfounded claim that Olena Kurilo wasn't really injured is still live - it has been retweeted by more than 20 separate Russian government accounts.\n\nUnfounded claims that Ukraine has bioweapons have been shared by the Russian network and are still up - as are claims of an imminent chemical attack being allegedly prepared by Ukrainians.\n\nThe problem Twitter has is that proving content is false can be messy and complex in a time of war.\n\nSavvas Zannettou, who analyses social media moderation at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, says war makes policing social media even harder.\n\n\"To effectively moderate is impossible… the information comes at a very rapid pace, and it's coming from all over the place,\" he says.\n\nIt appears two things are happening here. Muddled and incomplete information on the ground means only examples of misinformation which are easy to prove are taken down on platforms such as Twitter.\n\nAdded to that, Twitter's own public interest exceptions means tweets from government officials can be treated differently from other accounts. The BBC asked Twitter whether tweets from Russian ministries and embassies were included in its public interest exceptions, however the social media company did not respond to this specific question.\n\nTwitter said: \"We've taken numerous enforcement actions on Russian embassy accounts, including requiring the removal of Tweets.\"\n\nTwitter also said it would also be doing more in the coming days to flag accounts linked to the Kremlin. \"We'll be expanding our government account labels to additional Russian embassies to add context for people interacting with these accounts on Twitter.\"\n\nThe Kremlin's social media accounts also exist on Facebook and other platforms - this isn't a headache consigned just to Twitter.\n\nIn January 2021, after the Capitol Hill riots, Twitter banned Donald Trump for his role in repeating allegations of voter fraud. Twitter argued that repeated disinformation, posted from a position of power, had caused real world violence.\n\nAs official Russian accounts continue to post wild misinformation during a time of war, it is perfectly possible that the Kremlin will end up facing another sanction - being frozen out of Twitter.\n\nJames Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.", "The Herald of Free Enterprise was bound for the Port of Dover on 6 March 1987 when it capsized\n\nBereaved families and survivors of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster gathered to mark its 35th anniversary.\n\nThe Herald of Free Enterprise was bound for the Port of Dover on 6 March 1987 when it capsized at Zeebrugge harbour in Belgium, killing 193 people.\n\nA remembrance service was held at St Mary's Church in Dover, and the names of all the passengers and crew who lost their lives were read out.\n\nBeverly Willows said it still upsets her mother too much to talk about the loss of her sister\n\nMs Willows, from Mansfield, said: \"It doesn't get easier. There's not a day goes by when you don't think about it.\n\n\"I daren't talk to my mother about it. I never mention my sister, because of the upset.\n\n\"Sometimes you get angry because it could have been avoided. But you can't change it now.\"\n\nThe ship overturned too quickly for lifeboats or life jackets to be used\n\nThe roll-on roll-off ferry operated between Dover and Zeebrugge.\n\nThat afternoon it set off without the bow doors being closed and became unstable. Vehicles rolled from port to starboard and back and the ship capsized within 90 seconds.\n\nThere was not enough time to send an SOS signal, lower the lifeboats or deploy life jackets.\n\nSailors' Society chaplains comforted and supported families and survivors affected that night. Every year since, the charity has organised the memorial service near the port.\n\nLast year the service was carried out remotely via an online video, due to the pandemic, but this year families were able to gather again.\n\nKim Spooner said those who lost loved ones in the disaster had become like a family\n\nKim Spooner was eight when she lost her aunt and uncle in the disaster, after the pair made a trip using an offer in a national newspaper.\n\nMs Spooner, who travelled from Manchester for the service, said: \" Over the years we've all become like a family, with our collective grief and experience.\n\n\"It's nice to come together every year and remember those who died, honour those who were injured and survived and thank those who helped on the night and the rescue workers who did such a fantastic job.\"\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.", "Shell has defended its decision to purchase Russian crude oil despite the invasion and bombardment of Ukraine.\n\nThe oil giant said in a statement that the decision to purchase the fuel at a discounted price was \"difficult\".\n\nIt confirmed that it had bought a cargo of Russian crude oil on Friday but it had \"no alternative\".\n\nUkrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit out at the energy company, asking on Twitter: \"Doesn't Russian oil smell Ukrainian blood for you?\"\n\nSo far Canada has announced a ban on Russian oil imports but other Western countries have not imposed sanctions on Russian oil imports, fearing it will drive up already record high energy prices around the world.\n\nBut on Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was now in \"active discussions\" with European partners about banning them while also maintaining a \"steady global supply\".\n\nRussia is the world's second top producer of crude oil after Saudi Arabia, and supplies about a third of Europe's needs.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Dmytro Kuleba This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCommenting on its move, Shell said it was forced to buy oil from Russia in order to maintain timely supplies of fuel to Europe.\n\nThe firm said it remains \"appalled by the war in Ukraine\" and has stopped most activities involving Russian oil, but it added the situation with supplies is \"highly complex\".\n\nRussian oil currently makes up about 8% of Shell's working supplies. One of the firm's refineries, which produces diesel and petrol and other products, is also among the biggest in Europe.\n\n\"To be clear, without an uninterrupted supply of crude oil to refineries, the energy industry cannot assure continued provision of essential products to people across Europe over the weeks ahead,\" a spokesperson said.\n\n\"Cargoes from alternative sources would not have arrived in time to avoid disruptions to market supply.\n\n\"We didn't take this decision lightly and we understand the strength of feeling around it.\"\n\nThe firm also said that it will try to choose alternatives to Russian oil \"wherever possible\", and that profits from Russian oil will go to a dedicated fund aimed at helping people in Ukraine.\n\nIt comes shortly after the company announced that it would end all of its joint ventures with the Russian energy company Gazprom following the invasion.\n\nThat will involve the company selling its 27.5% stake in a major liquefied natural gas plant and a 50% stake in two oilfield projects in Siberia.\n\nIt will also end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany. The 1,200km pipeline under the Baltic Sea had already been put on hold by German ministers.\n\nIn a statement issued on Monday, Shell said that it expected the move, which will also apply to any \"related entities\" to Gazprom, would be worth about $3bn (£2.2bn). The associated costs will be marked on its balance sheet later this year.\n\nShell followed on from the likes of BP, which had already announced that it would offload its stake in the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft - a potential hit of $25bn.\n\nBP said earlier this week it was too soon to say how or to whom its stake in Rosneft would be sold.\n\nNorwegian oil and gas producer Equinor has also announced its exit from Russia, saying the conflict made its current position \"untenable\".\n\nCorrection 22nd April 2022: This article originally reported that Western countries have not imposed sanctions on Russian oil imports and has been amended to make clear that Canada had announced a ban.", "Last updated on .From the section Winter Sports\n\nThe Simpsons were fourth in the super-G in January's World Championships Great Britain's Neil Simpson said it was \"almost indescribable\" after he put in the performance of his life to clinch Paralympic gold in the men's visually-impaired super-G skiing event in Beijing. The 19-year-old Scot, guided by brother Andrew, 21, became GB's third-ever Winter Games gold medallist and the first male to achieve the feat after successes for Kelly Gallagher in 2014 and Menna Fitzpatrick in 2018. The siblings finished 0.40 seconds clear of Italy's Giacomo Bertagnolli and his guide Andrea Ravelli. \"We went in with a clear game plan and it worked out pretty well,\" said the delighted teenager. \"We put it all down on the line and really went for it and I'm just very happy with the performance - it felt good. \"I could tell it was quick but I didn't know how special it was. I'm just really thrilled, it's not really sunk in yet. \"Initially when we came down, there was a bit of an anxious wait. I wasn't thinking about it being a winning performance, I was just thinking that it was a good run. \"Andrew was shouting and screaming. I said, 'Yeah, maybe a podium'. It's just that wait. It's such a high - it's almost indescribable.\" It was the second medal of the day for Britain after Fitzpatrick and her guide Gary Smith took silver in the women's race. The Simpson brothers, from Banchory, are making their Paralympic debuts, and had finished seventh in Saturday's opening downhill. And after first Austria's Johannes Aigner, the downhill champion, and then Bertagnolli had set good times to sit at the top of the standings, the pressure was on the brothers. But they started their run well and were fastest at the second intermediate. Although they dropped to second at the next checkpoint, they finished strongly to take the lead and the remaining skiers were unable to challenge. The brothers have been skiing together since childhood and made their international debut together in the 2019-20 season. \"Growing up together, it just makes this moment really special,\" added Neil, who born with nystagmus, a condition that causes involuntary eye movements. \"For me, it definitely helps having Andrew with me. You are able to be very clear and concise in what you want - even direct and blunt sometimes, so you can get feedback across a lot easier. \"You don't have to beat around the bush, so that definitely helps. We grew up together so we know what each other is thinking anyway.\" Earlier, Fitzpatrick, 23, said she was \"proud\" as she won the fifth Paralympic medal of her career, cementing her place as the nation's most successful Winter Paralympian. Fitzpatrick has had a challenging build-up to the Games, recovering from a broken leg in March 2020, while her new guide Katie Guest - who took over the role when Jen Kehoe retired to focus on her Army duties -- was ruled out of the Games by a positive Covid test prior to her scheduled departure. It meant she was guided by Smith, who she had worked with in the 2019-20 season, and the pair were a solid fifth in the downhill on Saturday. \"To be here at all is a great achievement, but then to stand up on that podium is absolutely amazing,\" she said. \"I'm so proud of what we've achieved together. \"We went out to ski well and build on the day before and we are super, super happy.\" Downhill bronze medallist Millie Knight was fourth, just 0.09secs off third. Elsewhere, Shona Brownlee marked her Paralympic debut with sixth in the women's seated event with James Whitley 19th in the men's standing. The British skiers will be in action again in Monday's super combined, which has been brought forward by a day because of high temperatures and the risk of snow melting at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre. Meanwhile, at the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Centre, Scott Meenagh narrowly missed out on a second top-10 finish in consecutive races, when he was 12th in the men's cross-country long-distance seated event. And in the snowboard cross qualification, James Barnes-Miller was ninth-fastest in the men's upper limb division, where the top four qualifiers were all Chinese athletes, and he will go in Monday's finals (from 03:00). Owen Pick and Ollie Hill are also through in the men's LL2 (lower limb) event but Andy Macleod missed out, finishing just out of the top 16 in 17th.\n• None Delve into the conspiracy that gripped a picturesque British town\n• None The Fast and the Farmer-ish: Who will prove victorious and take home the tractor trophy?", "A little girl clutches a doll at a checkpoint on the Ukraine-Slovakia border\n\nIn Ukraine, families are having to adapt to a terrifying new reality. How do you tell young children that you're at war?\n\nTen days ago Anton Eine, a science fiction writer in Ukraine, had been due to launch his latest book - but then the Russians invaded. Now, he says, none of that matters any more. He is hunkering down in Kyiv with his wife and their three-year-old son.\n\nThey live in a 24-storey apartment block with an underground car park, where people are sleeping on the concrete floor. It's bitterly cold, and Anton is worried about what might happen if the building collapses, so he and his family feel safer in a square concrete well between the lifts. That has become their sanctuary during the constant air raid sirens. They bring toys and their son's tablet and make sure he sits in the corner, which is the safest place.\n\nAnton says their son is worried, and asks lots of questions. \"Yesterday, my wife went downstairs and when she returned, he was asking, 'Mum, did they shoot you?' and she said 'No baby', and he said, 'Will they shoot me? I don't want them to go bang-bang'.\"\n\nAnton says some parents have sewn badges with their child's blood group on to their clothes and are teaching them their home address and parents' names, in case they are separated. And while they hide in shelters or try to board trains to safety, many parents are also talking to each other about how the war is affecting their children, and how best to protect them from trauma.\n\n\"Some parents tell the kids it's a game,\" says Anton. \"We are trying to tell our son the truth, but in a softer way, adapted to the mind of a three-year-old kid.\n\n\"We tell him that bad soldiers attacked us and the good soldiers, the ones with the Ukrainian flag, are the ones who protect us, and you don't need to worry here in this sanctuary.\"\n\nHis own son's drawings don't appear to show any signs of trauma, but some of Anton's friends have older children, and the pictures they draw clearly show they've been affected by the situation.\n\nA friend of Anton's shared her four-year-old son's drawing after spending the night in a bomb shelter - it shows people fleeing a big red devil\n\nThe parents and staff from his son's nursery stay in touch via the social media app Telegram, where they share advice about how to talk to the children about what's going on. This even included a tutorial on how to explain to the kids why it was OK for adults to swear now, while it was not OK in normal life. \"Because people are swearing right now,\" says Anton.\n\nThey have become more relaxed about other little things, too. \"Because of this situation, he has to watch much more cartoons than normal, and is eating much more sweets than normal. We need something to occupy him - he has to not pay too much attention to what's going on.\n\n\"The psychologists advise us to be gentler with kids in these times, and to love them much more than usual,\" says Anton.\n\nWhen it comes to safety, though, they have to be quite strict. Their three-year-old quickly learned that when there's a siren, the family have to run and hide. \"As soon as we hear sirens or get a notification we shout, 'To the shelter!' and whatever he's doing he leaves it and runs. He understands that the situation is extraordinary. It even surprises us how well children understand the necessity to behave properly.\"\n\nEvacuees and a child, sitting on top of a suitcase, wait for a train to Romania from Lviv\n\nAs the Russian shelling gets worse and the convoys close in, many Ukrainian parents have decided to flee their homes with their young children in tow.\n\nHanna, a scientist, left Kyiv and travelled to Poland with her two sons, who are eight and six years old. For days, they had been at home listening to explosions, the windows trembling, and she somehow had to tell them what was going on. She found it hard to strike a balance between reality and how much a child's mind can take.\n\n\"This was a challenge for me as a mother because I have to choose between how to explain the truth, but at the same time not to scare them too much,\" she says. \"So I was just telling them that we are under attack, and at the moment we are safe, but when we feel we have to move, they have to listen.\"\n\nHer parenting style had to change, too - there was no room for discussion. \"Normally I ask them to do something, but this is a time to get orders.\"\n\nA child on a swing outside a residential building in Kyiv damaged by a missile\n\nAfter a few days of shelling, Hanna felt she no longer wanted her children to hear the bombs and decided to leave Ukraine. \"It was a very, super hard decision,\" she says.\n\nHer children had to make a hard decision too - they could only take one of their toys. Her eldest chose Toothless, a toy dragon from the How to Train your Dragon series, and her youngest chose a Transformer toy car that turns into a robot. It was a huge decision for them, says Hanna - perhaps as momentous as it was for her to leave her country. \"I think that we were in the same emotional decision-taking position.\"\n\nIt took them 52 hours to reach safety in Poland. Hanna's ex-husband came with them for the first part of the car journey but then had to turn back, to fight. Hanna says travelling in a war zone with two kids was exhausting and she can understand why many of her friends are choosing to stay nearer home.\n\nNow they are safe, but the boys ask lots of questions, about their grandparents and especially their father, who has stayed behind. \"Heart-breaking questions, because they ask me every day if he is alive, or if he still has his hands and legs. They are afraid that he can get super hurt.\"\n\nHanna tells them to try and live in the present. \"All we have is just now. At the moment we are safe,\" she says.\n\nHow much to tell their children is something all parents are having to weigh up. Oksana fled her home town of Lviv, in the west, and is now also in Poland. Her six-year-old daughter is autistic and hates loud noises, so she found the air raid sirens very scary. She could tell her mother was nervous too, so Oksana told her the truth about what was happening.\n\n\"I was explaining that it's a war and we need to be safe, and that a lot of people are dead now because of all this,\" says Oksana. \"I think it is important that when children are old enough to understand they are not misled, because they can sense the atmosphere is bad.\"\n\nIryna's son is just two, and she has decided not to tell him too much. After spending three nights in a bomb shelter they left Irpin, a small city near Kyiv, and went to western Ukraine.\n\nShe told her son they were going to stay with friends, because he's too young to understand that they're in danger. \"I didn't tell him that it's a war. I'm not sure I have to when he's so young, because I think it makes this situation only worse.\"\n\nAs for Anton and his family, the Russian troops are closing in and they may have to evacuate soon. He's not sure where to. \"No-one knows which place is the safest - so it's gambling,\" he says.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: A mother in Kyiv speaks to the BBC about the decision to tell her children why dad joined the war", "The UK Ministry of Defence has a direct line to Moscow, which is tested every day, says chief of defence staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin.\n\nSpeaking on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, he said he met his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasimov a couple of weeks ago.\n\nSir Tony revealed that he told him it would be a \"catastrophic mistake\" for Russia to invade Ukraine.", "The UK, EU, and US governments have responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with devastating sanctions against the billionaire businessmen perceived to be in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.\n\nMr Putin has warned his allies for many years they should protect themselves against such measures, particularly as relations soured with the US and EU countries after the annexation of Crimea.\n\nBut while some of those closest to him took his advice and remained invested in Russia, others kept their money in palatial properties overseas and football clubs, and their companies remained listed on foreign stock exchanges.\n\nThey now find themselves scrambling to hold on to their assets amid the most comprehensive economic penalties imposed in the modern era. Here's what we know about some of them.\n\nSaid to be one of Mr Putin's favourite oligarchs, Alisher Usmanov is also one of the richest, worth an estimated $17.6bn, according to Forbes. A former professional fencer, the EU describes him as a \"businessman-official\" who helps the president solve his business problems.\n\nBorn in Uzbekistan while it was still part of the Soviet Union, he runs USM Holdings, a huge conglomerate that involves mining and telecoms, including Russia's second biggest mobile network MegaFon.\n\nThe EU announced sanctions against him on 28 February, and the US and UK have followed suit. He has called the sanctions unfair and said all the allegations against him were false.\n\nUSM Holdings appears to be hoping to avoid EU sanctions as he owns just under 50% of the shares. His superyacht Dilbar, named after his mother, is undergoing a refit in Hamburg and is at risk of being seized.\n\nIn the UK, his main visible investments are in property. In London he owns Beechwood House, a £65m country house with grounds in the heart of the city, and just outside London in Surrey, he owns a Tudor mansion, Sutton Place. Both have been frozen by UK authorities.\n\nHis business partner Farhad Moshiri owns Everton, and Mr Usmanov's companies USM, MegaFon and Yota have been key sponsors at the club, with suggestions his involvement was even closer. Everton suspended the sponsorship deal last week, and Mr Moshiri quit as a USM board member.\n\nOne of the most high-profile Russian billionaires because of the phenomenal success of his football club Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich was sanctioned later than some others, possibly because he is less obviously influential than other Putin allies.\n\nHow influential he is in the Kremlin is much debated. Some suggest he is merely tolerated by Mr Putin, but the UK believes the two are close and that Mr Abramovich has made money out of the relationship, being awarded lucrative contracts for the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia, for example.\n\nMr Abramovich strongly denies having close ties to Mr Putin or the Kremlin, but the UK portion of his estimated $12.4bn fortune is now frozen. Just before the UK sanctions were announced, he put Chelsea up for sale for £3bn. His £150m house in London's Kensington Palace Gardens in London was also reportedly up for sale.\n\nMr Abramovich made his money in the 1990s and was one of the original oligarchs during Boris Yeltsin's presidency. His biggest break was buying the oil company Sibneft at a knockdown price. His assets include the third-longest yacht in the world, Eclipse, which recently left the British Virgin Isles, heading east across the Atlantic. His other mega-yacht, Solaris, is in the Mediterranean.\n\nHe had started to withdraw from the UK in recent years. In 2018 he decided not to apply to renew his UK visa, and has instead been using his newly acquired Israeli passport to visit London. And while he used to go to every Chelsea home game, in recent years he was rarely seen at Stamford Bridge - and now he is banned from entering the UK.\n\nWhen President Putin came to power, Oleg Deripaska was immensely rich, his wealth peaking at about $28bn - but he is now thought to be worth a mere $3bn.\n\nOleg Deripaska, right, with Mr Putin in 2017\n\nHe fought his way to a fortune in the 1990s, coming out on top in a vicious battle for the aluminium industry. The US said he was involved in money laundering, bribery, extortion and racketeering, and reported allegations that he had \"ordered the murder of a businessman, and had links to a Russian organized crime group\". He denies the allegations.\n\nHe suffered badly in the 2008 financial crisis and needed Mr Putin to bail him out. In 2009, President Putin humiliated him by suggesting publicly that he had stolen a pen. Since then, he seems to have worked himself back into favour and was described in the Mueller report - a US investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election - as being \"closely aligned\" with the president. When it announced its sanctions, the UK also described him as closely associated with Mr Putin.\n\nHe founded a green energy and metals company, En+ Group, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, but reduced his stake in it to below 50% when he was subjected to US sanctions in 2018. At the time, one of Mr Deripaska's companies, Basic Element, released a statement calling the sanctions \"groundless, ridiculous and absurd\".\n\nHe owns a vast art deco property, Hamstone House in Weybridge, Surrey, which he has been trying to sell for £18m but has now been taken off the market. He also owns a yacht, Clio, which was recently seen in the Maldives.\n\nUnlike many sanctioned oligarchs Mr Deripaska has been vocal about his view on the war, taking to social media to call for peace. \"Negotiations need to start as soon as possible!\" he wrote.\n\nIgor Sechin's connections to Vladimir Putin run long and deep, according to the EU which announced sanctions against him on 28 February. He is said to be one of Mr Putin's most trusted and closest advisors, as well as a personal friend, and the two are thought to be in daily contact.\n\nHis progress was made through ruthlessly pushing aside opponents - his nickname in the Russian press is Darth Vader. A leaked US embassy cable from 2008 described him as \"so shadowy that it was joked he may not actually exist but rather was a sort of urban myth, a bogeyman, invented by the Kremlin to instil fear\". The US imposed sanctions on him in 2014, which he called \"totally unjustified and illegal\". They announced new sanctions against him on 24 February.\n\nMr Sechin has spent his career alternating between jobs in politics and business, sometimes holding senior jobs in both at the same time. When Putin was prime minister, he was a deputy prime minister, and now runs the state oil giant Rosneft.\n\nMr Sechin worked with Mr Putin in the mayor's office in St Petersburg in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have been in the much-feared intelligence service, the KGB, although has never openly admitted it.\n\nBased in Russia, no-one knows how much money Mr Sechin has, but the French have seized a yacht called Amore Vero that was linked to him after his second wife Olga Sechina kept posting photographs of herself on board. They have since divorced.\n\nBeyond that there is little sign he has substantial wealth overseas that could be easily uncovered, and it may be hard to track down and freeze any more of his assets.\n\nAlexey Miller is another old friend of Vladimir Putin's. Something of a grey man, he too has built his career on loyalty to the president, starting when he was Mr Putin's deputy on the foreign relations committee of the St Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s.\n\nAlexey Miller, right, with Mr Putin in February this year\n\nHe has run the immensely powerful state-owned gas company Gazprom since 2001, but it was a surprise appointment and it is widely assumed that he is just carrying out the orders of his old boss. The US ambassador to Moscow in 2009 described Gazprom as \"inefficient, politically driven, and corrupt\".\n\nMr Miller was not sanctioned after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but when he was added to the list in the US in 2018, he said he was proud. \"Not being included in the first list. I even had some doubts - maybe something is wrong? But I am finally included. This means we are doing everything right,\" he said.\n\nHe does not appear to have easily traceable assets outside Russia and there is no information about his net worth.\n\nThe EU describes Pyotr Aven (pictured on the left) as one of President Putin's closest oligarchs, and Mikhail Fridman as an enabler of Putin's inner circle. Together the two men created Alfa-Bank, the largest private bank in Russia.\n\nThe Mueller report said Mr Aven met with Putin in the Kremlin about four times a year, saying he \"understood any suggestions or critiques Putin made during these meetings were implicit directives, and there would be consequences for Aven if he did not follow through\".\n\nThey were warned by Mr Putin in 2016 to protect their interests from future sanctions. This week the pair stood down from the London-headquartered LetterOne investment group they founded almost 10 years ago because their shares were frozen by EU sanctions on 28 February. Mr Aven also stood down as a trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.\n\nThe two businessmen said they would \"contest the spurious and unfounded basis for the imposition of these sanctions - vigorously and through all means available to them\".\n\nMr Fridman, thought to be worth around $12bn, lives in London in a house next to Lord's Cricket Ground and also owns a huge property, Athlone House in north London, that he paid £65m for in 2016.\n\nAt a London press conference on 1 March, he said the Ukraine war was a \"huge tragedy\" but would not criticise the Kremlin directly saying to do so could put the jobs of hundreds of thousands of employees at risk.", "Emergency services in the aftermath of a strike on a TV tower in Kyiv on Tuesday that killed five\n\nThe key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was \"near to a humanitarian catastrophe\" on Wednesday after more than 15 hours of continuous bombardment by Russian forces, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC.\n\n\"The Russian army is working through all their weapons here - artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, airplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city,\" Serhiy Orlov said.\n\nMr Orlov said Russian forces were several kilometres from the city on all sides and had launched strikes on key infrastructure, cutting water and power supplies to parts of the city. One densely populated residential district on the city's left bank had been \"nearly totally destroyed\", he said.\n\n\"We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies. My father lives there, I cannot reach him, I don't know if he is alive or dead.\"\n\nRussian forces had targeted strikes against pump stations and electrical transformers, Mr Orlov said, and there were food shortages in parts of the city - raising fears of an approaching humanitarian crisis.\n\nMariupol is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine's army has resisted Russian forces so far in key parts of the country but the increased aerial bombardment of cities has raised fears Russia is shifting tactics.\n\n\"The Ukrainian army is very brave and they will continue to defend the city but the style of the Russian army is like pirates - they do not fight with their army, they just destroy entire districts,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"We believe in our Ukrainian army, but we are in a terrible situation.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine took a heavy toll on civilians on Wednesday as residential neighbourhoods in several large cities were bombed. Ukraine's emergency services said more than 2,000 civilians had been killed so far during the Russian invasion, though the BBC was not able to independently verify the figure. The UN said on Tuesday that at least 136 civilians had been killed, but it estimated that the actual number was higher.\n\nThere were fears on Wednesday that the death toll would rise dramatically as Russian troops appeared to surround the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the port city of Kherson.\n\nUkrainian forces said Russian paratroopers had landed near Kharkiv on Wednesday, leading to street fighting on the outskirts of the city. Local officials said a cruise missile hit a city council meeting, blowing off the top of the building and wounding three. At least 18 people have been reported killed in the city in the past day.\n\nA fire at the a Kharkiv university building after it was hit by a Russian missile on Wednesday\n\nResidents in Kharkiv told the BBC they were experiencing heavy aerial bombardment. \"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" said Iryna Ruzhynska, 40, who was sheltering with her family in her second-floor apartment on Wednesday.\n\n\"We have put Scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ms Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nThe Russian defence ministry claimed its forces were in control of Kherson, a city of nearly 250,000 people just north of Crimea, but local authorities said the city was still under Ukrainian control, despite being surrounded. Video footage verified by the BBC appeared to show Russian troops in the centre of Kherson.\n\nLarysa Pavlovska, a 58-year-old paramedic in Kherson, told the BBC her part of the city was quiet on Wednesday but other parts were smouldering after intense overnight shelling, adding that some residential districts had been \"bombed out\".\n\n\"Local residents say Russian armoured vehicles can be seen moving in the city, people say about 50 units,\" she said. \"They have been spotted by the state regional administration building.\"\n\nInesa Chamlai, the deputy head of the emergency aid centre in Kherson, said Russian troops had prevented them taking a wounded 55-year-old man to hospital. The man had stepped on a mine and lost his leg, Mr Chamlai said.\n\n\"Our ambulance team was dispatched but was then prevented by Russian troops from taking the man to hospital,\" he said. \"The soldiers ordered to bring him back to his house where he will definitely die.\"\n\nThere were also growing fears in the capital, Kyiv, over a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles just 15 miles north of the city, though US officials said on Wednesday the column was barely moving.\n\nIn Irpin, close to Kyiv, residential buildings have been destroyed\n\nRussia's air force struck a television mast in the capital on Tuesday, killing five people at the site of a Nazi massacre which killed more than 33,000, mostly Jews, while a missile strike west of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, killed four people including a child, a Ukrainian official said.\n\nIn a video message on Wednesday, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, condemned the strike at the site of the massacre, accusing the Russians of trying to \"erase\" Ukrainians.\n\n\"They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,\" he said.\n\nA UK government spokesperson said Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Mr Zelensky on Wednesday \"to condemn the abhorrent attacks on Ukraine in the recent hours and days\".\n\nIn an address on Tuesday, the US president Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a \"dictator\" and promised \"robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia's economy\".\n\nNearly a week after invading, Russia is facing increasing economic turmoil at home as it is hit by increasing sanctions. The Moscow Stock Exchange remained closed for the third day in a row on Wednesday as authorities tried to limit the impact of the sanctions.\n\n\"The Russian economy has suffered a serious blow,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, insisting that it was \"still standing\".\n\nHave you been affected by any of the issues raised here? Do you have family in Ukraine? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ken Smith's extraordinary life has been documented by filmmaker Lizzie MacKenzie. Video courtesy of Glasgow Film Festival.\n\nA hermit who has spent 40 years living in isolation in the Scottish Highlands has made a surprise appearance on the red carpet of a film festival.\n\nKen Smith left his cabin in Lochaber to attend the premiere in Glasgow of a documentary about his life.\n\nThe 74-year-old normally lives without electricity or running water beside Loch Treig - the \"lonely loch\".\n\nHe described Glasgow as a very changed city and added: \"I've never seen so many people.\"\n\nKen, who is originally from Derbyshire, began a life of wandering after being beaten up during a night out, leaving him unconscious for nearly a fortnight.\n\nWhile travelling in Canada, he became interested in the wilderness - and on his return, he sought out what he felt was the \"most isolated place in Britain\" and built himself a log cabin.\n\nHis extraordinary story has been told by Lizzie MacKenzie who spent two years filming a documentary for BBC Scotland.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The Hermit of Treig Ken Smith finds sustenance in nature\n\nKen had to get up at 04:00 so he could make the two-hour walk to the nearest road for his journey to the premiere in Glasgow.\n\nHe said he wasn't nervous - but his first trip away from the Highlands in decades made a big impression on him.\n\n\"The last time I was in Glasgow was 30 or 40 years ago - it's changed so much from what it used to be,\" he said.\n\n\" I don't know any of the places or anything like that, in the past I did.\n\n\"It's certainly a different form of life - I've never seen so many people. From where I am, where I live I can go weeks and never see anybody and I just carry on with my jobs.\"\n\nKen had to get up at 04:00 in order to make the long journey to the red carpet in Glasgow\n\nLizzie first met Ken a decade ago while she was working in a café in the Highlands, after hearing stories from deer stalkers about an old man who lived in the forest.\n\n\"I got curious and ended up going to meet Ken and we wrote letters for years and years - and I slowly learned how to make films so I could tell his story,\" she said.\n\nShe made regular visits with her camera, recording how he lived off the land, facing struggles as he grows older but also enjoying his close relationship with nature.\n\n\"The most challenging one was when Ken did his 50-mile or whatever round trip to town and we got up at 03:00 and walked around in the dark.\n\nKen with his log cabin soon after it was built in the mid-1980s\n\n\"I was trying to keep up with him with the camera and I struggled to keep up - I thought I was fit until I tried to follow Ken with a camera.\"\n\nOver the years they have become friends, and Lizzie was able to help Ken when he needed hospital treatment after a fall.\n\n\"She was the one that kept coming in and doing my shopping while I was in hospital. I was quite grateful for that,\" he recalled.\n\nThe Hermit of Treig will be available online via Glasgow Film at Home from 8 - 11 March and then released in cinemas across the UK from 25 March.", "Successive US presidents have struggled to get the measure of Vladimir Putin but now that Brussels and Berlin have joined the fray with such resolve, it's a different story, writes Nick Bryant.\n\nIt is often tempting to look upon Vladimir Putin as the millennium bug in a human and deadly form.\n\nThe Russian president rose to power on 31 December 1999, as the world held its breath that computers would go into meltdown when the clock struck midnight, unable to process the change from 1999 to 2000.\n\nIn the 20 years since, Putin has been trying to engineer a different kind of global system malfunction, the destruction of the liberal international order. The former KGB spymaster wanted to turn back the clock: to revive Russia's tsarist greatness and to restore the might and menace of the Soviet Union prior to its break-up in 1991.\n\nThis Russian revanchist has become the most disruptive international leader of the 21st Century, the mastermind behind so much misery from Chechnya to Crimea, from Syria to the cathedral city of Salisbury. He has sought - successfully at times - to redraw the map of Europe.\n\nHe has tried - successfully at times - to immobilise the United Nations. He has been determined - successfully at times - to weaken America, and hasten its division and decline.\n\nPutin came to power at a moment of western hubris. The United States was the sole superpower in a unipolar world. Francis Fukuyama's End of History thesis, proclaiming the triumph of liberal democracy, was widely accepted.\n\nSome economists even peddled the theory that recessions would be no more, partly because of the productivity gains of the new digital economy. It was also thought that globalisation, and the interdependence it wrought, would stop major economic powers fighting wars. The same utopianism attached itself to the internet, which was seen overwhelmingly as a force for global good.\n\nAn honour guard greets Air Force One on the Moscow tarmac in 2002\n\nIn the early days especially, the same misplaced optimism and wishful thinking coloured the west's approach to Putin - a figure, it is now obvious, who was trying to buck history and thwart democratisation, however many lives were lost in the process.\n\nSuccessive US presidents have played into his hands. Bill Clinton, the occupant of the White House when Putin came to power, handed this ultra-nationalist a popular grievance by pushing for the expansion of Nato right up to Russia's borders. As George F Kennan, the famed architect of America's Cold War strategy of containment, warned at the time: \"Expanding Nato would be the most fateful error of America policy in the entire post-Cold War era.\"\n\nGeorge W Bush completely misjudged his Russian counterpart. \"I looked the man in the eye,\" Bush famously said after their first meeting in Slovenia in 2001. \"I found him very straightforward and trustworthy… I was able to get a sense of his soul.\" Bush mistakenly thought he could mount a charm offensive with Putin, and gently cajole him further down the democratic path.\n\nBut even though Bush visited Russia more than any other country - including, as a personal favour, two trips in 2002 to Putin's home city, St Petersburg - the Russian leader was already displaying dangerously despotic tendencies.\n\nIn 2008, Bush's final year as president, Putin invaded Georgia - what he called a \"peace enforcement operation\". The Kremlin argued then - and has continued to argue ever since - that it was hypocritical for Washington to complain about this violation of international law after Bush had invaded Iraq.\n\nBarack Obama sought to reframe US-Russian relations. His first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, even handed her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a mock reset button (which was mistakenly labelled with the Russian word for \"overloaded\"). But Putin knew that America, after its long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no longer wanted to police the world.\n\nWhen Obama refused in 2013 to enforce his red-line warning against Bashar al-Assad when the Syrian dictator used chemical weapons against his own people, Putin saw a green light. By helping Assad carry out his murderous war, he extended Moscow's sphere of influence in the Middle East when the United States wanted to extract itself from the region. The following year, he annexed Crimea, and established a foothold in eastern Ukraine.\n\nDespite being told by Obama to \"cut it out,\" Putin even sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in the hope that Hillary Clinton, a long-time nemesis, would be defeated and that Donald Trump, a long-time fan boy, would win.\n\nThe New York property tycoon made no secret of his admiration for Putin, a sycophantic approach that seems to have further emboldened the Russian president. Much to Moscow's delight, Trump publicly criticised Nato, weakened the US post-war alliance system and became such a polarising figure that he left America more politically divided than at any time since the Civil War.\n\nArguably, then, you have to reach back 30 years to find a US leader whose approach to the Kremlin has stood the test of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, George Herbert Walker Bush resisted the temptation to rejoice in America's Cold War victory - much to the astonishment of the White House press pack, he refused to travel to Berlin for a victory lap - knowing that it would bolster hardliners in the Politburo and military seeking to oust Mikhail Gorbachev.\n\nThat magnanimity in victory helped when it came to bringing about the reunification of Germany, which was arguably Bush's greatest foreign policy success.\n\nPutin is obviously a more formidable adversary, harder to deal with than even Leonid Brezhnev or Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But since the turn of the century no US president has truly had his measure.\n\nBill Clinton pushed for the expansion of Nato which some said was a mistake\n\nJoe Biden, like George Herbert Walker Bush, is a Cold War warrior, who has dedicated his presidency to defending democracy at home and abroad. Seeking to re-establish America's traditional post-war role as the leader of the free world, he has sought to mobilise the international community, offered military aid to Ukraine and adopted the toughest sanction regime ever targeted against Putin.\n\nAs Russian forces amassed at the border, he also shared US intelligence showing that Putin had decided to invade, in ways that sought to disrupt the Kremlin's usual misinformation campaigns and false flag operations.\n\nHis State of the Union address became a rallying cry. \"Freedom will always triumph over tyranny,\" he said. And while Biden does not speak with the clarity or force of a Kennedy or a Reagan, it was nonetheless a significant speech.\n\nWhat's been striking since the Russian invasion started, however, has been the assertion of forceful presidential leadership from elsewhere. Volodymyr Zelensky has been lauded and lionised, as he has continued this extraordinary personal journey from comedian to Churchillian colossus.\n\nIn Brussels, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been another commanding presence. This former German politician has been a driving force behind the decision, for the first time in EU history, to finance and purchase weapons for a nation under attack, a commitment that includes not just ammunition but fighter jets as well.\n\nHer compatriot, the new Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, has also shown more resolve in dealing with Putin than his predecessor Angela Merkel. At warp speed, he has overturned decades of post-Cold War German foreign policy, an approach so often predicated on caution and timidity towards the Russian leader.\n\nBerlin has sent anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine (ending the policy of not sending weapons to active war zones), halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, withdrawn its opposition to blocking Russia from the SWIFT international payments system, and even committed to spending 2% of its GDP on defence spending.\n\nThe biggest assault on a European state since World War Two has stiffened European resolve. But so, too, it seems has the relative weakness of America. Mindful of the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan and possibility of a Trump 2.0 presidency, European leaders seem to have realised that they can no longer lean so heavily on Washington to defend democracy in this hour of maximum peril. Leadership of the free world has, in this crisis, become a common endeavour.\n\nEven since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been calling upon European nations to do more to police its own neighbourhood, something they failed to do when the break-up of the former Yugoslavia sparked the Bosnian war. Historians may well conclude that it took a combination of Putin's aggressiveness, America's fragility, Ukraine's heroic resolve and the fear that Europe's post-war stability is truly on the line to finally make that happen.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: What Americans think of Biden's Ukraine response\n\nIt would be naive to be swept away by the romanticism of Zelensky's speeches or to succumb to the dopamine high of watching the seizure of Russian-owned super-yachts unfold on social media. Putin is intensifying the war. But the last week has sent a message to Moscow - and to Beijing as well - that the post-war international order still continues to function, despite the deployment of the Russian war machine to bring about its collapse. Just as history never ended, nor has liberal democracy.\n\nAs Joe Biden put it in his State of the Union, during a passage in which rhetoric served also as sober analysis: Putin \"thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of resistance he never imagined\".\n\nNick Bryant is the author of When America Stopped Being Great: a history of the present. He is the former New York correspondent for the BBC and now lives in Sydney.", "Her expensive treatment is running out. Her mother faces a dilemma - should the family stay in their basement for safety, or risk going outside to try and flee Kharkiv and get help for their daughter?\n\nWarning - this video contains distressing footage of an explosion in Freedom Square, Kharkiv. It has been verified by the BBC but the source is unknown.", "This livestream has now ended.\n\nOn this week's Sunday Morning, Sophie Raworth is joined by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth, and Dr Anthony Fauci - the chief medical adviser to the US president.", "Oleksandr Zinchenko has thanked the world for standing with Ukraine in an emotional interview with BBC Sport about the Russian invasion of his homeland.\n\nThe 25-year-old Manchester City left-back was named captain for the midweek FA Cup win over Peterborough and carried out the Ukraine flag before the match, having sat out the previous two league games.\n\nSince Russia invaded Ukraine a little over a week ago, about a million Ukrainians have fled to safety while many others have stayed to fight.\n\nThe international community has almost universally backed Ukraine, in many cases sending weapons or imposing sanctions on Russian companies or individuals.\n\nZinchenko, who has family and friends in Ukraine, spoke to Gary Lineker about \"his mission\" to tell the world what is happening in Ukraine.\n\nYou can watch the full interview on Football Focus from 12:00 GMT on Saturday on BBC One.\n\nOn discovering the news and crying in the car\n\n\"At midnight UK time, my wife woke me up and she was crying,\" the Ukraine international says of how he discovered the invasion had started.\n\n\"I was in shock. She showed me the videos, the pictures, what's going on now in Ukraine.\n\n\"Maybe the most closest feeling is when someone from your circle is dying. You know, this feeling like you feel so bad inside. But this is even much more worse.\"\n\nNine days into the war and he says the emotion keeps hitting him.\n\n\"I'm just crying. So already a week, I'm not counting, but even I can drive the car from the training ground, or it doesn't matter where, I can just cry from nothing,\" he said.\n\n\"It's everything in my head. Imagine the place where you was born, where you was growing up. And there is just empty ground.\"\n\nOn his pride in Ukrainians who won't give up\n\nMany Ukrainians - including Zinchenko's friends - have stayed to fight Russia, with some who live abroad returning home for the war.\n\n\"I'll be honest, if not for my daughter, my family, I would be there,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm just born like that. I know the people from my country, the mentality of them, and all of them, they think exactly the same.\n\n\"I'm so proud to be Ukrainian, and I will be forever for the rest of my life. And when you're watching the people, how they fight for their lives.\n\n\"I know the people, the mentality of my people from my country, they prefer to die, and they will die. But they're not going to give [up].\"\n\nOn the world standing by Ukraine\n\nHe said he had been overwhelmed by support he had received from football fans, from people in the street and also form seeing donations from the British public.\n\n\"I'm so grateful,\" he said. \"I'm so grateful to all these people for the support I'm getting here. I didn't realise it's going to be like that in this way. So I would like to say all of them big thanks. I appreciate it.\n\n\"I'm getting a lot of messages from a lot of guys in Ukraine and they are asking me about the videos of support [from the UK].\n\n\"So people are watching TV, the people are still watching football, and they can see all these things, and I guess it helps a lot for them\n\n\"It's like, the people who are supporting Ukraine, they are trying to push them - don't give up. And I know my people they won't.\"\n\nOn his mission to let the world know what is happening\n\nZinchenko feels his \"mission is to show that the rest of the world the real truth, what's going on now in Ukraine\", especially amid Russian propaganda.\n\n\"I spoke with many people who are on our side. And they said that the way Russian TV is showing us is ridiculous.\n\n\"My mission is to show the rest of the world what's going on in this moment.\n\n\"There are few cities in the lowest part of Ukraine where the civilians, Russian people, are coming and they do fake protests that like 'we want to be with Russia' and stuff like that.\n\n\"I can show you one million pictures. I can show you one million videos, what they are doing now. I can show you every city in my country, which they destroyed.\n\n\"The people are starving there. The people are just surviving, sleeping on the ground, in bunkers, they cannot live a proper life.\"\n\nZinchenko revealed that was the reason he wanted to do the interview.\n\n\"I was thinking a few days about this interview. Should I do it? Should I not?\" he said. \"But I just want to send the message to all the people that please don't ignore this. We need to stop the war.\"\n\nOn his disappointment in Russian footballers\n\nZinchenko has said he is really disappointed that no Russia internationals have spoken out against the invasion.\n\nRussia captain Artem Dzyuba even spoke out against his country's suspension from international tournaments by Fifa and Uefa and said \"I am proud to be Russian\".\n\nZinchenko said: \"I was surprised that no-one, not one of them, from all of them [has said anything].\n\n\"Most of them play in the national team and they have a lot of followers on Instagram, Facebook, wherever.\n\n\"And they can, they can at least they can do something to stop this war. Because the people can hear them.\n\n\"I already know that they scared. But they're scared of what? They're not gonna do anything with them.\n\n\"At least they can say their positions, but they don't they just ignore it. I don't know why.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThomas Tuchel criticised Chelsea supporters who sang owner Roman Abramovich's name during a minute's applause for Ukraine before their 4-0 win over Burnley at Turf Moor.\n\nAbramovich announced his decision to sell the club amid heavy scrutiny following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nSome Chelsea fans chanted Russian Abramovich's name throughout the game, and were booed by Burnley fans.\n\n\"It's not the moment to do this,\" Chelsea manager Tuchel said.\n• None The Sports Desk podcast: Exit Abramovich as sport turns its back on Russia\n\n\"If we show solidarity we show solidarity and we should do it together.\n\n\"We take the knee together. If an important person from our club or another club unfortunately dies we have a minute of respect.\n\n\"It is not the moment to give other messages. It's the moment to show respect. We want to do this. As a club we need our fans to commit to this minute of applause.\n\n\"We do it for Ukraine and there is no second opinion about this situation. They have our thoughts and our support and we should stand together.\"\n\nAs well as the pre-match applause, banners, cards, pennants and TV screens in the blue and yellow halves of the Ukrainian flag proclaiming 'Football Stands Together' were displayed at Premier League games on Saturday.\n\nAbramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nTuchel was speaking after third-placed Chelsea beat Burnley thanks to a Kai Havertz double and goals from Reece James and Christian Pulisic, all of which came in the second half.\n\n\"The club's very firm view is that moments of respect or recognition should always be honoured by everyone present,\" it read.\n\nAbramovich has been at Chelsea for 19 years since taking the club over in July 2003, during which time they have won 19 major trophies.\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Russia's 86 Zara stores are to close from Sunday, including this one in St Petersburg\n\nZara, Paypal and Samsung are the latest international firms to suspend trading in Russia after it invaded Ukraine.\n\nThe clothes retailer's owner, Inditex, will shut all 502 stores of its eight brands, including Bershka, Stradivarius and Oysho, from Sunday.\n\nPayment giant Paypal cited \"violent military aggression in Ukraine\" as the reason to shut down its services.\n\nSamsung - Russia's top supplier of smartphones - is suspending shipments over \"geopolitical developments\".\n\nOther global brands, including Apple, H&M and Ikea, have already stopped selling in Russia.\n\nThe clothes store closures are expected to hit more than 9,000 of Inditex's employees who work in Russia.\n\nThe Spanish-owned business told the BBC it was drawing up a plan to support them.\n\n\"In the current circumstances Inditex cannot guarantee the continuity of the operations and commercial conditions in the Russian Federation and temporarily suspends its activity,\" the Zara owner company said.\n\nAdam Cochrane, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, told Reuters that logistical difficulties and the weakness in the rouble - resulting in large price increases for the Russian consumer - would make \"operations difficult for all retailers importing into Russia\".\n\nRussians rush to buy furniture and household goods in Ikea before the store closes in St Petersburg\n\nOther brands that have halted their business in Russia include:\n\nOnline payments company Paypal has also shut down services in Russia but said it would support withdrawals \"for a period of time\".\n\nThis would ensure that account balances were dispersed \"in line with applicable laws and regulations\", it said.\n\nThe Ukrainian government had been calling on Paypal to quit Russia and help its officials with fundraising.\n\nFashion and technology. Some of the biggest interests for young people around the world.\n\nBut today, young Russians are having their choices and access to them severely restricted, as huge global businesses continue to turn their backs on Russia.\n\nSamsung sells the most popular smartphones in Russia, but when current stocks sell out, there'll be little option to get an upgrade because Samsung is stopping its shipments.\n\nAnd Zara, known for its up-to-date and on-trend fashions, will be unavailable for fashion-conscious Russians as the shutters stay down in its shops and the website closes.\n\nWe don't know how they'll respond, but the Ukrainian deputy prime minister thinks restricting access to tech will motivate young Russians to object to the invasion.\n\nAnd as more Western retailers close, what reasons are these business owners giving to their Russian employees about the reasons?\n\nSamsung, the leading supplier of smartphones in Russia ahead of Xiaomi and Apple, will suspend shipments to the country. It is unclear whether Samsung's shops will close.\n\nReports suggest that Ukraine's vice-prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who is responsible for digital operations, wrote to Samsung's vice-chairman to urge them to temporarily cease supplying services and products to Russia.\n\n\"We believe that such actions will motivate the youth and active population of Russia to proactively stop the disgraceful military aggression,\" Mr Fedorov said in the letter posted on his Twitter account on Friday.\n\nIn a statement, the South Korean company said it would \"continue to actively monitor the complex situation to determine its next steps\".\n\nIn other developments, Russia's national airline, Aeroflot, has cancelled nearly all international flights from 8 March, because of what it called \"additional circumstances\" impeding its operations.\n\nDomestic routes and flights to neighbouring Belarus will continue unchanged, the airline said.\n\nThe EU, UK, US and Canada have all banned Russian airlines from their airspace - severely restricting the number of destinations available, and making other routes more difficult.\n\nRussia has reciprocated with airspace bans of its own.\n\nInternational sanctions have also been directed at Russia's airline industry, making it difficult for Aeroflot and other Russian airlines to operate normally.\n\nEarlier, the Foreign Office advised all British nationals who did not need to be in Russia to leave the country using the remaining commercial routes", "President Volodymyr Zelensky has told Ukrainians they have \"withstood the blow\" of Russia's invasion as he urged citizens to continue fighting.\n\nIn an impassioned speech delivered from Kyiv on Saturday night, Mr Zelensky told the country that the time has come for them to launch a fightback.\n\n\"You need to go out and drive this evil out of our cities,\" he said.\n\nThe rallying cry came alongside a plea to US President Joe Biden to source more combat jets for Ukraine.\n\nUS officials are believed to be in discussions with political leaders in Poland over the possibility of Warsaw providing Ukraine with a number of MiG fighter jets.\n\nPoland has been slowly phasing the Soviet-era fighter out of use - and officials are understood to be weighing whether to provide them to Ukraine, where pilots are not trained to fly Western-made jets.\n\nSome reports suggest they could be exchanged for new US-sponsored replacements.\n\nThe Russian invasion of Ukraine has entered its 11th day, with some experts suggesting the invasion may have stalled in places - despite President Vladimir Putin's insistence on Saturday that the operation is \"going to plan.\"\n\nWhile fighting has continued in many parts of the country, Moscow's forces have only captured one major Ukrainian city, Kherson - though it has made other key advances, such as seizing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Friday.\n\nMuch of Russia's military has so far underperformed in Ukraine.\n\nPrior to the invasion, it was assumed the army had undergone a radical re-haul, reorganising itself into so-called \"Battalion Tactical Groups\". These units of 800 to 1,000 men would operate in close coordination with tanks, drones and multiple-launch rocket systems to deliver a multi-faceted punch to the enemy.\n\nBut it hasn't worked out like that.\n\nRussian commanders, especially in the north, have manifestly failed to make full use of this modern kind of warfare.\n\nTheir vehicles have also suffered mechanical breakdowns and they appear to have underestimated the strength of Ukrainian resistance, losing large numbers of men and equipment.\n\nSo now, as grimly predicted, the gloves have come off.\n\nRussian military tactics have reverted to a crude but tried and tested doctrine: encircle a city, pummel it with airstrikes, tank and artillery fire, and break the morale of both its defenders and those simply trying to survive.\n\nInternational condemnation of the mounting civilian casualties will not bother President Putin. He's made it abundantly clear he has no intention of calling off this invasion.\n\nOutside the capital of Kyiv, a massive convoy stretching over 40 miles (64km) remains stalled outside the city and Ukrainian defence officials say they have been hitting selected targets within the convoy where they can. Elsewhere:\n\nThe head of the UN's refugee agency told Reuters that the number of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion could rise to 1.5 million by the end of the weekend.\n\n\"This is the fastest moving refugee crisis we have seen in Europe since the end of World War Two,\" UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said.\n\nRussian forces have been heavily shelling towns outside the capital of Kyiv\n\nAs fighting rumbles on in Ukraine, Western sanctions continue to hammer the Russian economy.\n\nOn Saturday night, the payments giants Visa and Mastercard both announced that they will withdraw their services from Russia, with Visa's chief executive Al Kelly saying in a statement that the company had been \"compelled to act following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed\".\n\nThe move means Russian banks will no longer be supported by the companies' networks, and any cards issued outside of the country will stop working at Russian merchants or ATMs.\n\nBut Sberbank, the country's largest lender, emphasised that Russians will be able to withdraw cash, make transfers, and pay both in offline stores and Russian internet stores, because transactions in the country pass through the domestic National Payment Card System, which does not depend on foreign payment systems.\n\nMeanwhile, with further economic sanctions under discussion in Washington and Brussels, President Putin has warned Western leaders that the economic punishments being heaped on Russia are \"akin to a declaration of war\".\n\nPresident Putin also repeated his threat that a Western backed no-fly zone could result in a full scale European war\n\nMr Putin also cautioned Ukrainian leaders that continued resistance to the Russian invasion could call \"into question the future of Ukrainian statehood\".\n\nDespite the ominous warning, Mr Putin met Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Moscow on Saturday, his first meeting with a Western leader since he launched his invasion of Ukraine.\n\nMr Bennett, who is said to have a friendly relationship with the 69-year-old leader, has previously offered to broker peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.\n\nPresident Biden has promised Ukraine further military support, with Ukrainian leaders asking the US to source addition MiG-29 fighters from eastern Europe\n\nElsewhere, President Biden told Mr Zelensky that he will work with congress to increase US humanitarian and security assistance to Ukraine during a call on Saturday night.\n\nMr Biden is reported to be seeking a package of $10bn (£7.56bn) in emergency funding to respond to the crisis.\n\nMr Zelensky had earlier addressed a video meeting of over 300 US lawmakers. US media reported that he urged those present to introduce an oil embargo on Russia and push Eastern European countries to provide Russian-made planes to his country.\n\nWhite House officials told Politico that the plan is under consideration and that the Biden administration is \"working on the capabilities we could provide to backfill Poland if it decided to transfer planes to Ukraine\".\n\nAre you in the affected region including Mariupol? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Elizabeth Hurley has paid tribute to former fiance Shane Warne as her \"beloved lionheart\", after the cricket legend's death aged 52.\n\nThe model and actress posted a series of photos of them together, saying: \"I feel like the sun has gone behind a cloud forever\".\n\nThe couple were engaged between 2011 and 2013, with their relationship attracting significant media attention.\n\nHer son also said the Australian was \"one of the best men I've ever known\".\n\nDamian Hurley, who was aged nine when his mother became engaged to Mr Warne, said on Instagram that he had been \"a father figure for most of my formative years\", adding that \"my heart is broken\".\n\nHis mother split from the former cricketer in 2013.\n\nMr Warne, a spin bowler who has been hailed as one of the greatest cricketers of all time, died of a suspected heart attack on Friday at his villa in Thailand.\n\nCelebrity friends of Mr Warne also paid tribute, including Sir Elton John, who said he was \"a magical bowler and such fun\", calling it \"a tragic day for Australian cricket\" with former wicketkeeper Rod Marsh dying on the same day.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by elizabethhurley1 This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger also said Mr Warne \"brought such joy to the game and was the greatest spin bowler ever\".", "Many roads and buildings in Ukraine have been damaged and littered with debris after fighting\n\nA British journalist covering the war in Ukraine has been shot and wounded after coming under fire in Kyiv.\n\nSky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his four colleagues were driving back to the Ukrainian capital when they were ambushed.\n\nAs they tried to escape from the car, a bullet hit Ramsay in his lower back while camera operator Richie Mockler took two rounds to his body armour.\n\nThey were told a Russian reconnaissance unit was behind the attack.\n\nRussian forces have stepped up their bombardment in recent days, with heavy shelling and attacks on high-rise apartment buildings, a clinic and a hospital on Friday.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson praised the Sky News crew's bravery and said they were risking their lives so \"the truth is told\".\n\nHe said in a tweet: \"Free press will not be intimidated or cowed by barbaric and indiscriminate acts of violence.\"\n\nThe attack on the Sky journalists took place on Monday, as they returned to Kyiv after calling off a trip to another town because it was unsafe.\n\nAlongside Mr Ramsay and camera operator Richie Mockler were producers Dominique Van Heerden, Martin Vowles and Andrii Lytvynenko.\n\nThe team fled the car while still under fire and hid inside a factory building before being rescued by Ukrainian police.\n\nRecalling the events, Ramsay said there was a small explosion out of nowhere, the car came to a stop and rounds of bullets began smashing into the car.\n\n\"We knew we had to get out to survive, but the incoming fire was intense,\" he said.\n\nTwo of the producers got out first, followed by another producer and then Ramsay and the camera operator.\n\n\"I do recall wondering if my death was going to be painful. And then I was hit in the lower back. 'I've been hit' I shouted.\n\n\"But what amazed me was that it didn't hurt that bad. It was more like being punched, really.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Sky News This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nRamsay, who is now back in the UK, added: \"It was strange, but I felt very calm. I managed to put my helmet on, and was about to attempt my escape, when I stopped and reached back into a shelf in the door and retrieved my phones and my press card, unbelievably.\n\n\"Richie says I then got out of the car and stood up, before jogging to the edge of the embankment and then started running. I lost my balance and fell to the bottom, landing like a sack of potatoes, cutting my face. My armour and helmet almost certainly saved me.\"\n\nRamsay said: \"The point is we were very lucky. But thousands of Ukrainians are dying, and families are being targeted by Russian hit squads just as we were, driving along in a family saloon and attacked. This war gets worse by the day.\"\n\nOn Friday, it was announced that the BBC was temporarily suspending its journalists' work in Russia, in response to a new law which threatens to jail anyone Russia deems to have spread \"fake\" news on the armed forces. CNN and Bloomberg News went on to do the same.\n\nAccess to BBC websites had already been restricted in Russia - but BBC News in Russian will still be produced from outside the country.\n• None Day nine of Russia's war in Ukraine explained", "Visa, Mastercard and American Express have announced they will suspend all operations in Russia in protest at its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut Russia's major banks have already downplayed the impact the move will have on consumers.\n\nShoppers will still be able to use the cards for purchases within Russia until they reach their expiry dates.\n\nBut Visa, Mastercard or American Express cards issued abroad will no longer work at shops or ATMs in Russia.\n\nClients will no longer be able to use their Russian cards abroad or for international payments online either.\n\nVisa and Mastercard alone control about 90% of credit and debit payments in the world, outside of China.\n\nEarlier, Russia's central bank insisted that all Visa and Mastercard bank cards issued by Russian banks would continue to operate normally on Russian territory. That is because domestic payments in Russia are made through a national system and don't depend on foreign systems.\n\nRussia's biggest state-backed bank, Sberbank, said its cards would still work \"to withdraw cash, make transfers using the card number, and for payment at offline as well as at online Russian stores\".\n\nSince 2015, the Russian government has required all domestic payment transactions in the country be processed there. This followed similar suspensions of operations by Visa and Mastercard in Crimea, following its annexation.\n\nSeveral Russian banks suggested that they would start issuing cards that use the Chinese UnionPay system, coupled with Russia's Mir payment network, to avoid any impact for consumers.\n\nFarida Rustamova, an independent journalist who left Russia because of the invasion, criticised Visa and Mastercard's decision, saying it would cut off people like her from much needed funds.\n\nShe told the BBC she had raced to withdraw cash following the news as she hasn't set up a foreign bank account yet, and many others face the same problem.\n\n\"Now thousands of people, including not only journalists but opposition activists and even common people who are scared of Putin's regime and are running from war will be cut from their little money.\n\n\"And the sad thing is this is exactly what Putin wants to happen.\"\n\nBoth Visa and Mastercard had already announced that they would comply with sanctions introduced by Western countries since the start of the conflict.\n\n\"This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values,\" said Visa boss Al Kelly.\n\nIn a statement, Mastercard also described the ongoing invasion of Ukraine as \"shocking and devastating\".\n\nThe card company has operated in Russia for more than 25 years. It confirmed that it would continue to pay the wages of its 200 staff members there.\n\nVisa added: \"We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues, and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia.\"\n\nIt would not disclose how many Visa cards are in operation in Russia.\n\nAmerican Express called Russia's attack on Ukraine \"unjustified\" and said it was also terminating all business operations in Belarus.\n\nUS President Joe Biden \"welcomed the decision\" during a phone call with Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, according to a White House readout.\n\nSusannah Streeter, senior markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, pointed out that the move came after the disconnection of Russian banks from the Swift international payments system and a dramatic plunge in the rouble.\n\n\"Bank customers in Russia may be able to keep using the cards until they expire, but the boycott means Russians abroad will see their payments rejected, with the shutting out of some big spenders also likely to hurt a raft of businesses reliant on their custom,\" she said.\n\nShe added that China's UnionPay is likely to be the alternative \"system of choice\" for Russian banks as it's already accepted around the world, although not as widely as Visa and Mastercard.\n\n\"But it will take significant time to re-issue millions of cards, and will add to the financial turmoil in the country.\"\n\nThe payments giants' announcement comes amid a widening corporate backlash to Russia's actions in Ukraine.\n\nInditex-owner Zara and French fashion houses LVMH, Kering and Chanel have all said in recent days that they would stop sales temporarily in Russia.\n\nPayPal also said on Saturday that it had shut down services in Russia but that it would support withdrawals \"for a period of time\".\n\nThis would ensure that account balances were dispersed \"in line with applicable laws and regulations\", it said.\n\nThe Ukrainian government had been calling on PayPal to quit Russia and help its officials with fundraising.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Video shows people running to escape Russian shelling in Irpin, just outside of the capital Kyiv\n\nPresident Volodymyr Zelensky has said everyone who commits atrocities against Ukraine's civilians will be punished.\n\nHe said Ukrainians would not forgive or forget, and accused invading Russian troops of deliberate murder.\n\n\"There will be no quiet place on Earth for you. Except for the grave,\" the president said.\n\nUkrainian officials say Russia is striking civilian targets around the country, including hospitals, nurseries, and schools.\n\nBut Russia denies targeting civilians, saying it is carrying out a \"special military operation\" against Ukrainian \"nationalists\" and \"neo-Nazis\".\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna told the BBC that, after \"strong resistance\" from the Ukrainian army, there was an \"enormous operation\" by Russia against civilians.\n\nOn Sunday alone, a family of four were killed when Russian forces fired shells at people fleeing the conflict in the town of Irpin, north-west of Kyiv.\n\nAnd in the port city of Mariupol, promised evacuations were cancelled on both Saturday and Sunday amid fresh attacks.\n\nThe city council there said Russian shelling had made safe movement impossible. Russia has blamed Ukrainian forces.\n\nThe city is now in its sixth day with no running water, no power, and no sanitation. Food and water are fast running out.\n\nMoscow announced it would open new evacuation corridors at 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT) in Mariupol and other cities. However, the routes published by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency show some of the corridors end in Russia and Belarus.\n\nThe corridor from Kyiv will lead to Russian ally Belarus, and civilians from Kharkiv will only have a corridor leading to Russia.\n\nCorridors from the cities of Mariupol and Sumy will lead both to other Ukrainian cities and to Russia, the AFP news agency reports.\n\nMs Stefanishyna spoke to the BBC from a sandbagged room on Sunday morning\n\nIn a video address to mark the Orthodox Church's Forgiveness Sunday, Mr Zelensky said that instead of forgiveness there would be a day of judgment.\n\n\"We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will punish everyone who committed atrocities in this war on our land,\" he said.\n\nHe said Russia had announced shelling of defence targets which were built in cities in Soviet times.\n\n\"Thousands of people work there. Hundreds of thousands live nearby. This is murder. Premeditated murder,\" he said.\n\nHe also condemned Western governments for failing to speak out against the plan.\n\nThe World Health Organization said health facilities were being attacked, with its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying they had caused \"multiple deaths and injuries\".\n\nThe British government has accused Russia of targeting populated areas \"in multiple locations\", noting in an intelligence update that it had \"previously used similar tactics in Chechnya in 1999 and Syria in 2016\".\n\nOn Sunday, UN monitors said 364 civilian deaths had been confirmed in Ukraine since the invasion began on 24 February, but the real figure was likely to be \"considerably higher\".\n\nThe UNHCR said more than 1.5 million people had fled Ukraine since Russia invaded.\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna - who was speaking to BBC TV's Sunday Morning programme - accused Russia of \"military tactics right in the cities of Ukraine\", adding they were carrying out a \"terroristic plan\", with attacks coming from the air and also by land.\n\n\"Shelled hospitals, the shelled houses for kindergartens and schools, and the ordinary households,\" she said. \"This is how the reality looks.\"\n\nShe said Ukraine was seeing \"another wave of implementation of this terroristic plan of [the] Russian Federation\".\n\nMs Stefanishyna claimed Russia was suffering \"enormous losses\" of soldiers and equipment, but this \"does not deter Russia\".\n\n\"It only encourages further aggression,\" she said.\n\nAttacking civilians and civilian infrastructure - such as schools and hospitals - is against the Geneva Conventions, which are treaties agreed by all countries that are supposed to regulate war.\n\nAs well as the WHO, other non-government organisations have also reported attacks on civilian targets.\n\nAmnesty International says it has verified various attacks - including cluster munitions hitting a kindergarten and nursery, and a ballistic missile hitting a hospital.\n\nAre you personally affected by the issues raised in this story? If it is safe to do so email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Boris Johnson says allies of Vladimir Putin will have \"nowhere to hide\"\n\nThe government is to change the law to make it easier to introduce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, after criticism the UK is acting too slowly.\n\nMinisters are tabling amendments to the Economic Crime Bill which are designed to allow the UK to align with penalties imposed by allies in the EU and US.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson said foreigners trying to launder money in the UK would have \"nowhere to hide\".\n\nBut Labour accused the government of making a \"U-turn under pressure\".\n\nMinisters have already imposed asset freezes on individuals and companies with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, following the invasion of Ukraine over a week ago.\n\nBut opposition parties have said the government needs to do more to tackle wealthy Putin allies who store large amounts of money in London.\n\nThere has been criticism from within the Conservative party too.\n\nSenior Conservative Tom Tugendhat said he was \"extremely concerned\" that the delays in imposing sanctions might allow people who have stolen from the Russian people for the last 20 years to hide their money in a new jurisdiction. That would be completely unacceptable, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.\n\nThe bill, which has cross-party support, is expected to be fast-tracked through Parliament on Monday.\n\nOutlining its amendments, the Foreign Office said the \"appropriateness test\" - a threshold that needed to be met when imposing sanctions on individuals - would be removed.\n\nIt is also speeding up the deadline for overseas companies to declare their true owners - from 18 months to six months. Maximum fines for non-compliance with this rule are set to increase from £500 to £2,500 per day.\n\nThe bill is expected to become law by the middle of this month.\n\nMr Johnson said these measures would ramp up the pressure on criminal elites trying to launder money on UK soil and close the net on corruption. \"They will have nowhere to hide,\" he warned.\n\nIn a video on Twitter addressed to the Ukrainian people, Mr Johnson said the UK, along with its allies, would continue \"doing everything we can to support you and impose a mountain of pressure on Vladimir Putin\".\n\nHe said they would go further with sanctions \"unless and until this aggression stops\".\n\n\"The world is turning its back on Putin and his regime,\" he added.\n\nIn a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday evening, the prime minister described the crisis in Ukraine as \"the worst war on our continent for a long time\".\n\nAnd, in an interview with European newspapers La Repubblica, Die Welt and El Pais, Mr Johnson said he believed Mr Putin intended to \"double down\" on the invasion because Mr Putin envisaged no way out but to \"continue with the destruction\".\n\nHe went on to describe the moment he was woken in the middle of the night to the news of the attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site, the likes of which he said were \"clearly a matter of our common European health and safety\".\n\nHe said it must be made clear to the Kremlin that \"a civilian nuclear disaster in Ukraine, another Chernobyl, is a disaster for Russia as well as for everybody\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn the sanctions proposals, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy welcomed the government's \"U-turn\". But he added it was unacceptable that oligarchs with links to Mr Putin, who should have been sanctioned, had been allowed to move money around because of government incompetence.\n\nThe law should have been introduced months ago, at the same time as allies and partners had done so, he said.\n\nRecent research by campaign group Transparency International suggests £1.5bn worth of UK property has been bought by Russians accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin since 2016.\n\nSince the invasion began, the UK has announced a series of sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs and businesses.\n\nOn Thursday, two more oligarchs were sanctioned - Alisher Usmanov, who has links to Everton football club, and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov.\n\nOther measures include asset freezes on Russian banks and an export ban on technical equipment.\n• None 'Life is crumbling' - Russians on boycotts and sanctions", "Buildings in Kharkiv in ruins after sustained Russian bombings\n\nAs I write this, the centre of Kyiv and much of its suburbs are largely untouched. Sirens and alerts punctuate the day.\n\nEveryone here knows that could change, very quickly. By the time you read this, it might have.\n\nUkraine's second city, Kharkiv, has already felt some of the force of the Russian way of war. So have Mariupol and other cities in the east.\n\nRussia answers resistance with firepower. Rather than send in men to fight from house to house and room to room, their military doctrine calls for a bombardment by heavy weapons and from the air to destroy their enemies.\n\nKharkiv and the other cities and towns have suffered grievous damage, and as far as we know many civilian casualties. The seat of Kharkiv's local government was badly damaged in a missile strike that was filmed. Russian President Vladimir Putin might be sending a message to Kyiv - look to the east, because this could happen to you.\n\nThe depressing conclusion I've drawn from other wars in which I have seen Russians in action is that it could get much worse.\n\nSo far, Mr Putin has not given the order to inflict the kind of damage that Russian forces brought down on Grozny, when the Russian republic of Chechnya rebelled in the 1990s, and in Syria since Mr Putin intervened in force in 2015.\n\nI covered the first Chechen war when it started in the winter of 1994-1995. Just as in Ukraine, the Russian army made serious military blunders in ground operations. Armoured columns were ambushed by Chechen rebels in narrow streets and destroyed. Many conscript soldiers did not want to fight and die.\n\nBefore the invasion of Ukraine, military analysts assessed that Russia's forces were now much more professional. Perhaps they are, but Russia's invasion has once again been slowed by logistical bottlenecks, tactical mistakes and terrified teenagers who had not been told they were going to war - as well as resistance as fierce as anything the Chechens offered in 1995.\n\nChechnya declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and in 1994 Russian forces invaded. The bombing of Grozny was intense\n\nIn the second Chechen war from 1999-2000, Russian forces again laid siege to Grozny, and intense fighting lasted weeks\n\nJeremy Bowen (left) with colleagues Scott Hillier and Steve Lidgerwood reported from Grozny in January 1995\n\nIn Chechnya, Russia's answer was to use its firepower. In a few weeks, artillery and air strikes reduced the centre of Grozny, a typical concrete and steel Soviet city, to rubble. I was in Minutka Square, a centre of Chechen resistance, on a day when it was hit by repeated air strikes. Civilians were mostly in cellars, risking death every time they went out to find water or food.\n\nIn Minutka Square that day, Chechen fighters were killed by cluster bombs, and buildings set on fire. Twenty-four hours later, the entire main avenue of the city was hit by missile strikes and enveloped in smoke and flame. The ground was shaking where we were filming.\n\nThe most devastated places I have seen in years of war reporting, apart from Grozny, were in Syria. The connection is the destructive power of the Russian military.\n\nMr Putin's decision to intervene in Syria saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad and took a big step towards his objective of restoring Russia as a world power. Two decisive victories over rebels in Syria, vitally important for the regime, were delivered by the ruthless use of Russian firepower.\n\nThe first was in Aleppo at the end of 2016. The eastern side of the city, which had been held by a variety of rebel factions throughout the war, fell after it was pulverised by shelling and air strikes. The Assad regime did not need any encouragement to shell Syrians, but the Russians brought a much greater level of destructive power. Strategic bombers based at home and in Iran delivered devastating strikes.\n\nThe tactic used in Syria was to encircle and besiege rebel-held areas, pound them from the air and from artillery batteries, and in the end exhaust the defenders and any civilians who had not managed to escape. Many of them were killed.\n\nIn a devastated street in Aleppo in January 2017\n\nIn Eastern Ghouta in Syria in June 2018, with BBC cameraman Nik Millard\n\nWhen I was able to drive through Eastern Aleppo a few weeks after it fell, destruction went on for mile after mile. I couldn't see a building that was untouched. Entire neighbourhoods were left in ruins. Streets were blocked with mountain ranges of rubble.\n\nI saw the same tactics work in Eastern Ghouta, a string of rebel held towns and farmland on the edge of the Syrian capital. Its capitulation in 2018 was the end of the battle for Damascus, that had looked at first as if it could go the rebels' way. That changed after the US decided in 2013 not to strike the Assad regime when it used chemical weapons in Douma, one of the area's towns. The long fight turned decisively in the regime's favour after Russia entered the war in 2015.\n\nEastern Ghouta's defenders dug an underground tunnel city to escape the air strikes and shelling. But siege and overwhelming firepower wins battles. That is because defenders get killed and exhausted, and civilians, however defiant, are subjected to such fear and misery that they welcome the respite that surrender brings.\n\nIn Kyiv, one of the big questions on everybody's minds is whether they are going to get the treatment meted out not only to Kharkiv, Mariupol and the rest, but also to Chechnya and Syria.\n\nWill the sanctity of Orthodox shrines create the restraint that was absent in attacks on Muslims in Chechnya and Syria? Putin himself has written about Ukraine's significance in Russia's history. Will he be prepared to destroy Ukraine to regain it? If sanctions and Ukrainian resistance threaten his regime's stability, will he take more extreme measures?\n\nThe record shows that the Russian military compensates for weaknesses in the capabilities of its ground forces by turning to the big guns. Ukrainians are praying that will not happen here.\n\nKharkiv residents told the BBC that attacks on civilian targets made them feel like they were living in hell", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nManchester City outclassed Manchester United to maintain control of the Premier League title race with an outstanding display at Etihad Stadium.\n\nCity remain six points clear of Liverpool having played one game more after a victory that was arguably even more convincing than the scoreline suggests.\n\nRalf Rangnick's side were without injured Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani, as well as Raphael Varane and Luke Shaw, who have Covid-19, and found themselves overwhelmed by the quality and intensity of the reigning champions.\n\nKevin de Bruyne was at the heart of it all. He put City ahead with a crisp early finish then restored their lead before half-time after Jadon Sancho put United level with precise low strike, the Belgian's second hammered home in a goalmouth scramble.\n\nCity turned up the tempo after the break and got the goal their vast superiority deserved after 68 minutes when Riyad Mahrez met De Bruyne's corner on the half-volley to beat United keeper David de Gea. The goal came via a deflection off United captain Harry Maguire, who endured a nightmare afternoon.\n\nIt got even better for City in the closing moments when Mahrez raced clear to beat De Gea, the goal being given after a lengthy VAR check for offside.\n• None 'Either they're not good enough or they don't care' - pundits react to Man Utd's derby display\n• None 'Man City prove a point to anyone who doubted them' - MOTD2 analysis\n• None Reaction to Manchester City v Manchester United in the Premier League\n• None Go straight to all the best Manchester United content\n\nManchester City felt Liverpool at their back after Jurgen Klopp's side moved to within three points following their win against West Ham United but the champions could not have responded more impressively.\n\nFrom the first whistle, City imposed themselves on Manchester United and Sancho's fine equaliser proved to be only a minor inconvenience as the gap between Guardiola's team and their arch-rivals was brutally exposed.\n\nDe Bruyne was the mastermind, scoring twice and creating City's third, the shining star in a galaxy on display at Etihad Stadium as they showed they are in no mood to relinquish their crown, no matter how hard Liverpool push them.\n\nCity's first-half performance was excellent but after the break they were simply magnificent as they over-ran United, who were not given a second on the ball and were unable to resist wave after wave of attacks.\n\nMahrez could have scored more than his two goals but for De Gea, while Joao Cancelo was also thwarted by the United keeper following an acrobatic volley.\n\nCity's dominance of possession and ability to carve open an admittedly vulnerable United defence at will delighted their supporters, who revelled in a show of superiority that left United a beaten and bedraggled side long before the end.\n\nThis was a miserable and chastening 90 minutes for Manchester United and few of their players suffered more than captain Maguire.\n\nMaguire was out of position for City's first, inexplicably let the ball go in a goalmouth scramble for De Bruyne's second and, unfortunately, deflected Mahrez's effort past De Gea for the third.\n\nHe was also booked for a crude, desperate tackle on De Bruyne and looked a like a player whose confidence was non-existent.\n\nRangnick was not helped by the injuries and illnesses that robbed him of key players but there was no excuse for the wastefulness in possession and the lack of defensive organisation, encapsulated by an amateurish S-shaped defensive \"line\" that saw Mahrez's final goal given after that VAR check.\n\nThe loss puts United in a desperate position in the battle for crucial fourth place and a spot in next season's Champions League after Arsenal's win at Watford strengthened their hold on that position. The Gunners are now fourth, a point ahead of United with three games in hand.\n\nUnited, of course, are still in the Champions League but the notion that they have a chance of winning Europe's elite competition is the stuff of fantasy based on this grim evidence.\n\nIt was painful to watch United chasing shadows and outmanoeuvred at every turn by a City team they would like to regard as rivals.\n\nUnited seem to be a club in limbo, with an interim manager in Rangnick and a squad of players who are not good enough and seem disaffected with life at the club.\n\nBruno Fernandes, such an inspiration when he first arrived, now spends more time arguing with officials and attempting to buy cheap fouls than acting as a creative force while the momentum and joy sparked by the return of Ronaldo has long since gone.\n\nThis was a dismal afternoon for United and they face an uphill fight to salvage their season.\n• None Goal! Manchester City 4, Manchester United 1. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by Ilkay Gündogan with a through ball.Goal awarded following VAR Review.\n• None Attempt missed. Ilkay Gündogan (Manchester City) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Jack Grealish.\n• None Attempt missed. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City) right footed shot from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Ilkay Gündogan.\n• None Attempt blocked. Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Attempt missed. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left.\n• None Attempt saved. João Cancelo (Manchester City) right footed shot from the left side of the box is saved in the centre of the goal. Assisted by Kyle Walker.\n• None Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "Mr Blair said the decisions he took on Iraq and Afghanistan were complicated\n\nThe Archbishop of Canterbury has challenged former prime minister Tony Blair on how he handles feelings of guilt, in a series for BBC Radio 4.\n\nMr Blair, a Catholic, told the Most Rev Justin Welby his faith had helped him cope with knowing people disliked him.\n\nThe programme, part of The Archbishop Interviews series, included questions about the Iraq war, Afghanistan and negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.\n\n\"I had to do what I thought was the right thing,\" Mr Blair said.\n\nHe said the decisions he took were complicated and warned people not to trust politicians who told them \"simple slogans\".\n\nMr Blair also addressed the conflict in Ukraine in the interview, recorded on the morning of the Russian invasion.\n\n\"It's massively contrary to our interests to have a country, an independent sovereign country on the doorstep of Europe, essentially invaded and taken over,\" he said.\n\nReflecting on his decisions to intervene in other conflicts around the world, he said an \"enlightened view of self-interest means that it is better that you act to prevent something happening that ultimately will affect you\".\n\nHe denied it was the role of a political leader to go around the world \"rooting out evil\".\n\nBut he added: \"When you're faced with a situation in which you believe that the interests of your country demand that you stop something bad happening, it's important that you stand for that, and that you take the action necessary to stop it.\"\n\nMr Blair defended his decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, alongside US President George W Bush.\n\n\"People often say over Iraq or Afghanistan that I took the wrong decision but you've got to do what you think is right,\" he said.\n\n\"Whether you are right or not is another matter. In those really big decisions you don't know what all the different component elements are, and you've got to follow, in the end, your own instinct.\"\n\nHe admitted he \"may have been wrong\" about Iraq and Afghanistan but insisted: \"I had to do what I thought was the right thing.\"\n\nThe Blair interview is part of a series by the archbishop for BBC Radio 4\n\nAsked about the dislike some people now have for him as a result of those decisions, Mr Blair said: \"The most potent thing about Christian belief, to me - maybe you could say more generally about religious faith - is you acknowledge something greater and more important than yourself.\n\n\"I find that I will often have more in common with someone, for example, who is of the Muslim faith, because they are also a person of faith, than I will with someone who just regards [faith] as hocus pocus.\"\n\nWhen asked about a sense of guilt, Mr Blair said: \"You have to be prepared to acknowledge when you've got things wrong. I think in politics you can do that. I think people respect you more if you do do that.\"\n\nBut he added: \"The problem of politics is that in a world that is in fact very complex, people search for simplicity.\"\n\nHe said people should \"at least respect the fact of that complexity rather than reduce it to something that's a simple slogan.\n\n\"Because the politicians you really shouldn't trust are the people that get up and tell you the simple slogans.\"\n\nListen to The Archbishop Interviews at 13:30, Sunday 6 March on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.", "A residential building in Mariupol, which locals say was almost completely destroyed by Russian shelling\n\nRussian forces continued to shell the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier - throwing an attempted mass evacuation of civilians into chaos.\n\n\"I'm right now in Mariupol, I'm on the street, I can hear shelling every three to five minutes,\" said Alexander, a 44-year-old engineer and resident of the city.\n\nThe green corridor set up to get people out was not working, he said.\n\n\"I can see cars of people who tried to flee and they are coming back. It is chaos.\"\n\nThree hours after the ceasefire was supposed to begin, at 09:00 (07:00 GMT), Mariupol authorities announced they had postponed a planned mass evacuation because of the continued bombardment.\n\n\"We ask the people in Mariupol to head for the shelter, there will be more information on the evacuation asap,\" a statement said.\n\n\"Due to the fact that the Russian side is not sticking to the ceasefire and continues to shoot Mariupol itself and the outskirts, the evacuation has been postponed.\"\n\nMariupol, a port city of about 400,000 people, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.\n\nRussia has not commented on the renewed shelling, but its defence ministry said civilians had not used the escape routes from Mariupol and Volnovakha and accused Ukrainian authorities of preventing people from leaving, Russian state media said.\n\nMaxim, a 27-year-old IT developer, sent the BBC videos from his grandparents' Mariupol apartment building showing smoke from explosions near the city centre and he said smoke was rising from the highway to Zaporizhzhia - the planned ceasefire escape route.\n\n\"We can hear missiles and see smoke coming from buildings around us,\" Maxim said. \"Our apartment building is full of people now because everyone is fleeing the shelling into the city centre.\n\n\"Some people have come from the left bank district and they said it was a total disaster there and there were bodies in the streets.\"\n\nFamily members of those trapped in the city said they feared their loved ones were not getting any up-to-date information about what was happening.\n\n\"I talked to my uncle Dmitri for less than a minute before the phone connection cut,\" said Juliana Ivliova, 26.\n\n\"They didn't know about the evacuation or green corridor. People who know about it and try to get out are being told to turn and get back to their houses.\n\n\"The city is still being shelled. I'm devastated, I'm like a robot, I've gone completely numb. When I heard the voice of my uncle on the phone I just wanted to cry.\"\n\nKate Romanova, a 27-year-old designer from Mariupol, said her parents were trapped in the city and completely cut off.\n\n\"We talked to them at 8am and they had no information about the evacuation. They live in the city centre and they said there was non-stop shelling. They are hiding inside their building.\n\n\"Someone told me there were loudspeakers in the city that spread information about evacuation but people there don't know if they can trust it - they think it might be fake Russian information.\n\nDiana Berg, who escaped the city by car with her husband on Friday despite heavy shelling, said they left his mother behind because she refused to leave.\n\n\"We spent three days under the brutal non-stop shelling and then we decided it was suicide in the city or suicide on the road, and we chose the road,\" she said.\n\n\"Now we are full of guilt, we should have brought her with us. All these people are trapped. How will they get information? They are completely cut off.\"\n\nThe deputy mayor of Mariupol, Serhiy Orlov, confirmed to the BBC that the ceasefire had completely collapsed amid Russian bombardment.\n\n\"The Russians are continuing to bomb us and use artillery. It is crazy,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"There is no ceasefire in Mariupol and there is no ceasefire all along the route. Our civilians are ready to escape but they cannot escape under shelling.\"\n\nThousands of civilians were preparing on Friday morning to evacuate from Mariupol, in south-eastern Ukraine, and the smaller city of Volnovakha to the north.\n\nUp to 9,000 people were initially expected to attempt to escape Mariupol by bus and private vehicle on Saturday, Mr Orlov said, adding that trains were unable to run because infrastructure had been destroyed.\n\nLocal officials earlier said residents were in dire need of food, water and medicine because of Russia's blockade.\n\nIn a statement on Friday, the International Community of the Red Cross called the scenes in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities \"heartbreaking\" and said it was \"in dialogue with the parties about the safe passage of civilians from different cities affected by the conflict\".\n\nUkraine's army has so far held control of the Mariupol, but Russia has pounded residential areas with air strikes, leaving the entire population without water, power or sanitation for four days.\n\nRussia's increased aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities has raised fears it is shifting to a tactic of destruction from the air after failing to make significant progress on the ground.\n\nIn Volnovakha - another key city as it sits on the road between Mariupol and Russia-controlled Donetsk - heavy clashes have been taking place and much of the area has been flattened by Russian bombardments.\n\nThere were about 25,000 people there and since the bombardment 90% of buildings there have reportedly been destroyed.\n\nElsewhere, fighting continues in the north and the east of the country, with several cities bombarded by Russian shelling. In some places, there have been reports of hand-to-hand combat.\n\nOrysia Khimiak and Svitlana Libet contributed to this report.", "Boris Johnson held talks with Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko at Downing Street last week\n\nWorld leaders must mount a renewed effort to ensure Russia's \"horrific\" invasion of Ukraine fails, Boris Johnson has said.\n\nWriting in the New York Times, the prime minister said \"it is not future historians but the people of Ukraine who will be our judge\".\n\nBut Labour criticised the PM for not acting more quickly over sanctions.\n\nAhead of a series of meetings with international leaders, the prime minister said: \"Putin must fail and must be seen to fail in this act of aggression.\n\n\"It is not enough to express our support for the rules-based international order - we must defend it against a sustained attempt to rewrite the rules by military force.\"\n\nThe invasion was condemned by 141 nations at the UN General Assembly this week while 39 countries, co-ordinated by the UK, made the largest-ever referral for war crimes to the International Criminal Court.\n\nBut Mr Johnson is set to call on world leaders to make a \"renewed and concerted effort\" to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin, Downing Street said.\n\nIn his six-point plan to maintain pressure on Mr Putin, the prime minister said:\n\nThe prime minister is also expected to deliver his message at meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at Downing Street on Monday.\n\nOn Tuesday, he will host leaders of the V4 group of central European nations: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.\n\nDowning Street says these countries are already experiencing a humanitarian crisis, with 1.4 million people fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring nations in just 10 days. Mr Johnson said: \"The world is watching.\"\n\nOn Sunday, he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone.\n\nNo 10 said the two men discussed \"the increasing threat Russia's barbaric attacks pose to Ukrainian civilians\" and \"the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ukraine, precipitated by Russia's indiscriminate attacks and ceasefire breaches\".\n\nIn its daily assessment posted on Twitter, the Ministry of Defence said the scale and strength of Ukrainian resistance continued to surprise Russia.\n\nIt was likely Russia was trying to break Ukrainian morale by targeting multiple populated areas, including Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol, it added.\n\nIt went on to say the reported targeting of Russian supply lines was slowing the advance of their ground forces and there was a \"realistic possibility\" that Russia was concealing fuel trucks as regular support trucks.\n\nMeanwhile, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has warned Mr Putin not to \"test\" the UK.\n\nIn an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Wallace said: \"History is littered with authoritarian leaders underestimating the wider West and the United Kingdom. He clearly underestimated the international community.\"\n\nHe added: \"If we stick together and refuse to be intimidated then I believe he will fail.\"\n\nShadow foreign secretary David Lammy said Labour fully supported the UK joining international efforts to help Ukraine, but he called on the government to move faster on sanctioning oligarchs and politicians linked to the Kremlin.\n\nHe said: \"It is inexcusable that we have fallen behind the EU and the US on the number of individuals and entities sanctioned. Ministers must move faster, acting against Putin's cronies in days not months.\"\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer is calling on the government to work with him on new laws to prevent Russian oligarchs and other very wealthy people misusing the courts to avoid criticism or sanctions.\n\nHe wants legislation to prevent so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapp) - legal challenges which aim to drain the resources of opponents or intimidate them from using the courts - which Sir Keir said he fears could be used to buy time to move oligarchs' money out of reach and avoid sanctions.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss has said she has received letters from lawyers representing people sanctioned by Britain threatening legal challenges, while Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has called such cases an \"abuse of our system\" and promised to address them.\n\nIt comes as the government says it is to change the law to make it easier to introduce sanctions against Russian oligarchs, after criticism the UK is acting too slowly.", "Russia's devastating attack on Ukraine has left countries in the region concerned about the future\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has sent shivers of fear through many of its neighbours - from the Baltic states to Moldova.\n\nFinland ought theoretically to be safe, since it has historically been neutral and gave Stalin's Soviet army a hard time when he invaded the country in 1939.\n\nThere has never been much support here to join the Nato military alliance. But when the spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry recently warned Finland and Sweden explicitly that any move towards Nato could have military consequences, people in both countries were deeply shocked.\n\nSince then, Russian warplanes have blatantly intruded into Swedish airspace.\n\nIf being neutral is not sufficient to guard against Russia, people here are saying that maybe joining Nato will give the two countries the protection they need.\n\nThis represents a major change of mood. In Finland, particularly, relations with Russia were thought to be pretty good.\n\nThe Ukraine invasion has changed everything.\n\nA few days before the Russian troops moved in, Aleksi Salonen and Sampo Muhonen, a couple of geeks - their own description of themselves - were sitting in a Helsinki flat gaming. During a pause, they started talking about the growing threat from Russia, and agreed that it would be safer for Finland to apply for Nato membership.\n\nThey mentioned the idea to three friends online, and between them the five cooked up a plan to collect signatures for a petition to the Finnish parliament.\n\nIn order to launch a debate by MPs, a proposal has to have 50,000 signatures. Within 10 days they had reached 70,000.\n\nThey had touched a nerve in the Finnish population, and now the matter will be put to the government. The latest opinion polls indicate that a majority of people support the idea.\n\nFinland is a cautious country, and its government is particularly so. When I asked Defence Minister Antti Kaikkonen for his views, he was careful not to give an answer. He acknowledged the situation was difficult, but said that joining Nato was something that required very careful consideration.\n\nPerhaps the Finnish government wants to see what happens in Ukraine before it makes up its mind. Clearly the Russians won't invade another country when their hands are full with the fighting in Ukraine.\n\nLast week, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto discussed strengthening security ties with US President Joe Biden\n\nViewed from Finland, there are some striking similarities between the attack on Ukraine and the invasion of Finland in 1939 - the Winter War, as it's known.\n\nJoseph Stalin, full of self-confidence, sent his army into Finland only to find that its resistance was far greater than his generals had assured him. The Finns staged a largely guerrilla war against an army which was huge, but whose morale had been seriously damaged by the treason trials of a year or so earlier, in which the majority of the most senior figures were purged and executed.\n\nThe Winter War dragged on for months before negotiations finally began and an agreement was reached. Russia took some territory from Finland, but the Finns kept their independence - and have done so ever since.\n\nThe invasion of Ukraine has similarly been mismanaged. The logistical side was botched from the start, with too little fuel, food and water supplied to the troops - many of whom had been assured they were only carrying out an exercise.\n\nWestern analysts say even maps were in short supply, with tank drivers often having to stop to get directions. This was not by any means a Blitzkrieg, and the prerequisite for any modern war - the destruction of the enemy's communications - simply never happened.\n\nNone of this means that President Vladimir Putin won't win in the end.\n\nHe has already assured France's President Macron that he will go on until he takes the whole of Ukraine. The danger is that if he cannot do it with his conventional forces, the temptation will be strong to use his tactical nuclear weapons to force Ukraine to surrender.\n\nRussian nuclear theory seems to regard this as an acceptable risk; Western experts are much more worried by the possibilities. There can be no certainties if that threshold is crossed.\n\nRussia claims to have invaded Ukraine because it wanted to save the Ukrainian people from neo-fascism. What President Putin really seems to want to ensure - apart from avenging what he sees as Ukraine's treachery in breaking away from Russia - is that there is no question of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joining Nato.\n\nIn fact, that genuinely doesn't seem to have been a possibility within the foreseeable future.\n\nBut there is a real irony in the fact that the war in Ukraine now seems to be giving Finland - and perhaps Sweden - real cause for considering whether they should join the Western military alliance.\n• None The Russians leaving their country for Finland", "We are now well into the second week of this war, and I've noticed that I don't cry any more.\n\nI start the day reading the overnight news, counting new blasts all around Ukraine. A couple of days ago, I woke up to reports of major rocket strikes in Kyiv, near where my dad lives. It took me 10 minutes to pluck up the courage to call him, to ask if he and his partner were all right. They were, and I experienced a wave of relief.\n\nWhen I see horrible pictures of destruction in Kyiv, and Russian tanks in towns and villages just outside, I think of these once-quiet places, where our friends have their dachas, or country cottages. We used to visit them with our kids, we had barbecues, and sipped wine in cosy armchairs. Some of those towns have now been destroyed by heavy fighting and artillery.\n\nAt the start of the war, one thing that did bring tears to my eyes was a message on an app for events in Kyiv. It was a list of things that would not happen that day - concerts and exhibitions, events that now seem like something from a previous life. These apps now provide different kinds of information - notifications about air raids, lists of supermarkets with food and pharmacies with medicine.\n\nMy mother is more worried about how to get food for her dog and cats than for herself, but she called me the other day just to happily announce that she had managed to buy two loaves of bread! This is in a city where food used to be available in great abundance.\n\nThat is more shocking for me than pictures of burned-out Russian tanks. Food shortages and empty shelves are our reality now. People share information on where you can buy and what. Some shops have shortages, but at the same time there is always enough for those who are in need. Restaurants prepare free food for soldiers, people who lost their homes or anyone who needs it.\n\nPeople in Kyiv wait in line to go food shopping\n\nMy 10-year-old son is not going to school, even online. Some teachers have stayed in Kyiv, others have left. His classmates have fled to the countryside or abroad. They chat on Zoom, playing games and pretending to be hackers who fight for Ukraine. One of the chats they have set up on a messaging app is called \"war matters\".\n\nEvery day, Ukrainians face the decision of whether to stay or to leave.\n\nDuring the first week of war, almost a million packed their bags and left Ukraine to become refugees. That number is rising fast. But many others have decided to stay, at least for now. Famous singers, artists and sportsmen have enrolled in the army. Millions of Ukrainians have become volunteers, trying to help those in greatest need.\n\nIt feels like Ukrainians have become one big family where every member is trying to help, in any way they can. Those who can fight, fight. Those who can cook, cook. Those who can deliver, deliver. I heard a heart-breaking story from Kherson, the first city seized by Russian forces, where an elderly man without legs and fingers became a volunteer.\n\nNow every town and village has checkpoints, made of sandbags, cement blocks and cut trees. Armed men - young professionals who fled Kyiv, local farmers or pensioners - check the documents of anyone entering.\n\nThe village where I am staying has two checkpoints, manned by local men who take turns to operate them 24 hours a day. They have hunting rifles, and some carry knives or axes. They are ready to protect their small communities with everything they have.\n\nThis sense of unity has never been so strong among Ukrainians. The country is full of activity like a beehive, producing hope for victory.\n\nAre you personally affected by the issues raised in this story? If it is safe to do so email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Drone footage shows the extent of destruction to buildings as well as Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, 60km (40 miles) north-west of Kyiv.", "Visa and Mastercard pull out of Russian market\n\nThe payments giants Mastercard and Visa have announced that they are suspending their operations in Russia in protest over the invasion of Ukraine. In a statement, Mastercard said that Russian banks would no longer be supported by its network and any card issued by the company outside of country would not work at Russian merchants or ATMs. The company said it had listened to representations from partners and taken its decision due to the \"unprecedented nature of the current conflict and the uncertain economic environment\". Meanwhile, Visa said that it would work to cease all transactions in the country in the coming days, adding that Visa cards issued by financial institutions outside of Russia would also stop working in the country' territory. Al Kelly, Visa's CEO and chairman, said the company had been \"compelled to act following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed\". “We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues, and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia. This war and the ongoing threat to peace and stability demand we respond in line with our values,” he concluded.", "The Seacod set sail for Tranmere on 22 February\n\nWorkers are refusing to unload Russian oil from a German-flagged ship which is moored at a major British oil refinery.\n\nThe Seacod vessel is at a terminal on the River Mersey, from where oil is usually pumped to Stanlow Oil Refinery.\n\nThe UK government has banned ships with \"any Russian connection\" from entering its ports due to the country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHowever, the Unite union said cargo was not included in the ban and has called for ministers \"to close this loophole\".\n\nStanlow operators Essar said a German-flagged vessel was granted approval to berth by the Port Authority on Thursday.\n\nA spokesperson for the refinery, which supplies 16% of road transport fuels in the UK, said Essar \"remained deeply concerned by the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine\" and was \"fully complying with the statutory framework implemented by the UK government with regard to Russia-related entities\".\n\nThe firm said it had turned away Russian-flagged tankers earlier this week.\n\nIt added it had been \"working urgently to find alternative sources of diesel while simultaneously ensuring uninterrupted supply of fuel to the North West of England\".\n\nThe German-flagged tanker Seacod is berthed on the River Mersey\n\nSharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, said they had informed the company that \"Unite workers at the facility will under no circumstances unload any Russian oil regardless of the nationality of the vessel which delivers it\".\n\nFollowing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK became the first country to ban all ships that are Russian-owned, operated, controlled, registered or flagged from entering its ports.\n\nHowever BBC business correspondent Simon Browning has said that many Russian businesses use transport that is licensed and registered in other countries, which experts describe as a \"loophole\" for sanction enforcement.\n\nA government spokesperson said \"the UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas, with imports making up just 4% of demand\".\n\n\"Ministers are exploring options to further reduce the already small amount of imports we do get from Russia and we continue to urge Europe to put in place plans to end their dependence on Russian gas.\"\n\nEarlier this week, dockers in Kent refused to unload two tankers of Russian gas, prompting the vessels to be diverted.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Greg Robinson loved \"the simple things\", like spending time with his family\n\nFrom sausage rolls to sweeties and a coffee with a bun, there were many things that made Greg Robinson smile.\n\nBut none more so than his family, who he adored, and in particular his grandson, who allowed him to be a big kid.\n\nWhen the father-of-two, who was in his 50s, died suddenly in March 2021, his family's life was turned upside down.\n\n\"Granda Greg\" was fit and healthy and along with his wife, Nikki, ran a gift shop in his hometown of Donaghadee in County Down.\n\nWhether it was at work, walking the dog, with his local flute band or just out in his beloved town, his family say Greg made time for everyone.\n\nAfter his death, the community rallied around his family - particularly Nikki and their two daughters, Jess and Sam.\n\nNow, on the week of his first anniversary, they are giving back to their community by sharing some of the things that made him smile.\n\nThe little gifts have been being found around the town, each with a simple message: \"An act of kindness in memory of Greg Robinson\".\n\n\"We - Nikki, Jess and Sam - wanted to plan something together that allowed us to put our energy into something positive and give us something practical to do which we knew would have an impact on others,\" they told BBC News NI.\n\n\"We knew that by making others smile that we, in turn, would feel the benefit of that too.\n\n\"We wanted to give back to the community of Donaghadee that helped us.\n\n\"We have realised the importance of little things that have made us smile throughout the past year.\"\n\nAs Greg was \"a Donaghadee man, he loved his town and the community\", all the gifts were purchased locally.\n\nAmong them are chocolate bars; scents from the family's gift shop; flowers; and vouchers for a bakery, for some of his favourite sausage rolls, an ice-cream shop where he used to buy a quarter of sweets on a Saturday night, and a cafe because \"a wee coffee and a bun would have made dad's face light up with excitement\".\n\nMany recipients, including some who did not know Greg, have posted photos of their finds on a local Facebook page, prompting others to share memories.\n\n\"When someone dies, it is often the case that people are scared to mention the loved one in case it makes you sad, but the grief journey has taught us that this isn't the case and that the wonderful stories and chat about dad brings so much comfort,\" his family said.\n\n\"We love those times when we hear how dad had impacted their lives, from showing kindness as a teenager at high school, to chatting away to customers in his shop.\"\n\nNikki remembers her husband as being \"a true gentleman\" who was always making people laugh.\n\n\"He was so charismatic, lighting up the room whenever he walked in,\" she added.\n\nFor Jess and Sam, they will be forever grateful for him teaching them \"to focus on the positive parts of the day, looking for ways that we can express gratitude for every day things\".\n\nNikki says her husband was \"a raker\" who was always joking\n\nGreg's wife and daughters have decided that they will continue to mark his anniversary in this way.\n\n\"Our hope is that the finders of the envelopes will feel a wee rush of happiness and that it will bring a smile to their face.\n\n\"It would also be our hope that it sparks conversations about dad and how his legacy can live on in the community of Donaghadee.\"", "WWII Soviet propaganda poster depicting hoped-for victory over the Nazis - which Putin constantly references\n\nThere are moments when the tectonic plates of history shift beneath our feet and Europe is violently remade. It is time to recognise that we are at such a moment. Time too, to stop saying that it is somehow unbelievable that this can be happening in 2022.\n\nIt is no more unbelievable now than it was in 1914 or 1939 - nothing predetermined that they would be years when darkness would descend. That's not to say, of course, that we are on the edge of a war that will suck in the rest of Europe or even the world.\n\nThe point is that peace is always fragile - and that what happens even in the most distant corners of Europe will always affect all of us.\n\nDrawing the right lessons from those big moments when everything changes is not easy.\n\nThe French military commander Ferdinand Foch called the end of World War One a \"20-year\" ceasefire - because he felt the victorious allies had overplayed their hand in dealing with the defeated German Empire. He was about a year out.\n\nThe question for our generation is whether or not we made a similar miscalculation over how to handle Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. We rejoiced as Poland, the Baltic States and others took their place among the free nations of the world.\n\nPoland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - once occupied by Soviets - joined Nato in 1999. The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia followed five years later.\n\nBut the dark energy that drives Vladimir Putin is the other side of that coin. He saw Russia diminished, humiliated and stripped of what he saw as its right to a buffer zone of subordinate states.\n\nHe illustrates the point with a story - which might even be true - from his own shadowy past. A former colonel in the counter-intelligence corps of the KGB, Putin was reduced to acting as a part-time taxi driver. One imagines he would have been rather a difficult one.\n\nAt some point he conceived an almost mystical concept of restoring lost Russian greatness. He must have been encouraged by the way in which he got away with the annexation of Crimea - from Ukraine - in 2014. After all, four years later we were enjoying the World Cup in Russia.\n\nWestern Europe's main reaction to the end of the Cold War was to take a 30-year holiday from serious defence spending.\n\nSoviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced the Soviet Union's dissolution and his resignation on 25 December 1991\n\nAt one point a few years ago, only four of Germany's 128 fighter aircraft were combat ready and the Dutch had a plan to dispose of every one of their heavy tanks. The Dutch have thought again and the Germans are now proposing to spend an extra €100bn (£83bn) on defence.\n\nIt is good of course that Germany reflects on its past, but it's even better that it is thinking of the future too.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a Social Democrat who certainly didn't run for office on a promise of raising defence spending but he has risen to the historical demands of the moment rather impressively.\n\n\"With the invasion of Ukraine we are in a new era,\" he told the German parliament - defining the challenge of that new era as a simple question: \"Whether we allow Putin to turn back the clock, or whether we mobilise power to set boundaries for warmongers such as Putin.\"\n\nThey are extraordinary words from the leader of a country where politicians once argued that the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 made it impossible to stand up to the Kremlin.\n\nSweden, which is wealthy and well-armed but militarily non-aligned, was the first country to feel colder winds blowing from the East and perhaps the first to act. It is increasing defence spending by an extraordinary 40% in its current five-year cycle - raising new infantry regiments and buying American Patriot anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nThe Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said simply: \" We have a situation where Russia is prepared to use military means to achieve political goals.\"\n\nSo the rather decadent view - that the only weapon the West would ever need is economic sanctions - is out of fashion now. You can't fight tanks with banks. No-one wants to see this continent turned into an armed camp of course, but when you feel those tectonic plates shifting you have to shift with them. Acting now - buying weapons and donating money - is the easy bit when the hot sharp stab of outrage is fresh.\n\nBut this new age of containment is going to call for much more. The will to stand with Ukrainians first - but then the grit, vision and staying power to stand guard over freedom wherever and whenever the next attack might come.", "About 3,500 workers are based at the Cowley plant in Oxford\n\nA shortage of Mini parts from Ukraine has led to a halt at Oxford's car factory being extended to two weeks.\n\nPlant Oxford in Cowley previously said it would stand down production from Monday to Friday but this has now been extended to 18 March, for all shifts.\n\nA spokeswoman for the firm said it was \"defining measures to secure production again as soon as possible\".\n\nThe firm added all staff at the plant affected by the stoppage would continue to be paid.\n\nProduction at the plant has also been affected by the ongoing global shortage of computer chips.\n\nThe chip shortage has impacted car makers around the world.\n\nIn February, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said semiconductor supplies constrained sales and it expected the chip shortage to continue throughout this year.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Basketball\n\nWNBA side Phoenix Mercury say they are concerned for Brittney Griner's \"safety, physical and mental health\" after the centre was detained in Russia on charges of drug smuggling.\n\nThe Olympic gold medal-winning American was reportedly taken into custody at a Moscow airport in February after cannabis oil was found in her luggage.\n\nShe could face a sentence of up to 10 years in a Russian prison if convicted.\n\nPhoenix say they are \"aware of and are closely monitoring the situation\".\n\nA statement from the WNBA club was posted on Twitter after the Russia Federal Customs Service said that an American basketball player was taken into custody after officials found vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in carry-on luggage at Sheremetyevo Airport.\n\nRussian news agency TASS, citing a law enforcement source, has since identified the player as 31-year-old Griner, who has played in the country during the WNBA offseason since 2015.\n\n\"We remain in constant contact with her family, her representation, the WNBA and NBA,\" the club said.\n\n\"We love and support Brittney and at this time our main concern is her safety, physical and mental health, and her safe return home.\"\n\nUSA basketball has said that it is \"monitoring the legal situation facing\" Griner.\n\n\"Brittney has always handled herself with the utmost professionalism during her long tenure with USA Basketball and her safety and wellbeing are our primary concerns,\" the governing body said.\n• None New dangers and old enemies await for Tommy Shelby\n• None The Fast and the Farmer-ish: Who will prove victorious and take home the tractor trophy?", "Ukrainian civilians, assisted by the country's military, are evacuating the small city of Irpin, which sits just 20km (12 miles) north-west of Kyiv.\n\nThe route is a difficult one, with many having to travel by foot along shelled roads and damaged bridges.\n\nIrpin has found itself on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian forces over the past week.\n\nArtillery and air strikes have caused severe damage in the area, with at least one attack leaving a residential tower block almost completely destroyed.\n\nIn recent days, trains have been transporting evacuees, mostly women and children, from Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv into the capital.\n\nEarlier this week, the shelling of a residential block in Irpin was captured in video footage.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Video shows a block of flats in Irpin, near Kyiv, being hit by projectiles\n\nAll images are subject to copyright.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"Kherson is Ukraine\": Protests against Russian occupation take place in the only big city captured so far\n\nProtests against Russian occupation have broken out in the port city of Kherson, Ukraine's only big city to have been captured in the war so far.\n\nAbout 2,000 people marched through the city centre, waving flags and singing the Ukrainian national anthem.\n\nThey shouted patriotic slogans including \"Russians go home\" and \"Kherson is Ukraine\".\n\nKherson, a key port on the Black Sea and the Dnieper River, fell to Russian troops earlier this week.\n\nVideos of the protest on social media show Russian troops firing into the air to deter the approaching crowd.\n\nOne local resident, Yevhen, told the BBC the protest was a march for freedom and Ukrainian independence.\n\nWhen asked whether Ukrainian forces were trying to retake Kherson, he said: \"Every night we hear about six or 10 explosions. It sounds like mortars. We don't know who is bombing whom.\"\n\nHe added: \"We are trying not to go outside because Russian troops are stopping cars, checking what is in the cars. They are even checking phones, searching for evidence of helping the Ukrainian army.\"\n\nOther locals have told the BBC that Russian soldiers have a list of Ukrainian activists they want to capture.\n\nElsewhere in the country on the 10th day of the invasion, the Russian defence ministry said its units had opened humanitarian corridors to let civilians leave the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha, which are under siege by its forces.\n\nHowever, Ukrainian authorities said Russia was not observing the ceasefire and attacks were continuing, so mass evacuations had been postponed.\n\nRussia later announced that its assault on Mariupol was under way again.\n\n\"Due to the unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to influence nationalists or extend the ceasefire, offensive actions have been resumed,\" a Russian defence ministry spokesman said.\n\nRussian forces continued to shell Mariupol on Saturday, despite agreeing to a ceasefire just hours earlier, local residents told the BBC.\n\n\"I'm right now in Mariupol, I'm on the street, I can hear shelling every three to five minutes,\" said Alexander, a 44-year-old engineer.\n\nMariupol, a port city of about 400,000 people, is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.", "Northern Ireland's oil prices have shot up more than 35% in the week after Russia invaded Ukraine - so what does it mean for the UK's most oil-dependent nation?\n\nMore than two-thirds of homes in Northern Ireland rely on oil for heating - the highest percentage in Western Europe - compared to just 4% in England and Wales.\n\nIn the seven days after the invasion, the average price for 900 litres of home heating oil went up more than £200, from £555.72 on 24 February, to £758.11 on 3 March, figures from the Northern Ireland Consumer Council show.\n\nMeanwhile the number of households in fuel poverty in Northern Ireland is predicted to have doubled, from 22% to more than 40%, according to National Energy Action (NEA).\n\nIt has also prompted a run on home heating oil, with some companies limiting their sales, or selling beyond their stock levels, so they will likely be selling at a loss if prices continue to rise.\n\nPat Austin, NEA's Northern Ireland director, said the charity was seeing more people who had completely run out of fuel.\n\nTwo weeks ago they topped up oil for a man in Belfast whose tank had been empty since last August, she said.\n\nThe man, aged in his thirties, had been rationing his electricity by using his kettle to bathe - turning on the immersion heater for a shower just once a fortnight.\n\nThe number of households in fuel poverty in Northern Ireland is predicted to have doubled\n\nAs of Friday, a spot check of oil prices in Northern Ireland by the Consumer Council puts the average for 900 litres at £758.11.\n\nThat's a 44% rise since 3 February, when the average price was £527.97.\n\n\"These figures have to be putting fuel poverty in the region of 40% easy; it is a perfect storm,\" Ms Austin said.\n\n\"We're looking at emergency interventions. We're dealing with people who are out of electricity overnight, we are now having to send people on to food banks.\"\n\nTensions between Russia and the West were already driving power prices up and that's accelerated since Russia invaded Ukraine last week, pushing them to 10-year highs.\n\nRussia is one of the world's largest energy producers.\n\nMajor oil and gas companies, including BP and Shell, have also announced plans to exit Russian operations.\n\nAnd price rises are expected to continue in the near-term.\n\nOil prices have been climbing, like gas and electricity, but because oil is unregulated in Northern Ireland, cost increases are passed on directly to the buyer, Peter McClenaghan, director of infrastructure and sustainability at the Consumer Council, said.\n\n\"Russia supplies about 12% of global oil supplies so that's really worrying for Northern Ireland consumers because Northern Ireland consumers pay straight away what the world market is saying.\n\n\"Whereas with gas there's a time period before they can pass on increases, in oil that doesn't happen so those spikes in prices have been seen in Northern Ireland straight away, so it's a really significant, negative change for Northern Ireland consumers and one that's happened just virtually overnight.\"\n\nRussian gas flows through pipelines across eastern and central Europe\n\nIn 2016, when fuel poverty was last measured in Northern Ireland, it was at 22%, but estimates from the Housing Executive for in 2017 and 2018 put it as low as 17% and 18%.\n\nBut in 2009, fuel poverty levels were double that at 44% - and that's where NEA expects it to be in Northern Ireland now.\n\nDonna Lennon gets her oil via a social enterprise buying group, which reduces costs for its members by buying in bulk, and allows smaller purchases so customers avoid the higher costs of ordering low volumes directly from the supplier.\n\nWithout it, the single mother of two, who lives in Newcastle, County Down, said she would be in fuel poverty.\n\nNorthern Ireland also has several oil buying clubs, which work on a similar principle.\n\nDonna Lennon says she relies on the saving she gets buying in bulk via Fuel Round\n\nShe said the discount she gets is the difference between running oil and heating the whole house, and using only her fireplace.\n\n\"Especially when you have a young family and your oil is on a lot, I would have to choose between that and wood, and just light a fire and sit in the sitting room.\n\n\"It could be the difference between heating the bedrooms and sitting in the living room for the fire.\"\n\nJames McGovern, from the buying group Fuel Round in County Down, said households were reducing the size of their orders as costs increased.\n\n\"Overall demand has noticeably risen since the Ukraine crisis, but the per-order volume is markedly down, as households grapple with increased costs.\"\n\nThis week some Northern Ireland oil companies cut the volume of each sale.\n\nOthers sold beyond their stock levels, meaning they could lose money on orders when prices rise beyond what quoted for.\n\nDamian Fusco, from Bangor Fuels, said: \"The general public is under the impression that we have large stocks of oil - stock generally lasts days not weeks.\n\n\"Most heating oil retailers would have a volume of stock on their premises which they replenish daily - that volume is sold.\n\n\"I'm taking orders for more than week away which I haven't got the stock for, so it may by the time I get to that call I may have ended up having to pay more than that for the oil.\"\n\nNorthern Ireland imports all its oil via a handful of multinational suppliers.\n\nThat means local firms have no power to increase their orders to match demand.\n\nOn Tuesday, none of Omagh firm MAC Fuels' three suppliers would deliver oil, its company director Yvonne Wilson said.\n\nThey limited their sales to 400 litres this week.\n\n\"One customer has told me that she is working just to eat and heat, while another said its a case of keeping the house warm while his children get ready for school and bed. When the children aren't at home he just wears a coat rather than waste any oil -this is the reality of how families and the elderly are struggling at the minute.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: We have a direct line to Moscow, says UK chief of defence staff Adm Sir Tony Radakin\n\nBritons should not head to Ukraine to fight and should instead help however they can from the UK, the head of the armed forces has said.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, Adm Sir Tony Radakin rejected Ukraine's call for a no-fly zone saying it would not help tactically and might escalate fighting.\n\nHe urged the West to have confidence that they were doing the \"right thing\".\n\nThe invasion was not going well, Russia was becoming less powerful and it cannot continue, he said.\n\nOn Britons wanting to join the fight, Adm Radakin said that the \"sound of gunfire\" was not \"something you want to rush to\", and urged people to support Ukraine in sensible ways from the UK.\n\nAsked whether Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had been right to say she would support any Briton who wanted to fight, he said: \"We can all understand that sentiment, and that sentiment needs to be channelled into support for Ukraine.\"\n\nSenior UK military officers are genuinely worried that some British troops - regulars or reservists - might try to join the battle in Ukraine and, in doing so, risk handing Russia a propaganda victory.\n\nLast week the Chief of Defence People, Lt Gen James Swift, sent out a message to the chain of command stressing that UK military personnel were \"not authorised\" to travel there.\n\nHe said that if there was any suspicion that troops were trying to make their way to Ukraine then it should be reported immediately to the Service Police.\n\nThe message warned that if serving British military personnel went to fight in Ukraine then they were putting not only their lives in danger but they also risked giving \"the mistaken perception\" to Russia that Britain had sent in troops to engage in hostilities.\n\nAdm Sir Tony Radakin has now underlined that message, saying it would be \"unlawful and unhelpful\".\n\nAt present the MoD does not believe there are any examples of full-time British military personnel going absent to fight in Ukraine. But it's harder for them to keep tabs on reservists who often also have another career.\n\nIn his interview with the BBC's Sunday Morning show, the defence chief painted a picture of Russian forces suffering from heavy losses and low morale, with kit failings and a massive military convoy stalled outside the capital, Kyiv.\n\nThe Kremlin has lost more troops in a week than the UK did in 20 years in Afghanistan, he said, and some \"lead elements of Russian forces\" have been decimated.\n\nHe described stories of soldiers whose morale had been so knocked they had abandoned the convoy destined for Kyiv to camp in the forest.\n\nUkrainian servicemen near Kyiv - a huge convoy of Russian troops has stopped its advance outside the capital\n\nOn Saturday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a fiery speech saying the West's reluctance to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine had given Russia \"a green light\" to continue bombarding towns and villages.\n\nBut Adm Radakin insisted such an intervention would not help.\n\n\"The advice that we, as senior military professionals are giving our politicians, is to avoid doing things that are tactically ineffective and definitely to avoid doing things that tactically might lead to miscalculation or escalation.\"\n\nHe said most of the shelling and destruction was coming from artillery, not Russian aircraft, and to police a no-fly zone could mean taking out Russian defence systems and shooting down Russian aircraft - leading to an escalation, he added.\n\nSpeaking later on the same programme, UK deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said he understood Ukraine's cri de coeur but insisted the West had been clear all along that it would not engage in direct military confrontation.\n\nThat would give succour to Russian President Vladimir Putin's argument that he was in conflict with the West, he said.\n\nMr Putin said on Saturday that any such move to implement a no-fly zone would be seen \"as participation in an armed conflict by that country\".\n\nThe West has to maintain calmness and responsibility and not react rashly to the latest \"bizarre or ridiculous comment\" from Mr Putin, he said.\n\n\"We are prepared, we are professional armed forces, we will approach this conflict with that level of professionalism and responsibility that you would expect.\n\n\"We will also be incredibly confident in our ability to face down President Putin,\" he added.\n\nHe gave an insight into relations with his counterpart, Gen Valery Gerasimov, head of Russian armed forces, explaining the Ministry of Defence has a direct line to Moscow's operational headquarters.\n\nIt is tested every day, he said, and he has used the line to tell Gen Gerasimov they need to speak. \"I'm waiting for him to come back to me,\" he added.\n\nAdm Radakin was also asked whether the West would know beforehand whether Mr Putin would use nuclear weapons.\n\nHe said he did not want to go into detail but there had been a \"remarkable\" level of intelligence in the months leading up to the invasion.\n\n\"There are some more discreet elements in terms of warning signs if this was going to start to chart a path towards nuclear escalation,\" he said.", "Riot police at a demonstration in Moscow on Sunday\n\nMore than 4,300 people were detained at anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, rights groups and Russian authorities say.\n\nSome 1,700 people were detained in Moscow alone, Ria news agency reports, citing the interior ministry.\n\nThe OVD-Info rights group says detentions took place in 53 cities.\n\nAlthough protests have become increasingly restricted in recent years, numerous rallies have taken place across Russia since the invasion.\n\nIn the last 11 days, more than 10,000 people have been detained at protests, OVD-Info says.\n\n\"The screws are being fully tightened - essentially we are witnessing military censorship,\" Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info's spokeswoman, told Reuters news agency from Tbilisi in Georgia.\n\n\"We are seeing rather big protests today - even in Siberian cities, where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.\"\n\nA policeman by a bus of detained protesters in St Petersburg\n\nA woman being led away in Moscow\n\nEarlier this week, government critic Alexei Navalny - who is in jail on fraud charges - called for daily demonstrations against the invasion, saying Russia should not be a \"nation of frightened cowards\".\n\nHowever, a number of new laws have made it harder to protest in Russia in recent years, rights groups say.\n\n\"Although Russian legislation avoids explicitly using terms like 'permit' or 'ban'... it effectively requires organisers to seek authorisation for their assemblies,\" Amnesty International says.\n\nAccording to Russian human rights group OVD-Info - which was set up in 2011 - more than 2,500 people were detained across Russia on Sunday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIt publishes the names and locations of those arrested, as well as total figures.\n\n\"Each police department may have more detainees than published lists,\" it says. \"We publish only the names of those people about whom we know for certain and whose names we can publish.\"\n\nProtesters in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in front of a Lenin statue\n\nThousands of people protested against the invasion in Brussels on Sunday\n\nProtests did not just take place in Russia on Sunday, but around the world. In Kazakhstan - an ally of Moscow - a peace rally was permitted in Almaty, attended by around 2,000 people.\n\nAnti-war protesters also took to the streets in cities like Brussels, in Belgium, and London.\n\nIn Ukraine itself, Russian troops occupying the southern city of Nova-Kakhovka opened fire to try to disperse demonstrators.\n\nA video from the city, in the Kherson region, shows protesters calling for the Russians to \"go home\" amid the sound of gunfire and stun grenades. The demonstrators appear to hold their ground.\n\nOne report said five people had been injured.\n\nAre you taking part in any of the protests? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A building on fire after a strike near the centre of Mariupol\n\nA ceasefire, and a chance for civilians to leave, was announced on Saturday morning in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where an estimated 200,000 people are trapped under heavy bombardment by Russian forces.\n\nThe city arranged 50 buses, and many people travelled to the city centre to get them. But after less than two hours, Russia's army began shelling residential areas again, trapping civilians who had begun their escape.\n\nThe city is now in its fifth day with no running water, no power, no sanitation, and food and water are fast running out.\n\nMaxim, a 27-year-old IT developer who is caring for his grandparents in their sixth-floor apartment, spoke to the BBC on Saturday night to describe a day that began with hope and ended in despair.\n\nWe tried to escape today, during the planned time of no shooting. We heard we could get out.\n\nAs fast as I could, I packed four bags for me and my grandparents with warm clothes and food, and all of our remaining water, and I packed them into my car.\n\nMy grandparents are in their eighties, they cannot help. I carried everything down six flights of stairs to my car. There is no lift now.\n\nRight when I was ready to drive, the shelling started again. I heard explosions near to us. I carried everything back upstairs as fast as I could to the apartment. From there, I could see smoke rising from the city and smoke rising from the highway to Zaporizhzhia where people were supposed to escape.\n\nSo I am still in my grandparents' apartment and the shelling and bombing has continued all day. But now instead of three of us here, there are nearly 20.\n\nMany people came into the city centre because they heard there was a ceasefire and buses to take them out, and to flee the shelling there. Then they could not get back to their shelters when it started again.\n\nSo we have taken many people into the apartment. They are from the left side of the city, they say it is destroyed. All the houses are burning and no-one can put out the fires. There are many dead bodies lying in the streets and no-one can carry them.\n\nI know three of the people from before, from my neighbourhood, but the rest I do not know. The oldest is a woman in her late 70s, the youngest is a small child. We also have two cats, a parrot and a dog.\n\nWe have tried to make space for the women and children to sleep on the floor. We don't have any extra mattresses but we have put some spare carpet and clothes on the floor for them to lie on.\n\nWe have run out of bottled water. We are down to the water that I filled in the bath before the taps went off. The gas is the only thing still working - we can use it to boil the bath water to drink.\n\nToday the police opened the stores and told people to take everything, because the people here have no food and drink. Our neighbours managed to take some candy, some fish and some fizzy drinks.\n\nThe ceasefire was a lie. One side never planned to stop firing. If they say there is a ceasefire tomorrow [Sunday] we will have to try to go, but we don't know if it will be real. Maybe now we are better to hide.\n\nYou can keep calling me as long as I have some battery left in my phone, but I don't know how long that will be. After today I am without hope. From now on we do what we have to each day only to survive and for our neighbours to survive.\n\nAfter that I don't know what comes next. We are very tired and we do not see a way out.\n\nAre you in the Mariupol area? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Fedorov's mission to create a \"state in a smartphone\" has been put on hold\n\nAs Ukraine's military and citizens battle Russia's advancing troops, the country has opened a new front in the fighting - using tech expertise to rally Silicon Valley's support and undermine the enemy. Digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov is leading the charge, but some of his tactics are proving divisive.\n\nFrom his underground shelter in a secret location in Kyiv, Ukraine's youngest cabinet minister is waging a digital war on Russia.\n\nUsing his preferred weapon - social media - Mykhailo Fedorov has been urging chief executives of big businesses to cut ties with Moscow. He's also taken the unprecedented move of setting up a volunteer \"IT Army of Ukraine\" to launch cyber-attacks against \"the enemy\".\n\nAt only 31, Fedorov has shaped his government role around his lifestyle - he lives through and on his mobile phone.\n\nBefore the war, his main goal was to create a \"state in a smartphone\", where 100% of government services would be offered online. Now that project is on hold, with every muscle strained on the digital war effort.\n\nHe has piled pressure on multinational companies to boycott Russia.\n\nApple, Google, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony, Oracle... no tech giant has missed out on an official government letter.\n\nFedorov then posts his letters on social media so the world can see, plus some of the replies.\n\nIt's impossible to say whether this has influenced the companies' actions, but most have changed their policy towards Russia in subsequent days - either stopping products being sold there, like Apple, or halting operations.\n\nSaturday's announcement from PayPal that it was suspending services in Russia appeared on Fedorov's Twitter feed before it was reported in the media. So too did news that Samsung and Nvidia are stopping all business with Russia, something he publicly called for on his social feeds.\n\nOne tweet from Fedorov to Elon Musk soon after the invasion began brought quick results. Within 48 hours the billionaire tech mogul had adjusted his constellation of Starlink satellites and sent a lorry-load of internet-ready terminals to Ukraine.\n\nThe service is a potential lifeline for the government if internet and telecommunication networks are damaged or destroyed, though Musk has since warned that the satellite dishes could become a target for Russian missiles and should be used with care.\n\nFedorov has more than half a million followers in total across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram and uses them all to get his message across.\n\n\"Each platform is very important to us now and we are using every opportunity to attract large companies to this horror happening now in Ukraine. We are trying to bring the truth to the Russians and make them protest against the war,\" he told the BBC via email.\n\nHe speaks mostly in Ukrainian online, but since the crisis unfolded he's switched to English on Twitter, where he is having the most impact.\n\n\"Twitter has become an efficient tool that we are using to counter Russian military aggression. It's our smart and peaceful tool to destroy Russian economy,\" he says.\n\nTechnology researcher and author Stephanie Hare says she is not surprised Fedorov is having success.\n\n\"[He] is 31 years old. He gets it,\" she says.\n\nUsing persuasion and propaganda is a time-honoured tactic of warfare. But since social media companies entered the equation in the 2000s \"they have changed the calculus due to the speed and breadth with which people can disseminate their messages\".\n\nFedorov's spokeswoman told me his young team was constantly coming up with new ideas, which the ministry then tries to implement at speed. Last week, Kyiv announced it would issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to fund its military. But some others have been controversial.\n\nFedorov is urging crypto-currency exchanges to freeze the accounts of all Russian citizens, for example - an idea that many, including the CEO of the Binance exchange, says would \"fly in the face\" of the reason crypto exists.\n\nThe Anonymous hacker collective has declared \"cyber-war\" on President Vladimir Putin\n\nAnd the ministry's launch of an \"IT Army of Ukraine\", including thousands of volunteer hackers from around the world - its Telegram group now has 270,000 members - has caused some unease.\n\n\"Tech is the best solution against tanks,\" Fedorov told the BBC. \"The IT Army is directed against the digital and online resources of Russian and Belarusian business corporations, banks, and state web portals. We have shut down the operation of the web portal of the Russian public services, the exchange, websites of Tass, Kommersant, Fontanka, and other top media in Russia.\"\n\nSo far the hacking seems to be mostly low-level cyber vandalism but Fedorov's team is also explicitly calling for attacks on railway and power grid networks which, if successful and disruptive enough, could cause harm to civilians. It makes some in the cyber-security world anxious.\n\n\"It's really important to be careful in this realm,\" says Suzanne Spalding from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. \"If we get into destructive attacks on critical infrastructure being carried out by citizens I think we begin to run into the kinds of fog-of-war, misattribution, potential cascading impacts that weren't anticipated. We might see retaliation from one side for something a citizen has done and things can escalate fast.\"\n\nOn Friday Ukraine's deputy chairman of the State Service of Special Communications, which works closely with Fedorov's department, defended the decision to rally hackers against Russia.\n\nHe said he welcomed illegal cyber-attacks on Russia from all groups, including the Anonymous hacking collective, because \"the world order changed on 24 February\" when the invasion started.\n\nHacking is also being carried out against Ukraine by people sympathetic to Russia, but currently Russia seems to be coming off worse. Its crack military hackers appear, so far, to have not played a major role, for reasons that are unclear.", "Most refugees are crossing the border into Poland, like this girl who travelled from Lviv\n\nFifty Ukrainians have been granted visas under a scheme for refugees with family links to the UK, the Home Office has announced.\n\nIt is about 1% of the 5,535 people who have applied since the programme launched 48 hours earlier.\n\nEurope minister James Cleverly said he did not know the exact figures but said numbers would increase \"very quickly\".\n\nThe Ukrainian ambassador praised the UK effort but urged for the \"maximum\" number of people to be admitted.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said she was \"doing everything possible\" to speed up efforts to issue the travel permits.\n\nThe UK has steadily increased its visa offer to refugees from the Ukraine war, extending it to parents, grandparents and siblings as well as \"immediate family\" and extending the visas to three years.\n\nBut it has faced criticism that its scheme is less generous than the European Union's, while France accused the UK of a \"lack of humanity\", saying that 150 refugees were turned back at Calais for lacking a visa.\n\nEarlier this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said 200,000 Ukrainians would be eligible to travel to the UK as he extended the offer of visas to a wider range of family members.\n\nAs of 10:00 GMT on Sunday, the Home Office said 11,750 had begun applications online, while 5,535 had completed them.\n\nIt added that 2,368 had booked a visa appointment to submit their application and biometric information, while \"around 50\" visas had been granted.\n\nMr Cleverly told BBC Breakfast the final figure would be \"significantly\" more than the 50 figure being quoted and said while a process was needed the government would make it \"as quick, easy and as fast as possible\".\n\n\"We are looking to create something very, very large-scale very, very quickly\" he said. \"Initially it will be slower than we would like but that will pick up.\"\n\nAsked if it was acceptable that about 1% of applications had been granted in the first 48 hours of the scheme, Ms Patel said it was \"the first scheme in the world that's up and running in this short period of time\".\n\n\"This is an incredible scheme and we are doing everything possible, surging capacity across every single application centre across the EU,\" she said, adding that staff were being flown into Ukraine's border countries to speed up applications.\n\nUkraine's immediate neighbours have taken in the majority of the 1.5 million people estimated to have fled the war, with more than one million arriving in Poland.\n\nMr Celverly said that while \"all of us would want to throw our arms open and be generous\" there needed to be a process but there was no upper limit on how many Ukrainians could come to the UK via government schemes.\n\n\"We want to play our part but of course most Ukrainian refugees are in the countries bordering Ukraine and that's where they want to stay and we are providing humanitarian support for them there as well,\" he said.\n\nFrance's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote to Ms Patel on Saturday, saying that 400 Ukrainian refugees had arrived at Calais to cross the Channel, but 150 were sent back and told to obtain UK visas at embassies in Paris or Brussels.\n\nMr Darmanin said the response to people in distress was \"completely unsuitable\" and showed a \"lack of humanity\", calling for the UK to put consular staff at Calais to help Ukrainian refugees cross.\n\nBut Ms Patel said it was \"wrong to say we are turning people back\" and said the Home Office already had people working in Calais to support Ukrainian families.\n\nThe Sun reported that Ms Patel was \"investigating legal options\" to create a humanitarian route, which would mean anyone without ties to the UK fleeing the conflict would have the right to come to the UK.\n\nHowever, the BBC understands this referred to the already announced route where refugees can be sponsored by individuals, communities or organisation and Mr Cleverly confirmed that there had been no change to the government's policy over the weekend.\n\nVadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, said that the visa process could be simplified, adding that any issues could be resolved later but right now the \"maximum\" number needed to be admitted.\n\nHe said any \"bureaucratic nonsense\" should be cleared away, although he said it was necessary to continue security checks.\n\nBut he said the UK was at the \"forefront of the effort\" to support Ukraine.\n\nOn Monday the Disasters Emergency Committee announced its Ukraine appeal had raised more than £100m in four days.", "Images and video emerged on Friday showing destruction in residential areas of Chernihiv and other cities\n\nCivilians in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv have described being trapped under relentless shelling as Russia indiscriminately pounds residential neighbourhoods there and in several other cities.\n\n\"We can hear the sounds right now of air strikes nearby,\" Svitlana, 40, told the BBC. She was hiding in Chernihiv on Friday morning under her dining table with her two children, aged six and three, and her neighbours in her five-storey apartment building.\n\n\"There are no military targets here, there is only a cemetery, residential buildings, clinics and a hospital, why are they bombing us?\" Svitlana said.\n\nRussia escalated its air campaign against Ukraine on Thursday and Friday, killing at least 47 civilians in Chernihiv and continuing to lay siege to residential areas in Mariupol, Borodyanka and Kharkiv.\n\nAerial attacks in Chernihiv destroyed high-rise apartments buildings and damaged a clinic and hospital, sending residents fleeing into the streets and to underground bunkers.\n\nAn apartment building 500m from Svitlana's was destroyed on Thursday, she said. Her building sits just 50m from a children's hospital, where staff had taken children including cancer patients to a shelter between the two buildings but were not able to create a sterile environment there and were struggling to evacuate the children.\n\nReached on Friday morning, Sergey Zosimenko, a charity worker supporting the hospital, told the BBC that the staff were in the process of attempting an evacuation.\n\nImages and video footage from Chernihiv, which is 90 miles (144 km) north of the capital Kyiv and home to about 300,000 people, showed indiscriminate destruction to residential areas, drawing immediate comparisons to the devastating Russian bombing campaigns against Grozny in the late 1990s and Aleppo in 2016. Chernihiv has reportedly been surrounded by Russian forces.\n\nThe BBC verified the full names and exact locations of people it spoke to in Chernihiv and other cities under attack but is not publishing those details for safety reasons.\n\nKatya, a 22-year-old nurse in Chernihiv, said she had been able to hear the sounds of continuous shelling throughout Friday morning.\n\n\"I'm calling back now because I don't know if it will be too late, I don't know if we will survive,\" she said.\n\n\"There is me, my mother, my grandma and our neighbour and we all are hiding in our house. At this very moment I can hear the shelling. Local hospitals and schools are destroyed. Russians promised not to kill civilians but they are killing.\"\n\nLarysa, a 52-year-old maths teacher, managed to escape alive with her husband, sister and brother-in-law after their Chernihiv apartment building was hit in a direct strike.\n\n\"We were hiding in the staircase near our sixth-floor apartment and we could hear planes flying overhead and they sounded low,\" she said. \"Suddenly there was a boom and the whole building shook. We ran outside and people were screaming. We could see that the missile went through our building and hit the next building.\"\n\nLarysa's apartment building, hit while she was hiding in the staircase with her family\n\nRussia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape from cities under siege, but residents in Chernihiv and in the southern port city of Mariupol told the BBC on Friday that there had been no significant break in the aerial bombardment to allow people to move.\n\nThe escalating strikes on residential areas raised concerns that Russia would continue to target civilians from the air after meeting staunch resistance from Ukraine's army and failing to make significant progress on the ground. The bombing of Chernihiv on Tuesday came after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, told French leader Emmanuel Macron that Russia would achieve its military goals in Ukraine \"whatever happens\".\n\nHeavy bombardment continued in Mariupol, which entered its third day on Friday without power, water or its sanitation system. The city's deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, told the BBC on Friday that the city council was trying to create a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to escape.\n\n\"We have been preparing everything we can, transport, routes, supplies, but as of Friday morning there is no agreement how and when we can get people out and there has been no break in the shelling,\" he said.\n\nMr Orlov said the Ukrainian army was holding its positions around Mariupol, \"but they cannot do anything about aerial bombing\".\n\n\"What you have to understand is this is not troops fighting troops, Putin sees destruction and humanitarian crisis as the goal. He wants to terrify people and force them to lose their will.\"\n\nDamage in central Kharkiv in Thursday after days of aerial bombardment against the eastern city\n\nIn Kharkiv, in the east, Ukrainian authorities said the city had been \"pounded all night\" by indiscriminate shelling, which UN prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.\n\n\"Yes the shelling has been constant,\" said Elena, a 59-year-old engineer who was hiding in the basement of her apartment building with her daughter and grandchild. \"We can hear planes flying overhead and explosions,\" she said. \"Nothing has hit our building yet.\"\n\nMasha, a 24-year-old communications manager in western Ukraine, whose aunt Larysa survived the direct strike on her Chernihiv apartment building, said she had \"no feelings right now, only emptiness\".\n\n\"It is the eighth day of the war and I can't feel anything - no fear, no nothing. Chernihiv was my second home, and now it's destroyed,\" Masha said.\n\n\"I didn't realise what was really happening until the moment I saw a slow-motion video of a missile hitting the building I used to live in.\"\n\nSvitlana, who was sheltering in her Chernihiv apartment with her two children and neighbours, said she could only wait for a break in the shelling.\n\n\"We are terrified here but we have to be brave,\" she said. \"Ukraine above all.\"", "There are two questions regarding China and the war in Ukraine.\n\nDoes it have enough leverage to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to call off the invasion?\n\nAnd, more crucially, how much does Beijing want to use its standing with Russia to stop the war?\n\nEvery year here in the Chinese capital, the foreign minister holds a press conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress.\n\nIt is a highly scripted event, with questions screened beforehand so you know the answers have been approved at the highest levels of the Party.\n\nToday Wang Yi was asked if China was disappointed with Russia’s behaviour and whether its own international standing had been diminished by Beijing's refusal to describe what is happening in Ukraine as an \"invasion\".\n\nThe foreign minister didn't respond regarding the word \"invasion\", but did say that his government was \"willing if needed, together with the international community, to be part of a mediation\" process to resolve the crisis.\n\nSome analysts say Beijing is using this conflict to achieve geopolitical advantage and point to the economic lifeline it's now offering Russia to keep Putin afloat, while blaming the US for the war.\n\nAsked about sanctions by a Russian reporter, Wang said China and Russia jointly opposed \"attempts to revive a cold war mindset\".\n\nFor the Chinese government to be part of any solution to the Ukraine war, it will also have to be a solution that is approved by the Kremlin.", "Video-sharing site TikTok and streaming giant Netflix have limited and cut their services respectively in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTikTok said it had suspended live streaming and new content from its platform as it assesses tough new laws to crack down on \"fake news\" about Russia's armed forces.\n\nNetflix said it was pulling out in protest at the invasion.\n\nVisa, Mastercard and PwC also joined the list of western firms cutting ties.\n\nTikTok, which has around 36 million users in Russia, said its move was about ensuring the safety of its staff and users.\n\nSince Friday, anyone who writes news deemed false about the military could face up to 15 years in jail.\n\nAmong other things, the Kremlin objects to the conflict being called a war, instead calling it a \"special military operation\".\n\nThe BBC and other news outlets have already stopped reporting in Russia, saying they can no longer be independent.\n\nIn a series of Tweets, TikTok said: \"In light of Russia's new 'fake news' law, we have no choice but to suspend live-streaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law.\n\n\"Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.\"\n\nIt added: \"We will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when we might fully resume our services with safety as our top priority.\"\n\nChinese-owned TikTok, which has one billion users worldwide, has been criticised for not speaking out against Russia invading Ukraine, unlike its peers Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter.\n\nBut in a longer statement on its website on Sunday, it described the war in Ukraine as \"devastating\", adding that it had \"brought pain to our community and our people\".\n\nTikTok says it \"doesn't break down user numbers by country\" but we know that Russia is one of the company's top territories.\n\nIt's thought that around 36m people use the app and TikTok's new rules reduce them to spectators of other people's content.\n\nTikTok says it's making the move to protect its users from breaking Russia's new \"fake news\" laws.\n\nBut it will no doubt help the company too.\n\nModerating social networks during times of crisis is hard enough, but having to vet content under the new draconian laws in Russia puts all platforms in a tough position.\n\nI wouldn't be surprised if other apps took similar measures to protect themselves.\n\nRussia has many high-profile creators who make their living from TikTok so we can expect even more people to be motivated to protest against the \"fake news\" laws.\n\nThe Kremlin may also lose out in the information war too with less pro-Russia content on people's timelines.\n\nLast week, Netflix temporarily stopped all future projects and acquisitions in Russia as it assessed the impact of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut on Sunday, a spokesperson said: \"Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia.\"\n\nThe firm launched in Russia in 2016 and only has 1 million subscribers there - a fraction of the 220 million it has worldwide.\n\nBut according to Variety magazine, the streaming platform had four Russian originals in the works.\n\nThat includes the crime thriller series Zato, which was shooting and has since been put on hold.\n\nA host of companies have suspended their operations in Russia since it attacked its neighbour, including Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, H&M and Burberry. Many other firms are reviewing their positions, while some are looking to offload stakes in Russian ventures.\n\nOn Sunday, two of the Big Four accounting firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said they would no longer have a member firm in Russia because of the invasion.\n\nVisa, Mastercard and American Express also suspended operations in Russia, although the country's banks played down the impact on consumers.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Naomi Long was speaking at the Alliance Party's conference in Belfast on Saturday\n\nThe assembly election in May will be a chance to say no to \"political soap operas\" and deliver politics that works, Naomi Long has said.\n\nThe Alliance Party leader said it was not a time to walk away from government, but \"lead in government\".\n\nMrs Long is leading the party into the second assembly election since she took over in 2016.\n\nShe addressed the party's annual conference on Saturday - its first since the Covid pandemic began.\n\nThe party currently has seven assembly members (MLAs) at Stormont, but is hoping that will rise following successful local government, European and Westminster elections in 2019.\n\nMrs Long has also been Stormont's justice minister since January 2020, remaining in post despite the absence of an executive after the DUP withdrew Paul Givan as first minister.\n\nShe said it was \"hard to fathom\" that Stormont was again without an executive after being restored just two years ago.\n\n\"It seems some politicians are addicted to crisis and conflict and simply not up to the job of actually governing,\" Mrs Long said.\n\n\"People have had enough of the constant dramas and political soap operas.\n\n\"They want politicians who don't just identify more problems - or worse still, add to them - but who are focused on finding solutions.\"\n\nShe added that Alliance had so far been \"punching well above its weight\" in the assembly but needed to \"finish the job\".\n\nShe cited a private members bill her party had brought seeking to ban hunting of animals with dogs, and said \"four more Alliance\" MLAs could have helped pass the bill after other parties voted against it.\n\n\"May's election won't just determine how our politics works for the next five years - it will determine if it works.\"\n\nAlliance is part of the bloc that designates as other in the assembly, but Mrs Long has previously said that system means her party's views are not considered on controversial issues that require cross-community support, i.e. a majority of both unionists and nationalists.\n\nHe was elected as the party's sole MP for North Down in the 2019 general election.\n\nHe described Alliance as \"protocol realists\".\n\nThe Northern Ireland Protocol puts a trade border in the Irish Sea.\n\nNorth Down MP Stephen Farry took to the stage before his party leader\n\nMr Farry said: \"In the absence of an alternative, the only course of action is to try and make it work.\n\n\"We are committed to doing all we can to reduce the level and impact of the resultant checks down the Irish Sea through seeking closer alignment between the UK and the EU, and achieving further mitigations, flexibilities and derogations from EU requirements.\"\n\nThe conference took place in Belfast on Saturday.\n\nThe assembly election is due to take place on 5 May.", "The elderly woman sustained a serious head injury and later died at Derriford Hospital\n\nAn 87-year-old woman who died during a helicopter landing was blown over while walking on a footpath, police said.\n\nDevon and Cornwall Police said it was continuing to investigate the incident at Derriford Hospital on Friday.\n\nThe downdraught from the landing helicopter caused the woman, from Plymouth, to be blown over, the force added.\n\nAnother woman, also in her 80s, suffered a broken pelvis and remains in hospital in a stable condition.\n\nThe HM Coastguard helicopter, which was landing at the helipad at the hospital at about 11:20 GMT, was carrying a casualty linked to a separate incident.\n\n\"Whilst the helicopter was in the process of landing on the helipad, the downdraught caused one member of the public, an 87-year-old woman from the Plymouth area who was on near-by footpath, to be blown over\", Det Insp Hodges said.\n\nShe suffered a serious head injury and died at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.\n\nThe other injured woman was in the car park when it is believed the down draft also caused a car door to slam shut while she was getting out of the vehicle, Devon and Cornwall Police said.\n\n\"This is a tragic incident and our thoughts go out to all affected by what took place,\" Det Insp Hodges continued.\n\nHe said the force was now assisting with the investigation which is being led by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson said on Friday: \"Our deepest sympathies go out to those affected by the incident at Derriford Hospital.\n\n\"It would be inappropriate to comment while the incident is investigated by Devon and Cornwall Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said a HM Coastguard helicopter was flying a patient to Derriford Hospital and \"as it landed, there was an incident which is now being investigated by the police and Air Accidents Investigation Branch\".\n\n\"Our thoughts are with all those affected,\" she added.\n\nDerriford Hospital opened the helipad in 2015 to accommodate larger helicopters.\n\nFollow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nShane Warne's family have accepted the offer of a state funeral, says Victorian Premier Dan Andrews.\n\nLegendary Australia spinner Warne died of a suspected heart attack in Thailand on Friday, aged 52.\n\nFlowers, beer and photographs have been left at Warne's statue at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as fans paid tribute.\n\n\"It will be an opportunity for Victorians to pay tribute to his contribution to his sport, to our state and the country,\" Andrews said.\n\nState funerals are held to honour people of national significance.\n\nWarne took 708 wickets - the second most of all time - in 145 Tests across a stellar 15-year international career that ended in 2007.\n\n\"I've spoken with the Warne family again today and they have accepted my offer of a state funeral to remember Shane,\" Andrews said.\n\n\"Details will be finalised in the coming days.\"\n• None Melbourne stand to be named after Warne\n• None Warne obituary: A fascinating life on and off the field\n\nWarne was found unresponsive by friends in his villa on the Thai island of Koh Samui.\n\nHis manager James Erskine said Warne's family are in \"complete shock\".\n\n\"I spoke to them yesterday and Jackson (Warne's son) said, 'We expect him to walk in the door. This is like a bad dream,'\" Erskine told Australia's Nine Network.\n\n\"Keith, Shane's father, is a pretty strong individual but, like everybody, he's just shattered. They can't believe what's happened.\"\n\nTributes have been paid to Warne from across sport, with a stand at the MCG set to be named after him.\n\nHis body was taken to the Thai city of Surat Thani on Sunday for an autopsy.\n\nThai police are not treating the death as suspicious.\n\n\"His friends said that he had had chest pain since he was in Australia,\" said Yutthana Srisombat, superintendent of police in Bo Phut.\n\n\"Based on the evidence, we don't see other possible cause of death.\"", "Katrin on holiday in happier times. She found her social media awash with fake posts after the invasion began\n\nWhat's it like being a young Ukrainian experiencing war while wading through chaos and misinformation on social media?\n\n24-year-old Katrin awoke in Kyiv last Thursday to the sound of an explosion - and soon enough found her social media feed awash with distressing posts.\n\n\"The first thing we had to do was to pack and go to the basement,\" she tells me, now safe in her small hometown outside of Lviv where she escaped with her boyfriend, neighbours and their dogs.\n\n\"But right after we went down, I started scrolling Instagram. And it was all on my Instagram stories and my posts.\"\n\nShe wasn't just seeing scary, factual posts from friends, but false information - including comments on TikTok from accounts that claimed the war \"wasn't real\" or that it was a \"hoax\".\n\n\"After I blocked this one account, another sprung up with a profile picture of a different girl, writing to me in Russian,\" Katrin says.\n\nThe trolls have been prolific - and they have been interacting with young women across Ukraine.\n\nAlina, 18, found herself in a total panic after seeing posts in Russian suggesting that her neighbourhood in Zaporizhzhya in south-east Ukraine was about to be shelled and destroyed. But the rumours were false.\n\nScreengrabs of messages in Russia falsely claiming that an attack was imminent on Alina's town\n\nAlina spoke to me from her bedroom, exhausted after nights of air raids and sheltering. She says that rumours moved rapidly on chat app Telegram, spread by people apparently setting out to cause panic.\n\n\"Russians specifically find our chats and write that something is exploding. Someone writes that there is a sign of a bomb in the area - then others refute the information,\" she says.\n\nAnother video she saw on Telegram suggested there had been an explosion at the airport in her hometown. It turned out to be a different explosion, in the nearby city of Mariupol.\n\nA video shared with false claims that there was an explosion in Alina's hometown\n\nOld footage from other conflicts, including the massive blast in Beirut in 2020, has also been shared widely - including on TikTok, where clips have racked up millions of views.\n\nMarta is 20 years old and was stuck in the UK where she was visiting friends when the war broke out. She says she's seen videos from Syria and Iraq.\n\n\"But they posted them as 'Ukraine',\" she says.\n\nShe says videos on TikTok's For You Page - the main gateway into the video-sharing app - have left her terrified and angry, as she desperately worries for friends and family back home.\n\nAll three women have found themselves battling accounts posting comments in support of Russia.\n\nThe videos posted by one of the pro-Russian accounts Jess promoting false claims about the war in Ukraine.\n\n\"Some of them started to post videos, they started to call Ukraine 'liars',\" Marta says.\n\nSome were blaming Ukraine for the violence, writing \"glory to Russia\" - and others falsely suggested that the war was somehow staged.\n\n\"Every time I decided to take a look at those accounts, they were a profile with zero followers, zero likes, zero following, with a profile picture of a Russian flag or something,\" Marta says.\n\nMany of the TikTok accounts that the women shared with me appear to have lifted photos from other accounts online. Like Marta says, they have few or no followers, and they don't use their real names - or use generic usernames.\n\nOne I looked at used the name \"Jess\" and had just one follower. The only videos on the account are ones first shared just days ago, indicating that the account was created very recently.\n\nAlmost all of the videos the account did share featured debunked and false claims: that a woman who was injured during a Russian attack was an actor, that news coverage is filled with footage of old conflicts, and even that the war somehow isn't happening.\n\nOne account Katrin ended up arguing with on TikTok again had few followers - its profile image appears to be copied from the Pinterest page of a Korean woman.\n\nNone of the accounts have responded to my attempts to get in touch - so it's hard to tell who is running them. Russia has created inauthentic accounts before to push messages and sow division. But it's also possible that the accounts are run by real people who believe false claims.\n\nMisinformation is a problem social media companies have been grappling with for some time. Now their policies are coming under fresh scrutiny.\n\nMeta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, along with Twitter and Google, have all announced commitments to tackle false information and propaganda around the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut it's apps like Telegram and TikTok - used a lot by young Ukrainians - is where much of this disinformation continues to proliferate.\n\nTikTok told the BBC it has \"increased resources to respond to emerging trends and remove violative content, including harmful misinformation and promotion of violence.\" Telegram did not respond to our request for comment.\n\nIt's clear that what's happening online is causing even more panic and pain in the real world.\n\n\"We are scared by those who create this fake information,\" Alina tells me, ready to head yet again down to the basement as the air raid siren rings out.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nRussian driver Nikita Mazepin has been sacked by the Haas team as a result of his country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe US-based outfit have also terminated the contract of their title sponsor, the Russian chemicals company Uralkali.\n\nUralkali is part-owned by Mazepin's billionaire father Dmitry, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, through his company Uralchem.\n\nHaas said news on Mazepin's replacement was expected early next week.\n\nAmong the drivers said to be under consideration are the team's reserve Pietro Fittipaldi, who stood in for Romain Grosjean for two races at the end of 2020 after the Frenchman's fiery accident in Bahrain, Indian Formula 2 driver Jehan Daruvala, and Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri, the reigning F2 champion.\n\nMazepin said he was \"disappointed\" to have his contract terminated and that his \"willingness to accept the conditions proposed in order to continue were completely ignored\".\n\nHaas said in their statement: \"As with the rest of the Formula 1 community, the team is shocked and saddened by the invasion of Ukraine and wishes for a swift and peaceful end to the conflict.\"\n\nMazepin's departure from F1 had been expected since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.\n\nDmitry Mazepin was one of a number of leading Russian businessmen invited to a meeting with Putin at the Kremlin hours after the invasion began.\n\nHaas repainted their cars on 24 February, in the middle of the first Formula 1 pre-season test in Spain, to remove the red white and blue colours that had been on the car to represent the Russian flag since Mazepin joined at the start of 2021.\n\nF1 cancelled this year's Russian Grand Prix a day after the start of the invasion, and on Thursday tore up their contract for the race, signalling that the sport will not return to Russia at least until Putin is no longer in power.\n\nThe FIA, motorsport's governing body, has stopped short of banning Russian drivers from international competition. It says they must compete as neutral athletes, and sign a document agreeing not to support the invasion.\n\nMotorsport UK was this week one of a number of national motorsport authorities to ban Russian competitors from taking part in events in the UK.\n\nThere is debate as to whether this would ban a Russian driver from the British Grand Prix, as an F1 driver's super-licence contains a clause requiring national authorities to allow them to race.\n\nBut that point is now moot after Haas' decision to end their association with Mazepin.", "Russian President Vladimir Putin has described sanctions imposed by Western nations over his invasion of Ukraine as \"akin to a declaration of war\".\n\n\"But thank God it has not come to that,\" he added.\n\nMr Putin also warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be seen as participation in the armed conflict.\n\nAnd he rejected suggestions that he would introduce a state of emergency or martial law in Russia.\n\nMr Putin made the remarks while speaking to a group of women flight attendants at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow.\n\nSince the start of Russia's invasion 10 days ago, the West has imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of Mr Putin's foreign assets and the exclusion of a number of Russian banks from the Swift international payments system.\n\nIn addition, many multinational firms have ceased operations in Russia, On Saturday, Zara, Paypal and Samsung became the latest global brands to suspend trading there.\n\nThe economic measures have already caused the rouble to plunge in value and forced the Russian central bank to double interest rates.\n\nIn his latest comments, Mr Putin sought to justify the war in Ukraine, repeating his assertion that he was seeking to defend Russian speaking communities there through the \"demilitarisation and de-Nazification\" of the country.\n\nResponding to Western defence analysts' allegations that the Russian military campaign was going less well than expected, he said: \"Our army will fulfil all the tasks. I don't doubt that at all. Everything is going to plan.\"\n\nHe added that only professional soldiers were taking part in the hostilities and there were no conscripts involved, despite reports to the contrary.\n\nThe Russian leader said efforts to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be considered by Russia to be a step into the military conflict and those responsible would be treated as enemy combatants.\n\n\"The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,\" he added.\n\nFor his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned Nato for ruling out the no-fly zone. However, Western leaders say introducing the measure would be an escalation.\n\nMr Putin also said he had no plans to declare martial law in Russia. adding that such a step would only be taken in \"instances of external aggression, in defined areas of military activity\".\n\n\"But we don't have such a situation and I hope we won't have one,\" he said.\n\nThere had been rumours that Mr Putin was planning to declare martial law, which is when normal civil law is suspended or the military takes control of government functions.\n\nHe said there were other special emergency states which could be used in the case of a \"large-scale external threat\", but that he had no plans to introduce these either.\n\nMeanwhile, diplomatic moves have continued on the sidelines of the conflict.\n\nIsraeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Mr Putin in Moscow on Saturday and had a three-hour discussion on the war.\n\nMr Bennett then headed to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. As an Orthodox Jew, he broke Shabbat in order to travel, which is allowed under Jewish law if human life is at stake.\n\nAlthough Israel is a key ally of the US, Mr Bennett has tried to preserve a good relationship with Russia. Ukraine's President Zelensky, who is Jewish, has called on Israel to mediate in the crisis.\n\nAnd the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has met Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, telling him he was in awe of his courage in standing up to Russia.\n\nThe two men met on the Polish-Ukraine border. Mr Kuleba reiterated his desire and optimism for more military backing from Nato, including a no-fly zone.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Locals clear out a shopping mall in Mariupol as the city remains under siege by Russian forces", "Sir Keir Starmer has called for a senior parliamentary committee to investigate claims Boris Johnson pushed for a Russian-born businessman to get a peerage, despite security concerns.\n\nThe Sunday Times reports the security services withdrew an assessment that giving Evgeny Lebedev an honour posed a security risk after the PM intervened.\n\nThe Labour leader said he was \"very concerned\" about the case.\n\nHowever, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab insisted there was no \"impropriety\".\n\nSpeaking to the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, Mr Raab said: \"There is a very strict and stringent process when anyone is granted a peerage\".\n\nHe added that the rules around the honours process were \"applied very rigorously in this case.\"\n\n\"This was done properly and correctly and we have procedures and systems in place to make sure it is.\"\n\nEvgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers, was given a peerage in July 2020.\n\nThe son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer, he came to London at the age of eight when his father began working in the Soviet embassy.\n\nHe holds both Russian and British citizenship.\n\nEarlier this week Lord Lebedev published a letter to Vladimir Putin in which he urged the Russian president to \"bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end\".\n\n\"As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.\"\n\nBoris Johnson with his sister Rachel and Lord Lebedev at an Evening Standard party in 2012\n\nThe Sunday Times says that in March 2020 the commission that vets peerage appointments advised the prime minister against granting the newspaper owner a seat in the House of Lords - also known as a peerage - due to security concerns.\n\nMr Johnson is said to have responded to the advice by claiming it was \"anti-Russianism\".\n\nResponding to the Sunday Times, Lord Lebedev said the allegations were incorrect.\n\nAsked about the story, Sir Keir said he was \"very concerned\" and that the \"appropriate thing\" was to refer the reports to the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.\n\nHe said the cross-party group of MPs and peers would be able to look at confidential material and \"come to a view about what actually happened.\"\n\nThe Intelligence and Security Committee said it produced a report in July 2020 which said several members of the Russian elite with close links to Vladimir Putin were involved in UK charitable or political organisations, which put them in a position to help the Russian state influence UK public opinion or policy.\n\nThe committee said its report also highlighted the number of members of the House of Lords with business interests linked to Russia and contained an unpublished annexe covering these issues in more depth, but which it cannot discuss for national security reasons.\n\nA government spokesperson said: \"All individuals nominated for a peerage are done so in recognition of their contribution to society and all peerages are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.\"\n\nThe role of the commission is to advise the prime minister on whether it has any concerns about the propriety of a nominee to the House of Lords, Parliament's second chamber.\n\nWhen someone is nominated, the commission carries out checks with other government departments and agencies.\n\nIt can then say whether it supports a nomination, however the commission has no right of veto.\n\nUltimately, it is up to the prime minister to decide whether to award a peerage. The appointments are then formalised by the Queen.", "Security camera footage from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to show a flare lighting up the site, followed by shelling and a fire.\n\nAccording to Mayor Dmytro Orlov of nearby Enerhodar, \"continuous enemy shelling of [the plant's] buildings and units\" seemed to cause a fire at the nuclear station, which is the largest in Europe.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Mark and Vlad show the BBC the daily dangers they face on the front line\n\nIt is a month since Vladimir Putin's forces invaded Ukraine with nearly 200,000 men. One of the first cities to feel the full force of the invasion was Kharkiv in the north-east. Our correspondent Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway have spent time with two fighters who have been at the front line since the very beginning.\n\nThis report contains some content some readers may find disturbing\n\nThe tale of Kharkiv is the story of the army that didn't fail, and an army that failed to win.\n\nWhile Russia stumbles, Ukraine stands firm. Defying widespread expectations that it would collapse in short order, Russian forces have been unable to breach the Ukrainian army's lines around Kharkiv and have not managed to encircle the city.\n\nRussia invaded at 05:00 on 24 February. The night before, 22-year-old Vlad and his brother-in-arms Mark, also 22, were at a fellow private's wedding. Columns of Russian tanks, howitzers, armoured vehicles and troop transports rolled across the border, just 40km (25 miles) away. Despite the long build up of Russian forces, the move came as a shock to the inhabitants of Kharkiv. Troops scrambled to defend the city.\n\nWhen they learned of the attack, Vlad and Mark joined their battalion - the 22nd Motorised Infantry - and headed straight to the front lines. They have been there ever since. I have visited them there twice on the city's northern edge - a once pleasant suburban neighbourhood, which has now become a muddy battlefield strewn with corpses and burned-out Russian tanks and vehicles.\n\nBut it is sound, not sight, that is so jarring here. All manner of Russian artillery and missiles are fired at these positions almost continuously. When there is a respite in the shelling, or the roar of Russian Grad rockets, the silence itself comes as a shock. Ukrainian forces have lived under this terror for weeks now.\n\nAt a nearby command post, its windows all gone, broken furniture is strewn around. In an outbuilding, a belt-fed machine gun sits incongruously by a baby's pram. Children's climbing frames are surrounded by impact craters, and on one nearby abandoned house, a For Sale sign flaps in the freezing wind. Against the regular beat of Russian artillery outside, I ask Mark and Vlad what they are fighting for.\n\nVlad has a blunt message for Russian troops: \"Run away. Either you stay here in the ground or you go back home.\"\n\nVlad's reply is short and to the point, \"For peace in Ukraine.\" Mark shoots him a glance, \"My comrade says for peace in Ukraine,\" he laughs, then he swears and asks, \"Who knows? These people came to our land. No-one was waiting for them here, no-one was calling them.\"\n\nOn that first day, one group of Russians made it into the centre, but were repelled after three days of hard, bloody fighting - with heavy casualties on both sides. The Russians were forced out beyond Kharkiv's edge.\n\nA month on, while Russian missiles still strike at the city centre and at least half the 1.4m population have fled, there are neighbourhoods that remain untouched.\n\nBut, the city's eastern and northern residential neighbourhoods, which were largely intact when I arrived here three weeks ago, are unrecognisable. A tree has an unexploded Russian shell in its base; an apartment block has a 500kg bomb resting on its roof - if it had detonated, the whole building would have been brought down.\n\nMark and Vlad keep this grimness of war from family ears on the calls home they make most most days, just a couple of minutes each to mothers and girlfriends. So there is no mention of the dead bodies at the back door and in the next garden, no mention of the colleagues killed by Russian shelling, or of the tank commander who died the previous day. And nothing that could reveal operational details.\n\n\"Mainly we discuss when this will all end, when we can return to normal life, when everything is good and it won't be dangerous to walk outside,\" says Vlad.\n\nMark and Vlad on the front line\n\nA bank of phone chargers is connected to a generator in the building. The room where they sleep is warm and orderly. An elderly German Shepherd dog lives with them, she's traumatised by the chaos around her and moves from Mark to Vlad, soldier to soldier. A brief head rub and she goes to the next man seeking comfort from the noise and disorder outside.\n\nThe two men live everyday with Russians targeting their positions. Full-time soldiers, the Ukrainian army is their life.\n\nThe Ukrainian soldiers might have it rough, but the Russians seem to have been particularly unprepared for anything other than the shortest possible campaign in Ukraine. The corpses I have encountered in the snow have been poorly dressed for a winter campaign, and Ukrainian soldiers say they found the most meagre of rations with them.\n\nDo they think of the soldiers on the other side, I wonder? Vlad says he has a message for them, \"Run. Run away. Either you stay here in the ground or you go back home.\" He pauses but then adds, \"Don't kill kids, destroy homes and families.\" This time it is Mark who is to the point, \"Go back home while you are still alive.\"\n\nThe Russian war machine is a formidable adversary - but in the initial phase of the war, the Ukrainian military put into practice lessons learned from Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, where the Ukrainians were found seriously wanting. Ukrainian forces however, are still significantly outmatched in numbers, technology and airpower.\n\nSo how have they held off the Russians so successfully?\n\nA purported intercepted phone call, along with Western intelligence reports, may provide some of the answers. It is from a Russian commander in Mykolaiv, near Odesa in south-west Ukraine, to his superiors on 11 March. It was released by Ukrainian officials and has not been independently verified. It paints a picture of Russian misery and incompetence in the Russian campaign that both the US Pentagon and the UK's Ministry of Defence have, in part, detailed.\n\nTroops lack basics such as tents and body armour - and are digging trenches in freezing ground to sleep. Two weeks ago, at another front line position in the city, I asked a young Ukrainian commander if his men slept in trenches. \"Why would we sleep here when we can sleep in houses. The Russians sleep in trenches, but we sleep over there,\" he said, pointing to a well-heated house filled with men. He explained that the dead Russians had Kevlar body armour but many lacked the armoured plates that make the vest effective.\n\nMark and Vlad are well equipped. As we move through forward positions, there is ammunition and weaponry everywhere. Piles of rations and, in the kitchen, tea and coffee being made from a dark, cast-iron kettle. Inside their vehicles there are plenty of cigarettes - despite the familiarity with the chaos around them, many of the men chain-smoke.\n\nWhen news comes over the radio that a colleague has been injured, an ambulance arrives within minutes and the casualty is covered in a heat blanket. He is bleeding, but is quickly stabilised. A Russian shell has peppered him with shrapnel and he has lost most of his fingers on one hand.\n\nHours later, as we head back to the rear, news comes over the radio that the soldier is stable and will recover.\n\nA wounded Ukrainian soldier is put into an ambulance\n\nThe Ukrainians revel in their home-team advantage. They offer us biscuits and freshly delivered cakes from local factories. Their enemy has no such luck. There have been reports of Russian troops looting and foraging for supplies, villagers near Kharkiv complain that chickens and produce have been stolen.\n\nA video of a captured Russian army cookhouse gives an unappetising glimpse of the meals served to troops. Servings piled high with onions and potatoes - all held together with congealed fat. Russian army rations - Meals, Ready-To-Eat (MRE) - with an expiry date of 2015.\n\nWhen I met Mark and Vlad the first time, their commander gave me one of their sturdy green packs of Ukrainian daily rations - a leaving gift, he said.\n\nThere were 17 different things inside: wheat porridge with beef; rice and meat soup; beef stew; chicken with vegetables; pork and vegetables; crackers; biscuits; tea bags; coffee; blackcurrant drink; honey; sugar; black pepper; chewing gum; bar of dark chocolate; plastic spoons; moist wipes.\n\nUkrainian fortitude may be partly thanks to an unlikely suspect - Vladimir Putin.\n\nIn 2014, the Ukrainian army was in a terrible state. As it fought and failed to prevent the annexation of Crimea, its troops went hungry. Corruption was rife, training and equipment lacking and its chain of command unresponsive. Vlad and Mark's battalion was reconstituted the same year. The whole Ukrainian army underwent an overhaul - to make it ready for the next war with Russia.\n\nVlad and Mark, and almost every fighting man I have met on the front line over the past three weeks, have one thing in common - they have all fought in the eastern Donbas region. Some sport combat patches on their body armour with \"donbasonia\" written on them. Some of the patches though, we discovered later, were also symbols used by the ultra-right.\n\nIn the separatist Donbas enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukrainian forces have been combat-tested for the past eight years. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Ukrainian men may have done tours of duty there since 2014.\n\n\"Ukraine is not the same country it was in 2014,\" one front line commander told me - echoing a sentiment that was repeated again and again to me in Kharkiv.\n\nThis has created a more professional army, and one with common purpose. An army that knew Russia wouldn't stop in Donbas or Crimea - and that a day of reckoning was sure to follow for the rest of the country.\n\nIn short, Ukraine isn't the pushover it once was.\n\nAs many as 190,000 Russian troops have been deployed to Ukraine - with additional Chechen and Syria forces boosting their ranks. Ukraine's army stands at 100,000, but Kyiv claims it can rapidly mobilise significantly more.\n\nAnd a month in, here in Kharkiv and across many other fronts in Ukraine, morale is strong among Ukrainian forces. \"We are fighting for our land,\" Mark told me. What are Russia's mainly conscript fighters dying for? There are plenty of dead Russian fighters at various battlegrounds around the city. The Ukrainian dead, on the other hand, are quickly cleared away - but no official casualty numbers have been released.\n\nFew of the Russian corpses appear to be ethnic Russians, instead they are ethnic minorities. White bands on their uniforms distinguish them from regular Russian troops. \"These aren't real Russians,\" another Ukrainian fighter said as we passed bodies by the road. \"They don't know why they are here,\" he said.\n\nFor the Ukrainians, this is seen as a good thing. Ethnic-minority Russian troops have weaker allegiance to Moscow, they say. One senior Kharkiv figure told me, \"We don't fear Chechens, it's the Russians in Moscow restaurants who are afraid of them.\"\n\nKamil Galeev of the Wilson Centre, a US think tank, explores the condition of the Russian army. He suggests the troops are underpaid and undermotivated. Certainly, recruitment is a problem in Russia where dropping fertility rates mean there are fewer young Russians available to fight.\n\nIn Kharkiv, the winter snow and frost is beginning to melt. I join Mark beside his foxhole - a pit dug in the ground, on an embankment that is the front line. His boots squelch in the mud, the battlefield has become gooey, difficult terrain.\n\nThe thawing weather might not help Russia either - two weeks ago the temperature here was -13C, it is now eight degrees. As the mud deepens to grip boots, vehicles and kit, it becomes a trap for attackers and a boon for those defending the farmland around the city.\n\nFurther down the line, a soldier spots movement in nearby woods and opens fire. There is gunfire in response. \"We have to move, there isn't enough protection here,\" says Mark \"One hundred per cent, they will respond [with artillery].\"\n\nMark scours the horizon for the enemy\n\nSure enough, shells begin to fall only metres away and dirt is thrown up in the air. The shells land close enough to feel the shockwaves in your chest. Our team scrambles for cover under a nearby vehicle.\n\nBut Mark and Vlad seem untroubled. Everyone here told me the first three days were the worst. \"This is much easier now,\" says the men's commander, who never once breaks into a run during the constant shelling, and hardly takes his phone from his ear, or the cigarette from his lips.\n\nA quick glance over their shoulders to check where the explosion hits, and Mark and Vlad continue the conversation. \"It's OK, you get used to it. Humans adapt to everything quickly,\" Mark says as another explosion punctuates his sentence.\n\nWhat's going on right now, I ask, aware that cameraman Darren Conway is rolling. \"They are working on our position,\" says Mark. \"It's artillery,\" adds Vlad, with a nonchalant upward nod.\n\nAs the two men head back to shelter for a smoke and some tea, they pass the spent cases of US and UK-supplied anti-tank weapons. These, too, have been a decisive factor in this war. I have seen the aftermath of those missile strikes - at least a dozen rusting shells of Russian armoured vehicles, trucks and tanks.\n\nBut \"the Ukrainian version is just as good,\" says another soldier, patriotically. Now is the time for once-sceptical Western governments to throw their weight, with more supplies and intelligence, behind Ukrainian resistance, another commander tells me.\n\nThe Ukrainian national anthem contains the following lines:\n\nSoul and body shall we lay down\n\nThere is little chance of Russian troops vanishing from Ukrainian soil.\n\nAlready there are reports that north of Kyiv, they may be digging and forming defensive positions, since their advance was stymied. And Russia, with nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as a range of sophisticated conventional weapons, has the power to escalate its bombardments of Kharkiv and other cities. It has done so before in Grozny and in Syria, and there, Russia with all its firepower proved that artillery requires little morale or motivation to be effective.\n\nBut Ukrainian forces, a month into this war, are satisfied they have defied expectations. With each week that passes, their chance of remaining independent grows, they believe. Russia isn't going anywhere, but neither are Mark and Vlad, nor the dozens of other Ukrainian soldiers I've met who say they are in this fight until the very end. Whenever that may be.\n\nThis piece was amended after publication to reflect updated information about the soldiers' insignia.", "The funding, which will help cover urgent costs, followed a request by the BBC\n\nThe BBC World Service will receive more than £4m in extra funding from the UK government to help counter disinformation about the Ukraine war.\n\nThe BBC made the request for the money, which will also be used by the Ukrainian and Russian language services to cover urgent and unexpected costs.\n\nIt welcomed the announcement and said the money would help relocate staff and operations to safe locations.\n\nThe two language services have had record audiences since the invasion.\n\nThe announcement on Wednesday followed a BBC request to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign Office.\n\n\"The BBC has seen a big demand for clear, fact-based, impartial journalism to counter disinformation and our teams are working around the clock to bring people the very best independent journalism,\" BBC director general Tim Davie said.\n\n\"This funding will also help us with the immediate need to support staff who have been displaced, many of whom are continuing to work and provide vital expertise to the whole of the BBC,\" he added.\n\nIn a statement, the government said it would give the World Service emergency funding \"to help it continue bringing independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state\".\n\nCulture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the funding would help the World Service broadcast directly into both countries.\n\nMs Dorries said: \"The BBC will ensure that audiences in the region can continue to access independent news reporting in the face of systemic propaganda from a dictator waging war on European soil.\"\n\nBefore 2014, the World Service was funded with a grant from the Foreign Office.\n\nBut since then, it has been primarily funded by the licence fee, although in 2016 the government agreed to provide funding for it to expand.\n\nBetween 2016 and 2021, the government has contributed £378m, including £8m announced for 2021/22 to fight disinformation around the world.\n\nRussia restricted access to the BBC on 4 March. But the BBC has since announced several steps to ensure Russian audiences have \"access to its independent journalism\".\n\nThe steps include providing circumvention advice, launching new TikTok accounts in English and Russian, and increasing access to the BBC World News channel.\n\nMoscow's parliament recently passed a law making it a criminal offence to spread \"fake\" or \"false\" news about Russia's war in Ukraine. The offence is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.\n\nThis prompted the BBC to temporarily suspend the work of all its news journalists and support staff in Russia. The BBC's news coverage in Russia has now resumed.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nEuropean champions Italy will not play in the 2022 World Cup after being stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off in Palermo.\n\nAleksandar Trajkovski picked up the loose ball in the 92nd minute, drove forward and fired a sensational winner from outside the area.\n\nThe goal sparked wild celebrations on the North Macedonia bench, while Italy's players and coaching staff dropped to their knees in front of their home fans.\n\nIt means Italy have failed to qualify for a second consecutive World Cup, ensuring the Azzurri will endure at least 12 years between appearances at football's showpiece event.\n\nIt is just eight months since Roberto Mancini's side celebrated one of their greatest triumphs - beating England at Wembley to win Euro 2020 having been considered outsiders going into the tournament.\n\nBut they have now paid the price for a disjointed - if previously unbeaten - World Cup qualification campaign during which they finished runners-up to Switzerland in their group, winning four and drawing four of their eight matches.\n\nAs expected Italy dominated possession on Thursday but failed to penetrate the resolute North Macedonia defence, registering five shots on target from 32 attempts.\n\nThe visitors, ranked 67th in the world, are rewarded for their defensive display with a play-off final against Portugal, who beat Turkey 3-1.\n\nNorth Macedonia are 90 minutes away from reaching consecutive tournaments, having never reached a Euros or World Cup before qualifying for Euro 2020.\n\nFour-time World Cup winners Italy, who are ranked sixth in the world, will watch events in Qatar in November and December from afar.\n\nAs the players emerged from the tunnel and the national anthems played, this was billed as a routine victory for Italy.\n\nThe mouth-watering prospect of veteran superstars Giorgio Chiellini and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo meeting in the play-off final loomed large.\n\nBut it was anything but routine.\n\nMancini's side started brightly and Marco Verratti kept them ticking, but they struggled to translate their possession into clear-cut chances.\n\nNorth Macedonia came to Italy with a defensive gameplan and they threw everything in the way of the ball, as Visar Musliu caught the full force of a Domenico Berardi volley in the groin.\n\nBerardi was a rare bright spark for Italy but when he was gifted possession by North Macedonia keeper Stole Dimitrievski, who had left his goal momentarily unguarded, the Sassuolo forward could not get the ball out of his feet in time to roll it into the net.\n\nThat theme continued into the second half as Berardi's movement again proved to be a threat without the final product.\n\nAs he rolled his marker just outside of the area with ease, he could only fire his effort over the bar with just the keeper to beat.\n\nNorth Macedonia had just 34% possession and four shots over 90 minutes, but they took their opportunity against the run of play clinically.\n\nAs the ball bounced up inside the Italian half, Trajkovski, who used to play for Palermo, chested the ball away from two blue shirts and set off towards Gianluigi Donnarumma's goal.\n\nThe Paris St-Germain keeper had virtually nothing to do for 90 minutes, but he was too slow to react to Trajkovski's fizzing effort as it nestled into the bottom corner.\n\nThe journey is not yet complete for North Macedonia, who face Italy's predecessors as European champions in the final, but this is unquestionably the upset of the play-offs.\n• None Attempt missed. João Pedro (Italy) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Alessandro Florenzi.\n• None Attempt missed. Alessandro Florenzi (Italy) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left.\n• None Offside, North Macedonia. Stefan Spirovski tries a through ball, but Aleksandar Trajkovski is caught offside.\n• None Goal! Italy 0, North Macedonia 1. Aleksandar Trajkovski (North Macedonia) right footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Bojan Miovski.\n• None Domenico Berardi (Italy) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Lateral flow tests will only be free for those showing symptoms\n\nMost people will no longer be able to access a free PCR test from 22 April, the health minister has said.\n\nLateral flow tests (LFTs) will continue to be free, but only for people displaying Covid-19 symptoms and this policy continues to be reviewed.\n\nRoutine contact tracing is also set to be phased out between the middle of April and the end of June.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said the changes reflected the \"new realities of the pandemic\".\n\n\"The risk posed by the virus at the present time does not justify testing and isolating large swathes of the population at the levels that we have seen to date in the past two years,\" he added.\n\n\"Test and trace will continue to have a key role and will be used in a more focused and targeted way to support and protect our most vulnerable. \"\n\nPCR testing will only be available to people who have \"clinical reasons\" for needing it.\n\nThe changes come into effect from 22 April\n\nDeputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Lourda Geoghegan said it showed Northern Ireland was \"moving into a different phase of the pandemic\".\n\nShe also added that whether people would have to pay for LFTs in future was not something that had been decided upon.\n\nDr Geoghegan says the changes are in line with what health risk assessments have outlined\n\n\"It could be a potential scenario but we haven't worked through that as yet,\" she said.\n\n\"We will be seeking funding for the testing programme that we're continuing, but these changes are being advised on the basis of the public health risk assessment at this point in time.\n\n\"We now have a very highly-vaccinated population, we have new and novel treatments that people are accessing every day and we also have a lot of people who have developed natural immunity, so it's right now that we move to a much more targeted approach to our testing and our tracing.\"\n\nDr Tom Black, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio Foyle the changes were possible while Omicron remains the dominant variant of coronavirus.\n\nThe emergence of any new variants may require a rethink, he added.", "It was one of the most decisive battles of the war so far - a ferocious two-day struggle for control of the farming town of Voznesensk and its strategically important bridge.\n\nVictory would have enabled Russian forces to sweep further west along the Black Sea coast towards the huge port of Odesa and a major nuclear power plant.\n\nInstead, Ukrainian troops, supported by an eclectic army of local volunteers, delivered a crushing blow to Russian plans, first by blowing up the bridge and then by driving the invading army back, up to 100km, to the east.\n\n\"It's hard to explain how we did it. It's thanks to the fighting spirit of our local people and to the Ukrainian army,\" said Voznesensk's 32-year-old mayor, Yevheni Velichko, standing in body armour with his guards outside the town hall.\n\nBut almost three weeks after that battle, the mayor warned that another attack by Russian forces was probably imminent and that the town's defenders lacked the weapons to hold them off a second time.\n\n\"This is such a strategic location. We're not only defending the town, but all the territory behind it. And we don't have the heavy weapons our enemy has,\" he said.\n\nVoznesensk's strategically important bridge was blown up to stop the Russians using it\n\nAs on so many frontlines in Ukraine, British-supplied anti-tank missiles proved crucial in turning the tide against Russian armour in Voznesensk, leaving the town littered with up to 30 tanks, armoured cars and even a helicopter.\n\n\"It's only thanks to these weapons that we were able to beat our enemy here. And we say thank you to our partners for their support. But we need more. The enemy's convoys will keep coming,\" said Mr Velichko.\n\nVoznesensk's strategic significance became clear soon after Russian forces failed to capture an even larger bridge, further to the south, across Ukraine's second-largest river, the Southern Buh.\n\nToday, Voznesensk is not quite a ghost town, haunted by regular air raid sirens. But thousands have left in recent weeks, by train or on pot-holed country roads that wind through vast, rolling fields of wheat.\n\nMany of those who have chosen to stay behind still seem eager to talk about their remarkable victory.\n\nVoznesensk's mayor, Yevheni Velichko, praised the defenders of his town\n\n\"It was a colossal effort by the whole town,\" said Alexander, a local shopkeeper who filmed himself on the frontlines with an AK47, screaming \"Come on my little beauties!\" as another volunteer fired a rocket-propelled grenade towards Russian positions.\n\n\"We used hunting rifles, people threw bricks and jars. Old women loaded heavy sandbags.\n\n\"The Russians didn't know where to look or where the next attack would come from. I've never seen the community come together like that,\" he said, standing by the twisted wreckage of the bridge, which Ukrainian forces destroyed within hours of the first Russian attack.\n\nThe matted swirl of Russian tank tracks still mark Svetlana Nikolaevna's garden, in the village of Rakove, on the southern edge of Voznesensk, where some of the heaviest fighting took place.\n\nBloody bandages and Russian ration packs litter the hedge rows. The 59-year-old pointed to her husband's tool shed, explaining that two captured Ukrainian soldiers had been held there by the Russians and were only saved from execution by a surge in fighting.\n\n\"Look at the blood stains on my door,\" she said, inviting visitors inside her ramshackle cottage. While she and her family took shelter in a nearby cellar, the Russians converted her entire home into a makeshift field hospital.\n\n\"I came back to get some clothes on the second day. There were wounded people lying everywhere. Ten of them, I think. I've cleared up most of the blood,\" she said.\n\n\"They left in a hurry, one night. They left everything behind - boots, socks, body armour, helmets - and just loaded up their dead and their wounded and ran away.\"\n\nIt fell to the local funeral director, Mykhailo Sokurenko, to hunt in the fields for more Russian bodies and then load them into a train wagon.\n\n\"I don't consider them human beings [after what they did here]. But it would wrong just leave them out in the field, still frightening people even after their deaths,\" he said.\n\n\"These Russians are sick in the head, so we'll have to stay on guard. But victory will come, and we'll push the Russians out of all our lands.\"", "The memorial to William Collins appeared at Shiregreen Cemetery in Sheffield about a week ago\n\nRelatives who erected a huge marble memorial to a late father-of-nine will be asked to make changes to the monument.\n\nThe pearlescent tribute to William Collins, replete with solar-powered jukebox, has been installed at Sheffield's Shiregreen Cemetery.\n\nIt boasts two-life sized statues of Mr Collins, who died in Spain in 2020.\n\nSheffield City Council said it gave consent for a memorial but the final product differed from plans approved.\n\nIt said it planned to discuss the issue with the Collins family directly.\n\nMr Collins, 49, was born in Athlone in County Westmeath, Ireland, and died on the island of Majorca on 7 July 2020, according to the memorial.\n\nMultiple videos of the headstone gained millions of views on TikTok, with the jukebox said to play some of Mr Collins' favourite songs\n\nCouncillor Alison Teal, executive member for sustainable neighbourhoods, wellbeing, parks and leisure, had first said the memorial was built without permission and the council was considering what action to take.\n\nIn a fresh statement, she confirmed the council had approved plans for a memorial.\n\n\"However the plans which were submitted and approved differ from the memorial now in place,\" she said.\n\n\"This was not fully appreciated until after the structure was fully unveiled.\"\n\nShe said the council had approached the family to discuss changes \"which need to be made in order to satisfy the cemetery rules and take into consideration other cemetery users\".\n\nThe councillor declined to comment further as the authority wished to the speak to the Collins family directly about this \"sensitive matter\".\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Bella-Rae Birch's family said she would be \"sadly missed but never forgotten\"\n\nA toddler who was mauled to death in her own home was killed by an American Bully XL dog, police have confirmed.\n\nBella-Rae Birch, who was 17 months old, died in hospital after the attack in St Helens at about 15:50 GMT on Monday.\n\nMerseyside Police said the toddler was attacked only a week after her family had bought the dog.\n\nTests have confirmed the dog was a legal breed and not subject to any prohibitions under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, the force added.\n\nCurrently there are four dog breeds banned in the UK - Pitbull Terrier, Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro.\n\nDetectives said inquiries were ongoing into the dog attack\n\nThe attack happened at the family's home in Bidston Avenue in the Blackbrook area of St Helens.\n\nOne neighbour said the child's parents were \"hysterical\".\n\n\"We pulled up from school and heard screaming. I just ran over to try to help and started CPR until the paramedics took over,\" she said.\n\n\"I didn't see the dog, I was just focusing on helping the baby.\"\n\nDetectives said the force was continuing their inquiries into the toddler's death and urged anyone with information to come forward.\n\nIn a statement following her death, Bella-Rae's family said they would \"like to thank the community for their support\".\n\n\"We would ask that we are now allowed some space and time to try and come to terms with the tragic loss of our much-loved Bella-Rae,\" they added.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section Football\n\nGareth Bale scored two brilliant goals in a vintage individual performance to take Wales a step closer to qualifying for their first World Cup since 1958 with victory over Austria in their play-off semi-final.\n\nAustria's Christoph Baumgartner hit the crossbar in the fifth minute before Bale's majestic free-kick sparked ecstatic celebrations for an already thunderous home crowd in Cardiff.\n\nWales' captain struck again early in the second half, shooting beautifully on the turn from a short corner.\n\nMarcel Sabitzer's deflected shot brought Austria back into the game and, although the visitors exerted sustained pressure, Wales stood up to the challenge with a stoic defensive display.\n\nWales will now face Scotland or Ukraine in their play-off final, a one-off tie which was meant to be played next Tuesday, but which has been postponed because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nScotland and Ukraine's fixture is expected to be played in June, with the play-off final set to follow later the same month.\n\nThe details of that one-legged final are yet to be confirmed but, for now, Wales can savour this win in the knowledge that they are one victory away from ending their 64-year absence from World Cups.\n• None 'It's disgusting and they should be ashamed' - Bale silences critics to send Wales to brink of World Cup\n• None Wales to face Czech Republic in friendly on Tuesday\n\nCardiff City Stadium heaved with emotion in a highly charged build-up to the game, with Welsh folk singer Dafydd Iwan leading a rendition of his song Yma o Hyd before the crowd took over to bellow the national anthem with even greater passion than usual.\n\nThe fervent atmosphere helped Wales start the game at a blistering pace, pressing Austria high up the pitch and unsettling the visitors. With only 80 seconds gone, Connor Roberts dispossessed Austria captain David Alaba and combined with Aaron Ramsey to set up Daniel James for a shot which Heinz Lindner held.\n\nIt was frenetic at both ends and Austria squandered a golden opportunity when Sabitzer played a fine through ball for Christoph Baumgartner, who had time and Wales keeper Wayne Hennessey to beat, but hit his shot against the crossbar - thanks to a vital deflection from the covering Neco Williams.\n\nThat was a warning for Wales, but they continued to pour forward, their attacking line-up - which included Bale, Aaron Ramsey, Daniel James and Harry Wilson all from the start - playing with an admirable sense of adventure.\n\nThen midway through the first half, Bale produced his moment of genius.\n• None Wales 2-1 Austria: As it happened and reaction\n\nThe 32-year-old has only played two hours of football for Real Madrid in the past six months and the build-up to this game was dominated by conjecture about his fitness, while the captain himself has mentioned that this might be his final World Cup campaign.\n\nBut his first goal was the Bale of old. A direct free-kick - the first he had scored for Wales since Euro 2016 - 25 yards out and hit with vintage precision, dipping just enough to clip the bar on its way in to send the Red Wall into raptures.\n\nThere were chances to extend Wales' lead before half-time - such as Ramsey's shot well saved by Lindner - and it was Bale again who provided the inspiration after the break.\n\nFrom a short corner, Williams swung in a low cross which Davies touched into Bale's path and Wales' all-time leading scorer took his tally to 38 with a fierce drive into the top far corner.\n\nAs Wales fans sang Don't Take Me Home, the soundtrack of their run to the Euro 2016 semi-finals, while they watched a Bale masterclass, it felt like that golden summer in France revisited.\n\nThis has been the most successful period in Wales' history, with the national team qualifying for back-to-back European Championships and soaring to the semi-finals of Euro 2016.\n\nYet despite the record-high world rankings and heroic contributions from Bale, Ramsey and others, World Cups have remained elusive.\n\nThe 1958 tournament in Sweden is still Wales' only appearance at a World Cup and, since then, they have frequently and painfully fallen at the final hurdle.\n\nWhen Sabitzer's shot deflected off Ben Davies and bobbled into the Welsh net, a sense of anxiety swept around Cardiff City Stadium as supporters began to wonder if this was to be the latest setback in a history littered with similar tales of anguish, from Scotland in 1977 to Romania in 1993.\n\nAustria seized on that unease to take control of the second half, albeit without creating many clear-cut scoring opportunities against a resolute Welsh defence.\n\nThere were still openings for Wales, with James wasting two particularly good chances, just to heighten the sense of nervousness among the home fans.\n\nBut this team is not weighed down by the nation's failures of the past.\n\nMost of these players are too young to remember the bad old days and have instead been brought up in an era of regular qualification and winning at home, where they have now not lost in 17 games.\n\nRobert Page's men still have one more game to navigate, but this victory will strengthen their belief that they will be the team to end their nation's long wait to play at a World Cup.\n• None Attempt saved. Brennan Johnson (Wales) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner. Assisted by Harry Wilson.\n• None Offside, Wales. Aaron Ramsey tries a through ball, but Brennan Johnson is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Gareth Bale (Wales) left footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Connor Roberts.\n• None Attempt saved. Marko Arnautovic (Austria) header from a difficult angle on the right is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Nicolas Seiwald.\n• None Attempt blocked. Andreas Weimann (Austria) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\n• None Stefan Lainer (Austria) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Attempt blocked. Neco Williams (Wales) right footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Harry Wilson.\n• None Connor Roberts (Wales) wins a free kick on the right wing. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Who were the real Peaky Blinders?: Explore the origins of this mass gang movement\n• None The rise of the American far right:", "British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce on Thursday that the UK will provide Ukraine with about 6,000 extra missiles.\n\nAt the Nato and G7 leaders' meetings in Brussels, Johnson will also unveil £25m ($33m) of funding to help pay Ukrainian soldiers and pilots.\n\nThe UK government will also provide £4.1m for the BBC World Service to help support its Ukrainian and Russian language services in the region.\n\n\"The United Kingdom will work with our allies to step up military and economic support to Ukraine, strengthening their defences as they turn the tide in this fight,\" Johnson said.\n\n\"One month into this crisis, the international community faces a choice. We can keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine, or risk it being snuffed out across Europe and the world.\"\n\nBritain said the new package will come on top of around 4,000 missiles already provided by the UK to Ukrainian forces.\n\nThe latest funding is in addition to £400m already committed in humanitarian and economic aid, said UK officials.\n\nBoris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\" Image caption: Boris Johnson vowed \"to keep the flame of freedom alive in Ukraine\"", "Joe Biden is taking his third trip to Europe as US president at a moment of international crisis. His last journey, in the autumn for the G20 meeting in Rome and the climate conference in Glasgow, was planned months in advance.\n\nThis one is of the emergency variety.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine is entering its fourth week with no end in sight, and the path ahead for the US-Europe alliance is far from clear.\n\nHere's a look at five of the most pressing concerns as Mr Biden meets European leaders and allies in the days ahead.\n\nEver since Russia invaded Ukraine, the US has made special efforts to move only in concert with its allies. That sometimes meant holding off on actions - such as different forms of sanctions or military aid - until the rest of Nato was ready to take steps concurrently.\n\nThis was never easy given the disparate interests of the 30-nation alliance, but the early, dramatic days of Russia offensive created a sense of urgency that removed some traditional obstacles to consensus. As the war drags on - and the economic fallout from the violence and resulting allied response grows more pronounced - the potential for public discord within the alliance will increase.\n\nThe primary goal of Mr Biden's trip, then, is to be seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with America's allies (literally and figuratively) and to demonstrate that strengthened Nato resolve is not a temporary condition but the new normal in response to Russia's expansionist policies.\n\nAfter meeting other leaders in Belgium, Mr Biden will travel to Poland for a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda. Given the nation's position on Nato's eastern flank, the former Soviet satellite state has been given special attention by the US in the past few months, with visits from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice-President Kamala Harris.\n\nAlthough topics of military aid to Ukraine and an increased Nato presence on Polish soil are sure to come up, US officials say the top issue for the meeting will be dealing with the flood of refugees that has been arriving at the Ukraine-Poland border since hostilities began.\n\nCaring for and processing millions of refugees has put a considerable financial and logistical burdens on Poland and, if not handled competently, could ultimately lead to social unrest and economic instability.\n\nGiven Poland's geopolitical importance in the confrontation with Russia, ensuring the nation remains a reliable Nato member is a pressing US concern.\n\nIn the past few months the US and its allies have open the spigots of lethal military aid to the uniformed and volunteer Ukrainian forces holding off the Russian assault.\n\nAs Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made clear recent in speeches to legislative bodies in Europe and North America, however, the aid so far has not been enough. He says Ukraine needs more sophisticated anti-air systems as well as jet fighters capable of \"closing the skies\" over Ukraine to Russian warplanes.\n\nWhile the US has promised to provide more advanced long-range air defense capabilities, that's easier said than done. As seen with the friction between the US and Poland over the proposed but now shelved effort to supply Ukraine with Polish-owned Soviet-era jets, there are concerns over the kinds of anti-air support that would generate a Russian response against Nato, the logistics of getting weapons into Ukrainian hands and how to replace the weapons that are transferred.\n\nThe US is currently engaged in discussions with Nato members Slovakia and Turkey to move their anti-air systems over to Ukraine, but it will take a more deft touch than was displayed with Poland to accomplish it. If Mr Biden can pull this off while he's in Europe, it would be a notable success.\n\nThe US and its allies promised that they would impose unprecedented, debilitating economic sanctions on Russia if it were to invade Ukraine. After some early fits and starts, that's exactly what the allies have done. The Russian economy, its stock market and its currency have been staggered by the allied punishments, which include trade restrictions, financial isolation, limits on energy exports and targeted sanctions on Russian political and business leaders.\n\nSevere as the restrictions may be, however, they have not deterred Russia from continuing its all-out assault. While western allies insist that the pain of the current sanctions will increase as time goes by, there is growing pressure on US and European leaders to find new ways of punishing Russian aggression that they can announce during Mr Biden's meetings this week.\n\nSome proposals include new sanctions on oligarchs and politicians, greater restrictions on Russian energy exports and the kinds of technology that is imported to Russia.\n\nNone of these seem likely to produce a dramatic new impact on the Russian economy, but sometimes the perception of continued action is as important as the actions themselves.\n\nChinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had a warm meeting in Beijing during February's Winter Olympics, where they described a friendship between their nations that had \"no limits\". If that translates into ongoing Chinese economic and military support for Russia in the months ahead, it could undermine everything the US and its European allies are trying to do in Ukraine.\n\nLast week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met his Chinese counterpart in Rome, followed by a nearly two-hour phone call between Mr Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The US can't act alone here, however. Both America and Europe will need to make concerted, co-ordinated efforts to convince China to keep its distance from Russia and, if possible, be more vocal in its denunciations of Russia's infringement on Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. China's recent backing of Russian participation in the upcoming G20 economic summit suggests the task will not be easy.\n\nLike the US, Europe is a key market for Chinese goods - and the threat of US and European sanctions on China if it were to openly aid Russia is already weighing on the Chinese economy. Mr Biden has frequently spoken of how the world is in an era-defining conflict between democracies and autocracies - but pushing China and Russia into the same adversarial camp at the moment is a risky move.", "The Met Police's treatment of the pupil has provoked anger\n\nTwo Met Police officers who conducted a strip-search of a black schoolgirl have been removed from public-facing roles.\n\nA safeguarding report found the search of the 15-year-old, known as Child Q, in 2020 was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nThe girl is suing the Met and her school in Hackney, east London.\n\nHackney Police commander Ch Supt Marcus Barnett, who resisted calls to resign, said the pair had been moved to desk duties, which took place last week.\n\nIt came in response to repeated questions from the public at an online community meeting about why the officers had not been sacked.\n\nCh Supt Barnett said: \"The officers that have conducted the search have been removed from frontline duties and they are working in another part of this BCU [Basic Command Unit], they are not on the frontline duties.\"\n\nThe officers were removed from frontline duties on 17 March, a Met spokesperson confirmed, three days after the publication of the damning report from the City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership, and more than 15 months after the 3 December 2020 search.\n\nProtests have been held in east London during the last week\n\nMr Barnett confirmed they had been moved away from operational duties while the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation continued.\n\nA member of the public also questioned why the team hosting Wednesday's meeting was made up of three white male police officers.\n\nDet Supt Dan Rutland acknowledged that while the panel did not reflect the local community, they were the senior leadership team of Hackney Police.\n\nDuring the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met Police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nNo other adult was present, her parents were not contacted and no drugs were found.\n\nShe was subjected to what police call an MTIP search, or 'More Thorough search where Intimate Parts are exposed', and the review said she was made to take off her sanitary towel.\n\nThe Met has admitted the officers' actions were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nThe Department for Education said it was an \"unacceptable incident which should not have happened\".\n\n\"We are in touch with the local authority,\" a spokesperson said.\n\nSpeaking at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Boris Johnson said reports of the strip-search were \"deeply distressing and deeply concerning\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: \"When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will\"\n\nOn Wednesday, Hackney's mayor Philip Glanville said it was clear the \"school leadership has lost the confidence of the school, myself and the community\".\n\nHe said removing the head teacher could be \"part of a process\" to bring about change.\n\nOn Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government was taking this matter \"extremely seriously\".\n\nHe added the government would wait for the outcome of the IOPC investigation before announcing any changes to police training around strip searches.\n\nThe IOPC said a report on the incident was being \"finalised\".\n\nThe incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, including near the site of Child Q's school.\n\nThe school has not responded to repeated requests for comment.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nA terror suspect had a look of \"self-satisfaction\" moments after stabbing an MP to death, a parliamentary aide said.\n\nSir David Amess, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed 21 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, on trial at the Old Bailey, denies murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nJulie Cushion, a long-term member of Sir David's team, told the jury she heard a \"piercing scream\".\n\nThe court heard Ms Cushion had been the first to call 999 from the scene at 12:07 BST.\n\nSir David was attacked in a back room of Belfairs Methodist Church during an appointment made by the defendant, the prosecution said.\n\nGiving evidence from behind a screen, Ms Cushion said: \"A piercing scream was the first thing I heard. Then a very loud crash which I assumed was furniture going over.\n\n\"I got up and walked through, I assumed something structurally had happened.\"\n\nShe said that another aide, Rebecca Hayton, ran from the room \"screaming that Sir David had been stabbed\".\n\n\"At that moment I picked up my phone to call for help,\" Ms Cushion added.\n\nAsked how Mr Ali looked, she told the jury: \"Self-satisfaction, I would describe it.\"\n\nThe jury also watched a police interview with Ms Hayton four hours after the attack where she described seeing Mr Ali stand up and stab Sir David.\n\nShe said: \"He [Mr Ali] leans over and stabs him straight in the stomach.\"\n\n\"I saw it [the knife] go in once and as I got up he [Mr Ali] kept going,\" she added.\n\nMs Hayton said Mr Ali had been \"smiling\" during the five-minute meeting with Sir David, adding: \"He seemed relaxed and nice.\"\n\nHowever, she went on to tell police he kept playing with his phone and wanted to talk about foreign policy despite father-of-five Sir David's attempts to steer him towards local issues.\n\nShe said she then saw Ali stand up, say \"sorry\", pull a knife from his clothing, and stab Sir David.\n\nFollowing the attack, she ran outside the church to raise the alarm and returned with Yvonne Eaves and Darren King.\n\nSir David was lying prone on the floor and Mr Ali was standing in the doorway clutching a knife, she told police.\n\nSir David was pronounced dead at the scene in Leigh-on-Sea in his Southend West constituency in Essex\n\nMs Eaves said in police interview that when she arrived at the scene two women were outside looking \"really frantic\".\n\nShe said at one point Mr Ali was pacing and \"seemed like he knew what he'd done. He wasn't remorseful\".\n\nIn another interview played to the jury, Mr King told police he tried to calm down Mr Ali, who was still holding a knife, while he waited for police to arrive.\n\nHe said: \"I could see David in the corner, he was crumpled up on the floor.\n\n\"I could see some blood, a gentleman standing there with a knife in his right hand threatening to stab me, and I could see some blood on the knife.\"\n\nHe said he then heard a woman on the phone to Mr Ali, who he believed to be the suspect's sister, discussing Iraq and Syria.\n\nMr King said he kept watching Sir David to check if he was moving while also keeping an eye on the armed man.\n\nHe added: \"You wanna work out whether you can beat him or not, I weighed up his build, my build; he had a knife, I hadn't.\"\n\nMr Ali repeatedly said \"I want to be shot\", said Mr King.\n\nThe witness said: \"I said 'They [police] do that in America, not so much over here'.\"\n\nMr King also said Mr Ali tried to justify his actions, which jurors previously heard was to do with the government's Syrian bombing campaign.\n\nMr King told police he eventually persuaded Mr Ali to step to one side so he could treat Sir David, but retreated the moment he heard police sirens.\n\nThe trial previously heard how Mr Ali had spent years plotting an attack, researching a range of potential victims including high-profile politicians Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Sir Keir Starmer, before choosing the 69-year-old backbencher.\n\nMs Cushion said Sir David had moved the meeting from his constituency office, where there was security, into the community after coronavirus restrictions were lifted because he \"wanted to be accessible to his constituents\".\n\nAli Harbi Ali was seen on CCTV walking between Leigh-on-Sea railway station and Belfair's Methodist Church on the day Sir David Amess was killed\n\nMr Ali had claimed to be a healthcare worker moving to the area who \"wanted to get to know his new MP\", aides were told.\n\nOn Tuesday, jurors were played a 999 call from the aftermath of the attack where a witness said Mr Ali was threatening to kill four other people.\n\nThey were also shown CCTV footage of Mr Ali making the journey from his home in Kentish Town, north London, by train and on foot along busy high streets and residential areas.\n\nThe court heard Mr Ali had a \"warped\" ideology and sought to exact \"revenge\" over Britain's recent foreign policy, notably bombings in Syria in the mid-2010s, allegedly telling bystanders at the scene: \"I want him dead. I want every Parliament minister [sic] who signed up for the bombing of Syria who agreed to the Iraqi war to die.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Swiss food giant Nestle is pulling its popular brands out of Russia but will still sell essential foods.\n\nThe firm stopped investment in the country earlier this month but has now suspended sales of brands such as KitKat and Nesquik.\n\nIt follows fierce criticism of the firm by Ukrainian politicians.\n\nA growing number of Western brands have suspended operations in Russia in protest at the war but a few are staying put.\n\n\"As the war rages in Ukraine, our activities in Russia will focus on providing essential food - not on making a profit,\" Nestle said.\n\n\"We are fully complying with all international sanctions on Russia,\" it added.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticised Nestle for still conducting business in Russia in a streamed speech to protesters on Saturday.\n\nAnd earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal tweeted that Nestle boss Mark Schneider \"shows no understanding\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Denys Shmyhal This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nHe wrote: \"Paying taxes to the budget of a terrorist country means killing defenceless children and mothers. Hope that Nestle will change its mind soon.\"\n\nThat led to #BoycottNestle trending on Twitter.\n\nThe company has been gradually reducing its activity in Russia since the the start of the Ukraine war, but has been under pressure to pull out altogether.\n\nIt scrapped advertising and capital investments and earlier this month stopped shipments of non-essential products like Nespresso coffee capsules and San Pellegrino water.\n\nBut it continued to sell many of its brands saying: \"We have a responsibility toward our more than 7,000 employees in Russia - most of whom are locals\".\n\nThe latest move will leave it selling just infant food and medical and hospital nutrition.\n\n\"While we do not expect to make a profit in the country or pay any related taxes for the foreseeable future in Russia, any profit will be donated to humanitarian relief organisations,\" it said.\n\n\"We stand with the people of Ukraine and our 5,800 employees there.\"\n\nSo far international brands such as McDonald's, cosmetics firm L'Oreal, fashion retailer H&M and tech giant Apple have suspended or limited their activities in Russia.\n\nA minority of others continue to produce non-essential goods in the country, while companies such as M&S and Burger King say complex franchise agreements make it impossible to close their shops in Russia.", "The top US court has ruled in favour of a Texas inmate who had argued it is his right to have his pastor touch him and offer a prayer during his execution.\n\nJohn Henry Ramirez said the state's policy of not allowing spiritual advisers to touch inmates during executions violates their constitutional rights.\n\nIn an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court said his request could be carried out.\n\nRamirez was sentenced to death for killing a man during a robbery in 2004.\n\nAfter Ramirez sued Texas last August, lower courts rejected his requests for his pastor to physically touch him and audibly pray as he died, and declined to block his execution.\n\nJust before he was due to be executed in September 2021, a federal judge rejected his request for a stay for religious reasons.\n\nAt the time, the judge said that Texas had \"compelling interest\" in maintaining an \"orderly, safe and effective\" execution process, such as by preventing anything interfering with intravenous lines used for lethal injections.\n\nThe Supreme Court issued a stay that same month, putting the execution on hold.\n\nIn a majority opinion for the Supreme Court released on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the federal judge's argument, noting that a chaplain could feasibly touch a part of the inmate's body away from the IV lines, like the lower leg.\n\nAdditionally, Justice Roberts said that Texas \"appears to have long allowed prison chaplains to pray with inmates in the execution chamber\" and has only prohibited the practice recently. Texas banned all religious chaplains from execution chambers in 2019 after the Supreme Court granted a prisoners' request for a Buddhist monk.\n\nOnly one Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, dissented in Thursday's ruling. He wrote that he believes Ramirez \"has manufactured more than a decade of delay to evade the capital sentence\".\n\nFollowing Thursday's ruling, the case will head back to the lower courts - which had earlier ruled in favour of Texas - for more litigating.\n\nIn his opinion, Justice Roberts said that more court proceedings \"might shed additional light on Texas's interests\", adding that Ramirez is \"likely to succeed in proving that his religious requests are sincerely based on a religious belief\".\n\nIn a statement, Ramirez's attorney Seth Kretzer said the Supreme Court decision \"clarified that the rule of law is as ubiquitous as God\" and that he looks forward to \"prevailing in the forthcoming litigation about the issue\".\n\nRamirez, 37, was convicted of stabbing a man 29 times in a robbery 18 years ago that prosecutors said netted the sum of $1.25 (£0.95). After the murder, he fled to Mexico and remained a fugitive there for years before being arrested near the US border.\n\nTo date, three people have been executed in the US in 2022. Last year, 11 people were executed compared to 17 in 2020.", "Marzia had been happy and hopeful when she heard schools were reopening\n\nEarly this morning, at her home on a hilltop in the west of Kabul, 15-year-old Marzia packed her bag for school, for the first time since the Taliban took power last August.\n\n\"I became so, so happy when I heard school was restarting,\" she told the BBC. \"It makes me hopeful about the future again.\"\n\nAround 200 other girls had also made their way to the Sayed ul Shuhada school, far fewer than usual, as pupils and their families debated whether or not lessons would actually start and whether it would be safe for them to attend.\n\nSince August, in most of Afghanistan, only girls' primary schools have remained open, along with all boys' schools.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"A devastating day\" for Afghan girls: Watch Malala Yousafzai react to the Taliban schools U-turn\n\nToday as a new academic year began, girls' secondary schools were finally expected to re-open along with other institutes.\n\nIt felt a particularly poignant moment for students here. Last year more than 90 of their classmates and school staff were killed in an attack by the local affiliate of the Islamic State group.\n\n\"The first suicide bombing happened very close to me,\" says Sakina, as her eyes fill up with tears. \"There were lots of dead people in front of me… I didn't think I would survive.\"\n\nSakina wants to rebuild her life after last year's bombing and the Taliban takeover\n\nShe pauses, overwhelmed with emotion, before continuing, \"Our revenge on the people who did this, will be continuing our education. We want to succeed in our lives, so we can fulfil the dreams of our martyrs.\"\n\nAs they entered the classrooms, the students wiped the dust off the desks but already some of the teachers were murmuring that, unexpectedly, the school would have to shut down again.\n\nThe local Taliban education official, who had given us permission to film at the school earlier this week, forwarded the headteacher a WhatsApp message, saying girls' secondary schools would in fact remain closed until further notice.\n\nThe students reacted with shock and horror. Some began to cry. \"We just want to be able to learn and serve our people,\" Fatima told us. \"What kind of country is this? What is our sin?\"\n\nShe asked, addressing the Taliban whilst visibly distraught. \"You're always talking about Islam, does Islam say to harm women like this?\"\n\nIt's difficult to fathom the Taliban's rationale. A Ministry of Education ceremony marking the start of the academic year went ahead despite the development.\n\nAziz-ur-Rahman Rayan, spokesman for the ministry, said all preparations had been made for the re-opening of schools, but that the group's central leadership had ordered them to stay closed until, \"a comprehensive plan has been prepared according to Sharia and Afghan culture\".\n\nGirls had arrived at the school on Wednesday morning before being told that it would be shut once more\n\nHowever, even before the Taliban took power, secondary schools in Afghanistan were already segregated by gender, whilst the uniform consisted of a modest black outfit and white hijab, or headscarf.\n\nWhat's more, in a number of provinces local Taliban officials had already begun allowing girls' secondary schools to re-open last year, despite the lack of a central official policy.\n\nPrivately, Taliban figures admit the issue of female education is a controversial one amongst their most hardline elements.\n\nThe chaotic nature of this policy reversal, suggests the groups' central leadership decided at the last minute to overrule their own Ministry of Education, nervous about alienating their most ultra-conservative members.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Yalda Hakim This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe divergence of views within the Taliban at times correlates to their geographic location.\n\nIn one part of the more cosmopolitan north of the country, even under the \"shadow government\" the Taliban established during their insurgency, a local leader once proudly showed off still-functioning girls schools to me during a visit.\n\nBy contrast, in a rural part of the conservative, southern province of Helmand, one Taliban fighter whose views on female education I asked, replied with a smile, \"if girls want to learn, their brothers can go to school and then teach them at home\".\n\nBut even in the most conservative areas, the majority of ordinary Afghan families appear to now be in favour of female education.\n\nMany have long questioned whether the Taliban have changed since they were in power in the 1990s when all women were forced to wear the all-encompassing burka and even girls' primary schools remained closed?\n\nNowadays, the picture is more nuanced. A recent study by the World Bank found that there had actually been a rise in female primary school attendance since the Taliban takeover as security improved. Meanwhile, the group has allowed women to attend university as long as classes are segregated.\n\nBut today's decision to keep girls' secondary schools closed, appears to underline the gulf that still exists between the Taliban leadership and contemporary Afghan society.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Girls' hopes and fears about returning to school in Afghanistan", "In her tiny St Petersburg apartment, 76-year-old artist Elena Osipova shows me the anti-war placards she's made.\n\nOn one she's written: \"Putin is war. We don't want to die for Putin.\"\n\nAnother depicts Russia's president as the devil, with the horns of Satan.\n\nElena tells me that after Russia attacked Ukraine, she was so shocked, she didn't eat for three days. Then, filled with anger, she'd taken to the streets to protest.\n\nA small crowd had applauded her: they'd chanted \"No War!\"\n\nThen two police officers took the pensioner by the arms and led her away.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch the moment an elderly activist is arrested at a protest in St Petersburg\n\nPolice still haven't returned one of her placards. She describes it to me: \"I'd been given some red tulips, beautiful young flowers. But very quickly they died and wilted. They reminded me of young men falling into their graves.\n\n\"So I'd made a poster and wrote that people were being sent to their deaths. And on another placard I appealed to Russian soldiers: 'Lay down your guns and you will be heroes.'\"\n\nAcross town, a human rights group, Soldiers' Mothers of St Petersburg, is operating a hotline.\n\nParents call in, worried for their conscript sons, some of whom are already fighting in Ukraine.\n\nMany of them desperately ask for help to bring their boys home. There have been lots of calls - but there's also lots of pressure from above. Olga from the group tells me it is being forced to shut down.\n\n\"The authorities prefer to cover things up, to give society a false picture that everything's fine in the army. They want soldiers' mothers to be patient and to be silent.\"\n\nBut in St Petersburg, and across Russia, the authorities are trying to rally support for what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.\n\nElena's flat is filled with her artworks - not all of which is explicitly anti-war\n\nThe St Petersburg Police press department has been busy. They have made a number of slick videos, complete with thumping soundtrack, to show support for Russia's forces in Ukraine.\n\nIn one, riot officers link arms with people on the street. The camera pans up to reveal that the crowd has formed the letter Z.\n\nThe symbol is painted on many of the Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, and is used to show support for Russia's offensive. And there are many Russians who do support it - who, for now, believe what the state media here is telling them: that Russia is in the right.\n\nOutside the world-famous Hermitage Museum, I stop to talk to Nadezhda, who is out for a stroll. She tells me: \"I love my Motherland and I trust my president, and If you think the West can frighten us by withholding goods, you're wrong. Russians aren't scared of cold or hunger.\"\n\nBut back in her flat, artist Elena Osipova says she will never accept that what Russian is doing in Ukraine is right.\n\n\"What's happening is a disgrace. So many people are being killed. The authorities are trying to arouse patriotic feelings in the public. But it's all a deception. And many are deceived by the propaganda that has gone on for years and that has changed people. It's terrible.\"\n\nIn recent years, Russians have known many wars.\n\nThe Soviet war in Afghanistan, two wars in Chechnya, the Russian military getting involved in the war in Syria. And now Ukraine. The Kremlin insists that its troops there are conducting a special military operation.\n\nBut most of the world calls it Russia's war.", "Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has married his long-term partner at a high-security prison in London.\n\nMr Assange, 50, married Stella Moris on Wednesday in Belmarsh prison, where he has been held since 2019.\n\nThe couple were granted permission to marry last year, and the ceremony was attended by four guests as well as two official witnesses and two guards.\n\nMr Assange is in prison while US authorities seek to extradite him to face trial on espionage charges.\n\nHe is wanted over the publication of thousands of classified documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He denies any wrongdoing.\n\nEarlier this month, the UK Supreme Court refused to allow his latest appeal against extradition.\n\nMs Moris, a 38-year-old lawyer, was greeted by a crowd of supporters as she left the ceremony in south-east London. They threw confetti and shouted \"congratulations\" and \"free Julian Assange\".\n\nShe wore a wedding dress designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood - who has campaigned to stop the extradition of Mr Assange.\n\n\"I am very happy and very sad. I love Julian with all my heart, and I wish he were here,\" Ms Moris told the crowd, before describing her husband's detention as \"cruel and inhuman\".\n\n\"The love we have for each other carries us through,\" she said. \"He's the most amazing person.\"\n\nThe couple began a relationship in 2015 and have two children together.\n\nFour guests were allowed to attend the wedding at the high-security prison\n\nBoth children attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with Mr Assange's father and brother.\n\nMr Assange's case will now go back to District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, the original judge who assessed the American extradition request.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel is then expected to make a final decision.\n\nMr Assange faces an 18-count indictment from the US government, which accuses him of conspiring to hack into military databases to acquire sensitive information relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The information was then published on the Wikileaks website.\n\nDocuments relating to the war in Afghanistan revealed how the US military had killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents. Further documents from the Iraq war revealed that 66,000 civilians had been killed - more than previously reported.\n\nThe US says the leaks broke the law and endangered lives, but Mr Assange claims the case is politically motivated.\n\nA crowd of supporters gathered outside the prison on Wednesday", "Madeleine Albright, a Czech immigrant who went on to become the first female secretary of state in US history, has died aged 84.\n\nA long-time foreign policy veteran, Albright became America's top diplomat in 1997 during the Clinton government.\n\nOften hailed as \"a champion of democracy\", Albright was instrumental in efforts to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.\n\nHer death from cancer was confirmed by her family in a statement.\n\n\"She was surrounded by family and friends,\" the statement said. \"We lost a loving mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend.\"\n\nAmong those to pay tribute to her after the announcement of her death were former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who later followed in her footsteps as Secretary of State.\n\n\"Few leaders have been so perfectly suited for the times in which they served,\" the Clintons said. \"Because she knew first-hand that America's policy decisions had the power to make a difference in people's lives around the world, she saw her jobs as both an obligation and an opportunity.\"\n\nNato's current Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said after the announcement that Albright \"was a force for freedom\" and an \"outspoken champion of Nato\".\n\nFormer US President George W Bush said that Albright \"understood first-hand the importance of free societies for peace in our world\".\n\nUK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the world \"needs to stand by\" Albright's values \"more than ever\".\n\nBorn Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague in 1937 - in what was then Czechoslovakia - Albright was the daughter of a Czechoslovak diplomat who was forced into exile after the occupation of his country by Nazi Germany in 1939.\n\nShe moved to the United States in 1948, the same year her family applied for political asylum, arguing that they were unable to return home as opponents of their country's communist regime. She became a US citizen in 1957.\n\nAlbright went on to work at the White House during the Jimmy Carter administration and later as foreign policy adviser to a number of vice-presidential and presidential candidates.\n\nSoon after Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993, Albright was appointed ambassador to the United Nations - her first diplomatic posting.\n\nA refugee who fled to the US with her family as a child, she made history by becoming the first woman to serve as secretary of state - the highest-ranking woman in US government up to that point.\n\nAs a diplomat, Albright helped shape the post-Soviet world during the Clinton administration, employing what she called \"pragmatic idealism\" to navigate uncharted geopolitical waters. That included, at times, an aggressive foreign policy that used US military might - in places like Iraq and the Balkans - when diplomacy failed.\n\nThe Nato bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslav states helped define a post-Soviet role for the Western alliance at a time when Nato's future was very much in doubt.\n\nAlbright was also champion of Nato expansion, overseeing the addition of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999 - a move whose repercussions are being keenly felt today.\n\nIn 1997, she became secretary of state, overcoming opposition from what some later termed the \"anything but Albright\" faction of the White House.\n\nShe became most famous during this time for her efforts to push the Clinton administration to intervene to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo being carried out by the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.\n\nSome critics termed the subsequent Nato bombing campaign \"Albright's War\".\n\n\"I take full responsibility... for believing it was essential for us not to stand by and watch what Milosevic was planning to do,\" she said at the time. \"We cannot watch crimes against humanity.\"\n\nKosovo eventually declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after the allied intervention.\n\nIts President, Vjosa Osmani, said on Wednesday the country had lost an \"invaluable friend\", adding that Albright's \"contribution to our freedom and democracy will never be forgotten\".\n\nIn 2012, then-President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the highest award available to a civilian - for her work in the Balkans. Paying tribute on Wednesday, Mr Obama lauded her \"trailblazing career\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. In 2015, Albright told the BBC that society is more stable if women are politically empowered\n\nJust a month ago, on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, Albright stepped back into the public spotlight with a New York Times editorial taking aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she first met soon after he took office in 2000.\n\n\"Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbours happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr Putin,\" she wrote. \"This is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy.\n\n\"It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.\"", "Orchards are vanishing from the landscape with an area the size of the Isle of Wight lost since 1900, according to research carried out by the National Trust.\n\nThe disappearance of more than half of orchards across England and Wales is having an impact on flora and fauna, the organisation said.\n\nOrchards have been torn down to make way for houses and farming.\n\nThe biggest decline has been seen in the south west.\n\nAnnie Reilly of the National Trust said: \"Many of the orchards which were once on the peripheries of our towns and cities in the 18th and 19th centuries have been lost with urban expansion and often remain as map evidence or street names only.\"\n\nOrchard apples are among the first to flower\n\nThe colourful display of springtime blossom has been part of British folklore and culture for centuries, with fruit trees in orchards among the first to bloom.\n\n\"It matters for people to be able to enjoy the beauty of that burst of blossom in the spring and it matters for nature,\" said head of historic environment at the trust, Tom Dommett.\n\nTraditional orchards can support wildlife, such as flies, bees, bats and birds. The knotted trunks and branches of trees provide a home for patrolling bats; while flowers are a food source for pollinating insects.\n\nThe researchers used artificial intelligence to analyse historic maps held by the National Library of Scotland, combined with data sets compiled by Natural England and The People's Trust for Endangered Species.\n\nAccording to the National Trust:\n\nThe National Trust has vowed to plant four million blossoming trees as part of its commitment to plant and establish 20 million trees across England, Wales and Northern Ireland by 2030.", "The children travelled to by plane from Warsaw to London\n\nA group of 52 children from orphanages in Dnipro in Ukraine have arrived at their temporary new home in Scotland.\n\nThe children and their guardians were supposed to leave Poland on Monday, but a vital document from the Ukrainian government was not ready in time.\n\nThey will stay in the Callander area, near Stirling, before moving to Edinburgh in small family-style groups.\n\nSteven Carr from Dnipro Kids, which arranged the evacuation, said he was \"ecstatic\" to get them to safety.\n\nThe Edinburgh charity, which was set up by Hibernian fans and has been supporting the orphanages for many years, enabled the children to flee Ukraine for Poland.\n\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted a welcome, and wrote: \"I know you'd all rather be at home in Ukraine but you'll find love, care and support here for as long as you need it.\"\n\nDnipro Kids has arranged accommodation for the children, who range in age from one to late teens, as well as two older \"sisters\" and their seven legal guardians.\n\nThey will stay in a rural hostel while they acclimatise to life in Scotland, then move to Edinburgh to live within the smaller household groups they had at home in Dnipro until it is safe for them to return to Ukraine.\n\nMr Carr told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland they were \"ecstatic\" to finally get the children to the \"quiet and secluded\" hostel where they can be together and the orphanage \"mothers\" can support each other.\n\nHe said: \"Dnipro Kids has got a fantastic committee in place that has been working non-stop to make sure everything is in place for the kids when they arrive.\n\n\"It's just great to finally get over the line.\"\n\nDnipro Kids chairman Steven Carr led the evacuation effort from Lviv in Ukraine\n\nAlthough the charity was initially set up by Hibs fans following a UEFA cup match in Dnipro in 2005, he said it had gained \"phenomenal\" support since beginning the evacuation from Ukraine.\n\nMany people have offered money, time and services, including members of the Ukrainian community in Edinburgh who are helping with language issues.\n\nThe children will continue their education with an online Ukrainian programme being used by displaced students during the conflict.\n\n\"We just take care of them, we make sure everything is in place,\" Mr Carr said.\n\n\"It's very traumatic [for the children] - I wouldn't say they are excited to be here, hopefully that will happen over the next few days.\n\n\"I think at the moment it's just relief they are now here, they know they are no longer in limbo, they know they can now settle down and get themselves adjusted.\"\n\nLast minute visas were arranged on Wednesday for two young women who belonged to one of the orphanages after someone connected to Dnipro Kids offered to sponsor their visas.\n\nThe 19 and 21-year-olds thought they would be separated from their \"brothers and sisters\" and the woman they called mother.\n\nMr Carr said: \"The UK government was brilliant at fast-tracking their visas.\"\n\nThe children stayed in Warsaw until they were able to fly to the UK\n\nDaniel Burger, chief executive of Magen David Adom UK helped organise the Virgin flight from Warsaw to London.\n\nHe said the flight attendants made sure there was a \"celebration\" on the flight from Warsaw.\n\n\"The plane was full of toys and other goodies and sweets and chocolates and other goodies for them,\" he said.\n\nSally Becker, the founder of Save a Child, was also on the flight from Warsaw on Monday.\n\n\"As it touched down they all started to clap,\" she said. \"The main thing is they're here, they have sanctuary, temporary sanctuary and they're safe.\"\n\nSNP MP Ian Blackford has been supporting Dnipro Kids deal with the applications for the children to seek sanctuary in Scotland.\n\nHe said it had taken time to get the paperwork in order because they had to address all safeguarding concerns before they could be moved to another country.\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, he thanked the Scottish and UK governments for helping make arrangements for the children.\n\n\"This is a good day for these 50 young Ukrainian orphans arrive in Scotland after delay people but let's hope it's the beginning of something much more significant for more young people that we can offer sanctuary to,\" he said.\n\nHome Secretary Priti Patel tweeted about their arrival: \"Huge thanks to my team at the UK Home Office, the Ukraine and Poland authorities, the Scottish Government and Virgin Atlantic who worked urgently on their swift arrival.\n\n\"The care they will receive will go some way to heal their suffering.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Nicola Sturgeon This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nUp to 3,000 people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine will be offered immediate temporary accommodation in Scotland.\n\nThe Scottish government has also announced a further £15m of funding will be made available to help refugees, including £11m for local councils and £2.5m for temporary accommodation.\n\nAbout 3.6 million people, mostly women, children and elderly people, have fled Ukraine since Russian army invaded last month.", "The 16-year-old known online as \"White\" lives with his mother in Oxford\n\nA 16-year-old from Oxford has been accused of being one of the leaders of cyber-crime gang Lapsus$.\n\nThe teenager, who is alleged to have amassed a $14m (£10.6m) fortune from hacking, has been named by rival hackers and researchers.\n\nCity of London Police say they have arrested seven teenagers in relation to the gang but will not say if he is one.\n\nThe boy's father told the BBC his family was concerned and was trying to keep him away from his computers.\n\nUnder his online moniker \"White\" or \"Breachbase\" the teenager, who is autistic, is said to be behind the prolific Lapsus$ hacker crew, which is believed to be based in South America.\n\nLapsus$ is relatively new but has become one of the most talked about and feared hacker cyber-crime gangs, after successfully breaching major firms like Microsoft and then bragging about it online.\n\nThe teenager, who can't be named for legal reasons, attends a special educational school in Oxford.\n\nCity of London Police said: \"Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with an investigation into a hacking group. They have all been released under investigation. Our inquiries remain ongoing.\"\n\nThe boy's father told the BBC: \"I had never heard about any of this until recently. He's never talked about any hacking, but he is very good on computers and spends a lot of time on the computer. I always thought he was playing games.\"\n\nMicrosoft is one of the victims of the Lapsus$ hacking group\n\n\"We're going to try to stop him from going on computers.\"\n\nThe BBC has also spoken to the boy's mother, who did not want to comment.\n\n\"White\" was outed - or \"doxxed\" - on a hacker website, after an apparent falling out with business partners.\n\nThe hackers revealed his name, address, and social media pictures.\n\nThey also posted a biography of his hacking career, saying: \"After a few years his net worth accumulated to well over 300BTC [close to $14m]… [he is] now is affiliated with a wannabe ransomware group known as 'Lapsus$', who has been extorting & 'hacking' several organisations.\"\n\nAs first reported by Bloomberg, cyber-security researchers have been tracking \"White\" for nearly a year and have linked him to Lapsus$ and other hacking incidents.\n\n\"We've had his name since the middle of last year and we identified him before the doxxing,\" said Allison Nixon, chief research officer at cyber-security investigation company Unit 221B.\n\n\"Unit 221B working with [cyber-security company] Palo Alto after identifying the actor, watched him on his exploits throughout 2021, periodically sending law enforcement a heads-up about the latest crimes.\"\n\nMrs Nixon says researchers tracked him through a trail of activity linked through a nearly unbroken stream of the boy's online accounts.\n\n\"We did it by watching the post history of an account and seeing older posts provide contact information for the guy.\"\n\nMrs Nixon says the trail was followed thanks to mistakes \"White\" made in failing to cover his tracks.\n\nThe Lapsus$ cyber-extortion group has gained notoriety in a short space of time thanks to its high-profile targets and active presence on the messaging app Telegram. Its channel has grown to 47,000 subscribers.\n\nThe last message was posted on the channel on Wednesday, with the group saying: \"A few of our members has a vacation until 30/3/2022. We might be quiet for some times. Thanks for understand us - we will try to leak stuff ASAP.\"\n\nOkta says hundreds of its customers were affected by the cyber-attack\n\nChris Morgan, from cyber-security company Digital Shadows, says Lapsus$ has risen in prominence in recent months \"after targeting several enterprise technology companies, breaching significant amounts of data and posting on to their dedicated Telegram data leak channel\".\n\n\"Little is known of the origins of the group, however, given that Lapsus$'s initial activity was directed towards several organisations in Brazil, some researchers have speculated that the group is based in South America,\" Mr Morgan said.\n\nIn a Wednesday blog post, Microsoft said Lapsus$ had gained limited access to its system.\n\nSecurity company Okta admitted that it too had been hacked by the group, with consequences for hundreds of its clients.", "The tram toppled over after hitting a curve at 73km/h (45mph)\n\nThe driver of the Croydon tram that crashed killing seven people is being prosecuted by the railway watchdog.\n\nTransport for London (TfL) and the operator, Tram Operations Limited (TOL), are also facing action for breaches of health and safety law, the Office for Road and Rail (ORR) says.\n\nAlfred Dorris was driving the tram when it overturned in November 2016.\n\nThe crash was ruled accidental by an inquest jury and TfL paid compensation to victims' families.\n\nThe tram was travelling more than three times faster than a speed limit when it tipped over and spun off the tracks near Sandilands tram stop in south London.\n\nMark Smith, Dane Chinnery, Phil Seary and Dorota Rynkiewicz (l-r) all died in the crash\n\nThe crash resulted in the deaths of Dane Chinnery, 19, Philip Logan, 52, Philip Seary, 57, Dorota Rynkiewicz, 35, and Robert Huxley, 63, all from New Addington, and Mark Smith, 35, and Donald Collett, 62, from Croydon.\n\nSixty-one people were injured in the crash in darkness and heavy rain on 9 November 2016, 19 of them seriously.\n\nMr Dorris, then aged 42, is accused of \"an alleged failure as an employee to take reasonable care of passengers whilst employed at work driving the tram\", the ORR said.\n\nIf found guilty, he could face a penalty of up to two years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. TfL and ToL could also face an unlimited financial penalty.\n\nTransport for London admitted liability for the crash\n\nSimon French, chief inspector of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, previously said Mr Dorris may have slipped into a period of \"microsleep\" before the derailment.\n\nDuring police interviews, Mr Dorris said he was \"confused\" but when asked if he had fallen asleep, he replied: \"No, no, no.\"\n\nThe driver was arrested at the scene but in October 2019 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said he would not be charged with manslaughter due to a lack of evidence.\n\nThe CPS also said corporate manslaughter charges would not be brought against TfL or TOL.\n\nBen Posford, partner at London law firm Osbornes Law, who represented five of the seven families at the inquest, described this as \"welcome news\" for the families \"who have been fighting for years for justice\".\n\nMarilyn Logan, 67, whose husband Philip Logan died in the crash, said she had been given \"some kind of closure\" from the news that prosecutions would be launched, according to her granddaughter Danielle Wynne.\n\nMs Wynne said: \"It has been a horrible five years of feeling so let down, I feel like our families have been forgotten along the way.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Danielle Wynne spoke to the BBC after last July's inquest verdict\n\n\"I will be in that courtroom, I will be there however long it takes every step of the way, it's for them, it's justice for our loved ones and I don't want their lives to have been lost for nothing, because that's what it feels like at the moment.\"\n\nJean Smith, whose son Mark, 35, died in the crash told the BBC: \"It has been a long time coming but it's a step in the right direction.\n\n\"I'm happy that there will be accountability where it rightly belongs.\"\n\nFor the families who lost loved ones this prosecution will be very welcome.\n\nOne family this morning told me they were \"elated\" there might be accountability over what happened because after a safety investigation and an inquest, they felt too many questions had not been answered.\n\nWhy had previous incidents of speeding not been reported? Why did it take so long to investigate a similar incident on the same corner just 10 days before?\n\nThat was only looked into after the Sandilands crash and it took so long the CCTV from the tram had automatically been wiped.\n\nWhy did drivers feel they could not report incidents?\n\nAnd were fatigue management systems in place and adequate - considering most tram drivers in a survey said they were not?\n\nThe inquest heard that over five years, five drivers had been disciplined or sacked for falling asleep but it kept happening.\n\nIt seems now those questions will have to be answered in court.\n\nMany of the families had lost faith in the system. It has taken six years to get here.\n\nA spokesperson for TOL said it would \"co-operate fully with the legal process\", adding: \"Our thoughts remain with all those affected by the tragic incident at Sandilands in 2016.\n\n\"Our commitment to safety remains unwavering and is integral to everything we do.\"\n\nTfL said it would \"consider those proceedings once we receive them\" and \"safety will always be our highest priority\".\n\nA spokesperson for Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he would \"continue to work with TfL to introduce further measures to help ensure such an awful incident never happens again\".\n\nORR's Chief Inspector of Railways Ian Prosser CBE said: \"We've made a fair, independent and objective assessment about what happened, and it is now for the court to consider if any health and safety law has been breached.\"\n\nA hearing will take place in due course at Croydon Magistrates' Court.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk", "Mariia, who was volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross, tried to help those injured in the attack but her kit was inside the theatre\n\nAs the port city of Mariupol was being razed to rubble by Russian bombs, hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, went to hide in a theatre near the waterfront, a grand Soviet-era building. Last Wednesday, a bomb hit and - within seconds - the building had been split in two and left in ruins. We still do not know how many died, but the BBC has spoken to survivors who described for the first time what happened when the bomb fell.\n\nAll morning, Russian planes had been circling the skies above the city.\n\nMariia Rodionova, a 27-year-old teacher, had been living in the theatre for 10 days, having fled her ninth-floor apartment with her two dogs. They camped next to the stage in an auditorium near the back of the building.\n\nThat morning she had got some fish scraps from an outdoor field kitchen to feed her dogs, but then realised they had not drunk any water. So at about 10:00, she tied her dogs to her luggage and made her way towards the main entrance where a queue was forming for hot water.\n\nThere was the sound of a clap, thunderous and loud. Then the sound of broken glass. A man came from behind and pushed her to a wall, protecting her with his own body. The blast was so loud that she felt intense pain in one of her ears, so intense she thought her eardrum must have split. She only realised it had not because she could hear the screams of people. The screams were everywhere.\n\nThe force of the blast threw another man against a window. He fell on the ground, his face covered with broken glass. A woman, who also had a wound on her head, tried to help him. Mariia, who had been volunteering at the Ukrainian Red Cross in Mariupol, gathered her senses enough to shout over, telling her to stop.\n\n\"I said 'Wait, don't touch him. I'll bring my first aid kit and I'll help you both',\" she recalled. But her kit was inside the theatre, and that part of the building had collapsed.\n\n\"There was only rubble,\" she said. It was impossible for her to get in.\n\n\"For two hours, I couldn't do anything,\" she said. \"I just stayed there. I was in shock.\"\n\nVladyslav, a 27-year-old locksmith who does not want to use his full name, had also wandered into the building that morning. He had some friends there and went to look for them. He was near the main entrance when the explosion hit. He ran with others into a basement and, 10 minutes later, heard the building was on fire and emerged to a scene of chaos.\n\n\"Terrible things were happening,\" he said.\n\nHe saw plenty of people bleeding. Some had open fracture wounds. \"One mother was trying to find her kids under the rubble. A five-year-old kid was screaming: 'I don't want to die'. It was heartbreaking.\"\n\nIt is likely to have been just one bomb that fell on the theatre that morning, bringing all that destruction with it, analysis by McKenzie Intelligence Services for the BBC has concluded.\n\n\"Due to the missile appearing to accurately hit the centre of the building, we believe it is a laser-guided bomb, likely the KAB-500L or similar variant, launched from an aircraft,\" the London-based group said.\n\n\"The nature of the explosion indicates it was armed with an instantaneous fuse, so was unable to penetrate the ground floors.\"\n\nFrom the accuracy of the strike it is very likely that the theatre was the chosen target.\n\nSatellite imagery released by the US company Maxar, from the days before the attack, show the word \"children\" in Russian was clearly painted on the lawn in front of the theatre, visible to any passing bomber.\n\nRussia denies attacking the theatre. It has also denied hitting civilian sites in Ukraine, although its attacks on countless residential buildings and other non-military facilities have been well documented across the country and nowhere more brutally than in Mariupol.\n\nAndrei Marusov, an investigative journalist from Mariupol, had visited the theatre two days before the attack. \"Everybody knew that it was a focal point for many women and children,\" Marusov, who is a former chairman of the advocacy group Transparency International Ukraine, said. \"There were only civilians there.\"\n\nThat Wednesday, the day of the bombing, he had gone up to the top of his building at 06:00 to survey the city. The planes were still buzzing through the air. He said Russian planes had been shelling and bombarding the area where the theatre was, that Sea of Azov waterfront all morning.\n\n\"I saw that the city centre was covered by fire and constant explosions,\" he said.\n\nMariia also remembers military planes \"making circles\" near the theatre that morning, and \"throwing bombs somewhere else\". But it was not unusual for her to spot military planes flying in the area. She had got used to their sound.\n\nThere are still many details that remain unclear about the attack. It is thought that up to 1,000 people were sheltering in the drama theatre. Some appeared to have based themselves in its underground bunker or bomb shelter, according to others who hid in the building and city authorities. Mariia saw others living in crowded corridors on overground floors.\n\nOne thing which is clear from the accounts of the people the BBC spoke to, is that people would wander around the complex, its corridors and grounds, and others would come and go.\n\nThe destroyed theatre that Mariia walked away from\n\nThe day after the attack, the city council said 130 people had been rescued. A further update said it was possible that many had survived. But there has been no news since then. The city is in such a desperate state that there may never be a clear picture of how many were there and how many survived.\n\nMariia's home inside the theatre for the days she was there was in an auditorium hall with a chandelier, and she nestled right next to the stage because her dogs had drawn some complaints. She said there were about 30 people in that hall and it is her belief that they must have all perished when the bomb hit. It was sheer luck that she had stepped outside at that moment.\n\nAfter the blasts she was unable to find her dogs and it was a moment of desperation: \"For me,\" she said, \"my dogs were more important than anything.\"\n\nVladyslav said he saw many people coming out of the building, something that Mariia saw as well.\n\n\"Some were with their luggage,\" she said. \"No-one knew what to do, and the area was still being shelled.\"\n\nStanding outside the theatre, she too looked at the damage. She realised it made no sense to look for another shelter. It had been a few stunned hours and she eventually left.\n\nShe tried to stop any car leaving the city. \"People were in panic,\" she said, \"no-one took me in their car.\" She started to walk along the coast.\n\n\"I needed to get out of the city.\"\n\nFirst, she got to the village of Pishchanka. \"I met a woman,\" she said, \"who asked if I was OK. I started to cry.\" She was offered tea and food, and invited to spend the night. The next morning, she kept walking, until she reached Melekyne. A curfew meant she had to stop at 20:00. A day later, she walked to Yalta. The following one, to Berdyansk. \"I walked all that time,\" she said.\n\nMariupol has seen the worst horrors of Russia's aggression on Ukraine. The invading troops have surrounded the city and attacked it relentlessly for almost a month, from the air, land and, in recent days, also from the sea. About 100,000 people remain trapped, subjected to a medieval-like siege. No electricity, no gas, no running water.\n\nWhen Mariia left her flat for the theatre, her grandmother, who lived with her, refused to go. \"She just said: 'It's my apartment, my home. I'm going to die here'.\"\n\nMariia is still waiting to hear whether she is alive.", "On 16 March North Korea fired a missile, which the US said was a test for parts of an ICBM system\n\nNorth Korea has tested a banned intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time since 2017, South Korea and Japan say.\n\nJapanese officials said it flew 1,100 km (684 miles) and fell in Japanese waters after flying for over an hour.\n\nICBMs, designed for nuclear arms delivery, could extend North Korea's strike range as far as the US mainland.\n\nThe test is being seen as a major escalation by the North and has been condemned by its neighbours and the US.\n\nNorth Korea has launched a flurry of missile tests in recent weeks.\n\nThe US and South Korea have said some of those tests, which Pyongyang claimed were satellite launches, were in fact trials of parts of an ICBM system.\n\nThursday's missile appeared to be newer and more powerful than the one North Korea fired five years ago, reaching an altitude of more than 6,000km (3,730 miles), according to Japanese officials.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Why does North Korea keep launching missiles?\n\nSouth Korea's military responded with five missile tests of its own, from land, sea and air. The United States condemned the North for a \"brazen violation\" of UN Security Council resolutions.\n\n\"The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilising actions,\" White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.\n\nOutgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in condemned what he said was a \"breach of the suspension of intercontinental ballistic missile launches promised by Chairman Kim Jong-un to the international community\".\n\nThe Kim regime is determined not only to keep South Korea hostage to military threats that can evade Seoul's missile defences and pre-emptive strike capabilities, but also aims to expand its nuclear reach over the American homeland to deter Washington from coming to the defence of US allies.\n\nNorth Korea is nowhere near initiating aggression on the scale of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But Pyongyang's ambitions likewise exceed self-defence as it wants to overturn the post-war security order in Asia.\n\nThe effectiveness of existing sanctions is waning due to lax enforcement by some countries.\n\nGiven China and Russia's lack of co-operation on the UN Security Council, the US and its allies will likely need to sanction more entities in those countries and elsewhere that are aiding North Korea's weapons programmes.\n\nThe incoming Yoon administration in South Korea can be expected to increase defence exercises with the United States and security co-operation with Japan.\n\nThe United States and South Korea had warned in recent weeks that North Korea may be preparing to test-fire an ICBM at full range for the first time since 2017.\n\nOn 16 March, North Korea launched a suspected missile that appeared to explode shortly after lift-off over Pyongyang, South Korea's military said.\n\nThe UN prohibits North Korea from ballistic and nuclear weapons tests, and has imposed strict sanctions after previous tests.\n\nIn 2017 North Korea carried out a number of ICBM tests, the last of which involved a Hwasong-15 missile that reached an altitude of 4,500km (2,800 miles).\n\nExperts estimated the Hwasong-15 could have travelled more than 13,000km (8,080 miles) if it had been fired on a standard trajectory, which meant it could reach any part of the continental United States.\n\nThe latest launch is thought to be the North's largest ever ICBM test, and involved an even more powerful missile, possibly the new Hwasong-17 unveiled in 2020 but untested up to now.\n\nIn 2018 Kim Jong-un put in place a moratorium on long-range ballistic missile and nuclear tests, following talks with then US President Donald Trump.\n\nBut in 2020, Mr Kim announced he was no longer bound by this promise.\n\nThursday's launch also comes as satellite images showed North Korea firing up activity at its nuclear testing facility in Punggye-ri earlier this month, stoking fears that the North would resume testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.\n\nThe facility, located in the north-east of the country, had been blown up in 2018 after Mr Kim promised to halt all nuclear tests.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces that income tax will be cut by 2024\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak has set out measures aimed at combating soaring energy, food and fuel prices, in his Spring Statement.\n\nHe cut fuel duty by 5p but resisted calls to scrap April's National Insurance rise of 1.25p in the pound.\n\nHe warned the UK's post-pandemic recovery had been blown off course by the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut he held out the promise of an income tax cut in 2024 when he said the economy would be in better shape.\n\nLabour said he had made an \"historic mistake\" by pushing ahead with next month's National Insurance increase, which the party warned would hit workers hard.\n\nBut the chancellor said the money raised was needed for the NHS - and instead he said he would raise the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance from £9,600 to £12,570.\n\nThis would amount to \"a £6bn personal tax cut for 30 million people across the United Kingdom, a tax cut for employees worth over £330 a year,\" said the chancellor.\n\nMr Sunak warned the economic outlook was uncertain and the full impact of the war in Ukraine was not yet clear.\n\nThe Office for Budget Responsibility painted a bleak picture of the UK's immediate economic prospects, saying that living standards are set to take the biggest hit since records began in the 1950s.\n\nIt said inflation was set to peak at 8.7% at the end of this year and this - combined with rising taxes - will \"weigh heavily on living standards in the coming 12 months\".\n\nThe watchdog said the UK's tax burden will be at the highest level since the 1940s.\n\nOther measures in the chancellor's mini-Budget include:\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak had failed to appreciate the scale of the cost of living crisis facing workers and pensioners.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nShe told MPs: \"In eight days, people's energy bills will be rising by 54%, two weeks today the chancellor's tax hike will start hitting working people and their employers.\n\n\"His National Insurance tax rise was a bad idea last September and he's admitted it's an even worse one today.\"\n\nShe repeated Labour's call for a windfall tax on energy companies.\n\nLater, the chancellor answered questions on a phone-in on LBC radio.\n\nOne woman said that despite a good salary \"on paper\", she was leaving her heating and lights off - and her family were wearing coats at home, to try to save on energy bills.\n\nShe also said she was taking on extra cleaning and delivery jobs, and had cut her grocery shop down to £15 a week for her and her two children - and she often went without.\n\n\"Please tell me what else I can be doing,\" she asked.\n\nMr Sunak paid tribute to her for working her \"socks off\" - and pointed to the energy bill rebate and higher national insurance threshold that will give a tax cut in July.\n\nWhat's deeply unusual is that Mr Sunak chose to announce this giveaway, a penny off income tax, two years before it would kick in.\n\nIt's certainly unusual to announce election goodies this far out, not just because it kills any element of political surprise, but also it ties the Chancellor's hands in the years ahead.\n\nWhile the moves seem to designed to polish up Mr Sunak's credentials as a tax cutter, the black and white of the statement documents beg to differ.\n\nAs chancellor, he has increased taxes massively more than he has just reduced them.\n\nThe SNP criticised Mr Sunak over his decision not to reverse the removal of the £20-a-week top-up to Universal Credit payments, or to increase other benefits, \"at a time when people need it the most\".\n\nPaul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said \"the very poorest\" could see their cost of living increase by 10%, despite a \"small amount of extra cash\" promised by the chancellor for local authorities to help those on benefits.\n\nSir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the Spring Statement was a \"total swindle\" by Mr Sunak, who he said was \"giving with one hand and taking with another\".\n\nAnd the Green Party criticised him for not mentioning climate issues. Its co-leader Adrian Ramsay accused Mr Sunak of \"[looking] after the interests of fossil fuel companies\".\n\nMr Sunak promised the government would \"stand by\" families struggling with the cost of living.\n\nAnd in a surprise announcement at the end of his statement, he said his ambition was to cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p in the pound.\n\n\"It would clearly be irresponsible to meet this ambition this year,\" he told MPs, but official forecasts said inflation would be \"back under control\" and national debt falling by 2024, making a cut possible then, he added.\n\n\"I can confirm, before the end of this Parliament, in 2024, for the first time in 16 years, the basic rate of income tax will be cut from 20p to 19p in the pound.\n\n\"A tax cut for workers, for pensioners, for savers. A £5bn tax cut for 30 million people. It is fully costed and fully paid for in the plan announced today.\"", "Ukraine is \"not alone\" in its fight against Russia's invasion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.\n\nHe said the UK would not stand by while Vladimir Putin \"vents his fury on Ukraine\" and would work to ramp up defensive weaponry for the country.\n\nSpeaking in Brussels, he warned that, if the Russian president used chemical weapons, the consequences would be \"catastrophic for him\".\n\nEarlier, the UK announced sanctions on 65 more Russian groups and individuals.\n\nMr Johnson later told BBC Newsnight that Russia did not want peace, and instead wanted to intensify its attack on Ukraine.\n\nLeaders from Nato, the EU and the G7 have been holding emergency meetings in Brussels to discuss the conflict.\n\nSpeaking at a news conference following the Nato summit, Mr Johnson defended the level of the UK's support for Ukraine, saying the government planned to send 6,000 more missiles to the country as well as an extra £25m in aid to help Ukraine pay the salaries of its armed forces.\n\nThe PM said kit would be provided to Ukraine to defend against \"its bullying neighbour\".\n\nMr Johnson also promised a new deployment of UK troops to Bulgaria, on top of doubling troops both in Poland and in Estonia.\n\nIt follows Nato's earlier announcement that new battle groups would be created in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia.\n\n\"The message Putin can take is: Ukraine is not alone. We stand with the people of Kyiv, Mariupol, Lviv and Donetsk,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"As President Zelensky himself has said, the people of Ukraine must prevail and Putin must fail - and he will.\"\n\nMr Johnson added that Western nations were looking to \"steadily ratchet up\" the amount of military gear they are sending Ukraine, but that it was proving \"difficult\" to meet the country's request for warplanes and tanks.\n\nIn a virtual appearance at the summit earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's asked Nato for \"1% of all your planes, 1% of all your tanks\".\n\nMr Johnson said: \"What President Zelensky wants is to try to relieve Mariupol and to help the thousands of Ukrainian fighters in the city. To that end he does need armour, as he sees it.\"\n\n\"We are looking at what we can do to help. But logistically it looks very difficult both with armour and with jets.\"\n\nMr Johnson added that no Western power was looking to put \"boots on the ground\" or impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.\n\nHe acknowledged that the Ukrainian president wanted more from Nato, saying allies felt \"agony\" about their \"inability to do more given the constraints we face\".\n\nIn a statement reported by Russia's Ria news agency, Russia's foreign ministry said Nato's decision to continue supporting Ukraine showed the military alliance wanted the conflict to continue.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Zelensky calls on people to 'support freedom' one month after Russia invaded Ukraine\n\nThe UK government has already given £400m in humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine and its neighbouring nations since Russia's invasion last month.\n\nThe PM said ministers had sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities so far in the toughest sanctions the UK had ever imposed.\n\nThe Wagner Group, a private military firm thought to function as an arms-length unit of the Russian military, was among the 65 entities hit by the latest sanctions announced by the UK earlier.\n\nAlso targeted were Gazprombank, the country's third-largest bank and one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.\n\nThe stepdaughter of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Polina Kovaleva, who is thought to own a London property worth an estimated £4m, was also targeted by the measures.\n\nEarlier, Mr Johnson called on the West to consider measures to prevent Russia using its gold reserves to prop up its currency, the rouble.\n\nHe told the news conference the Kremlin was \"trying to get around the sanctions on their gold\" and the UK and others were trying to ensure there was \"no leakage or no sale of bullion into markets around the world\".\n\nThe prime minister said he was not \"remotely anti-Russian\" after the Kremlin labelled him the \"most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian\".\n\nHe said that, while one could be sympathetic to ordinary Russians, the way Mr Putin was leading Russia was \"utterly catastrophic\" and his invasion of Ukraine was \"inhuman and barbaric\".\n\nMr Johnson dismissed talk about the use of nuclear weapons as a \"distraction\" from what was happening in Ukraine - where he said Russia's use of conventional weapons against \"innocent people\" had been \"absolutely barbaric\".\n\nHe warned that any use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine by Russia would be \"disastrous for Putin\".\n\n\"There is a visceral horror of the use of these weapons of mass destruction. I think that if Putin were to engage in anything like that the consequences would be very, very severe.\n\n\"You have to have a bit of ambiguity about your response but I think it would be catastrophic for him if he were to do that. And I think that he understands that.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch what Boris Johnson says about the prospect of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine\n\nIn an interview with the BBC's Newsnight Mr Johnson said Ukraine can win the war with Russia - not necessarily on the battlefield, but by making an occupation impossible.\n\n\"There's a sense in which Putin has already failed, or lost, because I think that he had literally no idea that the Ukrainians were going to mount the resistance that they are and he totally misunderstood what Ukraine is - and, far from extinguishing Ukraine as a nation, he's solidified it... He can't subjugate Ukraine.\"\n\nThe prime minister added that he was \"not optimistic\" the Russian president truly wanted peace, and that he had instead decided to \"double down\" in his assault on Ukraine which he said was a \"tragic mistake.\"\n\nMr Johnson sparked anger at the weekend after appearing to make a comparison between Britons voting to leave the European Union and Ukrainians fighting for the freedom from Russia.\n\nBut when asked about this the prime minister said that had not been the analogy he was making and his words had been \"wildly misconstrued\".\n\nElsewhere, US President Joe Biden warned any use of chemical weapons by Mr Putin would be met with a \"response in kind\", the nature of which \"would depend on the nature of the use\".\n\nMr Biden said the Russian President had \"miscalculated\" in his decision to invade Ukraine, and had banked on \"Nato being split\".\n\n\"Nato has never, never been more united. Putin is getting exactly the opposite of (what) he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine.\"", "No food for children in Mariupol, deputy mayor says\n\nThe deputy mayor of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol says people are starting to die from starvation and dehydration, as food and water supplies run low and no humanitarian aid is allowed in. “Some are dying from dehydration and lack of food. Some are dying from lack of medicine, insulin... Because people cannot find medical help,” Sergey Orlov tells the BBC. “Some mothers do not have milk, and they don't have food for children. What should they do with their infants? I don’t know. There’s no food for children at all in the city.” Mariupol has been under relentless Russian attacks since the early days of the war, and pictures show a city in ruins, with entire neighbourhoods destroyed. Orlov says 70% of hospitals in the city have been “destroyed by bombing and shelling”. Communication with the city is difficult, as the phone network is intermittent, so it is hard to independently verify information. Residents spend most of their time in shelters or basements with no electricity, running water, or gas. “People are just looking for any possibility to survive. [They] share food, water, they’re collecting wood to cook in the street,” Orlov says. More than 100,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol. Efforts to carry out large-scale evacuations have failed, although thousands have managed to leave in recent days in private vehicles.", "Makariv had previously fallen to Russian forces (pictured: a Ukrainian soldier near the town)\n\nUkrainian troops are counter-attacking Russian forces in some areas of the country, with reports that they have gained ground near the capital, Kyiv.\n\nLocal authorities in the town of Makariv, west of Kyiv, said Ukrainian flags were flying there once more.\n\nA US defence spokesman said Ukrainians were also reversing momentum in some parts of the south.\n\nIn the small southern town of Voznesensk, Russian forces were pushed back and an armoured convoy destroyed.\n\nAnd in Kherson, close to the Crimean peninsula and the first city to fall to Russia, Ukrainian forces are also trying to recapture territory.\n\nA UK defence analyst told the BBC the fightback could force Moscow to change its tactics.\n\nHowever, the latest assessment from the UK Ministry of Defence says Russian troops in Ukraine are moving in from the north and south to \"envelop Ukrainian forces in the east of the country\".\n\nThe note says \"Russian forces are likely reorganising before resuming large-scale offensive operations\".\n\nRussian forces are also continuing to bombard the southern port city of Mariupol, although the port area itself is said to have suffered relatively little damage.\n\nJustin Bronk, from the UK defence and security think tank the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said the Ukrainian pushback came as the Russians were trying to compensate for their lack of progress so far.\n\n\"The Russians have quite visibly failed to take the whole of Ukraine across multiple positions of advance,\" he told the BBC.\n\n\"So now they are trying to pull their resources back and consolidate them and concentrate them on one push at a time - in particular around Mariupol and the south.\"\n\nHe said that if the Russians took Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks and is low on supplies, then they might look to redistribute troops and ammunition, first to Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and then perhaps to the north-eastern city of Kharkiv.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Drone footage shows extent of devastation in the city of Mariupol\n\nBut as Ukraine pushes Russian troops back around Irpin, about 20km (12 miles) from Kyiv, and other suburbs along with Makariv, it could hamper Moscow's plans to capture the capital, he added.\n\n\"Essentially, what [Ukrainian forces] are trying to do is cut off an entire side of the attempted encirclement of Kyiv, which would force the Russians to either try to break north and abandon those positions, or for Russia to reroute significant combat power to try to break through and release their own forces there.\"\n\nThe Pentagon gave more details of the Ukrainian counter-offensive on Tuesday, saying it has seen increasing signs in recent days that Russians are being dislodged from areas they previously held.\n\nSpokesman John Kirby told CNN that he was unable to confirm reports from Ukrainian officials that they had retaken at least one town and expected to take more in coming days.\n\nHowever, he said it would be \"consistent with the kind of fighting and the kinds of capabilities we have seen the Ukrainians use\".\n\nHe said Russian forces had \"stalled\" and were running out of fuel and food.\n\nThere were also communication problems between air and ground forces, with some Russian fighters resorting to mobile phones to speak to each other, Mr Kirby said.\n\n\"They are slowed,\" he said, adding that this was partly due to \"their own ineptitude\".\n\nAnother Pentagon official, speaking anonymously, told the AFP news agency that some Russian soldiers had been laid low with frostbite, because they did not have the appropriate cold weather clothing for the terrain.\n\nThe official said that because of losses and other problems, Russian forces inside Ukraine were now below 90% of their available combat power.", "Parts of the Duke of Sussex's court case against the Home Office over his police protection in the UK will be kept private, the High Court has ruled.\n\nPrince Harry is challenging the government's decision to refuse police security during his visits from the US.\n\nThe duke has said he currently \"does not feel safe\" when visiting and has offered to pay for police protection.\n\nGovernment lawyers said his offer was \"irrelevant\" to how officials took decisions over Royal Family security.\n\nFollowing preliminary hearings in the case last month, Mr Justice Swift ruled on Thursday that parts of court documents in the case should be kept confidential.\n\nBoth the duke and the Home Office had made the application for some parts of the court documents to be kept private.\n\nThursday's ruling only covers the redaction of documents and does not decide the duke's claim against the Home Office or whether it can go ahead.\n\nPrince Harry argues that his private protection team in the US does not have adequate jurisdiction abroad or access to UK intelligence information which is needed to keep his family safe.\n\nRobert Palmer QC, for the Home Office, previously told the court the duke's offer of private funding was \"irrelevant\" and that \"personal protective security by the police is not available on a privately-financed basis\".\n\nSpeaking on Thursday, Mr Justice Swift said some of the information relied on in the case involved the security arrangements for Prince Harry and other public figures in the UK.\n\n\"For obvious reasons information on such matters usually remains confidential,\" he said.\n\nAfter the judgment was made public, Mr Justice Swift criticised Prince Harry's legal team for breaking the embargo on the document.\n\nMr Justice Swift said a copy of Thursday's ruling had been emailed to someone who was not a lawyer, against court rules, calling this \"entirely unacceptable\".\n\nPrince Harry is challenging the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures over his security, after being told he would no longer be given the \"same degree\" of personal protective security when visiting.\n\nThe duke's barrister, Shaheed Fatima QC, previously told the court that Prince Harry considers the UK \"is and always will be his home\".\n\nThe duke and his wife Meghan live in the US with their children Archie and Lilibet after quitting as senior working royals in early 2020.\n\nPrince Harry briefly returned from Los Angeles last year for the 1 July unveiling of the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial statue, and the day before he met seriously ill children and young people at a garden party and afternoon tea in Kew Gardens, west London.", "Recovery workers found the cockpit recorder and some human remains amid wet weather on Wednesday\n\nRecovery teams have found human remains at the crash site of the China Eastern jet which plunged into mountains this week, say state media.\n\nAuthorities have yet to declare the number of victims, but there has been no sign so far that any of the 132 people on board had survived.\n\nInvestigators still do not know why the plane suddenly entered a near-vertical dive in southern China on Monday.\n\nIt is hoped the cockpit voice recorder, recovered intact, will yield clues.\n\nIt was damaged on the outside but its internal records appeared to be fine, officials said. It has been sent to Beijing for its data to be analysed.\n\nSearch teams found the first of the crucial \"black boxes\" in difficult circumstances on Wednesday.\n\nHeavy rains have flooded the steep and rugged landscape of the crash site in Wuzhou, making efforts harder for hundreds of rescuers and volunteers, who have so far also found scattered plane debris and the charred remains of personal belongings.\n\nOn Wednesday, dozens of family members of those on board the flight began to arrive at the scene. Escorted by officials and supporters, many kept their heads bowed as they passed gathered media but some spoke briefly to journalists about their loss.\n\nRelatives of victims are visiting the crash scene\n\nOne man told Reuters his nephew had been a passenger on the flight. He and his son had driven five hours from neighbouring Shenzhen province in the hope of being able to find their relative alive.\n\n\"I plan to stay until the matter is sorted and I can take his ashes back. But this depends on the work of authorities.\n\n\"I hope the country can thoroughly investigate this matter and find out whether it is the manufacturer's fault or a maintenance problem.\"\n\nThe crash of the passenger plane this week - which had been on a short domestic flight from Kunming to Guangzhou on the coast - has shocked and devastated China. The country has had a strong air safety record over the past three decades.\n\nPresident Xi Jinping swiftly ordered a full-scale investigation into the tragedy, dispatching Vice Premier Liu He and hundreds of personnel to the rural hillside region in Guangxi province.\n\nRecovery workers found the cockpit recorder and some human remains amid wet weather on Wednesday\n\nBut none of the knowledge released so far about the flight indicates any technical problems or anything amiss with environmental factors.\n\nAt a press conference on Wednesday, aviation officials said there hadn't been any weather or other hazards endured by the flight on its route path. China Eastern said the Boeing 737-800 plane, less than seven years old, had also passed all pre-flight checks.\n\nThere had been three pilots, China Eastern officials disclosed. The captain had 6,709 hours flying experience, and the first and second officers had 31,769 hours and 556 hours respectively.\n\n\"From what we know, the performance of the three pilots had been good and their family life relatively harmonious,\" the airline representative said.\n\nAir traffic control had also been in regular communication with the pilots on board right until it entered its near nosedive descent from a cruising height.\n\nFlight tracking data showed the plane plummeted thousands of metres in minutes.\n\nAccording to FlightRadar24, the plane was cruising at an altitude of 29,100ft (about 9,000m), but two minutes and 15 seconds later it was recorded at 9,075ft. The last sourced information on the flight showed it ended at 14:22 local time, at an altitude of 3,225ft.\n\nInvestigators are expected to look at several possible causes, including deliberate action, pilot error, or technical issues such as a structural failure or mid-air collision.\n\nChina's investigators have also invited US aviation experts to join in the investigation - as the Boeing plane was manufactured in the US. The invitation has been welcomed by the Biden administration.\n\nBut US officials said they weren't sure if they would send over a team yet due to China's strict Covid quarantine requirements for incoming visitors.\n\nIn the meantime, China's aviation officials are carrying out a two-week safety audit of all planes while China Eastern and its two subsidiaries have grounded its fleet of Boeing 737-800s as an emergency precaution.", "Epic Games says it has raised more than $50m (£37m) to aid humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.\n\nThe Fortnite publisher announced on 21 March it would donate all proceeds from in-game sales, including cosmetic in-game items and virtual currency bought in a shop or online, until 3 April.\n\nAnd Xbox is donating the fee it would usually take on items bought by players in Fortnite.\n\nThe amount raised so far is greater than that given by some countries.\n\nA statement on the Fortnite website said it would send funds \"as quickly as we can\".\n\n\"We're not waiting for the actual funds to come in from our platform and payment partners, which can take a while depending on how the transaction was processed. As transactions are reported, we'll log them and send the funds to the humanitarian relief organisations within days.\"\n\nEpic is sending money to Unicef, Direct Relief, the UN Refugee Agency, and the UN World Food Programme.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Fortnite This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nEpic's fundraising joins other efforts by games companies and their fans to raise money for the victims of the war in Ukraine.\n\nHumble Bundle, for example, sells collections of video games online, with proceeds usually benefitting both the developers and charities.\n\nBut in its latest offering, Humble has raised more than £10m exclusively for charities benefitting Ukraine. It is providing a bundle of 120 games and items usually valued at more than £1,800 that it now offers for a minimum donation of only £30.52.\n\nKamini Tiwari, vice-president of social impact at Humble, praised the players who have put up their money to get the games. \"We're very, very happy that our community is leaning in to support us,\" she said. \"I think they also, like us, recognise that need is so great.\n\n\"We are constantly humbled - pardon the pun - by our community. Throughout the year, and particularly during times of crisis and disaster, it's been great to see that across the gaming industry so many others are leaning in as well.\"\n\nChucklefish Games, makers of WarGroove and Starbound, is one of the independent developers based in London that has offered up its games to the bundle.\n\nAlexis Trust, communications manager at the studio, said she felt it was their \"duty to help those in need\".\n\nShe said the firm's partners, Lithuania-based Hidden Layer Games, which made the game Inmost, is \"a two-man team from Ukraine and Russia\".\n\n\"Throughout the project the team experienced first-hand the difficulty of working between borders during a time of political tension, and so made the difficult decision to move together to Lithuania where their dream project could actually become a reality.\n\n\"When the Russian military invaded Ukraine, we felt that it was our duty to extend that help to other families in whatever capacity we could.\"\n\nBut Humble isn't the only bundle right now aiming to help those in Ukraine. There is also the now-completed itch.io bundle, which raised £4.7m by offering up 1,000 games in exchange for a minimum donation of £7.56.\n\nBrandon Sheffield, creative director of Necrosoft Games, organised the bundle. He told the BBC he thinks the cause \"really resonated with people\".\n\nAnd, he said, it was surprisingly easy to persuade developers of indie hits like Celeste and Superhot to help.\n\n\"Believe it or not, it didn't take very much convincing at all,\" he said. \"Everyone was pretty much ready to help. The publisher Raw Fury joined the itch.io platform just so that they could put four of their games into this.\"\n\nThe charities which benefitted from the itch.io bundle were International Medical Corps, as well as the Voices of Children Foundation - a Ukrainian charity which provides support to children affected by trauma caused by war.\n\n\"I feel like that's incredibly important for the future of Ukraine,\" Mr Sheffield said. \"I chose this local organisation that's already there.\n\n\"Because they're there, they've been like impromptu shelters, going around and using the money that they've been donated to try to protect the people in Kyiv and other places where they can actually access them.\"\n\nAnd Andy Pearson, chief marketing officer of British publisher PQube Games, that has donated games for the bundle, compared what was happening in the games industry to some of the big musical fundraising events of the past.\n\n\"It's phenomenal. It exceeded the initial expectations and then continued to go on from there.\n\n\"It was amazing. I am thinking now - has this been done before? And it has - it's like Live Aid - those big, big events where you had lots of creators all coming together in one versus a single person trying to contribute. That's what's really helped establish this.\"", "An aerial view of Jeffrey Epstein's island Little St. James\n\nPrivate Caribbean islands owned by the deceased sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein are up for sale and could fetch up to $125m (£94.7m).\n\nA lawyer for Epstein's estate confirmed to the BBC that the two islands - Little St James and Great St James - have been listed.\n\nLawyer Daniel Weiner said some proceeds from the sale will be used to settle outstanding lawsuits.\n\nEpstein died in jail in 2019, awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.\n\nThe financier bought the 90-acre Little St James - the more developed of the two - nearly 25 years ago for almost $8m (£6m).\n\nHe then acquired the larger Great St James in 2016 for $22.5m and had drawn up plans to develop the 161-acre island by building homes, an amphitheatre, as well as an underwater office and pool.\n\nBespoke Real Estate, which is jointly overseeing the sale, told the BBC both islands are being offered for a total $125m.\n\nEpstein was accused by US Virgin Islands attorney general Denise George of sexually abusing girls as young as 12 years old on Little St James.\n\nThe lawsuit, filed two years ago, also claimed that one 15-year-old girl attempted to escape the island by swimming away before being captured and having her passport confiscated.\n\nMr Weiner, a partner at New York law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed, said the sale is taking place with the support of Ms George and that the proceeds \"will be used by the estate for the resolution of outstanding lawsuits and the regular costs of the estate's operations\".\n\nEpstein reportedly welcomed a number of high profile guests to Little St James over the years. One of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claimed in a civil suit that Prince Andrew had abused her on the island. Prince Andrew denied the claims and said he had no recollection of meeting Ms Giuffre.\n\nThe prince recently paid a settlement to Ms Giuffre to end a civil case in the US. The settlement accepted no liability and Prince Andrew has always strongly rejected claims of wrongdoing.\n\nJeffrey Epstein faced sex trafficking charges before dying in jail in 2019\n\nOther visitors to Little St James included Jes Staley, the former boss of Barclays.\n\nHe resigned from the UK bank last year following an investigation by financial regulators over how the banker had characterised his relationship with Epstein.\n\nMr Staley dropped by Epstein's island in 2015 a few months before he took on the chief executive role at Barclays.\n\nUK financial regulators began an investigation after JP Morgan - Mr Staley's former employer - handed over 1,200 emails sent between the banker and Epstein mostly 2008 and 2012.\n\nRegulators were concerned that the emails showed a closer relationship between the two men than Mr Staley had described to Barclays board.", "High street retail giant Next has warned it will need to increase prices even further later this year.\n\nThe retailer said prices for homeware items will jump 13% and fashion prices rise 6.5% in the second half of 2022 to average an 8% increase overall.\n\nClothing prices are already rising, with inflation data showing overall clothing and footwear prices rose 8.8% in the year to February 2022.\n\nThe retailer said it still expects to make a £850m profit this year.\n\nAcross the UK economy companies have been passing on higher energy, shipping and oil costs to customers, leading to surging prices for everything from tinned tomatoes and Marmite, to used cars and home insurance.\n\nNext had already warned of incoming price rises in January, but it has now increased its estimate of price increases in the second half of the year from 6% to 8%.\n\nIt still predicts sales to grow overall - despite the price rises - but not by as much as first thought, which it said was due to the closing of its Ukrainian and Russian websites.\n\nNext's chief executive, Lord Simon Wolfson, told the PA news agency that, given the worsening cost of living crisis, trading could be \"subdued\" for the rest of the year.\n\n\"Over the past 20 years, we've seen that what really matters is what's in people's bank accounts rather than costs,\" he said.\n\n\"In January, when we laid down our outlook, people suggested it could be pessimistic but we thought confidence could be subdued.\"\n\nThe company also flagged that demand could be dented as people spend their disposable incomes elsewhere, with a return to spending on holidays abroad and other social activities.\n\nHowever, for now, Next said the first three months of the year had seen UK sales \"ahead of where we expected them to be\" as people headed back to its stores after lockdown and purchased more formal fashion and fewer things for their homes.\n\nNext also reported pre-tax profits of £823m for the year to 31 January, more than double the amount of the previous year and 10% above pre-pandemic levels.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nP&O Ferries boss Peter Hebblethwaite has admitted to MPs that a decision to sack 800 workers last week without notice broke the law.\n\nHe said there was \"absolutely no doubt\" that under UK employment law the firm was required to consult unions before making the mass cuts.\n\nHowever, he said no union would have accepted the plan and it was easier to compensate workers \"in full\" instead.\n\nThe P&O boss also said he would make the same decision again if he had to.\n\nHuw Merriman, the Conservative chair of the Transport Committee urged him to resign.\n\n\"It's untenable to come to parliament and say you decided to break the law, you have no regrets,\" Mr Merriman told BBC Radio 4's World at One.\n\n\"We can't have companies run by people like that. So he needs to hand his card in.\"\n\nThe sackings of P&O staff sparked outrage after it emerged they will be replaced by foreign agency workers paid less than the minimum wage.\n\nAddressing a committee of MPs on Thursday, Mr Hebblethwaite apologised for the distress caused by the cuts, but said they were necessary to save the business which has been loss-making.\n\nHe said workers would receive \"extremely generous\" compensation, although as part of these settlements they would forgo their right to pursue further legal action against P&O.\n\nAsked whether P&O broke the law by not consulting the unions, Mr Hebblethwaite said: \"It was our assessment that the change [to staffing] was of such a magnitude that no union could possibly accept our proposal.\n\n\"So as I say, I completely throw our hands up, my hands up, that we did choose not to consult.\"\n\nHe added: \"We did not believe there was any other way to do this and we are compensating people in full.\"\n\nAsked if he would change anything about the decision made last Thursday, he responded: \"That's a really, really difficult question.\n\n\"The business would close, the business was not viable. This is the only way for us to save this business and we have moved to a model that is internationally recognised and widely used across the globe and by our competitors.\n\n\"I would make this decision again I'm afraid.\"\n\nPeter Hebblethwaite apologised to workers. But he remained adamant there had been no other option and gave no indication that he would change course.\n\nMPs were aghast at his open admission that the business had chosen not to comply with the requirement to consult unions over planned redundancies.\n\nA representative of DP World, which owns P&O, said Mr Hebblethwaite would not be sacked.\n\nBut after this morning's appearance, the calls for him to resign are growing.\n\nNo P&O worker will get less than £15,000 in compensation, he said, and a small number will receive more than £100,000.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite, who earns £325,000 a year as a base salary, said he could not say whether he would get a performance-related bonus after the sackings.\n\nIn 2020, the directors of P&O were paid £1.9m in total, and the highest paid director got £452,000.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite told MPs that the average hourly rate of pay for new P&O crewmembers would be £5.50 per hour, which is below the UK minimum wage. However, it is in line with international maritime standards.\n\nFrom 1 April, the UK minimum wage for people aged 23 and over will be £9.50.\n\nMr Hebblethwaite said that the firm's new operating model was consistent with \"models throughout the globe and our competitors\".\n\nFormer P&O worker John said he was 'sickened and shocked' by the hearing\n\nBy sacking its crews and taking on agency staff instead, he said the business would cut its wage bill in half.\n\nFollowing the hearing MP Darren Jones, who chairs the business committee, said he was \"amazed\" by Mr Hebblethwaite's evidence.\n\nThe Labour MP added: \"He should be fined, struck off and prosecuted.\"\n\nJohn, a former P&O seafarer, who started working in the ferry business when he was 16, also said the P&O boss should go.\n\n\"I am sickened and shocked by this man's arrogant explanation,\" he said. \"I don't even know if I've got the right words for how I'm feeling inside.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The government will stop a similar firing of P&O Ferries staff after the firm “exploited a loophole”, says Grant Shapps.\n\nMeanwhile, transport secretary Grant Shapps said he would take action to prevent similar mass sackings without notice.\n\nHe said the government would \"have a package of measures\" to remove a \"loophole in the law\" it believed had been \"exploited\" by P&O.\n\nMPs on the committee also raised questions about the way P&O notified foreign governments that it was going to make the redundancies, which is a legal requirement.\n\nThe company informed authorities in Barbados, Bermuda and Cyprus on 17 March - but MPs said it should have done this sooner.\n\nOn Wednesday, Boris Johnson told the Commons that \"it looks like\" P&O breached a similar rule in the UK, but some employment lawyers have cast doubt on that claim.\n\nThe company denies it breached any rules in this regard.", "One month into this invasion and so far, Ukraine has defied the odds. Outnumbered on almost every metric - in tanks, in troops, in aircraft - Ukraine's forces, reinforced by citizen volunteers, have in many places fought the Russian army to a standstill.\n\nThey have lost territory, especially in the south around Crimea, which was already occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014. But Moscow's original aim of quickly seizing the capital Kyiv and other major cities, forcing the government to resign, has manifestly failed.\n\nThe tide could still turn against Ukraine. Its forces are running dangerously low on the vital western-supplied anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles needed to fend off the advancing Russians.\n\nMany of Ukraine's most battle-hardened regular forces in the east of the country are at risk of being surrounded, cut off and annihilated. And with a quarter of the nation's population having fled their homes, those that stay put risk seeing their cities turned into a dystopian wasteland by relentless Russian artillery and rocket fire.\n\nYet despite these factors, Ukraine's forces are outperforming Russia's in this war, on several levels. This week the Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised them as defending parts of their country \"very smartly, very nimbly, very creatively\". So what exactly have been the secrets of their success?\n\nUkrainians' willingness to do what they can to defend their nation has freed up professional soldiers to go to the front line\n\nThere is a wealth of difference between the morale of the two armies. Ukrainians are fighting for the very survival of their country as a sovereign nation, appalled at President Putin's eve-of-war speech in which he said Ukraine was basically just an artificial Russian creation.\n\nUkrainians have rallied behind their government and their president. This has resulted in citizens with no prior military experience readily taking up arms to defend their towns and cities despite the overwhelming Russian firepower facing them.\n\n\"This is how people fight for their very existence,\" says Brigadier Tom Foulkes, who spent 35 years as a British Army officer in Germany during the Cold War. \"This is how they defend their homeland and their families. Their courage is both shocking and splendid.\"\n\nIn practice this has freed up Ukrainian soldiers to go and fight on the front line, knowing their cities have defence in depth.\n\nBy contrast, many of the Russian soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine are conscripts just out of school, bewildered and confused at finding themselves in a war zone when they thought they were just going on an exercise.\n\nMost had little or no battle preparation for the ferocity of the fighting they have encountered. There have been reports of desertions, food shortages and looting.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his senior colleagues have shown clear leadership\n\nEarly expectations of a devastating Russian cyber attack, knocking out Ukraine's communications, did not materialise. Instead, Ukraine has somehow managed to maintain effective co-ordination over several battlefronts, even where it has lost ground.\n\nIts government has stayed put in Kyiv and remained highly visible, with even the deputy prime minister dressed in a utilitarian khaki T-shirt as she addresses the nation against a backdrop of government insignia.\n\nThe Russian army, by contrast, does not appear to have any kind of unified leadership, with little co-ordination between its separate battlefronts.\n\nThis is likely to have had a negative effect on Russian military morale. It has been suggested the reported deaths of at least five Russian generals is partly a result of their having to get close to the fighting to dislodge their troops from getting bogged down.\n\nAt the level of Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), ie the corporals and the sergeants, Russian military doctrine allows for almost no initiative, with these junior ranks always waiting for orders from above.\n\nProf Michael Clarke, a military expert at King's College London, says Russian NCOs are beset with corruption and inefficiency and are deeply unpopular with those they command.\n\nUkraine has had access to tools of modern warfare such as the Javelin missile\n\nUkraine's forces are heavily outnumbered and yet they have made much better use of the ground and their weapons than the invading Russians.\n\nWhereas the Russians have tended to concentrate their forces in slow, heavy armoured columns, often with vehicles bunched up close together, the Ukrainians have successfully conducted finely-tuned hit-and-run raids, sneaking up and firing off an anti-tank missile, then vanishing before the Russians can return fire.\n\nPrior to the invasion, Nato trainers from the US, UK and Canada spent long periods in Ukraine, bringing its forces up to speed in defensive warfare and instructing them on how to make best use of state-of-the-art missile systems such as the Javelin or the Swedish-designed NLAW anti-tank weapon or the latest version of the Stinger anti-aircraft missile.\n\n\"The Ukrainians have been much cleverer than the Russians\", says Prof Clarke, \"because they've fought something much closer to a combined arms operation which the Russians haven't\". By this he means they have made full use of all the military tools at their disposal, such as drones, artillery, infantry, tanks and electronic warfare.\n\nWhen combined together, the sum of all these different aspects of warfare can create an exponential effect greater than the sum of its parts.\n\nAnother military strategist, Justin Crump, who runs the intelligence consultancy Sibylline, says Ukrainians have been particularly adept at seeking out the vulnerable points in Russian formations and hitting them hard. \"Ukraine has made use of highly effective tactics\", he says, including targeting Russian weak points such as supply convoys, using Nato-supplied weapon systems to good effect against precision targets and improvising where required.\n\nWhile it is hard to get an accurate picture of casualty figures, even the more conservative estimates made by the Pentagon put Russian combat deaths at more than 7,000. That is nearly half as many men as the Soviets lost in 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan and we are only a month into this war.\n\nBrig Tom Foulkes also has an explanation as to why so many Russian generals are getting killed on the front line: \"This sounds to me like a deliberate and highly successful sniper campaign which could degrade the Russian command structures.\"\n\nPresident Zelensky has spoken via video to a series of international meetings and foreign parliaments\n\nAnd then there is the information war. Ukraine is winning this hands-down in most of the world - although not in Russia where the Kremlin still controls access to most of the media.\n\n\"Ukraine has mobilised the information sphere to tremendous domestic and international advantage\", says Justin Crump. \"This has come from the top down, aided by (President) Zelensky's formidable media savvy.\"\n\nIt's a view echoed by Dr Ruth Deyermond, senior lecturer in post-Soviet security at Kings College London. \"Clearly the Ukrainian government has been very successful in controlling the narrative about the war, certainly for the wider world,\" she says. \"What the conflict has done for Ukraine's international reputation is absolutely remarkable.\"\n\nBut right now, one month into this desperate life-and-death struggle on Europe's eastern borders, that may still not be enough to salvage Ukraine.\n\nThe numerical might of the Russian army, for all its shortcomings, is not in Ukraine's favour. If somehow the supply of defensive weapons systems from the West dries up then there could only be so much longer this beleaguered nation can hold out.", "The 54-year-old tennis star - who denies all the charges - is on trial at Southwark Crown Court\n\nBoris Becker, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, offered his wedding ring in a bid to pay off his debts, a court has heard.\n\nMr Becker also wanted to sell his Mallorca estate in an effort to cancel his bankruptcy, the jury was told.\n\nThe 54-year-old German national was declared bankrupt in June 2017 after borrowing more than £3m from a bank.\n\nHe is on trial at Southwark Crown Court charged with 24 offences under the Insolvency Act. He denies all charges.\n\nThe former men's world number one is accused of hiding, or failing to hand over, assets including nine trophies and medals from his tennis career.\n\nHis 1985 and 1989 Wimbledon men's singles titles, his Australian Open trophies from 1991 and 1996 and his 1992 Olympic gold medal are among the items he is alleged to have concealed.\n\nAs the third day of his trial began on Wednesday, the court heard that Mr Becker had been interviewed at his London home in July 2017 by Michael Bint from the Insolvency Service.\n\nThe prosecution is being brought by the Insolvency Service on behalf of the business secretary.\n\nIn court, Mr Bint agreed with Mr Becker's barrister - Jonathan Laidlaw QC - that the tennis star had been \"co-operative\" during the hour-long discussion, which happened amid time pressures due to Mr Becker working for the BBC at a nearby tennis tournament.\n\n\"He offered to let you walk around the house in Wimbledon to see what was there, he volunteered an expensive wedding ring to you,\" Mr Laidlaw said.\n\nThe barrister added that Mr Becker's \"overriding concern was to seek an annulment of the bankruptcy\".\n\nBut the former tennis champion is accused by prosecutors of failing to hand over various high-value items.\n\nThe jury was told the tennis star was interrupted on about 20 occasions by his adviser, who allegedly spoke of \"work in progress\" or \"investigations being in hand\" at least 14 times.\n\nMr Bint said he had failed to get Mr Becker to sign a preliminary information questionnaire document - the only time he has forgotten in hundreds of cases since 2007 - because \"Mr Becker had to simply run away to go to Wimbledon\".\n\n\"Normally I would ask for a signed copy,\" Mr Bint added.\n\nMr Becker is also alleged to have hidden €1.13 million (£940,000) from the sale of a Mercedes car dealership he owned in Germany, which was paid into his Boris Becker Private Office (BBPOL) account.\n\nOn Tuesday, Prosecutor Rebecca Chalkley said: \"It is the prosecution case that Mr Becker used the BBPOL sterling account as an extension of his own account, effectively as his own piggy bank, for everyday personal expenses such as school fees for the children and such like.\"\n\nMs Chalkley told the jury that the former world number one spent hundreds of pounds at Harrods, bought online groceries at Ocado and treated himself to Ralph Lauren clothes.\n\nAt the start of the trial, Judge Deborah Taylor instructed the jury of 11 men and one woman to ignore Mr Becker's celebrity.\n\n\"You must treat him in exactly the same way you would treat someone you have not heard of and is not in the public eye,\" she said.\n\nThe 24 charges Mr Becker has been accused of include:\n\nThe trial, which is expected to last up to three weeks, continues.", "The Ford family, from the West Midlands, have noticed \"significant rises\" in their bills.\n\nThey spoke to the BBC about their experiences and reacted to the chancellor's Spring Statement.", "Netflix's Scott Stuber applauding The Power of the Dog's Jane Campion at the Directors Guild of America Awards\n\nA streaming service could win best picture at the Oscars for the first time on Sunday, which Netflix's head of global film Scott Stuber says would be \"the dream\".\n\n\"We all grew up wanting that,\" Stuber says in his first UK broadcast interview. \"We are all going into the room with that hope and dream. Can you make a film that will be considered best in class?\"\n\nNetflix, once the new kid on the block, has 27 Oscar nominations at this year's Academy Awards, more than any other studio. The Power of the Dog, the story of two warring brothers set in 1920s Montana, is one of the frontrunners to be named best picture.\n\nIts director, Jane Campion, is also nominated for best director, and its stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst are all up for acting awards.\n\nKodi Smit-McPhee and Benedict Cumberbatch are up for Oscars for The Power of the Dog\n\nNetflix has never won best picture, despite previous nominations for Roma, Mank and The Irishman. This year, it faces competition from another streaming giant, Apple, whose film Coda is also hotly tipped.\n\nStuber, often described as the most influential man in Hollywood, told me: \"I'm nervous. You never know what's going to happen in that room. It would be thrilling, it would be exciting, I hope we'll be the ones who win it. But if not, we're OK.\"\n\nWe were talking in one of the gleaming new Netflix offices in the heart of Hollywood, just a mile from the Dolby Theatre, which will host the Academy Awards on Sunday. It's a fitting location for a streamer that is revolutionising the film industry.\n\nAfter getting started in television programming, Netflix only began making original films less than seven years ago. Stuber joined in 2017 from Universal, a studio from a more traditional mould.\n\nHis mission was to bring great storytelling and big-name directors to Netflix, and to move the streamer further from its previous business model, when it licenced movies from others.\n\nHe has attracted directors like Alfonso Cuaron, Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee as well as Campion, even though he faced initial reservations. \"When you're new, there's always scepticism,\" he says.\n\n\"I thought OK, I have a big job, I'm the head of a new studio, let me call everyone. And a lot of people would go, 'No', and I thought, 'Oh really, but we've been friends or we've made that film or that film.' And it kind of shocked me.\"\n\nAlfonso Cuaron's Roma won three Oscars in 2019 - but not best picture\n\nMany film-makers have now changed their views, and the latest signing is Steven Spielberg, whose company has a multi-year deal with Netflix.\n\nStuber says they are talking about a \"really terrific thriller\" that will cost between $50m-$70m (£38m-£53m) and a \"big movie\" that will be announced in the next few months costing hundreds of millions of dollars. \"I hope to get him behind the camera for us one day,\" he says.\n\nSpielberg once said films made by streaming services should not be allowed to enter the Oscars. What changed?\n\nStuber believes the director is only trying to \"make sure that whatever these new distribution models are, at the core they are trying to protect the movie business\".\n\nHe adds: \"I wish that Friday night at the movies was still as important as it was when I was 19. It's changing, because there's video games and phones and TikTok, but really what we have to do is protect the movie business.\"\n\nBut is Netflix doing that? Some claim Netflix and its streamer competitors are killing cinema by not giving movies enough of a platform in cinemas before launching them onto their services.\n\nCumberbatch has previously criticised Netflix for the short theatrical window it gave The Power of the Dog, just a few weeks exclusively in cinemas before it launched on Netflix. He told Vanity Fair he questioned whether he was \"working for the Goliath that is killing David\".\n\nNetflix also has a best picture nomination for Don't Look Up, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep\n\nStuber points out that the movie has been shown in more than 2,000 cinemas, and remained in many while being streamed. He says Netflix wants to offer directors like Campion the option for their films to be seen on the big screen, while also bringing them to a home audience.\n\nHe does also appear open to longer windows for films to be exclusively screened in cinemas. \"We want it to work, we want these films to matter in big profound ways. We're trying to get the best combination of audiences. Think of the audience on Netflix. The size of the audience for that film is huge compared to what it would be [if only in cinemas].\"\n\nNetflix has more than 200 million subscribers across 190 countries. As for the idea that Netflix is killing cinema? \"That would be terrible, for someone who loves it.\"\n\nStuber still thinks films are best seen \"on the big screen or a big screen at home\" and believes it will stay that way. His prediction for the future of film is that there will be less time between release dates for movie franchises, due to streaming demand.\n\n\"You'll see someone make two big Star Wars movies and they'll be six months apart instead of two years apart, and I think you'll see someone make a big film and then quickly have eight to 10 episodes of a series offshoot. So the audience that loves that story will be able to see it very quickly thereafter.\"\n\nWhen it comes to the TikTok generation, he says \"it's imperative to make sure they still love movies\".\n\nNetflix has announced around 90 original films for this year, with eight in production now including Heart of Stone, starring Wonder Woman Gal Gadot, which is currently shooting in the UK. Enola Holmes 2 has also recently finished filming at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, where Netflix is doubling its presence.\n\nThe UK is \"one of the great places in the world to make film\" for its artistry, storytelling, craftsmanship and levels of talent, says Stuber.\n\nHe believes we are heading into a \"bold decade in film, as we figure out all these distribution models and how they work together\".\n\nHe says \"it's going to be a great time for new voices around the globe\" and that we'll find the next generation of Campions, Spike Lees and Scorseses.\n\nHis ambition is to get Daniel Day Lewis to Netflix. \"I think he's remarkable, but he's retired,\" he bemoans. Stuber is also a huge Denzel Washington fan. \"My dream was to get the two of them in a movie together.\n\n\"But that dream won't come true, so hopefully I can just get Denzel.\"", "The couple pictured together at Royal Ascot in 2011 - Sheikh Mohammed is a major figure in the horse racing world\n\nThe ex-wife of Dubai's ruler will have sole responsibility for schooling and medical care of their children after the High Court ruled he abused her.\n\nThe ruling is expected to be the final major decision in the case between Sheikh Mohammed, 72, and his sixth wife Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, 47.\n\nShe fled the United Arab Emirates in 2019 and now lives in the UK.\n\nIn the judgement published on Thursday, judge Sir Andrew McFarlane - the most senior family court judge in England and Wales - limited Sheikh Mohammed's parental responsibility for his daughter and son, Al Jalila, 14, and Zayed, 10, who the judge ruled could be named, despite their young ages.\n\nAfter fleeing to the UK nearly three years ago, Princess Haya, daughter of Jordan's former King Hussein, applied for the children to be made wards of court and asked the High Court to make a series of findings about Sheikh Mohammed.\n\nThe sheikh - the multi-billionaire ruler of Dubai, prime minister of the UAE and an influential horse-racing owner - applied for the return of the two children to Dubai but later accepted they would live in England, and recently opted not to pursue direct contact with the two children.\n\nThe court heard this means he has no face-to-face contact with the children, but can instead contact them indirectly, such as through telephone calls.\n\nWhen she fled the UAE for the UK in April 2019, the princess said she was in fear for her life, after discovering Sheikh Mohammed had previously abducted two of his other daughters - Sheikha Latifa and Sheikha Shamsa - and rendered them back to Dubai against their will.\n\nIn the judgement, Sir Andrew said Sheikh Mohammed \"consistently displayed coercive and controlling behaviour with respect to those members of his family who he regards as behaving contrary to his will\".\n\nSir Andrew said a co-parenting relationship between the estranged couple was \"entirely bankrupt\".\n\n\"The decision to afford the mother sole responsibility for these important matters is justified by the need to reduce the potential for continuing harm to the children,\" he ruled.\n\nPrincess Haya described her children as \"the two bravest souls of all\"\n\nThe judge said he accepted Sheikh Mohammed loved the two children, who loved him back.\n\nBut he said there was an \"absence of any acceptance of responsibility, expression of remorse or understanding of the impact\" of his behaviour on his former wife.\n\nSir Andrew found Sheikh Mohammed's behaviour towards his ex-wife was domestic abuse \"conducted on a scale which is entirely outside the ordinary circumstances of cases heard in the family court in this jurisdiction\".\n\nHe added: \"Given his immense power and wealth, the potential for the father, and those in Dubai who do his bidding, to act remorselessly against the interests of the mother has been proved during these proceedings.\"\n\nThe judge said the \"sustained\" abuse towards Princess Haya likely had \"a profound impact upon every aspect of her day-to-day life and her emotional wellbeing\".\n\nIn December the High Court awarded Princess Haya, the youngest of Sheikh Mohammed's six wives, a lump sum settlement of £251.5m to cover the cost of running two multi-million pound properties in London and Surrey, a security budget, holidays, salaries and accommodation for a nurse and a nanny, armoured vehicles for the family, and the cost of maintaining various ponies and pets.\n\nPrincess Haya said in a statement after the latest ruling that she and her children \"are not pawns to be used for division\".\n\nShe said: \"There are no words, no words at all, to describe the love, respect, admiration, and pride I have for the two bravest souls of all, Jalila and Zayed.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the ruler maintained his denial of the allegations made against him and wished to make clear that: \"He loves his children and cherishes their love for him. He has always cared and provided for them, and always will.\"", "Firefighters tackled fires on mountains in the Mournes\n\nFirefighters have extinguished fires on the Mourne mountains in County Down.\n\nThe blaze had been described as \"significant\", with the fire front measuring about two miles (3km) long at midnight.\n\nCrews were first called to the area on Tuesday evening.\n\nBut the blaze posed no risk to life or property, so the situation was monitored overnight. The public was asked to avoid the area.\n\nIn an update at about 20:00 GMT on Wednesday, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) said that fires at Spelga and the Hen and Cock mountains had been extinguished, and that crews had been withdrawn.\n\nIn an earlier update on Wednesday, the fire service said firefighters had responded to a number of wildfires, \"including two significant ones in the Mourne mountains\".\n\n\"At the height of both of these incidents, six appliances and over 30 personnel were in attendance at each incident,\" the NIFRS said.\n\n\"Our firefighters have not only worked really hard when responding to these incidents but have also continued to provide cover and respond to incidents across the wider Mournes area.\n\n\"These incidents do put an additional strain on our resources and therefore we are asking for the public to support us by not starting fires in the countryside.\"\n\nNIFRS said earlier that firefighters used \"beaters and knapsack sprayers\" to extinguish the blaze.\n\nBBC News NI south east reporter Cormac Campbell, at the scene, said the landscape was completely black.\n\nAfter monitoring the situation overnight, NIFRS group commander Mark Smyth said crews returned on Wednesday morning to assess the situation.\n\n\"At midnight there was an approximate size of the fire front of two miles long, so it's a fairly significant fire,\" Mr Smyth said.\n\n\"That's just the fire front itself. How deep it went into the mountain and down the side of it, we weren't sure last night due to not being able to get on to the mountain.\"\n\nMr Smyth said crews worked hard to limit the damage.\n\nThe fire front in the Mournes was approximately two miles long at midnight\n\nWhen asked why crews held off until the morning to tackle the fire, Mr Smyth said it was for the safety of firefighters.\n\nMr Smyth also described any deliberate harm to the environment and wildlife as \"vandalism\".\n\nThe cause of the blaze is still unknown.\n\nHowever, Mr Smyth said wildfires in Northern Ireland were rarely accidental.\n\n\"We will be concentrating on suppressing the fire if we can and getting it under control.\n\n\"And then after, as a multi-agency approach with Environment Agency and PSNI, we might consider an investigation into how it started.\"\n\nThe fires in the Mournes are the latest in a number of gorse fires this week.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Belfast's Cave Hill was one of two sites in the city scorched by fires\n\nA fire in Belfast's Cave Hill broke out on Monday night.\n\nOthers were put out on nearby Black Mountain and in Rathfriland, County Down.\n\nMr Smyth says they caused significant damage to wildlife and the environment.\n\n\"A couple of our fires in the Belfast area this week, the reports came back from the crews that it was a deliberate fire,\" he said.\n\n\"Every fire is a deliberate fire, we have very few natural fires that happen in the wild in Northern Ireland.\"", "President Biden is expected to discuss natural gas supplies, as the EU moves to reduce exposure to Russia\n\nUS President Joe Biden joins fellow Western leaders in Brussels on Thursday for three summits on Russia's war in Ukraine, a month after the invasion began.\n\nNato, the G7 and the EU are all holding meetings, in a display of unity rarely seen by the West.\n\nMr Biden will take part in all three, the first ever visit by a US president to an EU summit in Brussels.\n\nBut his visit to Brussels is not just about symbolism.\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has given the Western defensive alliance Nato a renewed sense of purpose. And as the EU attempts to sever energy ties with Russia, it needs to forge and reinforce other relationships, particularly with the US.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to appear by video link at all three summits.\n\nNato's 30 presidents and prime ministers will agree greater support for Ukraine and new troop deployments for Eastern allies. Their aim is to show solidarity to Kyiv, though only up to a point.\n\nMany, but not all, have been willing to supply weapons. The UK said it would use both the G7 and Nato meetings to \"substantively increase defensive lethal aid to Ukraine\".\n\nBut the alliance has also made clear it won't become more directly involved and Mr Zelensky's repeated requests for a no-fly zone over Ukraine have pretty much been ignored.\n\nNor is it clear how Nato would respond if Russia were to dramatically escalate the conflict in Ukraine - such as an attack on a Western weapons convoy, the use of chemical, or even tactical nuclear weapons. Nato's red lines have so far been drawn at its borders.\n\nFor the past few weeks, 30,000 Nato troops from 25 countries have been training in Norway as part of Exercise Cold Response, a long-planned exercise that has now taken on more significance.\n\nSoldiers from Sweden, which is not part of Nato, joined thousands of troops on exercise in Norway\n\nLike Ukraine, Norway borders Russia. The key difference is that, as a Nato member, Norway is covered by a commitment to \"collective defence\" - an attack on one is an attack on all.\n\n\"I think an exercise like this is pretty good to have, to prove to countries like Russia… that you don't want to mess with Nato,\" a young Norwegian conscript called Peder told the BBC.\n\nNato leaders are focused on how to boost their own defences. They've already sent thousands more troops to the alliance's eastern flank, along with more air defence batteries, warships and aircraft.\n\nThis, says Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, is the \"new normal\" following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia will get exactly what it didn't want - more, not less Nato near its border. Nato battlegroups will stretch all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea for the foreseeable future.\n\nTwo EU countries that are not members of Nato - Sweden and Finland - contributed troops to the exercise in Norway. They appear to be edging closer and closer to Nato in the wake of Russia's invasion.\n\nPresident Trump once questioned the very existence of Nato and French President Emmanuel Macron once called it \"brain dead\". But President Biden's visit to Brussels is proof that he sees it as being more important than ever to curb a more aggressive Russia.\n\nDefence strategy will also play a part in an EU summit where leaders will approve plans that aim to pull member states closer together on military planning, intelligence and procurement. One ambition is to have a rapidly deployable force of 5,000 troops.\n\nIt's all part of the theme of \"strategic autonomy\" championed by Mr Macron.\n\nThe argument is that a more sovereign Europe is a safer Europe, whether that's by securing reliable supplies of energy and semiconductor chips or by boosting military spending.\n\nBut the trickiest subject for the European Union's 27 member states is fast becoming the future of energy supplies, as they try to look beyond Russia.\n\nAfter an initial, dizzying display of unity on sanctions across all 27 member states there are now obvious ruptures over what to do next.\n\nEU leaders have reacted fast to Russia's invasion with a series of hard-hitting sanctions\n\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz has publicly denounced the idea of banning Russian gas and oil imports, arguing it will drag Europe into a recession. \"Sanctions must not hit the European states harder than the Russian leadership. That is our principle,\" he said on the eve of the summit.\n\nSoaring energy prices are also a concern to be discussed by EU leaders on Friday.\n\nBut there are nations agitating for action as they voice deep discomfort about handing cash to the Kremlin via energy payments. \"It's blood money,\" said one central European diplomat. \"I don't think some countries understand the gravity of the situation.\"\n\nPresident Biden's ability to offer Europe more US Liquefied Natural Gas is a key watch at Thursday's summit. The US is the world's largest producer of natural gas.\n\nHe is also expected to announce more sanctions on Russian political figures as well as so-called oligarchs.\n\nBut the prospect of fresh EU sanctions this week is being played down. Some in Brussels call it \"fatigue\", while others insist it's the right time to take stock.\n• None Nato to send more troops to eastern Europe", "The effect of Covid restrictions and the pandemic on children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) could be \"long-lasting\" and \"severe\".\n\nThat is according to NI's mental health champion Professor Siobhan O'Neill.\n\nProf O'Neill also said young people as whole were \"more heavily impacted by the pandemic and the restrictions than any other age group\".\n\nIt led to \"an increase in the symptoms of mental ill health, behavioural, emotional and attention difficulties\".\n\nProf O'Neill was speaking during a briefing to assembly members (MLAs) on Stormont's education committee.\n\nPrevious reports, including from Northern Ireland's Commissioner for Children Koulla Yiasouma, have highlighted the \"severe impact\" of restrictions and the pandemic on young people.\n\nThere has also been a significant rise in young people in mental health crisis seeking help at hospital.\n\nProf O'Neill told MLAs that symptoms of mental ill health in children \"increased during times when there were restrictions to activities and a reduction in face-to-face teaching in schools\".\n\nProf O'Neill was appointed as Northern Ireland's mental health champion last year\n\n\"Young people's mental health was poor before the pandemic and they were more heavily impacted by the pandemic and the restrictions than any other age group, there's now a huge volume of research that shows that,\" she said.\n\nBut she said that not all children and young people had been affected equally.\n\n\"Rates were higher in younger children, children with special educational needs or neuro-developmental disorders, and children in deprived areas,\" she said.\n\nProf O'Neill said the large-scale Co-Space study,, which tracked the mental health of parents, children and young people between March 2020 and July 2021, suggested \"behavioural, emotional, and attention difficulties decreased as restrictions eased\".\n\nTherefore she suggested the impact would be relatively short-lived for most children.\n\nBut she said children with SEN and from low-income households had not \"shown the same level of recovery\".\n\nMLAs on the committee had previously been told that essential services for many young people with disabilities \"went to zero overnight\" due to lockdowns.\n\nThat had led to some children harming themselves and injuring their parents.\n\nMany respite and other support services were also suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nSome families have said their children regressed and struggled to cope due to the withdrawal of day centre and respite services.\n\nHowever, the executive decided that special schools should remain open to all pupils when other schools moved mainly to remote learning in January 2021.\n\nProf O'Neill was asked by Sinn Féin MLA Nicola Brogan about the impact on children with SEN.\n\n\"I need to keep raising this at every opportunity because those are a group of young people who are not recovering,\" Prof O'Neill said.\n\n\"The effects are more long-lasting and much more severe.\n\n\"One of the studies showed that young people who were disabled had lower levels of happiness. That's just shocking.\n\n\"We need to do something for that group of young people and their carers.\n\n\"Some services haven't come back again, you know, and we've closed schools this week,\" she said.\n\nProf O'Neill also said it was \"vital\" that there was funding for a new 10-year mental health strategy including an increase in funding for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.\n\nBBC News NI has also previously revealed that children's mental health assessment targets have previously been breached hundreds of times.", "The Bloody Bridge fire was extinguished at about 13:30 on Thursday\n\nFirefighters returned to the Mournes on Thursday to tackle another gorse fire in the mountains, believed to be started deliberately.\n\nAbout 50 crew members dealt with three areas of fire near Bloody Bridge, County Down.\n\nThe fire service said it was a \"very significant\" blaze, which was \"taking a toll\" on firefighters physically.\n\nFires were first reported in the Mournes on Tuesday, at Spelga and the Hen and Cock mountains.\n\nThe Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said those blazes had been extinguished and crews were withdrawn on Wednesday night.\n\nThe Bloody Bridge fire was extinguished at about 13:30 on Thursday.\n\nAt the height of the incident, six fire appliances and the specialist wildfire team attended, the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) said.\n\nThe cause is believed to be deliberate, it added.\n\nSpeaking to BBC News NI on Thursday morning, Group Commander Andy Burns said firefighters were using beaters and knapsack sprayers to battle flames.\n\nDriving out the main Newcastle to Annalong road, just past Bloody Bridge you can start to see smoke rising from the Mournes.\n\nYou couldn't miss the fire service operation as a number of appliances are parked in a lay-by.\n\nLooking up to the mountains the first thing you see is the black scarring, where the fire has already been put out.\n\nPlumes of smoke are rising from lower levels and intermittent flames are visible through the trees.\n\nThe fire service says these flames are part of what they call a controlled burn where firefighters burn the vegetation, under the watchful eye of Mourne Heritage Trust, to create a fire break.\n\nThe firefighters have to go in on foot and beat the fire out, so it's exhausting work.\n\nA dry, warm day doesn't help and while the fire service says some light rain would help, anything more can wash vegetation away and cause more environmental damage.\n\nThe fires were the latest in a string of gorse fires this week, which the fire commander said were \"draining on energy\" for crews.\n\n\"It's taking a tremendous toll in terms of our resources - not only are we taking resources out of our towns and villages, the crews are starting to become exhausted,\" he said.\n\n\"It's very difficult to walk up a steep mountainside...and when we get there the only way to fight this fire is to physically to beat it.\"\n\nGroup Commander Andy Burns says the heathland has been tough for firefighters to work through\n\nMourne Heritage Trust, which provides environmental and visitor management services in the Mournes, said four of its staff attended the fires on Thursday to support NIFRS personnel.\n\nThis Facebook post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Facebook The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts. Skip facebook post by Mournelive This article contains content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Facebook cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts.\n\nAt the height of the incidents on Wednesday, the fire service said the operation involved six engines and more than 30 personnel.\n\nAt one point the fires were described as \"significant\", with the front measuring about two miles (3km).\n\nCrews were first called to the Mourne Mountains on Tuesday\n\nNI Water said the three fires on Wednesday caused severe damage to the natural environment, adding that wildfires can pose a risk to drinking water supply.\n\nRebecca Allen, catchment liaison officer, said while tap water quality remained unaffected, work was taking place to keep it that way.\n\n\"Wildfires not only pose a terrible risk to all life but can remove the primary layer of vegetation, leaving the burned bare soil exposed to erosion which then makes its way into the reservoirs, from where water is abstracted for treatment to be drinking water,\" she said.\n\n\"Extra water samples have to be collected and analysed, streams from burned areas need isolated, and other remedial measures must be taken like blocking streams to protect reservoirs.\"\n\nFirefighters also put out gorse fires on Monday including at Belfast's Cave Hill and Black Mountain and in Rathfriland, County Down.", "Rachel Zegler attended the Baftas in London earlier this month\n\nWest Side Story actress Rachel Zegler will attend the Oscars after all, following an outcry when she revealed she had not been invited.\n\nZegler plays Maria in Steven Spielberg's new adaptation of the hit musical, which is nominated for seven prizes at Sunday's Academy Awards.\n\nEarlier this week, she said she would watch the ceremony on TV in \"sweatpants and my boyfriend's flannel\".\n\nBut has now been added to the final list of stars who will present awards.\n\n\"The absolutely incredible team at @Disney and our Snow White producers worked some real-life magic, and I am thrilled to be able to celebrate my @westsidemovie fam at the Oscars,\" she wrote on Twitter.\n\nThe 20-year-old is currently shooting Disney's new live action Snow White film in the UK.\n\n\"It's not lost on me that being able to shoot a film the scale of Snow White during Covid is not easy, and any adjustment to our schedule is no small sacrifice,\" Zegler said.\n\nShe thanked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who organise the Oscars, and this year's ceremony producer Will Packer.\n\n\"I'm so excited to open that shiny envelope,\" she said. \"I could not be more grateful to everyone who helped make this possible. seriously. Now, what to wear...\"\n\nThe actress originally revealed she had not been invited to the glittering Hollywood show in response to a social media user who asked what she was planning to wear.\n\nRuss Tamblyn, who played Riff in the original 1961 film, was among those who called on the Academy to reconsider, saying it was \"your duty to find Rachel a seat at the Oscars\".\n\nHe wrote: \"She STARS in #Westsidestory which is nominated across the board. When they say representation matters, this is what that means. Please do right by her.\"\n\nZegler is not nominated personally, but her co-star Ariana DeBose, who plays Anita, is favourite to win best supporting actress, while the film's other nominations include best picture.\n\nThe latest additions to the award presenter line-up also include tennis legends Serena Williams and Venus Williams, whose story is told in another best picture nominee, King Richard.\n\nThey will be joined by Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin and Eurphoria's Jacob Elordi.", "The Duke of Cambridge has spoken of his \"profound sorrow\" over slavery during a speech at a dinner in Jamaica.\n\nPrince William said slavery was abhorrent, \"should never have happened\" and \"forever stains our history\".\n\nEarlier, the island's prime minister, Andrew Holness, told the future king his country planned to pursue its goals as an independent country.\n\nOn the fifth day of their Caribbean tour the duke and duchess also visited a hospital and school.\n\nSpeaking at a dinner hosted by the Governor General of Jamaica, Prince William praised the spirit of the island that \"makes it so special\" as well as addressing the UK's role in slavery.\n\n\"While the pain runs deep, Jamaica continues to forge its future with determination, courage and fortitude,\" he said.\n\nThe prince added the Queen had a deep affection for the country and said he had been touched to hear from Jamaicans about their affection for his grandmother in her Platinum Jubilee year.\n\n\"Sorrow\" is not \"sorry\". Some will be disappointed about that. But \"sorry\" would have been a different order of magnitude, carrying with it acceptance of responsibility and opening up the question of financial compensation.\n\nHardly surprising then that Prince William didn't go that far. That would be a job for government, not royalty.\n\nWhen I spoke to Jamaicans earlier in the evening in Emancipation Park in Kingston there was a lot of thought about slavery, but little in the way of anger.\n\nThere was talk of pain, but also an acknowledgment that this generation of Jamaicans is a long way from the generations exploited by plantation owners during colonial rule. It was those who suffered then that deserved an apology, one young woman said.\n\nThis has been a particularly political part of the Caribbean tour. With his speech, William tried to deal with some of the issues about Britain's past in Jamaica.\n\nBut the prime minister has raised a big question about the future of the Royal Family in a truly independent Jamaica.\n\nThere have been calls in Jamaica to drop the Queen as head of state and the royal visit has seen demonstrations urging the monarchy to pay reparations for the slave trade.\n\nMr Holness, who campaigned on a platform of making Jamaica a republic, told the duke there were \"unresolved\" issues but said that the royals' presence gave an opportunity for those to be addressed.\n\nHe said Jamaica was \"moving on\" and added: \"We intend to attain in short order our development goals and fulfil our true ambitions and destiny as an independent, developed, prosperous country.\"\n\nJamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness (left) earlier told the Duke of Cambridge there were \"unresolved\" issues\n\nThe royal couple visited a hospital in Spanish City during their tour\n\nThe Duchess of Cambridge spoke with pupils at Shortwood Teachers' College in Kingston\n\nLast year, Barbados officially removed the Queen as its head of state in a ceremony attended by the Prince of Wales.\n\nIn a speech to mark the occasion Prince Charles acknowledged the \"appalling atrocity of slavery\", something his son referenced during his own address in Jamaica.\n\nEarlier on Wednesday, the duke was joined by his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, for a visit to Spanish Town Hospital and Shortwood Teachers' College where they met staff and students.\n\nAt the hospital the duke revealed both he and his wife had received three Covid vaccines and described staff as \"total heroes\" as he asked them to look after their mental health.\n\nThey also visited the Caribbean Military Technical Training Institute, near Montego Bay, where the duchess forced her husband off the road as he tested his skills in a driving simulator.\n\nIn his speech the duke said the couple wished they had more time to spend in Jamaica and said they hoped to come back with their children.", "Rishi Sunak married Akshata Murty in 2009 and they have two children\n\nRishi Sunak has denied any connection with a multinational firm part-owned by his wife that has continued to operate in Russia during the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe chancellor said he had \"nothing to do\" with Infosys, in which his wife Akshata Murty holds shares.\n\nHe has urged UK firms to pull out of Russia to inflict \"economic pain\" on President Vladimir Putin.\n\nMr Sunak's spokesperson said Ms Murty had no role in Infosys's operational decisions.\n\nThe software giant was co-founded by Ms Murty's father Narayana, an Indian billionaire who retired from the company in 2014.\n\nFounded in 1981, the firm has since expanded into a number of countries and operates an office in Moscow.\n\nIts most recent annual report lists Ms Murty as holding 0.9% of the company's shares - reportedly worth hundreds of millions of pounds.\n\nIndia has not followed Western countries, including the UK, in restricting trade with Russia via sanctions in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nEarlier this month, Mr Sunak said the government would \"fully support\" UK firms that pull out of Russia voluntarily.\n\nAfter meeting a group of leading British companies, the chancellor said he welcomed the \"consensus on the need to inflict maximum economic pain on Putin and his regime\".\n\n\"While I recognise that it may be challenging to wind down existing investments, I believe there is no argument for new investment in the Russian economy,\" he added.\n\n\"I am urging asset owners and managers to think very carefully about any investments that would in any sense support Putin and his regime.\"\n\nPressed on Infosys's presence in Russia on Thursday, Mr Sunak told Sky News: \"I'm an elected politician, and I'm here to talk to you about what I'm responsible for. My wife is not.\"\n\nHe added that companies' operations were \"up to them\".\n\n\"We've put in place significant sanctions and all the companies we're responsible for are following those, as they rightly should,\" said the chancellor.\n\nNarayana Murthy co-founded Infosys, often seen as the poster child of India's technology boom.\n\nA spokesperson for the chancellor said Ms Murty was \"one of thousands of minority shareholders in the company\".\n\n\"It is a public company and neither her nor any member of her family have any involvement in the operational decisions of the company,\" they added.\n\nInfosys said it had a \"small team of employees based out of Russia\" that \"services some of our global clients, locally\".\n\n\"We do not have any active business relationships with local Russian enterprises,\" it added.\n\n\"Infosys supports and advocates for peace between Russia and Ukraine\".\n\nInfosys has had connections in the past to Alfa Bank, one of Russia's biggest financial institutions, which was added to the UK's sanctions list on Thursday, having already been sanctioned by the US and EU.\n\nIn 2004, Mr Putin visited Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore, where he was given a guided tour by Narayana Murthy.\n\nMr Sunak met his future spouse while studying for an MBA at Stanford University in California. They married in 2009 and have two children.", "Northern Ireland's abortion laws changed in 2020 but full services have yet to be commissioned\n\nSecretary of State Brandon Lewis has said he will intervene further on abortion services for Northern Ireland after the assembly election in May.\n\nNorthern Ireland's abortion laws changed in 2020 after Westminster acted during the absence of devolution.\n\nBut the commissioning of services had been stalled due to political disagreement.\n\nMr Lewis said the collapse of the executive had created a \"further obstacle\" to progress the legislation.\n\nLast July, the secretary of state directed Stormont ministers and departments to act by March 2022.\n\nHe took powers that issued a formal direction to Stormont's Department of Health to draw up proposals and take them to the executive for approval.\n\nIn February, the DUP withdrew Paul Givan as first minister which prompted the collapse of the executive.\n\nBrandon Lewis says he has no choice but to act over abortion services\n\nOn Thursday, Mr Lewis said it was \"increasingly clear\" the Department of Health was going to miss the deadline he had set.\n\nHe also said the collapse of the executive left him with \"no choice\" but to take forward the issue himself.\n\nIn a written statement, he said: \"Two years after the Abortion (Northern Ireland) 2020 Regulations established the framework for abortion services, women and girls are still unable to access high-quality abortion and post-abortion care in Northern Ireland.\n\n\"This is unacceptable. Without access to services in Northern Ireland, women and girls are being placed at an increased risk of harm.\"\n\nHe added he was committed to making regulations and directions, \"directly following\" the election to place a duty on the Department of Health to make abortion services available \"as soon as is reasonably practicable\".\n\nHe said he would also take action that would \"remove the need\" for executive approval for legislation on abortion before services can be commissioned and funded.\n\n\"This means that the Department of Health will have no further barriers to commission and fund services,\" he added.\n\nThe secretary of state is also immediately setting up a small team in the Northern Ireland Office \"with relevant experience in reproductive healthcare and financial monitoring\" to provide expert advice and to work alongside the Department of Health.\n\nHe warned: \"If I assess the Department of Health is not complying with the duty I place on it, I am prepared to use my powers to intervene.\"\n\nThe delay around commissioning of abortion services has been the subject of several legal challenges in recent months.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Jurors were shown bodycam footage of plain-clothed police officers tackling Ali Harbi Ali to the ground\n\nJurors have been shown footage of the moment two police officers tackled a knife-wielding terror suspect accused of murdering Sir David Amess MP.\n\nSir David, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.\n\nOfficers were heard to shout \"drop the knife\" as they entered Belfairs Methodist Church after the attack.\n\nAli Harbi Ali, 26, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism.\n\nThe trial at the Old Bailey also heard how Mr Ali told police officers he had committed a \"terror-related crime.\"\n\nSir David died at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea during a constituency surgery last October\n\nAli Harbi Ali was detained by two plain-clothed police officers\n\nPCs Scott James and Ryan Curtis entered Belfairs Methodist Church armed only with a baton and incapacitant spray, the court was told, despite being warned the suspect had a knife.\n\nPC Curtis told the jury they found Mr Ali standing in the aisle of the church with a blood-stained knife in his hand.\n\nBody-worn footage from PC James was played to the court and showed the officer deciding against waiting for backup from a team with a Taser.\n\nAli Harbi Ali told a booking officer at Southend police station his motive was \"terror and religious-based\"\n\nThe footage showed them shout \"drop the knife!\" on entering the church. After a short stand-off, the suspect dropped the weapon and officers handcuffed him.\n\nIn the aftermath of the arrest, Mr Ali, who was believed to be on the phone to his sister at the time said \"My phone's rung, it's the family.\"\n\nShouting, he added: \"Don't worry. The police got me. They're not gonna shoot.\"\n\nMr Ali was on the video saying \"I was prepared to die\", the court heard.\n\nHe was taken to Southend police station and asked if the crime might be domestic or hate-related.\n\nSir David died from multiple stab wounds to the chest, some 15cm (5.9in) deep, and was pronounced dead inside the church.\n\nSir David Amess was fatally stabbed during a constituency surgery in October\n\nPreviously, jurors were played a 999 call from the aftermath of the attack where a witness said Mr Ali was threatening to kill four other people.\n\nThey were also shown CCTV images earlier in the trial showing how Mr Ali travelled form his Kentish Town, north London, home to Leigh-on-Sea on the day of the killing.\n\nThe trial previously heard how Mr Ali allegedly spent years researching a number of potential high-profile political targets including Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Sir Keir Starmer.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A win against Austria on Thursday will see Wales play Ukraine or Scotland for a place at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar\n\nWales last played at a football World Cup 64 years ago, and a win later will put them just one game away from a return.\n\nFans from across Wales and the world are descending on Cardiff for one of the most important games in decades.\n\nIn 1958 they were eliminated by eventual winners Brazil, with Pele scoring the quarter-final winner.\n\nTonight they play Austria, and a win will see them face Scotland or Ukraine for a place at the 2022 World Cup.\n\nThe game kicks off at 19:45 GMT at the Cardiff City Stadium, but fans have been arriving in the capital since the early morning.\n\n\"It's a massive game,\" Noel Mooney, chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.\n\n\"It is a World Cup final for us in many ways.\"\n\nHe added: \"We've done everything we can preparing for this, obviously it's now up to the players after they cross that white line.\n\n\"They've brought a lot of joy, a lot of honour to Cymru… to get to a World Cup would cement their place in Welsh sporting and folklore history.\n\n\"I have no doubt the guys will put on a massive performance in for their country.\"\n\nJames, 33, from Holyhead and his daughter Ellie have been to the last few Wales games, but said they were especially nervous for this one.\n\nJames' father and Ellie's grandad is travelling down from Holyhead to watch the match with them\n\n\"The game has so much history, if we win tonight there is still one more to go but yeah, but we need to close that chapter of getting to the World Cup rather than leaving it 60 odd years,\" said James.\n\nEllie added she was very excited to watch the game.\n\n\"Big games don't come around very often,\" said Dai Rees, 37, from Sully in the Vale of Glamorgan, who backs Wales to win against Austria, but is wary of the \"heartbreak\" of potentially losing in the final.\n\nOwain, Paul and Dai are confident of a Wales win, but said that did not make them any less scared\n\n\"I think we have a really good chance at winning... but I think it's going to go to extra time, so yeah, I'm really scared,\" he added.\n\n\"It will just be much more heart-breaking to lose in the final.\"\n\nRosie Milic 25, from Wrexham, and 25-year-old Caragh Porter, from Risca, said they went to all of the Wales' games and cannot wait for tonight's\n\nCharlie, Owain, Gwion and Derrick from Bancyfelin in Carmarthenshire said it would \"mean so much\" to them to see Wales play at a World Cup\n\n\"Of course we are excited for the game,\" said Charlie Morse, 24, from Bancyfelin in Carmarthenshire.\n\nOn the possibility of playing Ukraine in the final, he added: \"It's football not politics. We love our country, but don't get me wrong it's very sad what's going on in Ukraine.\"\n\nFans are making the journey down to Cardiff from all corners of Wales - and the world. With one, Mark Pickering, making the 24-hour journey from Tokyo, Japan.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mark Pickering 🏴 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWales captain and star player Gareth Bale has already said this would be his \"last chance\" to play for Wales at a World Cup.\n\nWales qualified for their first international tournament since 1958 at the 2016 European Championships, an experience which Bale said can \"inspire\" the team to qualify for the World Cup.\n\n\"We have to give 100% and have no regrets,\" he said.\n\n\"We can draw on past experiences that have hurt us but also the excitement of what potentially is ahead, so there is a lot to play for.\"\n\nThe Welsh squad received a heroes welcome after reaching the semi-finals of the 2016 Euros\n\nTransport for Wales (TfW) have warned of delays for people travelling to Cardiff via train, and said face-coverings remained mandatory on public transport.\n\nServices after the match will be \"extremely limited\" due to the late kick-off, TfW added.\n\nCardiff Bus said Leckwith Road, near Cardiff City stadium, will be closed following the match, with buses diverted.", "Laura Kuenssberg, Faisal Islam and Simon Jack react to the headlines from the chancellor's update on the UK economy.\n\nThe BBC’s political editor explained the significance of a National Insurance rise and pledges for future tax cuts in Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement.\n\nWhile our economics editor examined the effect of rising inflation and the effect on pay packets, and the BBC business editor looked at growth level cuts alongside rising corporation tax.\n\nThey were speaking to Politics Live presenter Jo Coburn.", "The couple transferred money after fearing their account had been hacked\n\nA County Armagh couple have been scammed out of £77,000 after criminals pretended to be police officers from the \"fraud squad\".\n\nThe couple received a phone call on Sunday 13 March from a person claiming to be in London.\n\nThe man was told his account had been hacked and he noticed a transaction that he did not recognise.\n\nBoth he and his wife then created separate accounts and transferred the £77,000 after being instructed to.\n\nPSNI Insp Mark Conway said enquiries were ongoing and that the couple had suffered a \"horrible experience\".\n\n\"In this particular case, where such a significant amount of money has been taken, it is devastating,\" he said.\n\nPolice described the impact on the scam victims as \"devastating\"\n\n\"This couple have been conned out of their hard-earned cash - tens of thousands of pounds.\n\n\"We can only imagine how distressing and traumatic this ordeal is for them.\"\n\nInsp Conway urged people to always err on the side of caution and to be on their guard.\n\n\"It's also really important if you have older members of family, talk with them and tell them legitimate providers will never seek their personal details, such as banking information, over the phone.\n\n\"This is a really important conversation to have.\"", "The chancellor has announced a 5p a litre cut to fuel duty as motorists struggle with record fuel prices.\n\nRishi Sunak said the move, which kicked in at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday and will last until next March, was \"the biggest cut to all fuel duty rates ever\".\n\nHowever, motoring company the RAC said the 5p cut only took prices \"back to where they were just over a week ago\".\n\nIt said the reduction would take £3.30 off the cost of filling a typical 55-litre family car.\n\nMotorists have been hit by record pump prices since Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to an increase in the cost of oil because of supply fears.\n\nAverage pump prices hit new records on Tuesday, with petrol topping £1.67 a litre and diesel close to hitting £1.80 for the first time, the RAC said.\n\nThat left the cost of filling an average family car with petrol at more than £92 and nearly £99 for diesel.\n\nFuel duty - a government tax which makes up part of the price when you buy petrol or diesel - is currently 58p per litre and has been for 11 years.\n\nThe Treasury said the fuel duty cut - the first is more than a decade - would cost it £2.4bn and means a one-car family will save £100 on average over the next 12 months.\n\nThe average van driver will save £200, it said, while hauliers will save £1,500.\n\nBut RAC head of policy Nicholas Lyes said the cut was \"a drop in the ocean\" given the recent huge rise in fuel costs, which have not fallen despite crude oil coming off its record highs of earlier in March.\n\nHe also warned there was a \"very real risk retailers could just absorb some or all of the duty cut themselves by not lowering their prices\".\n\n\"If this proves to be the case it will be dire for drivers,\" Mr Lyes said. \"It also wouldn't be totally unexpected based on the biggest retailers not reducing their prices late last year when the oil price fell sharply.\"\n\nThe RAC added although fuel duty had been cut to 53 per litre, it could take time to be reflected in pump prices due to it being charged on wholesale purchases by retailers, who are yet to buy new fuel at the lower rate.\n\nIn response to Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement, supermarket chains Asda, Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys cut pump prices by 6p a litre, including a 1p reduction in VAT, but smaller independent fuel retailers have said they have to wait until current levels are depleted, before they can benefit from the tax relief in their next orders.\n\nThe average price of a litre of petrol has risen by more than 40p since last year's Spring Statement, which means the government is getting an extra 7p per litre in VAT, which is the other tax the government imposes on fuel.\n\nDiesel prices are up by nearly 50p a litre, almost 9p of which is VAT.\n\nThe fuel duty cut will be welcomed by many drivers, particularly those with large vehicle or who drive long distances - but it also runs counter to environmental goals.\n\nThe website Carbon Brief calculated that the decision in 2010 to freeze fuel duty had led to an increase in emissions of up to 5%.\n\nThe Treasury said it had acted to cut fuel duty now because: \"Unique circumstances globally, including the war in Ukraine, have pushed pump prices up to unprecedented levels.\"\n\nAA president Edmund King said he was concerned that the benefit would be lost unless retailers passed it on. \"Since the start of the year, the 20p-a-litre surge in pump prices has been the shock that rocked the finances of families.\"\n\nHe said there had been a substantial reduction in wholesale fuel costs since 9 March.\n\n\"That needs to drive lower pump prices also,\" he added. \"The road fuel trade shouldn't leave the Treasury to do the heavy lifting when cutting motoring costs.\"\n\nFuel prices, which were already rising as global economies recovered from the coronavirus pandemic, surged after the war in Ukraine pushed up global oil prices.\n\nChanges in prices at the pump are mainly determined by crude oil prices and the dollar exchange rate, because crude oil is traded in dollars.\n\nRussia is one of the world's major oil exporters and it is being targeted by economic and trading sanctions.\n\nAfter Brent crude oil - a global benchmark for prices - hit a near 14-year high of $139 a barrel during the early stages of the conflict, prices fell back to around $100, but have since risen again and were trading at about $120 a barrel on Wednesday.", "Mr Chubais was made a special representative to Mr Putin in December 2020\n\nAnatoly Chubais has stepped down from his role as an international envoy for President Vladimir Putin, the most senior official to resign since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nRussian reports said he was currently in Turkey with his wife.\n\nMr Chubais was given the job of coordinating Russia's sustainable development goals internationally.\n\nAfter the war began he posted a picture of a murdered opposition figure, in what was seen as a critical gesture.\n\nThere was no comment to accompany his Facebook photo of Boris Nemtsov, on the anniversary of his killing in view of the Kremlin. He has also made no comment yet on his resignation.\n\nA source told the Tass news agency that he had left Russia as well as resigning as a special representative to President Putin.\n\n\"Yes, Chubais has resigned of his own will. But whether he has left [Russia] or stayed, that's his personal affair,\" said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.\n\nOther than Mr Peskov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, few members of the president's circle have appeared in public in recent weeks.\n\nUkrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Wednesday that it was interesting that the two top security figures, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, were \"nowhere to be seen\", along with the heads of Russia's secret services.\n\nChubais was not seen as a Kremlin insider, despite having the post of special representative for ties with international organisations.\n\nHe is best known for his controversial role in helping to reform Russia's economy in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. The raft of privatisations under President Boris Yeltsin helped create a large number of very wealthy oligarchs.\n\nOpposition figures were unimpressed by Mr Chubais's resignation. Jailed leader Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, cast doubt on claims that it was an anti-war protest, rather than \"out of fear for his own skin and his own money\".\n\nRussia has clamped down on criticism of the invasion, which began on 24 February, requiring state-run media to describe it as a \"special military operation\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nSeveral state TV journalists have resigned, including Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova, who held up a poster saying \"Stop the War!\" during a prime-time news broadcast, telling Russians they were being lied to.\n\nA new law bans the dissemination of \"false news\" about the war and political journalist Alexander Nevzorov became the most prominent figure yet to be prosecuted, after he posted details on social media about Russia's deadly attack on a maternity hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA Russian landing ship has been destroyed and two other vessels have been damaged in the occupied Ukrainian port city of Berdyansk, say Ukrainian officials.\n\nThe Ukrainian military posted footage early on Thursday and said the Orsk had been hit by its forces.\n\nDetails of what caused the explosion and fire on board the ship are unclear.\n\nBerdyansk, which is west of the besieged port of Mariupol, was seized four days after Russia invaded Ukraine.\n\nRussia says it has used the port as a base to ferry in equipment for its troops.\n\nRussian army TV hailed the arrival of the Orsk in Berdyansk last week as an \"epic event\" as it was the first Russian warship to dock there.\n\nDrone footage filmed by Russian state TV reporter Murad Gazdiev showed an armoured personnel carrier being offloaded from the Orsk in the port. The armoured vehicles were to be used to reinforce Russian troops, the TV report added.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Rob Lee This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nVideo posted by the navy and on social media showed explosions and a big ship on fire at the port at 07:00 (05:00GMT) on Thursday.\n\nWhile the Orsk was said to have been destroyed, fire reportedly spread to other vessels as well as an ammunition depot and a fuel terminal in the port. Footage from the scene appeared to show two ships sailing at speed from the port.\n\nSmoke billowed from the port of Berdyansk as two ships raced away\n\nDeputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar told Ukrainian TV that the military had hit a \"huge target\", capable of carrying 20 tanks, 45 armoured vehicles and 400 troops.\n\nThe BBC cannot independently verify the claim. Earlier this week Gazdiev, who works for Russia-backed media outlet RT, reported that Ukrainian missiles had repeatedly targeted Berdyansk port, and every missile had been intercepted by Russian anti-air defence.\n\nBerdyansk is of major strategic value to the Russians, lying between Crimea and the besieged city of Mariupol, some 80km (50 miles) to the east, where an estimated 100,000 people remain stranded facing Russian bombardment.\n\nSome of those who have managed to escape Mariupol have arrived in Berdyansk and Ukraine's deputy prime minister has said they will be taken inland to the city of Zaporizhzhia.\n\nCapturing the towns of Berdyansk and Melitopol are part of Russia's bid to create a land bridge from Crimea to the Russian border, as well as establishing a route towards Zaporizhzhia.\n\nResidents have staged protests against Russia's occupation of Berdyansk, and video posted on social media this week showed the military beating people in an attempt to disperse the crowd.\n\nUkrainian officials said the attack on the Orsk had further symbolic value, suggesting that it may have taken part in Russia's original capture of Crimea in 2014, pointing to medals apparently awarded to the ship's commander and a crewman.", "The UK is facing its biggest drop in living standards on record as wages fail to keep pace with rising prices.\n\nSoaring energy prices could push inflation to a 40-year high of 8.7% in the final three months of 2022, the government forecaster said.\n\nRising prices and tax hikes mean living standards will not recover to their pre-pandemic level until 2024-25, the Office for Budget Responsibility said.\n\nThe chancellor said government would \"stand by\" people hit by higher prices.\n\nLiving standards - disposable household incomes when adjusted for inflation - are expected to drop by 2.2% this year, the OBR said.\n\nThat would be their largest fall in a financial year since records began in 1956.\n\nIn the Spring Statement, Rishi Sunak said a 5p a litre fuel duty cut would take effect at 18:00 GMT, and he raised the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance from £9,600 to £12,570.\n\nBut the OBR, which publishes its economic forecasts twice a year, said Russia's invasion of Ukraine had \"major repercussions for the global economy, whose recovery from the worst of the pandemic was already being buffeted by Omicron, supply bottlenecks, and rising inflation\".\n\nThe jump in oil and gas prices brought about by the conflict would \"weigh heavily on a UK economy that has only just recovered its pre-pandemic level\", it added.\n\nPetrol prices had already risen by 20% since the OBR's previous forecast, and household energy bills are set to increase by 54% in April.\n\nIf wholesale energy prices remained as high as expected, then energy bills would rise by another 40% in October to take the bill for a typical household to £2,801 a year.\n\nThe energy regulator Ofgem has already said bills will increase 54% to £1,971 for a typical household from April.\n\nWith prices rising at such a rapid rate, wages would not keep up and and people would spend less, according to the OBR.\n\nAs a result, it has dramatically slashed its growth forecast.\n\nIn October prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine it expected the UK economy to grow 6% this year. Now it expects growth of just 3.8% this year.\n\nThe chancellor promised to \"stand by\" families - but some of those families may feel more like he's put his arms around them - only to pick their pockets.\n\nMuch of their increased burden isn't the government's fault, reflecting global energy and food costs and supply issues. Come April the average household has to find nearly £1000 extra per year - just to afford the same stuff they did a year ago.\n\nAnd that's without counting the National Insurance increases, which are still going ahead.\n\nIn total, the extra government help announced since October, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility will only compensate for a third of the prospective blow to living standards in the next 12 months.\n\nAnd it's not just household's fortunes that are at stake but the entire recovery - upon which the chancellor has pinned his hopes of rebuilding the public purse.\n\nThe following year will also see slower growth than the OBR predicted five months ago. In 2023, the UK is expected to grow 1.8%, down from 2.1%.\n\nHowever, from 2024 growth is expected to accelerate faster than expected, rising 2.1% that year and 1.8% in 2025, up from 1.6% and 1.3% respectively.\n\nGDP or Gross Domestic Product is one of the most important ways of showing how well, or badly, an economy is doing.\n\nIt's a measure - or an attempt to measure - all the activity of companies, governments and individuals in an economy.\n\nStevie Hall in Halifax says rising food, fuel and energy bills have nudged her into debt already.\n\nShe told the BBC she had been batch cooking to save money and is only driving when there is a real need.\n\n\"We're just trying to get by, I'm trying to stay upbeat about it,\" she said.\n\nGDP allows businesses to judge when to expand and hire more people, and for government to work out how much to tax and spend.\n\nThe OBR said the cut in living standards would have been worse without government support for households, including today's temporary 5p cut in fuel duty; the increase in the National Insurance contributions threshold; and a £9bn energy bill rebate scheme announced in February.\n\n\"Taking account of both energy and non-energy pressures on household incomes, the policy measures announced since October offset a third of the overall fall in living standards that would otherwise have occurred in the coming 12 months,\" it said in its report.\n\nBut Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson said: \"Perhaps what really stands out today is what was missing.\n\n\"In the face of what the OBR calls the biggest hit to household finances since comparable records began in 1956-57, [Mr Sunak] has done nothing more for those dependent on benefits, the very poorest, besides a small amount of extra cash for local authorities to dispense at their discretion.\n\n\"Their benefits will rise by just 3.1% for the coming financial year. Their cost of living could well rise by 10%.\"", "The government is considering plans to lower people's energy bills based on how close they are to onshore wind turbines, the BBC has been told.\n\nIt's an idea the energy company Octopus offers some customers in Yorkshire and Caerphilly.\n\nBut the government is considering expanding this across the country.\n\nThere are currently strict planning rules about where onshore wind farms can be built in England, which inhibit the development of wind farms.\n\nBusiness Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is in favour of loosening regulations to make it easier to approve plans for more onshore wind.\n\nIt's expected the government will outline its energy supply strategy next week - which will include plans for accelerating renewable energy in the UK.\n\nOne plan under consideration is reviewing planning laws in England, that were tightened in 2015, to make it easier to approve more onshore wind farms.\n\nThe business secretary supports the idea, and Downing Street sources have said the government has \"got to be open\" to more onshore wind.\n\nIt is understood Michael Gove - who is in charge of planning in England - is also supportive.\n\nBut the BBC has been told other cabinet ministers strongly oppose the plans, and onshore wind farms have been controversial with Conservative activists in the past.\n\nA government source said that - if the idea is approved - \"as with any development, local consent is absolutely critical. We would always want to bring the public with us.\"\n\nElectricity and gas bills for a typical household will go up by £693 a year in April, a 54% increase.\n\nIn October, customers in England, Scotland and Wales will receive a £200 rebate on their energy bills. They will have to repay this at £40 a year for five years, starting in April 2023.\n\nBut the OBR on Wednesday forecast that energy bills will rise by 40% again in October, if wholesale gas prices remain at the same level they are now.\n\nIn his Spring Statement, Mr Sunak said that VAT would be cut from 5% to 0% on energy efficiency products such as solar panels, insulation and heat pumps.\n\nThe BBC understands one option under consideration is introducing a scheme to make energy bills cheaper depending on how close people live to an onshore wind farm.\n\nIt's understood this would apply to new developments.\n\nCurrently, a similar scheme is run by the energy company Octopus. Their customers get 20% off electricity bills when their local turbine is spinning, and 50% off when it's picking up speed.\n\nThere are two local wind turbines using this model so far - one in Market Weighton in Yorkshire and one in Caerphilly in Wales.\n\nThe BBC has been told that the government is \"very interested\" in this model and are considering expanding it across the country to provide an incentive for onshore wind farms to be approved in people's local areas.\n\nA government source said: \"Ministers would want to ensure communities are able to directly benefit from hosting renewable energy infrastructure. There are a range of different options under discussion.\"\n\nThe energy strategy expected next week is likely to focus on plans to accelerate the rollout of more renewable and nuclear energy in the UK - as well as the government's ambitions to loosen regulations around extracting North Sea oil and gas while the government moves away from Russian gas and transitions towards more renewable energy.\n\nLabour MP Darren Jones, who is chair of the Commons select committee which focuses on business and energy, called on the government for more action on energy.\n\n\"For colleagues in Parliament who have concerns about onshore wind turbines, which is a much better option than fracking, maybe they can demand that government brings forward the delayed updates to the energy efficiency voucher scheme to help families insulate their homes and reduce energy demand in the first place.\"", "Rishi Sunak has been accused of not doing enough to help the poorest as the cost of food and energy increases at its fastest rate for 30 years.\n\nThe Resolution Foundation and Institute for Fiscal Studies think tanks said he could have done more to protect those hit hardest by rising costs.\n\nPlanned increases in benefits will be much smaller than the rise in the cost of living this year.\n\nMr Sunak said tax cuts this year would help those on low wages the most.\n\nHe said his plans to raise the point at which workers start paying National Insurance would particularly help people on low and middle incomes.\n\nAnd he said it was impossible for him to \"fully compensate\" people for spiralling energy costs, a challenge the UK was \"not alone\" in facing.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson also hinted more help for people struggling was on its way in the coming months.\n\n\"The cost of living is the single biggest thing we're having to fix, and we will fix it,\" the prime minister told LBC Radio, adding: \"As we go forward, we need to do more\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMr Sunak sought to address the rising cost of living in his Spring Statement on Wednesday, cutting 5p from fuel duty and taking some of the sting out of April's National Insurance (NI) rise by raising the point at which workers have to start paying it from £9,600 to £12,570 from July.\n\nBut he has faced calls from opposition MPs to do more to help people now, as inflation is predicted to hit more than 8% by end of the year and UK living standards are predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility to fall faster than at any time since the 1950s.\n\nHis tweaks to National Insurance fell short of the demands from Labour and some Tory MPs, who had called on him to scrap April's rise completely.\n\nOne of the Conservatives who had called on him to scrap the increase, Richard Drax, said the chancellor's approach was \"tinkering around the edge\" and he had not gone far enough to ease the tax burden.\n\nAnother Conservative backbencher, Peter Aldous, said the chancellor's tweaks would \"offset\" the effect of the NI rise - but added the below-inflation increase to benefits meant claimants would still see a \"significant fall\" in spending power.\n\nPrivately, there is angst among some Conservatives, including ministers, that the changes announced by Rishi Sunak amounted to \"fiddling,\" as one put it.\n\nAnother was scathing about what they perceived to be the political calculation made by a chancellor desperate to be seen as a tax-cutter at a time when taxing and government spending is higher than it's been for decades.\n\nOne described Mr Sunak's promise to cut income tax - but possibly not for two years - as \"ridiculous,\" seeing it as a gesture to burnish his credentials and image as a future prime minister rather than sensible policy making.\n\nA photo opportunity where Mr Sunak filled up someone else's car with petrol is also being privately mocked among some of his colleagues.\n\nBut there's a deeper concern from many here: that at what one minister described as a \"genuinely difficult time for people,\" the capacity for any government to make a substantial difference is limited.\n\nAnd plenty fret this government has not yet grasped the true scale of the problems coming down the track.\n\nThe Institute for Fiscal Studies' director Paul Johnson said that overall the measures set out by Mr Sunak - including council tax and energy bill rebates announced last year - amounted to a \"relatively modest giveaway\" of around £5bn.\n\nHe acknowledged that the chancellor had been \"caught in a bind\", dealing with the effects of the pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.\n\nBut he said that the new policies would \"not be enough to protect poorer households from a significant hit to their living standards\".\n\nAnd, despite the chancellor's rhetoric about cutting taxes, they were set to rise their highest level as a share of national income since the 1940s, when Britain was emerging from World War Two.\n\nAnother think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, criticised Mr Sunak's decision to go ahead with April's National Insurance rise, but said his tweaks to the starting point for paying the tax were a good way to \"soften the blow\".\n\n\"This has long been a good idea which help ensure that work pays, and leave money in the pockets of lower earners beyond the current crisis,\" it added, saying boosting growth in the long term was the only way out of the current economic issues.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: How the Ford family is coping with the cost of living\n\nNew analysis from the Resolution Foundation, which focuses on people on low incomes, also suggests that 1.3 million more people would be pushed into \"absolute poverty\" from April - defined as having an income below £14,000 for a childless couple and £8,000 for a single person.\n\nBut the chancellor said this needed to been seen in the context of the \"biggest economic shock in over 300 years\" due to Covid.\n\nSpeaking to the BBC, he said borrowing had spiralled to its biggest level since World War Two as a result of spending to support the economy during pandemic.\n\n\"It's unsurprising that dealing with the aftermath of that is also pretty exceptional,\" he added.\n\nPowder is being kept dry, while the energy cap suppresses further rises in bills.\n\nThe extent of any further support can be determined in the summer, when it will be clear if the new cap implies average bills of an incredible £200 per month or even a truly terrifying £300 per month.\n\nThat in turn depends on the war in Ukraine and supplies of energy from Russia.\n\nNot even the Office for Budget Responsibility knows where this is going to land. But there is space for a support package of several billion, if required.\n\nMr Sunak also used Wednesday's statement to promise to cut the basic rate of income tax from 20p to 19p in the pound by the next general election in 2024, when he said the UK economy would be in better shape than it is now.\n\nStevie (left) says she is \"just trying to get by\"\n\nStevie Hall in Halifax says rising food, fuel and energy bills have nudged her into debt already.\n\nShe told the BBC she has been batch cooking to save money and is only driving when there is a real need.\n\n\"We're just trying to get by, I'm trying to stay upbeat about it,\" she said.\n\nLouise in Leicester told BBC 5 Live that her electricity bill \"has gone up £120 a month so that's money off something else\".\n\n\"I'm having to buy bulk more to make stuff last. You dare not put your electric on… you can't put that on for 300-odd quid a month.\"\n\nLabour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak had failed to understand the scale of the cost of living crisis.\n\n\"I think most people are looking at their pay packets now and looking at their taxes, and saying these promises in the future are not going to help me pay these bills this year,\" she said in an interview.\n\n\"I was incredibly surprised that the chancellor didn't do anything yesterday with rising gas and electricity bills, when the profits being made by North Sea oil and gas companies are at near-record highs.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Labour says Sunak is a tax raising chancellor, following the Spring Statement\n\nHow is the cost of living crisis affecting you? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says it looks to him as if P&O Ferries has \"broken the law\"\n\nDoubts have been cast on a claim by Boris Johnson that the sudden sacking of 800 workers by P&O Ferries may have broken UK employment law.\n\nThe prime minister told the Commons the firm could face fines \"running into millions of pounds\" if found guilty.\n\nBut employment lawyers told the BBC Mr Johnson had misunderstood the law and P&O had not broken the rules.\n\nIt came as the boss of the ferry firm apologised for the mass sacking, saying he understood the \"anger and shock\".\n\nThe sackings - along with claims that workers paid as little as £1.81 an hour will replace the fired staff - have sparked outrage.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Mr Johnson said: \"Under section 194 of the trades union and labour relations act of 1992, it looks to me as though the company concerned has broken the law.\n\n\"And we will be taking action therefore, and we will be encouraging workers themselves to take action under the 1996 employment rights act.\"\n\nAccording to Section 194 of the act, firms are meant to notify the Secretary of State before they sack 100 people or more.\n\nHowever, Tim Tyndall, employment partner at Keystone Law, told the BBC the law had changed in 2018 due to the implementation of an EU directive. Chris Grayling was the Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019 when the change was made.\n\nFirms no longer need to inform the UK government about mass dismissals but instead must tell the governments of the countries where boats are registered, he said.\n\nEight P&O Ferries ships are registered overseas in countries including Cyprus and The Bahamas.\n\n\"The obligation to notify the government of P&O actions has not been breached as the competent authority for these foreign registered ships is the government of where they are registered,\" Mr Tyndall said.\n\n\"It would appear the government did not understand its own legislation when writing in the terms that it did to P&O.\"\n\nA spokesman for the Department for Transport said: \"The requirement to inform the flagged authorities of workforce changes was introduced in 2018 in order to implement a directive from the European Union.\n\n\"The government is strongly committed to protecting UK seafarers and those who work in UK waters continue to be protected by National Minimum Wage laws despite the 2018 legal change.\"\n\nSeparately, Nautilus International, the trade union for maritime professionals, has accused P&O Ferries of breaking UK law because it did not notify the relevant flag states of its decision to sack workers.\n\nIt said under UK Law, P&O Ferries was \"obliged to provide 45 days' notice to the Cypriot authorities, and 30 days' notice to the Bahamian and Bermudan authorities\".\n\n\"We believe the government must penalise P&O Ferries for their omission,\" said general secretary Mark Dickinson.\n\nThe BBC has approached P&O for comment following the union's claim.\n\nOn Wednesday, P&O boss Mr Hebblethwaite said he understood people's anger.\n\n\"I want to say sorry to the people affected and their families for the impact it's had on them, and also to the 2,200 people who still work for P&O and will have been asked a lot of difficult questions about this,\" he said.\n\n\"Over the last week, I've been speaking face-to-face to seafarers and their partners. They've lost their jobs and there is anger and shock and I completely understand.\"\n\nHe added that the sackings were necessary to keep the loss-making firm afloat.\n\n\"This was an incredibly difficult decision that we wrestled with but once we knew it was the only way to save the business, we had to act,\" Mr Hebblethwaite said.\n\n\"I wish there was another way and I'm sorry.\"\n\nIt comes after reports that Indian agency workers paid as little as £1.81 an hour have already replaced sacked P&O workers at the Port of Dover.\n\nLast week, P&O said the figure was inaccurate but said it could not comment on how much agencies pay workers on ferries.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the government should immediately cancel a £50m freeports contract awarded to P&O's owner, DP World.\n\nMinisters have said such contracts are under review.\n\n\"DP World must be quaking in their boots,\" the Labour leader said. \"The prime minister says how disappointed he is in them whilst handing them £50m.\"", "Protests against the sackings have been held at ports around the UK\n\nP&O Ferries has said 800 redundant staff will be offered £36.5m in total - with around 40 getting more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe firm has also denied that it broke the law when it sacked the workers without warning last week.\n\nHowever, unions said the compensation package being offered was \"pure blackmail and threats\".\n\nMinisters had questioned whether the move was legal - but P&O said those affected were employed outside the UK.\n\nThe company said some employees are set to get 91 weeks' pay and the chance of new employment, and no employee would receive less than £15,000.\n\nThe video message in which the company sacked workers last Thursday prompted widespread outrage, with unions claiming some staff would be replaced by Indian seafarers on £1.81 an hour.\n\nMinisters had threatened the firm with \"unlimited fines\" but in a letter to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, its chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite said the 786 sacked workers were employed by three Jersey-based arms of P&O Ferries.\n\nThe eight ships they worked on, which service routes including Dover-Calais and Larne-Ciarnryan, are all registered in Cyprus, the Bahamas or Bermuda.\n\nSacked staff had told the BBC about their experience of being \"treated like criminals\" - but in the letter Mr Hebblethwaite denied \"rumours\" that security staff who boarded vessels to manage the situation wore balaclavas or were directed to use handcuffs or force.\n\n\"The teams accompanying the seafarers off our vessels were totally professional in handling this difficult task,\" he said.\n\nThe company said its settlement with its workers is believed to be \"the largest compensation package in the British marine sector,\" and more than 40 staff would get severance packages of more than £100,000 each.\n\nThe transport and freight company said 575 seafarers affected were in discussions to progress with the severance offers.\n\nHowever, the RMT union, which has been organising protests over the redundancies said \"the pay in lieu of notice is not compensation\".\n\n\"If staff do not sign up and give away their jobs and their legal right to take the company to an employment tribunal they will receive a fraction of the amount put to them,\" general secretary Mick Lynch said.\n\nP&O Ferries had until Tuesday at 17:00 to respond to the letter from Mr Kwarteng - in which he said that P&O Ferries \"appears to have failed\" to follow the correct process for making large-scale redundancies, by not consulting with unions and notifying the government in time.\n\nMr Kwarteng pointed out that failure to notify is \"a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine\".\n\nSeparately, Business Minister Paul Scully said the government was reviewing all of its contracts with P&O ferries and its owner DP World, including a £25 million subsidy to DP World to help develop London Gateway as a freeport.", "The West should consider ways to stop Russia using its gold reserves to prop up the rouble, the prime minister said.\n\nBoris Johnson's comments came as the UK announced sanctions on 65 more groups and individuals, including a private military firm and a major Russian bank.\n\nSpeaking ahead of a Nato summit, the PM said the UK and the West must \"tighten the economic vice\" on Vladimir Putin.\n\nHe said Russia crossed \"red lines\" by targeting Ukrainian civilians and tough steps now could help shorten the war.\n\nIn addition to the new raft of financial sanctions, the UK government has announced plans to send 6,000 more missiles to Ukraine.\n\nLeaders from Nato, the EU, and the G7 are holding emergency meetings in Brussels to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine.\n\nOn Thursday, Nato announced the creation of new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used a virtual address to urge the bloc to increase its supply of military equipment.\n\nAhead of the talks, Mr Johnson said that, by deliberately bombing civilian centres, Putin had \"already crossed the red line into barbarism\".\n\n\"We've got to step up. We've got to increase our support,\" he said.\n\n\"We've got to tighten the economic vice around Putin, sanctioning more people today, as we are, sanctioning the Wagner Group, looking at what we can do to stop Putin using his gold reserves.\"\n\nIn an interview with LBC, he added: \"We need to do more economically.\n\n\"Can we do more to stop him [Putin] using his gold reserves, for instance, in addition to his cash reserves? The more pressure we apply now, particularly on things like gold, I believe the more we can shorten the war … And then we need to do more to give the Ukrainians military support.\"\n\nAs Mr Putin invaded Ukraine, the Russian Central Bank deployed some of its $640bn war chest of currency and gold reserves to prop up the Russian rouble.\n\nThe Wagner Group, a private military firm thought to function as an arms-length unit of the Russian military, was among the 65 entities hit by new sanctions announced by the UK government on Thursday.\n\nAlso targeted were Gazprombank, the country's third-largest bank and one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.\n\nThe reported step-daughter of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Polina Kovaleva, who is thought to own a London property worth an estimated £4million, was also targeted by the measures.\n\nIn his speech to Nato leaders, Mr Zelensky called on them to give or sell Ukraine more tanks and anti-aircraft defence systems.\n\n\"I don't want to blame Nato. I understand, this is not you,\" he said. \"These are not your missiles or bombs which are destroying our cities.\n\n\"I simply want you to know the alliance still can prevent Ukrainian deaths… by providing us all the munitions we are asking for.\"\n\nThe summit follows an announcement by the UK government that it would be providing Ukraine with an additional 6,000 anti-tank and other missiles.\n\nThe UK has already sent 4,000 anti-tank weapons, but will now send another 3,000, plus a similar number of what Downing Street described as \"high explosive missiles\".\n\nThe prime minister is also expected to set out plans to offer more help to Ukraine with intelligence and longer-range combat.\n\nUkrainian officials indicated this week the country's armed forces had the equipment they needed to stop tanks at short range, but needed more that would help them do the same over longer distances.\n\nThe UK will also send an additional £25m in aid to help Ukraine pay the salaries of its armed forces.\n\nThe government has already given £400m in humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine and neighbouring nations since Russia's invasion.", "Baulina had been reporting in Kyiv and Lviv before her death\n\nA Russian journalist has been killed during shelling by Russian forces in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.\n\nOksana Baulina had been reporting from Kyiv and the western city of Lviv for investigative website The Insider, the outlet said in a statement.\n\nShe died while filming damage in the city's Podil district, it added.\n\nBaulina previously worked for Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, and had left Russia.\n\nLast year the foundation was made illegal and branded extremist by the authorities, forcing many of its staff to flee abroad.\n\nOne other person was reportedly killed and two injured in the shelling.\n\nBaulina had previously sent several reports from Kyiv and the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, The Insider said.\n\nThe publication expressed its \"deepest condolences\" to the reporter's family and friends.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Alexey Kovalyov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBaulina is one of at least seven journalists known to have been killed in a month of war.\n\nThe Press Emblem campaign reports that Ukrainian journalist Shakirov Dilerbek Shukurovych was killed on 26 February, two days after the invasion began.\n\nThen in early March Yevhenii Sakun, a camera operator for Ukrainian TV channel LIVE who also worked for the Spanish news agency EFE, died during shelling of the TV transmission tower in Kyiv.\n\nInvestigative journalist Viktor Dudar was killed on the front line during a battle with Russian troops near the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ukrainian reports said.\n\nTwo weeks later, US journalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud, 50, was shot dead as he was filming in the town of Irpin outside Kyiv.\n\nTwo Fox News journalists - cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, 24 - also lost their lives when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire on the outskirts of Kyiv.", "A pregnant woman photographed escaping from the wreckage of a hospital bombed by Russia has given birth to a daughter, reports say.\n\nThe image of heavily-pregnant Mariana Vishegirskaya, her face bloodied, descending rubble-strewn steps was widely shared amid outrage at the attack, which killed three people.\n\nShe gave birth the following day, her niece in Turkey told local media.\n\nUkraine's ambassador to the UN said the baby had been named Veronika.\n\nSergiy Kyslytsya, who held up a picture of Ms Vishegirskaya and her newborn daughter during remarks at the UN, hit out at \"Russian lies\" about her in the aftermath of the attack.\n\nMs Vishegirskaya became the subject of a Russian disinformation campaign after the bombing.\n\nThe Russian embassy in the UK tweeted a conspiracy theory that Ms Vishegirskaya was an actress and the aftermath of the attack had been staged.\n\nHowever, the BBC's disinformation team found evidence which contradicted the unfounded claims, including that she had somehow pretended to be several women photographed at the scene.\n\nTwitter later removed the Russian embassy's tweets, saying they violated rules \"related to the denial of violent events\".\n\nFurther claims circulating online suggested that Ms Vishegirskaya was not even pregnant. However, the beauty blogger revealed she was pregnant in January to her followers - weeks before the invasion - and later asked them if whether they thought she would have a girl or a boy.\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by gixie_beauty This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Kyslytsya produced the photo of Ms Vishegirskaya on Friday afternoon, telling those assembled he wanted to share \"very good news\".\n\n\"Miss Mariana, the pregnant woman gave birth to a healthy daughter last night. Her name is Veronika. Here she is with her father. No matter what the Russian lies are about herself, her family, and the incident,\" he said.\n\nHe also said that more than 1,500 civilians had been killed by Russia in Mariupol, which has been without water or electricity for days after being surrounded by Russian forces and where several attempts to establish evacuation corridors had failed. Ukraine has said three people, including a child, had been killed in the hospital strike alone.\n\n\"For the first time since World War Two people are being buried in mass graves in Ukrainian cities,\" Mr Kyslytsya said.\n\nNumerous tech companies have begun blocking Russian state media channels in an attempt to tackle disinformation.\n\nOn Friday, YouTube became the latest tech giant to block channels associated with Russian state-funded media. The video streaming service said it had a policy \"prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events\".", "Satellite images taken by a US firm of a large Russian military convoy near Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, show it has \"largely dispersed and redeployed\".\n\nThe convoy was last seen near Antonov Airport, north-west of Kyiv, and its movement could signal a renewed push towards the city.\n\nThe firm that took the photos, Maxar Technologies, said parts of the convoy were in positions in surrounding towns.\n\nOther parts are further north, with artillery now in firing positions.\n\nThe apparent redeployment came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country:\n\nThe air raid sirens went off at 04:30 and wailed for more than three hours. We now know the danger was real.\n\nOfficials here say there were three air strikes, hitting a small shoe factory, an apartment block and a kindergarten.\n\nThis city is full of heavy industry, including a rocket factory. There is a metalworks nearby the site that was hit, but no obvious military target.\n\nDnipro has been bracing for this since the war began. All the bridges and main roads here are heavily guarded. Residents have got used to scrambling to underground shelters when the sirens sound.\n\nEven so, the city has been something of a safe haven, for people fleeing cities under sustained Russian attack. In the past few days, residents here had begun leaving: we saw giant queues for evacuation trains and the roads west out of town have been heavily congested. Now the city has been directly hit, I suspect more will be thinking of getting out.\n\n\"Ukrainian big cities are again subjected to devastating blows,\" said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak.\n\nHe added that the shelling in Lutsk had shut down two central heating compounds.\n\n\"Russia's destructive war against civilians and major cities continues,\" he said.\n\nRussian state media reported that the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha had been captured by Russian-backed separatist forces.\n\nThere is no independent confirmation of the capture of the city, which is a northern gateway to the besieged port city of Mariupol.\n\nPresident Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected Russian claims that chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction were developed in Ukraine. In a video address, he also warned that Russia would get \"the most severe sanctions response\" if it were to use such weapons against Ukraine.\n\nThe US said earlier that Russia's claims of Ukraine hosting US-backed chemical weapons facilities was a \"false flag\", intended to justify Russia's possible use of such weapons.\n\nRussia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday to discuss the alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine.\n\nRussian forces moved three miles (5km) closer to Kyiv in the past 24 hours, a senior US defence official said on Thursday.\n\nThat meant Russian troops advancing from the north-west were now just nine miles from the city centre, the official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - told reporters.\n\nRussian forces were also trying to close in on the city from the north-east, and were now about 25 miles (40km) away, the official said.\n\nThe northern city of Chernihiv was now \"isolated\" the official added.\n\nThe convoy was earlier seen stalled not far from the capital, where US officials said it was targeted by Ukrainian troops with anti-tank missiles. It is not clear how many of the vehicles currently seen on the move may have been an initial part of that first group.\n\nFierce battles have been raging in recent days in Irpin and Bucha, satellite towns just a few kilometres north-west of Kyiv. Thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes.\n\nOn Thursday, footage emerged apparently showing a Russian military column being hit by Ukrainian forces near the city of Brovary, just outside the capital.\n\nKyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says that half the population of the city of about three million has already fled, adding that Kyiv \"has been transformed into a fortress\".\n\n\"Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified,\" the mayor said.\n\nTens of thousands of civilians have formed Territorial Defence units to help the Ukrainian armed forces defend the capital.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A Texas judge has extended an order to prevent state officials from investigating allegations of so-called \"abuse\" against parents seeking gender-transitioning care for their children.\n\nIn February, officials declared some gender reassignment therapies \"child abuse\" under state law.\n\nParents allowing them, could lose custody of their children under a directive from the Republican governor.\n\nJudge Amy Clark Meachum ruled that the directive from Governor Greg Abbott violated the Texas state constitution.\n\nAs a result, investigations into parents currently under way are to stop, pending a trial into the matter.\n\nThe Texas attorney general's office filed a notice of intent to overturn Judge Meachum's ruling.\n\nA trial challenging the directive is due to take place in July.\n\nThe American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had sued Mr Abbott over the directive he had said was to prevent \"child abuse\".\n\nLGBTQ rights advocates say the governor's directive unfairly criminalises transgender children and their families - and that the proposal to investigate them appears politically motivated, as part of Mr Abbott's gubernatorial re-election campaign this year.\n\nThe directive had also urged teachers, doctors, and healthcare professionals to report any \"suspected abuse\", or face criminal penalties.\n\nProponents of the directive say children are too young to make life-altering decisions about their bodies.\n\nHowever, medical experts in Texas say transgender surgical procedures are performed very rarely if ever on minors in the state. Treatment and therapies mainly consist of hormonal treatment (such as puberty blockers) and social transitioning (such as mental health counselling).\n\nThey say that this kind of legislation only seeks to further discriminate and isolate trans youth - a population which already experiences disproportionate rates of suicide.\n\nJudge Meachum's order on Friday would stop nine investigations currently being carried out against families of transgender children, according to the Texas Tribune.\n\nAmber Briggle, a Texas mother of a trans teen son, was informed that her family was under investigation in late February. In a statement posted to her blog, Ms Briggle said she felt Texas was \"attempting to rip our family apart because we love our children unconditionally\".\n\n\"When we were notified of the allegations, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of us,\" she wrote. \"Raising a transgender child in Texas has been one long political emergency. It always seemed like this day would come.\"\n\nDozens of states are considering similar laws targeting trans youth. This week, Idaho lawmakers passed a similar bill that would make providing gender-transition care a felony with a life sentence. Parents could also be prosecuted if they leave the state to seek treatment for their children elsewhere.\n\nDuring the State of the Union, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.", "A maternity and children's hospital in the southern city of Mariupol was one of the health facilities attacked by Russian forces\n\nThe UK has sent six more plane-loads of medical aid and equipment to Ukraine, as Health Secretary Sajid Javid accused Russia of war crimes in attacking medical facilities.\n\nMr Javid said there had been more than 25 attacks on health centres and hospitals since the invasion began.\n\n\"This is a war crime and Russia will pay for the crimes it's carrying out,\" he said.\n\nRussia has claimed, without evidence, that hospital bombings were faked.\n\nOne attack on a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol on Thursday which killed three people, including a child, was condemned by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as \"depraved\".\n\nAn intelligence briefing from the Ministry of Defence says several cities remain encircled by Russian forces and continue to suffer heavy shelling.\n\nMost Russian ground forces are now 15 miles (25km) from the centre of Kyiv, the MoD said, while part of a large armoured column appears to be dispersing to try and surround the city.\n\nSpeaking on a visit to Birmingham Children's Hospital, Mr Javid said that \"Russia needs to stop its aggression\".\n\n\"This is a war started by Russia, completely unprovoked, completely unjustified,\" he said.\n\nHe said the World Health Organization had counted more than 25 health facilities which had been targeted or hit by Russian forces, describing it as \"completely unacceptable\".\n\nUnder the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements which attempt to regulate wars, civilians cannot be deliberately attacked, and neither can the infrastructure they depend on to survive.\n\nThe UK is among 39 countries which on 3 March referred Russia to the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes war crimes, following the bombardment of civilian areas in several cities.\n\nMr Javid said more medical aid, on top of the six plane-loads already sent, will go out in the coming days.\n\nThe Department for Health and Social Care said the shipments held 650,000 items, including wound-care packs, needles, syringes, intravenous lines, patient monitors, infusion pumps and protective equipment.\n\nMore than £400m of UK aid has been promised to Ukraine, including humanitarian aid and economic support.\n\nThe UK was also among the first to send weapons and other military aid, starting in January.\n\nAnti-tank weapons supplied by the UK and other western nations have been used to destroy Russian tanks, such as this one near Kharkiv\n\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace said this week that the UK had delivered 3,615 light anti-tank missiles and promised to continue to deliver more.\n\nHe said the UK would also start delivering a \"small consignment\" of Javelin anti-tank missiles, which can target tanks up to 1.5 miles (2.5km) away, and is considering donating Starstreak portable anti-aircraft missiles.\n\nAid to Ukraine's military has also included body armour, helmets, boots, ear defenders, ration packs, rangefinders and communications equipment, the defence secretary said.\n\nBut the UK has faced criticism over its response to the displacement of over 2.5 million Ukrainians, with only 1,000 refugees given visas via the Ukraine Family Scheme as of Friday. No updated figures were available on Saturday.\n\nA new visa scheme allowing individuals and organisations to sponsor Ukrainians to come to the UK if they do not have family connections is expected to be announced on Monday.\n\nLabour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said the country needed \"a simple, safe, quick and efficient route to sanctuary\" rather than the current approach, which is \"too narrow, too slow, with too many hurdles in place\".\n\nAsked if he would be prepared to host a Ukrainian refugee in his home in north London, Sir Keir said the British public have shown \"incredible support towards the Ukrainian people, whether that's giving money, whether it's giving things that they can provide or whether it's providing sanctuary - and like many, many other people, I'd be more than happy to play my part in that\".\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron said the UK's moves towards making its system more generous were \"going in the right direction\" and \"maybe at some point they will totally match\" the European Union approach of allowing refugees from the war a three-year residency without a visa.\n\nMr Macron said a letter from his interior minister accusing the UK of a \"lack of humanity\" had been \"useful\" and France would assess over the next few days whether enough was being done. He said France had offered to host visa application centres in Lille or other cities.", "The scene in Melitopol. \"We have not stopped protesting,\" one resident said\n\nIn the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol on Monday, the mayor Ivan Federov sat down at his desk to send out his daily Facebook update.\n\nHe told his followers that the Russian forces occupying the city had now taken control of the city's communications network, so they needed to be wary of what they heard on TV and the radio.\n\nHow many people would see his warning, he didn't know. Melitopol's internet connection had also all but disappeared, making it nearly impossible to reach people inside by WhatsApp or Telegram call, or stay connected for more than a few minutes.\n\nThe ordinary phone lines were no longer an option, Federov told the BBC, when the Telegram app finally connected. \"We cannot use,\" he said. \"Too easy for the Russians to listen in.\"\n\nWhen the invading forces took control of Melitopol a week ago they ransacked the mayor's offices, Federov said, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\n\"We are not co-operating with the Russians in any way,\" Federov said emphatically. \"They have not tried to help us, they cannot help us, and we do not want their help.\"\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has claimed he is liberating historically Russian lands and speakers from a Nazi regime. But in Melitopol and a string of other mainly-Russian speaking southern and eastern cities, his forces have found themselves treated as occupiers.\n\nRussian military vehicles are seen on the street in Kherson, south-eastern Ukraine\n\n\"There are protests in Melitopol every day,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, 33, who before the invasion helped run her family business of electronics stores.\n\n\"At some point the Russian army started shooting at us and one man got shot but we have not stopped protesting,\" Kovaliova said. \"We are not afraid to protest because we are together. We are afraid to walk alone at night, but we are not afraid to protest.\"\n\nAbout 5,000 people gathered in Melitopol's central square on Tuesday, Federov reckoned, despite the shooting last week, which wounded a man in the leg. Videos have surfaced showing protests in occupied and part-occupied cities and towns across the region - Kherson, Berdyansk, Starobilsk, Novopskov. The BBC reached residents and local mayors to try to understand the situation inside.\n\n\"I don't know how to count the number of people protesting, I thought it was 2,000 at least,\" said Yunona, a 29-year-old IT worker in the southern city of Kherson. \"One of our friends was beaten and taken by the Russian soldiers and people got so angry they chased the occupiers down the street and took him back.\"\n\nThe Russian troops in Kherson looked young and uncertain, said Olha, a 63-year-old English teacher. \"We go to the protests every day and they are close to us but they look afraid,\" she said. \"We are all just waiting for the Ukrainian army to kick them out.\"\n\nBerdyansk in the south-east has also seen protestors take to the streets\n\nReports of serious violence against Ukrainian protesters have been limited, for the most part Russian forces seem to be tensely watching. But some local mayors were facing a dilemma - how much to encourage their citizens to take to the streets.\n\n\"Our people need to protest but they also need to save their lives,\" said Federov, the Melitopol mayor. \"I have asked them - please do not go near the Russian soldiers, go around them.\"\n\nVadym Gaev, the mayor of Novopskov, a town near Donbas, told the BBC there had been daily protests but they had stopped three days ago when Russian soldiers shot three protestors - non-fatally - and beat another. Gaev said the Russian troops told an intermediary they had authorisation to shoot protesters, so there should be no more protests.\n\nNovopskov appeared to be an example of a strange and uneasy scenario playing out in some parts of Ukraine, where local Ukrainian officials were continuing to function in some form but Russian military forces were in control. In the occupied city of Starobilsk, nearby, mayor Yana Litvinova was also working remotely, she said.\n\n\"A new 'administration' has been appointed. The only thing we know is that it is going around government buildings and asking people to co-operate, and they are refusing.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Zelensky: We will not give up, and we will not lose\n\nGaev and his team left town when Russia seized Novopskov, in order to keep his administration running - a move he said had divided residents, some of whom accused him of a betrayal while others said they were grateful he was still able to work.\n\nTwo residents of Kherson told the BBC they thought the mayor there had betrayed the city by co-operating with Russian forces - an accusation circulating in Telegram chat groups. Two others said he was simply doing what he could to ensure the city kept running.\n\nThe mayor of Kherson, Igor Kolykhayev, told the BBC: \"If I had betrayed the city would I still be here? I am in the office every day, working with my team to keep things running.\"\n\nThe priority was to restart food production and get people back to work, Kolykhayev said.\n\n\"We are running out of food and there is no aid coming in, it's just not happening,\" he said. \"So we are telling everyone in the city: make any food you can make, manufacture anything you can manufacture.\"\n\nMost residents who spoke to the BBC from the occupied cities said food was fast running out.\n\n\"Shops are almost empty. You can buy the things that are left but very few things are left,\" said Yuliya Kovaliova, the electronics shop owner from Melitopol. \"Pharmacies are empty and my mother can't buy her heart medicine.\"\n\nKovaliova said that two Russian trucks with humanitarian markings came into the city centre last week and attempted to hand out food, but they also brought a film crew. Nearly everyone refused, she said.\n\n\"Later we saw on it on TV. Russia has taken over the TV towers here so we only have one Russian channel being shown now and it was showing people taking the food and saying how thankful they are to the Russian humanitarian convoy.\"\n\nMaxim, a 22-year-old piano teacher in the city, also described the supposed humanitarian convoy. \"They were filming and people said actors arrived to take the food,\" he said. Yunona, the IT worker in Kherson, said she saw the same thing there, and Ukrainian media reported on the phenomenon in Berdyansk.\n\nIvan Federov, the mayor of Melitopol, said he had heard about these 'humanitarian convoys' too. But there were \"no real Russian trucks and no real Russian food,\" he said.\n\n\"They could open humanitarian corridors at any time to allow food and medicine in, but they do not want to. We know, we have tried.\"\n\nOn Tuesday afternoon, as usual, Federov put out his daily Facebook update, appealing to anyone in the city who could afford it to pay their utility bills and congratulating Ukraine's women on International Women's Day. \"I'm sure the war will end soon and we will celebrate all our holidays in a peaceful, Ukrainian Melitopol,\" he said.\n\nAre you in Ukraine? Is your family? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Who was Brent Renaud - US journalist killed in Ukraine?\n\nBrent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker and was shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. He had been working in the region at the time of his death. Kyiv's police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital. It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine. Renaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High. He often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine. Photographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times. In a statement, the newspaper said it was \"deeply saddened\" to hear of Renaud's death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine.", "Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nEngland had to settle for a draw in the first Test against West Indies despite a spirited performance on the final day in Antigua.\n\nA bold declaration from captain Joe Root, who reached his 24th Test hundred in the morning session, gave England the chance to push for an unlikely victory.\n\nHis side took four wickets for eight runs either side of tea to boost their hopes, spinner Jack Leach claiming 3-57 on a lifeless pitch.\n\nBut West Indies, who did not attempt to chase their target of 286 in 71 overs, were steadied by a stubborn, unbroken stand of 80 between first-innings centurion Nkrumah Bonner and all-rounder Jason Holder, which lasted 35.5 overs.\n\nCrucially England did not review an lbw appeal against Holder with 22 overs left. Had they done so he would have been dismissed by Leach.\n\nInstead he ended 37 not out and Bonner unbeaten on 38, the players shaking hands with the score 147-4.\n\nEngland's cause was hurt by the absence of fast bowler Mark Wood, who sat out the innings with an elbow injury and is now a doubt for the second Test, which begins on Wednesday in Barbados.\n\nEarlier, despite the loss of five wickets, England added 132 to their second-innings total before declaring 20 minutes before lunch on 349-6.\n\nRoot turned his 84 not out overnight into 109, while Dan Lawrence scored 37 from 36 balls in an enterprising cameo as England sought quick runs.\n\nThe Test, the first of three in this series, may have ended in a draw but England's improved performance on the final two days offers some momentum as they look to move on from their humiliating 4-0 Ashes defeat.\n\nWith the bowlers at their disposal, England did all that could realistically have been expected of them in their quest for victory on the final day.\n\nRoot declared earlier than expected and slow left-armer Leach in particular bowled well, but the tourists were thwarted by a docile pitch.\n\nAfter West Indies slowly reached 59-0, Ben Stokes removed Brathwaite, getting him lbw with a ball that scuttled low, but there was little mischief in the pitch thereafter.\n\nWood's extra pace was missed and, without it, seamers Chris Woakes and Craig Overton were ineffective.\n\nOpener John Campbell was caught at mid-on trying to whack Leach over the top and Jermaine Blackwood was out lbw slogging across the line - two wretched strokes that helped England's cause.\n\nHowever, once Bonner and Holder played themselves in, they were able to defend with relative ease, even with fielders surrounding the bat.\n\nEngland would have had a glimmer had they reviewed the lbw decision against Holder but Root, wary after earlier burning two reviews on optimistic lbw shouts, was unmoved. The technology suggested Leach's delivery would have hit leg stump.\n\nRoot held on until there were only five balls left before accepting the cause was lost.\n\nEngland were aggressive from the outset and opener Zak Crawley, who resumed on 117, was bowled trying to strike a Holder yorker for 121.\n\nThat ended a stand of 201 between Crawley and Root, but the England captain continued to complete one of his most straightforward Test centuries.\n\nA chanceless knock helped him overtake Alastair Cook in the list of most Test tons as England captain, and will silence any debate around his return to number three in the batting order.\n\nPerhaps most impressive was Lawrence's brief innings which gave England impetus. Having been recalled to the side for this Test, the 24-year-old cracked the ball over the off side from the outset and hit one extravagant six.\n\nThis series has been billed as a new era for England after a run of one win in 14 Tests.\n\nLawrence's innings, plus the performances of Leach, Crawley and first-innings centurion Jonny Bairstow are positives.\n\nThere is still much concern about Woakes' potency overseas and Overton's wicket-taking threat at this level, while Stokes, who has been nursing a side injury since the fourth Ashes Test in January, bowled 41 overs in the match.\n\nEngland must hope that does not come back to hurt them.\n\nEngland captain Joe Root: \"I'm really proud of the team today and throughout the week.\n\n\"We found ourselves in a tricky position on day one, and to get ourselves back in the game through that fantastic innings from Jonny [Bairstow] was very pleasing. Throughout the game we got better and better.\n\n\"And today, chasing those last wickets, I can't fault any of the efforts of anyone.\"\n\nPlayer of the match Nkrumah Bonner: \"We are happy with the draw, but wanted a win.\n\n\"I think we showed real character the way we bowled this morning especially.\n\n\"We have a lot of positives to take from this game.\"\n\nBBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"England tried all they could to squeeze a result out. Root's declaration took a lot of people by surprise, but it was always difficult without Wood.\n\n\"Leach's three wickets will perk him up after the Ashes, the fact that three batsmen scored centuries is also a boost to a team desperate to move into more positive territory.\n\n\"There was more of a spring in the step of the fielders - and signs of the collective responsibility Root is trying to establish.\"\n• None What power does the platform hold over us?\n• None Dive into a raw and unfiltered motorsport with promise of high-speed crashes", "Protesters blocked traffic outside of the Met Police headquarters New Scotland Yard\n\nProtesters demanding \"radical change\" to the Metropolitan Police have marched through central London.\n\nActivists held traffic outside New Scotland Yard before marching to Charing Cross Police Station.\n\nThey carried banners reading \"police are perpetrators\", set off bright blue smoke flares and said they activated 1,000 rape alarms.\n\nThe protest marks a year since an unofficial gathering to pay respects to Sarah Everard saw clashes with police.\n\nIt also comes a day after judges ruled police breached the rights of the organisers of a planned vigil for Sarah Everard.\n\nThe Met has previously said it is trying to rebuild trust with the public after several misconduct cases involving its officers.\n\nAbout 300 demonstrators from various groups chanted \"racist police, sexist police\" while walking towards Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross Police Station.\n\nPatsy Stevenson, who was arrested at a vigil for Sarah Everard in the days following her murder last year, said \"radical change from the whole of the policing system\" was needed.\n\nGina Cane of Sisters Uncut, a feminist activist group who organised the protest, said: \"We reject the authority of the police, a racist misogynist institution built on coercion and control.\"\n\nDemonstrators were also protesting against the the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill\n\nProtesters set off blue smoke flares as they walked through central London\n\nProtesters also said they opposed the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill which, if passed, would give police greater powers to control protests.\n\nMs Everard was kidnapped in south London on 3 March 2021 as she was walking home from a friend's house. Her attacker was sentenced to a whole-life term after pleading guilty to murder.\n\nA spontaneous vigil in Clapham Common, south London, led to the Met being heavily criticised for its actions - although it went on to be cleared by the police watchdog.\n\nA previously organised vigil was cancelled after organisers were told it would be illegal to stage it under lockdown conditions.\n\nMet officers were accused of oppressing women on Clapham Common in March last year\n\nIn February, an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) report discovered misogyny, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment within the ranks of the force.\n\nAddressing the IOPC report, the Met said in a statement it acknowledged the damage in trust their behaviour had caused.\n\nIt added it would take \"urgent action\" to improve.\n\nBaroness Louise Casey is carrying out an independent review of culture and standards within the Met. It will examine the force's vetting, recruitment and training procedures.\n\nMetropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick resigned from the role after London's mayor said he had no confidence in her leadership", "The sanctions will hit members of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament\n\nThe UK government has imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian parliamentarians as part of its response to the war in Ukraine.\n\nSome 386 MPs who voted to recognise two rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine as independent last month have been hit by asset freezes and UK travel bans.\n\nThe UK said their recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk gave Russia a \"pretext\" for its subsequent invasion.\n\nLabour welcomed the move but said it should have happened \"weeks ago\".\n\nIt follows a similar move by the European Union, which announced sanctions against hundreds of Russian MPs last month.\n\nThe UK signalled it would impose sanctions of its own last month, but said more time was needed to pass new legislation before it could happen.\n\nThe latest announcement means 400 of the 450 members of the Duma - the lower house of the Russian parliament - are now subject to British sanctions. They also prevent them from conducting business in the UK.\n\nDowning Street declined to say whether any of the sanctioned politicians had any assets in the UK.\n\nMinisters are yet to also target members of the Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper house, who voted for recognition. The Foreign Office signalled its intention to do so last month.\n\nMeanwhile, No 10 said details of a UK ban on exporting luxury goods to Russia would be announced in the coming days.\n\nThe product ban is part of a series of additional trade sanctions announced by the G7 group of wealthy Western nations on Friday.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said the UK was targeting \"those complicit in Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine and those who support this barbaric war\".\n\n\"We will not let up the pressure and will continue to tighten the screw on the Russian economy through sanctions,\" she added.\n\nThe move against Russian MPs follows sanctions on Russian banks, companies and oligarchs in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month.\n\nOn Thursday the UK announced sanctions on a further seven Russian oligarchs, including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich.\n\nThe UK government says it means 18 Russian oligarchs, worth a combined £30bn, have been sanctioned since the Russian invasion began.\n\nRussia's Duma approved \"friendship treaties\" with Luhansk and Donetsk at a vote on 22 February\n\nMinisters have been coming under mounting pressure from opposition parties to increase both the speed and scale of sanctions in recent weeks.\n\nLabour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said the latest sanctions against Duma members were welcome, but \"should have happened weeks ago\".\n\nLiberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran also backed the move, but said the UK had been \"moving at a snail's pace\".\n\nThe government has also faced criticism over its response to the refugee crisis, amid accusations the process to apply for visas is slow and bureaucratic.\n\nThe United Nations said more than 2.5 million people have now fled Ukraine, but as of Thursday morning the UK had issued 1,305 visas, Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said on Friday.\n\nThe government has announced plans to allow Ukrainians with family in the UK to apply for visas online, without having to visit a visa centre in-person.\n\nDetails of a second scheme allowing individuals and businesses to sponsor refugee visas are set to be confirmed on Monday, having originally been announced on 1 March.", "All UK crypto-currency cash machines (ATMs) are operating illegally and must be shut down, the Financial Conduct Authority has announced.\n\nCrypto-ATMs look like regular cash machines and let people buy crypto-currency, such as Bitcoin, using their bank cards.\n\nBut no company offering crypto-currency services in the UK has a licence to operate a crypto-ATM.\n\nThe FCA said all such machines must be shut down or it will take action.\n\nAccording to crypto-ATM directory Coin ATM Radar, there are 81 functional crypto-ATMS in the UK.\n\nThe FCA said: \"We regularly warn consumers that crypto-assets are unregulated and high-risk which means people are very unlikely to have any protection if things go wrong.\n\n\"People should be prepared to lose all their money if they choose to invest in them.\"\n\nThe FCA publishes a list of companies that appear to be involved in crypto-currency but have not registered their business with the regulator for anti-money-laundering checks.\n\nIt said that since the publication of its list, 110 of the crypto companies had ceased trading.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Are crypto-currencies the future of money?\n• None What is Bitcoin? Video, 00:01:32What is Bitcoin?", "The BBC's Sarah Rainsford sent this picture of a bombed building in Dnipro\n\nOn day 16 of the invasion, Russian forces widened their attacks, targeting several Ukrainian cities that had previously escaped the worst of the onslaught.\n\nThe central city of Dnipro was among those directly targeted, with air strikes hitting a shoe factory, an apartment block and a nursery.\n\nThe BBC's Sarah Rainsford, reporting from the city, said it had previously been something of a safe haven for people fleeing cities under sustained Russian attack.\n\nThe mayor of Lutsk, in the west of the country, said air strikes on a military airfield there killed at least four Ukrainian soldiers.\n\nAnother airfield was hit in the southwestern city of Ivano-Frankivsk.\n\nMeanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for foreign volunteers to fight against Ukrainian forces.\n\nSpeaking at a Russian security council meeting, he said those who wanted to volunteer to fight with Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine should be allowed to.\n\nRussian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces.\n\nUS officials said these could include Syrians skilled in urban combat. But analysts have questioned how useful such fighters would be to Russia, with one saying they may just become \"cannon fodder\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: President Zelensky says Ukraine is 'on the way to victory'\n\nForeign fighters, including former and current British army personnel, have also been arriving in Ukraine to fight for the government in Kyiv.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said recently that 16,000 foreigners had volunteered for the cause, part of what he called an \"international legion\".\n\nMr Zelensky responded to Mr Putin's latest comments by saying \"thugs from Syria\" would be coming to kill people \"in a foreign land\".\n\nIn a defiant address, he said his country would be victorious in the war with Russia.\n\nAt the same time, fears grew of a possible renewed push towards Kyiv after satellite images taken by a US firm of a large Russian military convoy near the capital showed it had \"largely dispersed and redeployed\".\n\nThe convoy was last seen near Antonov Airport, north-west of Kyiv.\n\nThe firm that took the photos, Maxar Technologies, said parts of the convoy were in positions in surrounding towns.\n\nOther parts are further north, with artillery now in firing positions.\n\nMeanwhile in Kyiv itself barricades are being strengthened and defences set up in preparation for an assault on the city, our correspondent in the city Jeremy Bowen writes.\n\nControl of the city will be crucial to any political outcome to the war and it is certain that Mr Putin and his generals are reassessing, regrouping and will not accept defeat\n\nUkraine's military says Russian Maj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov has been killed\n\nWestern officials have confirmed that a third Russian major general has been killed in Ukraine, adding that he was from Russia's eastern military district.\n\nOfficials didn't name the general, but earlier Ukraine's military said Maj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, commander of the 29th army of Russia's eastern district, had been killed.\n\nAnalysts have previously said that the presence of high-ranking military figures on or near the battlefield could be a sign that Russia's operations are not going to plan.\n\nThe debris suggests it was a Soviet-era drone used by the Ukrainian military\n\nPeople in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, awoke on Friday to find that a military drone had crashed in the city overnight.\n\nThere was an explosion in the south-western Jarun district shortly after 23:00 (22:00 GMT). Residents found a crater and wreckage scattered close to student accommodation.\n\nZagreb's mayor, Tomislav Tomasevic, said \"it's amazing that no-one was injured\".\n\nCroatia's president there was nothing to indicate the country was targeted.\n\nWitness reports suggested the only person hurt was a man who fell off his bicycle as the drone hit the ground.", "Energy bills are due to rise at least 14 times faster than wages this year, new research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) suggests.\n\nThe TUC said average weekly wages are due to rise by 3.75% - while the price cap for gas and electricity set by Ofgem will go up by 54% in April.\n\nThat means energy price rises alone could wipe out or exceed pay rises.\n\nThe government says it is offering £21bn of help with bills - but rejected halting a rise in National Insurance.\n\nThe tax increase of 1.25p in the pound comes into force in April, just as the rising price of energy - likely to be made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine - is leading to large increases in the cost of living.\n\nAccording to the Resolution Foundation think tank, the typical household income will fall by about £1,000 this year in real terms - the largest fall in living standards since the mid-1970s.\n\nThe TUC said people on low incomes will be hit hardest by the record energy prices, as years of low wage growth and benefits cuts have left poorer families \"badly exposed\" to increases in the cost of living.\n\nSince 2010, energy bills have risen at twice the rate of average wages, the TUC estimated.\n\nTUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said households are being \"pushed to the brink\" and called on the government to impose a windfall tax on oil and gas profits to provide more support.\n\nRising oil and gas prices are also pushing other costs higher, with average petrol prices hitting a new record high of £1.60 a litre.\n\nEarlier this month, the highest rail fare increases for nine years came into effect, pushing up prices by 3.8%.\n\nInflation - which takes into account the changing prices of goods and services across the UK economy - reached a 30-year high of 5.5% last month, with the Bank of England warning it could rise above 7% this year.\n\nFood prices in particular are expected to surge further as a result of the war, as Russia and Ukraine normally supply 30% of the world's wheat.\n\nLabour has called for the government to halt its planned National Insurance rise, which is set to cost an extra £214 a year for someone earning £30,000.\n\nBut Downing Street has said it is fully committed to the increase, which is intended to help tackle the NHS backlog from Covid and fund social care.\n\nA government spokesperson said its £21bn support package for energy costs included a £150 council tax rebate in April for most households and a £200 energy bill discount in October - which will have to be repaid over five years.\n\nThe government also said it plans to set out an energy supply strategy to \"supercharge our renewable energy and nuclear capacity\" and \"drive down energy costs\".", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nCristiano Ronaldo scored his first Manchester United hat-trick in 14 years as Tottenham were defeated in a thrilling encounter at Old Trafford. The brilliant Portuguese put United ahead twice before heading home the winner from Alex Telles' corner nine minutes from time, the 807th goal of his career. Tottenham twice responded to Ronaldo's efforts, through a Harry Kane penalty and a Harry Maguire own goal. But it was Ronaldo who had the final word, completing his first United treble since January 2008, in a 6-0 win over Newcastle. The result was a major confidence boost for United before Tuesday's Champions League last-16 second leg against Atletico Madrid. It also moves them back into the top four and keeps Tottenham in seventh, although Arsenal - two points behind in fifth - remain favourites to clinch the final Champions League berth as they have four games in hand. There were reports that Ronaldo is now the Fifa-recognised all-time top goalscorer, surpassing Josef Bican's 805 goals but there are doubts about the Czech-Austrian's figure - which includes reserve games.\n• None 'A staggering performance' - Shearer on Ronaldo's response to his critics\n• None Go straight to all the best Manchester United content The debate around Ronaldo's value to this United team has been going on from the moment their season started to unravel barely a couple of weeks after his much-heralded return. At 37, it is clear his best days are behind him. Yet he remains capable of such moments of brilliance that it is hard to see how this present squad would benefit from him not being there. His opener was a prime example. Fred's deft flick to the side helped considerably but Ronaldo's two precise touches teed up the right-footed shot that flew over Hugo Lloris and into the top corner. The second was further evidence of Ronaldo's ability to exploit weakness. He timed his run to perfection as Jadon Sancho made the most of Sergio Reguilon's struggles within the Tottenham defensive line to deliver the low cross that his vastly experienced team-mate turned home with ease. And if anyone was likely to get a winner, it was United's number seven. When he did, Ronaldo was immediately replaced to a standing ovation that was totally deserved. Tottenham's season was summed up by Antonio Conte's reaction to what he thought was a first-half equaliser from Ben Davies. As the ball hit the net, there was wild celebration. Then the assistant's flag went up and Conte was stopped in his tracks. Tottenham's past seven results have alternated between wins and defeats - with three victories punctuating four losses. And their tendency to wobble let them down again here. Having gone behind, they worked their way back into the game once - and there was never much doubt Kane would drive home the spot-kick after Telles had handled in the area. But the manner in which they went 2-1 down three minutes later highlighted obvious deficiencies, with Reguilon switching off on the far side of the pitch. Tottenham then got back into the game a second time, and deserved to, even if Maguire scored for them. But such is Spurs' inconsistency, few would believe they can genuinely overhaul Arsenal to seal a top four berth even if, mathematically, they still have a better chance of doing so than United.\n• None Paul Pogba (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Goal! Manchester United 3, Tottenham Hotspur 2. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) header from the centre of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by Alex Telles with a cross following a corner.\n• None Attempt saved. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Jadon Sancho. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "Desperate new attempts to evacuate civilians from towns and villages around Kyiv are under way\n\nFresh attempts to evacuate civilians from cities under siege in Ukraine are being complicated by constant Russian shelling, Ukrainian officials say.\n\nHumanitarian corridors are being set up from Mariupol, Sumy and towns and villages outside the capital Kyiv.\n\nBut Ukraine officials accused Russian forces of firing on a convoy of women and children from Peremoha village, near Kyiv, killing seven.\n\nAnd the evacuations come as fighting continues around Kyiv and other cities.\n\n\"A column of civilians, exclusively women and children, was fired on by the occupiers,\" a statement by Ukraine's military intelligence service said. \"The result of this barbaric act was seven killed, one of whom was a child.\"\n\nThe BBC's Abdujalil Abdurasulov in Irpin, one of the towns outside the capital being evacuated, earlier reported that it was not possible to say that the humanitarian ceasefire was holding because of explosions and artillery fire, including from the Ukrainian side, could still be heard.\n\nRegional officials also said that fighting in the area was continuing and that there was a constant threat of air attacks.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Abdujalil Abdurasulov is in Irpin, where people are forced to flee via a makeshift river crossing\n\nUkraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk later said that about 13,000 Ukrainians had been evacuated through humanitarian corridors on Saturday but that no one had managed to leave Mariupol.\n\nThe situation in Mariupol is particularly desperate after two weeks of bombardment, the UN has said, with little access to food, water and power.\n\n\"Medicines for life-threatening illnesses are quickly running out, hospitals are only partially functioning, and the food and water are in short supply,\" the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.\n\nDeputy Mayor Serhiy Orlov told the BBC a convoy had left Zaporizhzhya for the city carrying aid and that it included buses for the evacuations.\n\nPreviously, he said, convoys were \"not let through, they were bombed, the road was mined, there was shelling in the town\".\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that about 1,300 of his country's troops had died since the start of the Russian invasion.\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, arguing that it felt threatened by a neighbour intent on joining Western-led organisations such as the Nato military alliance.", "Empty plinths and cabinets now line the large rooms of the National Museum of Lviv\n\nIn one room of the National Museum of Lviv, an enormous scaffold is bare. In another, brackets hang loosely from the walls. Plinths sit empty along the corridors and wooden pallets and cardboard boxes are strewn on the floors. The staff used whatever they could to pack away the museum's priceless artefacts in a hurry.\n\nAs Russian shelling has devastated other parts of Ukraine, the picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far. But it is bracing for war. Some preparations you can see in the open - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets - but some are taking place behind closed doors.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage. Thousands of artworks and artefacts have been carefully removed and taken to secret underground locations, or down to basement storage rooms.\n\nThe climate-controlled cabinets in Lviv's national museum now sit empty, their treasures hidden underground\n\nIhor Kozhan, the director of the National Museum of Lviv - the largest art museum in Ukraine - took the BBC on a tour of its now empty rooms, which looked as though they had been looted. Climate-controlled display cases, usually home to artworks, icons and manuscripts dating as far back as the 14th Century, were bare.\n\nNearly every one of the 1,500 artefacts on display has now been removed from the museum. The other 97% of the collection - 180,000 pieces in total - was already in storage in some form.\n\n\"Everything, everything is gone,\" Kozhan said.\n\n\"It is sad for me to be in these empty rooms,\" said Ihor Kozhan, the director of the museum\n\nDespite overseeing the operation, Kozhan was amazed by the speed with which the 17th-century Bohorodchany Iconostasis - a grouping of religions paintings measuring 10m by 8m and one of the museum's most valuable pieces - had been dismantled by his team. It had taken six months to hang, piece by piece, he said, and less than six days to pull down from its scaffold and store away.\n\nConstructed and painted over seven years beginning in 1698, the iconostasis represents the high watermark of the work of the icon painter Yov Kondzelevych. It has been in Lviv since 1924, then a Polish city, brought there by an archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.\n\nIt was dismantled and hidden from the Nazis in 1939, forbidden from display during the Soviet era, painstakingly restored in 2006, and now dismantled once more.\n\nIhor Kozhan describing the Bohorodchany Iconostasis, one of the museums largest and most valuable pieces\n\nThere was no plan in place for the evacuation of the museum's artefacts before the invasion began two weeks ago, Kozhan said - not even after Russia began months ago to mass troops along Ukraine's borders.\n\n\"There was no plan because no one could imagine this would happen,\" he said. \"We had no plan at all - not before the war, not even in December. You must understand, we did not believe it could come to this.\"\n\nTerritorial defence soldiers gathered outside a Lviv church where the statutes have been wrapped in protective fabric\n\nAround Lviv, cultural and religious officials are running complex operations to wrap up statues, seal off stained glass windows and spirit away sacred artefacts.\n\nIn the city's main square, fountains with sculptures of Greek gods and goddesses have been wrapped in flame-retardant fabric and covered with scaffolds to protect them from falling masonry.\n\n\"At first it was a bit chaotic but it has become more organised,\" said Liliya Onischenko, the head of Lviv's city council heritage protection office.\n\n\"We are photographing everything before we take it away and we are photographing all the pieces in their hidden places,\" she said\n\nGreek gods and goddesses on fountains in Lviv's town square have been wrapped and scaffolded\n\nOnischenko said the priority was protecting the stained glass windows in the city's historical old town, a Unesco world heritage site whose architecture was built over centuries by different nationalities - Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Armenians - as the region changed hands.\n\nAt the Armenian cathedral, a prized 15th-Century wooden sculpture of Christ on the cross was removed for the first time since World War Two and taken to a secret, safe place.\n\nOther artefacts besides the sculpture have been removed, the deacon, Armen Hakopian said, but he would not elaborate. \"What needed to be taken out was taken out,\" he said, with a smile.\n\nThe windows along the side of the 850-year-old Armenian cathedral are plain, because the original stained glass was blown out in the 1940s by German bombing. But above, stained glass remains in the cupola and the high parts of the church.\n\nA stained glass window in the 14th-Century Armenian cathedral in Lviv, among those not destroyed during World War Two\n\nThe institutions of Lviv have had the benefit of time to prepare. And they may yet escape the violence. But there are grave fears for the cultural, religious and architectural treasures in the parts of Ukraine under attack.\n\nThere has already been significant damage. The stained glass windows and nave of the assumption cathedral in Kharkiv were damaged by Russian shelling. Russian troops have reportedly destroyed a 19th-century wooden church in the village of Viazivka in Zhytomyr. And a museum in Ivankiv, north of Kyiv, was razed, destroying 25 works by the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko.\n\nThe stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals in Lviv's historic old town have been covered\n\nScaffolders in Lviv's historic old town preparing to cover more of the city's stained glass windows\n\nIhor Kozhan, the national museum director, said he feared that destroying Ukraine's cultural fabric was part of Russia's goal, and he feared greatly for Lviv.\n\n\"If the same damage is done here as in Kharkiv, Mariupol, it would be a terrible tragedy,\" he said.\n\n\"This is a place of historical memory. The museums here hold the history of the nation. They give us an understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.\n\n\"Russia wants to destroy that.\"\n\nA statue, too heavy to move underground, lies on the floor of the museum's atrium\n\nThe job of emptying the national museum was virtually complete by Wednesday - only a few cardboard boxes of manuscripts were left, near the doors, alongside a sculpture lying on the floor - one of several too heavy to move that will be protected in other ways.\n\nThe artefacts that have been moved underground are on a clock - too long there without adequate climate control and they would begin to degrade, Kozhan said.\n\nAnd they would not probably not survive a direct hit, he said, with a long sigh, because the bunkers are not designed to withstand powerful bombs.\n\nA picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary sits on an otherwise empty shelf in the National Museum of Lviv\n\n\"I hope we can bring them up soon,\" he said. \"It is difficult for me to be here in these empty rooms and hallways. We could have walked the whole day here together looking at our history and our art.\"\n\nAsked to estimate the total value of the museum's works, Kozhan declined.\n\n\"Of course there is no number,\" he said.\n\n\"If these things are destroyed they cannot be remade.\"\n\nCorrection 8 April 2022: This article has been amended after we mistakenly stated Lviv was part of Ukraine in 1924. It was in fact a Polish city at that time.", "White House officials hosted a private Zoom briefing for about 30 influential TikTok creators to keep them informed of the latest US messaging regarding Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.\n\nThe briefing was conducted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and National Security Council adviser Matt Miller. Several of the social media stars have since gone on to post about Ukraine.\n\nThe topic included the US \"strategic goals in the region\", according to the Post, such as how the US would respond to a Russian nuclear escalation and how US aid dollars are being spent to help Ukraine.\n\nTikTok has been widely embraced by the Biden administration as a way to reach younger Americans who get much of their news from social media.", "Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons\n\nIndia says it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan on Wednesday, blaming the incident on a \"technical malfunction\" during routine maintenance.\n\nDelhi said it was \"deeply regrettable\" and expressed relief no one was killed.\n\nPakistan's military said a \"high-speed flying object\" had crashed near the eastern city of Mian Channu and its flight path had endangered passenger flights.\n\nIn a statement, India's defence ministry said: \"On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry.\"\n\nIslamabad warned Delhi to \"be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence\" and to avoid a repeat. The object had been launched from Sirsa in Haryana state, it said.\n\nPakistan's air force said the missile travelled at Mach 3 - three times the speed of sound - at an altitude of 12,000m (40,000ft) and flew 124km (77 miles) in Pakistani airspace before crashing.\n\n\"The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace, as well as human life and property on the ground,\" said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikhar on Thursday.\n\nOn Friday, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had summoned India's chargé d'affaires to complain about the incident.\n\nPakistan also urged India to share the findings of its investigation into what happened.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nFrance kept alive their dreams of a first Grand Slam and Six Nations title since 2010 with a tense 13-9 win over Wales.\n\nAn Anthony Jelonch try and eight points from Melvyn Jaminet set up the victory.\n\nSpirited Wales responded with three Dan Biggar penalties, but could not break down the French defence.\n\nFabien Galthie's side will aim to complete the Grand Slam against England next Saturday in Paris, while Wales host Italy in their final game.\n\nIt was a third defeat in four matches for Wayne Pivac's defending champions, alongside a narrow victory over Scotland.\n\nWales enjoyed second-half territory and possession dominance and managed to disrupt the possession of their opponents with Biggar and Taulupe Faletau producing inspired performances.\n\nWales' lacklustre attack could not crack a resolute French rearguard expertly organised by familiar face Shaun Edwards.\n\nThe France defence coach was part of Warren Gatland's Wales backroom team between 2008 and 2019 - a period that delivered four Six Nations titles, three Grand Slams and a World Cup semi-final appearance - before he joined Galthie's set-up.\n\nThe closest chance came when Wales centre Jonathan Davies just failed to hang onto a pass in the second half with the French line at his mercy.\n\nLed by hooker and man-of-the-match Julian Marchand, France also excelled at the contact area as they took their winning sequence to seven games.\n\nTheir first Six Nations silverware in 12 years is now beckoning.\n• None Rugby Union Daily podcast: France Grand Slam in sight after win over Wales\n• None Relive the match and reaction as it happened: Wales v France\n\nFriday night rugby was back for the first time in the Six Nations in Cardiff since 2017 with the Principality Stadium roof open.\n\nThe game was unusually played out in front of some empty seats, with 63,208 attending a stadium that holds 74,500.\n\nFactors such as the game being held on Friday night and travel issues, Covid-19 concerns, Wales losing two out of their first three matches and ticket prices, some costing £100, all helped explain the 11,000 absent fans.\n\nThere had been talk of fewer French fans travelling, but that did not translate into the Principality Stadium cauldron with the thousands who had made the trip in fine voice.\n\nWales head coach Pivac made four changes with Cardiff duo Seb Davies, normally a lock, and Josh Navidi packing down in the back row instead of Ross Moriarty and Taine Basham.\n\nNavidi demonstrated no rustiness despite having played only one game in five months since recovering from a shoulder injury.\n\nInjured centre Nick Tompkins was replaced by Jonathan Davies, with prop Gareth Thomas preferred to Wyn Jones.\n\nFrance made one change from the side that defeated Scotland as winger Gabin Villiere came in for Damian Penaud, who had tested positive for Covid-19.\n\nJaminet and Biggar exchanged early penalties before France showed their class with a flowing move for the only try, finished by flanker Jelonch following a scoring pass from Jaminet, who also converted.\n\nWales scrum-half Tomos Williams suffered a noticeable head injury in the move while attempting a tackle and tried to stumble to his feet on a couple of occasions.\n\nWilliams was permanently withdrawn with no need for a head injury assessment (HIA) and replaced by Kieran Hardy.\n\nThe incident followed on from Wales being involved in a concussion controversy when prop Tomas Francis suffered a head injury against England 13 days previously.\n\nFrancis was passed fit to face France despite warnings it would be a grave mistake to select him from Progressive Rugby, a lobby group concerned with safety of players.\n\nPivac insisted Wales had \"gone the extra mile\" in involving an independent concussion specialist surrounding Francis.\n\nWales bounced back into the match with a second Biggar penalty set up by a brilliant Faletau tackle on Jaminet.\n\nThe hosts were struggling to cope with Antoine Dupont's sniping, with prop Thomas stopping him on one occasion with a low tackle.\n\nThat resulted in the Ospreys front row going off for a head injury assessment, which he passed.\n\nBiggar produced an excellent kicking game in the first half to give Wales attacking line-out options, which the home side could not completely capitalise on as France continued to frustrate at the breakdown.\n\nThe Wales captain slotted over a third penalty, awarded after an outstanding 50:22 kick had won crucial territory, as the home side battled back to a 10-9 deficit at half-time, with Faletau and lock Will Rowlands at the heart of the effort.\n\nFrance prop Mohamed Haouas replaced Uini Atonio at the break before Jaminet extended the lead with a second penalty when Adam Beard was caught offside.\n\nAnother brilliant Biggar kick set up an attacking chance for Wales, but hooker Ryan Elias was held up over the line.\n\nWales, guided by Liam Williams, were gaining the upper hand in the aerial contest with both sides attempting high kicks to gain the ascendency in a cagey third quarter dominated by the whistle of referee Matthew Carley.\n\nAnother sublime Biggar chip kick fell into Faletau's hands, but the inside pass to Jonathan Davies went astray in the visiting 22 with the French line in sight.\n\nWales held territory and possession dominance, but were thwarted by France's efficiency at the contact area.\n\nPivac threw on wing Louis Rees-Zammit to replace Jonathan Davies with Josh Adams moving into midfield, while Gareth Anscombe replaced full-back Williams.\n\nFrance took off captain Dupont with eight minutes remaining, but Les Bleus' breakdown dominance continued as Wales' pedestrian attacking game was picked off.\n\nFrench fans were left singing into the Cardiff night as their side held on for victory.", "Micheál Martin and Boris Johnson sat together at the Ireland-England Six Nations match\n\nThe international co-operation shown in response to Ukraine suggests it should be possible to resolve a matter like the Northern Ireland Protocol, the taoiseach (Irish PM) has said.\n\nMicheál Martin was speaking a day after meeting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, during which they discussed both the Ukraine war and the protocol.\n\nThey met before attending the England-Ireland rugby match on Saturday.\n\nMr Martin has a series of engagements in London ahead of St Patrick's Day.\n\nSpeaking a day after his meeting with Mr Johnson, the taoiseach told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme that some progress has already been made in the post-Brexit trade dispute between the EU and the UK.\n\nHowever, he said he did not believe there would be a breakthrough before the Northern Ireland Assembly election on 5 May.\n\nAsked if the protocol talks had now been \"kicked into the long grass\" because of the crisis in Ukraine, Mr Martin said: \"I think we should concentrate, obviously, on our response to Ukraine.\"\n\nHowever, he added he also believed the crisis showed it should also be possible to make further progress on problems like the post-Brexit trade dispute.\n\n\"What's interesting - and I welcome this warmly - is the very strong partnership between between the UK, the EU, the US on fundamental issues of substance - which is democracy; human rights; the freedom of the individual - and that is something that I think really trumps the issues.\n\n\"It really says to us all that we should be able to resolve issues to do with the Northern Ireland Protocol.\"\n\nDuring Saturday's meeting, Mr Martin and Mr Johnson also discussed ways of working together to ensure the return of the Northern Ireland Executive following May's assembly election.\n\nDemocratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said it would be difficult for his party to form a government if issues around the protocol are not addressed.\n\nThe mechanism to ensure free trade across the Irish border post-Brexit has been criticised by some unionists for its knock-on impact to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.\n\nIn February, the DUP's Paul Givan resigned as first minister as part of the party's protest against the protocol, causing the collapse of the executive.\n\nTaoiseach Micheal Martin wore a scarf with the colours of the Ukrainian flag as he led Sunday's St Patrick's Day parade in London\n\nThe taoiseach welcomed the ongoing engagement between the UK and the European Union on the protocol issue.\n\nMr Martin said access to the EU single market was important to Northern Ireland for inward investment but he added both sides were trying to find solutions.\n\nHe argued that the EU had \"put forward a lot of sensible compromises and their mindset is to really resolve this, and I believe the foreign secretary (Liz Truss) is in the same mode of thought\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Micheál Martin This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDuring his trip to London, the taoiseach led the city's parade to mark St Patrick's Day on Sunday, which paid tribute to the role played by Irish people in London during the Covid-19 pandemic.\n\nMr Martin also wore a scarf with the colours of the Ukrainian flag during the march.", "Children evacuated from an orphanage are led to safety\n\nTraffickers are targeting parentless children on the Ukraine-Poland border, says a group evacuating orphanages in the war zone.\n\nA team of US military veterans is helping to organise safe passage for the estimated 200,000 children in Ukraine's orphanages and foster homes.\n\nBut they say thousands are unaccounted for and fear some may already have fallen prey to people traffickers.\n\nKyiv says it is tightening procedures for vulnerable children.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Tens of thousands of children in Ukrainian state care are in desperate need to get out of the country\n\nAerial Recovery, a team of former US military veterans who are assisting vulnerable people fleeing the crisis, is working with the Ukrainian authorities to establish a system that will make it easier to keep tabs on the country's parentless children.\n\n\"The government doesn't really have the capacity to deal with the problem,\" says Jeremy Locke, the team's chief of operations.\n\nThe team is working with Salam, a charity which helps refugees. It told the BBC that children dropped at the Ukraine-Poland border by well-meaning organisations are being targeted.\n\n\"They're very easy prey - they're looking for assistance,\" says Martin Kvernbekk, of the charity. \"So if you're an adult with some food or refuge, they will come with you. They don't know any better.\"\n\nHe has heard about children going missing from a number of different sources, and reports of people smugglers wearing reflective vests and pretending to belong to organisations helping the relief effort.\n\n\"The gangs are very advanced - it's big, well-financed networks that do this for a living. They're good at this in peace time,\" he says. \"Now it's a war, it's chaos, and they're exploiting the fact there is disorder to be able to snatch more kids and women.\"\n\nMr Kvernbekk also points out that although most men aged 18-60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine because they have to fight, any man who has three or more children with him can pass through. But no proper vetting is taking place at the country's borders.\n\n\"There is no way to check if that man is actually the parent of the kids,\" he says.\n\nIn a speech earlier this week, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, voiced concerns. \"We also have some reports of criminals taking orphans from orphanages in Ukraine, crossing the border pretending that they are relatives to the child and then using them for trafficking purposes,\" she said.\n\nAn absence of vetting procedures for those who volunteer to help or house refugees once they have crossed the border only compounds the problem.\n\n\"Everybody knows it's going on, but it's difficult to say the extent because of the chaos here. The authorities are trying to track what's happened to all of the children [but] there is no paper trail,\" Mr Kvernbekk says.\n\nThe Ukrainian authorities are now establishing a system with the help of NGOs to process displaced children and setting up safe areas in the east of the country.\n\nA member of the Aerial Recovery team fist-bumps one of the children being evacuated\n\nOn Wednesday, Aerial Recovery discussed plans to strengthen safety protocols and create safe zones in Lviv with the regional minister for child services.\n\n\"That way we don't have to take these children over borders and we can ensure that Ukraine is in control of where their children are going,\" Mr Locke says.\n\nDuring that meeting the authorities expressed concern that 5,000 children on their records were unaccounted for, he says.\n\nNobody knows what has happened to them. \"They're either casualties of war, or they've slipped across the border, or have been taken out of the border by smugglers or by people that are doing it the wrong way,\" Mr Locke told the BBC.\n\nVolodymyr Lys, regional head of service of children's protection under the ministry of social policy in Lviv, told the BBC that the first 10 days of war were difficult, but it had improved.\n\n\"It was very very chaotic. They didn't know where the kids were going. Nobody felt like they had worked out a system. Now there's enough NGOs, there's enough volunteers, everybody knows what they're doing,\" he says.\n\nHe believes more than a million children remain in conflict zones in the country. Most are now being evacuated to the east, rather than abroad. Mr Lys says currently there are 550 orphans and foster children sheltering in the Lviv region, and they are expecting that number to double. He says his team spent 10 days at Lviv train station comforting, feeding and sheltering children. \"The whole of Ukraine is absolutely horrified at what is going on,\" he says.\n\nWhen asked if children fleeing abroad could be trafficked or forced into prostitution, he admits: \"Of course there is a risk of that, especially if they are travelling without their legal guardian or come unaccompanied.\n\n\"There's really not a way to know for sure for now how many are missing and the authorities are now trying to track what's happened to all of the children in the system,\" says Martin Kvernbekk.\n\nFormer soldier and aid worker Rob Lawrie is volunteering alongside Aerial Recovery in Ukraine. \"What we've seen is smugglers using the war in Ukraine as a shield to move in on the most vulnerable. Hopefully things are now in place to get these youngsters out of dangerous areas and make sure they can't fall into the hands of traffickers.\"\n\nListen to The Smugglers' Trail with Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie starting Friday 11 March on BBC Radio 4 - listen on iPlayer", "When the Russian offensive started, as sirens sounded in Kyiv for the first time, some people here feared that the city might fall by the afternoon.\n\nReports were coming in of a long convoy of armour and heavy weapons pushing down from the north-west. Military analysts had a high opinion of the Russian army. It had, they said, been professionalised, with invaluable experience of perfecting weapons and seasoning men in the war in Syria. The tactical errors I had seen the Russians commit when they tried to crush a rebellion in the republic of Chechnya in 1995 were, I was told, ancient history.\n\nThe consensus about the Ukrainian armed forces on the first day of the war was that they were much stronger than they had been in 2014, when they could not stop Russia seizing Crimea and establishing two breakaway enclaves in eastern Ukraine. But Russia had the numbers and the firepower. The Ukrainians, it was said, would rediscover the truth of an aphorism attributed to Stalin: \"quantity has a quality of its own.\"\n\nThe first two weeks of the war proved that those predictions were wrong. The Russians blundered; the Ukrainians resisted. Around Kyiv the Russian advance stalled. In the south, it was a different story. They worked steadily towards opening a land corridor between Crimea and Moscow's enclaves in eastern Ukraine.\n\nBut it has been clear from the outset that control of Kyiv is crucial to winning arguments in politics as well as on the battlefield. While President Volodymyr Zelensky's government holds the city, he can claim not to be defeated, and President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin cannot claim victory.\n\nThe last couple of days have been bright and sunny, after more than a week of thick cloud. That means satellites have a clear view of movements on the ground. One conclusion is that the 40-mile Russian convoy north-west of Kyiv is slowly dispersing and reorganising. The latest word from the US Department of Defense is that the rear elements are catching up, but the vehicles closest to Kyiv are not moving.\n\nThe fighting around Kyiv has been concentrated in the north-west and has been going on since the first morning, when Russian airborne troops landed at a cargo airport near Hostomel and Irpin, small commuter towns that evacuees say are now badly damaged. They looked to be trying to secure a staging area for a push into Kyiv. But Ukrainian troops stopped them.\n\nIn the last few days, I have seen more defenders moving forward to continue the fight around Irpin and the Hostomel airport and heard steady artillery fire from the Ukrainian side from gunlines concealed in belts of thick woodland.\n\nThe heavily contested north-west is just a 20-minute drive from the centre of Kyiv, which has barely been touched, although sirens sound regular alerts.\n\nIn the week or so that I have been here the Ukrainians have improved their physical defences, which in places barely existed. Checkpoints that were just a few concrete blocks have become barricades. Across the city men have been filling and positioning sandbags. Kyiv's metalworkers have been busy. At strategic junctions, and on the dual carriageways that run out of Kyiv steel anti-tank obstacles stand ready.\n\nKyiv is a grand city of broad, sweeping avenues, bisected by narrower streets often paved with lumpy cobblestones. Many of the buildings have extensive basements and cellars. Street fighting here, if it happened, could grind on for months.\n\nThe city sprawls along both banks of the Dnieper, one of Europe's great rivers. Docks and marinas leading off the river are still frozen. Crossing the water under fire would be a formidable military undertaking. The bank on the west side of the river, near the government buildings and the great cathedrals, is steep and heavily wooded. Defenders would have many advantages.\n\nBut crossing the Dnieper might not be on Russia's agenda until it is able to control both banks. One theory is that the stalled offensive from the west and north-west is not just because of Ukrainian resistance and what appears to be the Russian army's own badly handled logistics. A column coming from the east has been moving slowly, and the generals might be waiting for it to catch up.\n\nThe Russians attempted to move a regiment of tanks into Kyiv's eastern approaches on Thursday. They were mauled badly as they rumbled slowly down a highway in broad daylight. Drone pictures showed that the tanks were bunched together making easy targets for Ukrainian artillery or drones. It was another tactical blunder for Moscow.\n\nIt is not clear whether Russia plans to encircle Kyiv or attempt to force a surrender by thrusting into the centre with armour supported by infantry. The choices are not great for them. Direct attacks have so far been stopped. Encircling a big city might take too many men.\n\nOne possibility is that President Putin expected the rapid collapse of a government that he has dismissed with contempt as a Nazi collaboration with the west and did not think his soldiers would need to do either.\n\nIt is certain that Putin and his generals are reassessing, regrouping and will not accept defeat. Putin's mission has been to restore Russia to what he believes is its rightful place as a world power. In a country the size of Ukraine - only Russia itself is bigger in Europe - victory in Kyiv is the most direct way for him to declare mission accomplished.\n\nWithout a doubt the Russian armed forces have been operating at half power and half speed. That is partly due to their own mistakes, and partly because the Ukrainians are proving to be formidable, nimble opponents. The stalled attacks around Kyiv have turned into a respite for the city's defenders, allowing them time to dig to improve defences that were rudimentary, and presumably to receive some of the increasingly sophisticated weapons that NATO is bringing into Ukraine.\n\nA question that nags uncomfortably at the minds of many in Kyiv is whether President Putin will conclude that the time has come to turn the deadliest conventional weapons in Russia's arsenal against the city's defenders. So far that has not happened. If it does, many more people will die and terrible damage will be done.\n\nSome people here do not believe President Putin will hammer Kyiv in the way that cities in eastern and southern Ukraine have been attacked. They argue Putin will hesitate to destroy an ancient city which has been at the centre of Russian culture, religion and history. Some of the same people also believed Russia would not invade.\n\nOthers fear that if Russian infantry and armour are held up, Putin and his generals will default to the tactics they are using in Mariupol in the south, surrounding the city and attempting to break the will of its defenders with artillery and air strikes. It is a method that worked well for the Russians in Syria, and in the 1990s when Grozny, the capital of the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, was flattened.\n\nThe next few weeks will be critical for the future of Kyiv, and for the wider war over the future of Ukraine. If Russia cannot reactivate its attack on the capital, its defenders will grow in confidence and the strength and the morale of Russian forces, including conscripts, will take more blows.\n\nIf the Putin regime can find a way to end resistance here, the president will be closer to achieving his war aim of ending Ukraine's independence. Forcing the country back into Russia's orbit, in the face of what would most likely be a Nato-backed insurgency, would be an altogether more difficult job.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThe Premier League has disqualified Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich as a director of the club after the oligarch was sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nAlso on Saturday, sleeve sponsor Hyundai became the latest company to suspend its deal with the club.\n\nAbramovich had his British assets - including Chelsea - frozen on Thursday as part of the government's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe move put the Russian's prospective sale of the club on hold.\n\nThe Premier League said Abramovich's disqualification would \"not impact on the club's ability to train and play\".\n\nRemoving an owner from a board would usually trigger the sale of the shares, a process that Abramovich had instigated on 2 March after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.\n\nHe had instructed American investment firm Raine Group to seek £3bn for the club, but finance experts believe that price could drop given the current uncertainty around Chelsea.\n• None Q&A: What do UK government sanctions on Abramovich mean for Chelsea?\n• None The Sports Desk: Life after Abramovich - what's next for Chelsea and English football?\n\nRaine Group temporarily halted the sale process on Thursday while answers were sought from the government about the implications of the sanctions.\n\nThe government is open to considering an addition to the special licence it granted the club that would allow a sale to go ahead.\n\nA condition for that to happen, however, would be that Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people and believed to be close to the country's president, Vladimir Putin - receives none of the proceeds.\n\nThe special licence granted by the government will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket-holders to attend matches.\n\nChelsea, however, cannot receive money for match tickets which have not already been sold, future gate receipts for FA Cup games or money from merchandise sold via the club shop.\n\nThe European champions will also be unable to buy or sell players, or offer new contracts, while the sanctions are in place on Abramovich and he still owns the club.\n\nAn amendment to the licence has been granted by the government, allowing Chelsea to spend up to £900,000 on costs for home games, up from the £500,000 set on Thursday.\n\nThe allowable away costs of travel, however, remain at £20,000 per game.\n\nThe licence update also allows the club to receive prize money from existing competitions including Premier League payments and Champions League money for getting through each round.\n\nA statement from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirming the changes to the licence also welcomed the league's move to disqualify Abramovich as a club director.\n\n\"The government has made clear that we need to hold to account those who have enabled the Putin regime,\" the DCMS statement said.\n\nSouth Korean car manufacturer Hyundai is the second sponsor to suspend its deal, after Chelsea's main shirt sponsor Three suspended its £40m-a-year deal on Thursday.\n\nHyundai signed a multi-year partnership with the Blues in 2018\n\nLike Three, Hyundai has asked for its logo to be removed from the team's shirts \"as soon as feasibly possible\".\n\n\"Hyundai has become one of the strongest partners in football over the years and the company supports the sport to be a force for good,\" the company said.\n\n\"Through our partnership with Chelsea, we are proud supporters of the players, the fans and grassroots football. However, in the current circumstances, we have taken the decision to suspend our marketing and communication activities with the club until further notice.\"\n\nThe unravelling of Roman Abramovich's time as Chelsea owner is happening at rapid pace.\n\nIt is only 28 days since Abramovich celebrated on the pitch with manager Thomas Tuchel as Chelsea became world club champions.\n\nNow, the club is up for sale and Abramovich is becoming a non-person within the Premier League.\n\nHe wasn't involved in the sale of the club even before this latest development but it does underline the need for a deal to be done pretty quickly.\n\nThe name of the man who changed Chelsea's fortunes may still be revered by some of the club's supporters but it is clear his association with Vladimir Putin is creating serious issues at Stamford Bridge.\n\nA sale cannot come soon enough.\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Russia has been shelling the city\n\nThe boom of artillery, muffled by heavy snowfall, echoes across the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, triggering a series of air raid sirens.\n\nIn the faded grandeur of a long-abandoned club for navy officers, 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva is gathering food supplies, medicines and even home-made steel plates, carved out of local cars, for use as body armour.\n\nMykolaiv is now firmly in the sights of the Russian army - troops invaded from the nearby Crimea peninsula and have had more success in taking territory in this region than Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine.\n\nAs the Russians work their way west towards the city people are starting to flee and the hospitals are filling with the injured.\n\nBut Anastasia has decided to stay, sending her one-year-old daughter and her mother away to safety.\n\n\"I'm a mum of my baby. But I have to help because I know how to do it,\" the former army captain explains to the BBC.\n\nThe attack on a hospital in the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol on Tuesday made her decide she had no other choice.\n\n\"That was the hardest moment for me,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm a mum - but I have to stay,\" says ex-army captain 29-year-old Anastasia Aleksieieva\n\nUkrainian forces in the city have, for more than a week now, successfully thwarted a major Russian advance west towards the larger port of Odesa.\n\nIn the city centre, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaliy Kim is standing in fatigues, explaining how Ukrainian soldiers, helped by new reinforcements, had pushed Russian troops back between 15 and 20km (nine to 12 miles) towards the east, and had even surrounded some Russian units which were now in negotiations for their surrender.\n\nSome of those troops were reportedly preparing to bring the captured and damaged Russian tanks into the city to show to residents.\n\nBut Mr Kim warns this is not a time to celebrate prematurely.\n\n\"We are winning this fight, but not this war,\" he says.\n\nThe governor said a relatively weak Russian force had underestimated local resistance and expected to \"be greeted with flowers\", but Russian reinforcements and planes could quickly turn the tide and enable the Kremlin to capture the whole Black Sea coastline.\n\n\"We need a closed sky,\" he said, referring to the idea of a no-fly zone enforced by Nato. The Western alliance has so far rejected such an idea, as it could bring them into direct conflict with Russian planes that entered the area.\n\nIn the local hospital, head doctor Alexander Dimyanov said 250 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been injured in the past fortnight, 12 fatally. Three patients, too sick to be moved further west to safety, remained on the trauma ward.\n\n\"We're exhausted,\" said a nurse, who declined to give her name. Dr Dimyanov showed a video of his colleagues in tears, explaining that they were overwhelmed by the workload and by fears that their own families might be hurt.\n\n\"They're crying because they don't know if they'll see them again. They don't run away. They work here every day. We have a lot of wounded people, every day. They see the blood,\" said Dr Dimyanov, who also called on the West to impose a no-fly zone.\n\nCivilians have been fleeing, heading west towards Moldova\n\nInhabitants of several apartment blocks in a civilian neighbourhood in the east of the city showed us where rockets or shells had hit their buildings in recent days, tearing holes in a stairwell and water pipes, and breaking dozens of windows.\n\n\"It's rocket and artillery fire at night. And it's pretty scary here. Very loud, especially at night,\" said 17-year-old Bogdan Somberakov.\n\nHe was waiting for a lift with his luggage and his family on the western edge of Mykolaiv.\n\nAs he spoke a long convoy of coaches passed by, carrying children west towards the Moldovan border and safety.", "Concerns have been raised that President Putin may use non-conventional weapons in Ukraine, such as chemical weapons or so-called dirty bombs.\n\nMembers of the BBC audience have been sending in their questions about the impact this would have, as well as the many other aspects of the war.\n\nWill the potential for a Nato engagement increase if dirty bombs or chemical weapons are used? - Gordon Mains, Glasgow\n\nThis question must be on the minds of Nato members. But they are very careful and cautious about not being drawn into this war beyond the supply of military weapons and ammunition.\n\nNato's principle of \"collective defence,\" enshrined in its Article Five, is \"an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies\". It is now trying to defend \"every inch\" of Nato territory but there's a laser focus on any threats which cross the border.\n\nThey know this threat exists - although Russia says it has no plans to invade other countries.\n\nWhy can't we fly in humanitarian aid to besieged cities? - Steve Harvey, Northamptonshire\n\nUkraine does not control its airspace. Many airports have come under attack by Russian forces, on the ground and from the air. In most parts of the country, it would be too dangerous to fly in the desperately needed supplies.\n\nAs you've no doubt seen, a lot of aid is coming in by road across Ukraine's western borders. Western cities like Lviv, still relatively untouched by direct Russian strikes, have become a hub for humanitarian aid.\n\nAll the countries bordering Ukraine to the west have also quickly ramped up a major emergency operation as the numbers spiral in ways not seen since World War Two.\n\nIn any war or disaster, it is always a question of resources and access. Right now, aid trucks laden with urgent supplies are being turned back by incessant Russian shelling.\n\nRussian state media also show images of Russian aid distribution in areas under their control.\n\nToronto: A plane prepares to fly aid to Poland, where it will be delivered overland to Ukraine\n\nHow likely is it that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a full-fledged war between Russia and Nato? - Connor, Northern Ireland\n\nIt's not impossible, which is why Nato has been so wary of intervention.\n\nVladimir Putin has threatened any country which hinders his \"special military operation\" in Ukraine with consequences of a severity \"not experienced in your history\", which most take to mean the use of nuclear weapons.\n\nIt's difficult to know how seriously to take Mr Putin's rhetoric but, given his recent unpredictability, many in the West are nervous about where this could all go.\n\nMr Putin insists that he's only in Ukraine to protect the Russian speaking populations of Eastern Ukraine from what he deems to be the aggression of the government in Kyiv. But none of us can say for sure what his game plan really is.\n\nHe's said he doesn't want to \"occupy\" Ukraine - but then he also he said he wouldn't invade it. More broadly, we know from what he's written and said, that he sees Nato as a huge threat to Russia and that he wants to challenge its structure, particularly in Eastern Europe.\n\nNato would have to react in the event of an attack on the countries which have joined since 1997 - the countries which border Ukraine and Belarus.\n\nThe further west that Russian forces advance, the greater the risk of a accidental - or deliberate - strike on Nato territory.\n\nWhy has the UK not expelled all the Russian diplomats and staff in London? - Julie Thompson, Preston\n\nMy guess is that while there's still a hope (however fleeting) that diplomacy could end this, the UK and other Western countries will resist what would be viewed in Moscow as a provocation.\n\nIt would also likely result in the expulsion of their own embassy staff from Russia.\n\nAfter seeing all the trains fully packed, why aren't more being sent in to rescue the fleeing people? - Kate Russell, Glasgow\n\nThe trains are running, many on time, even in this war. But in some places, including Irpin just west of Kyiv, the tracks were attacked so that station is now not in use.\n\nI noticed on my last trip to the wonderful 19th Century train station in Kyiv that the platforms for trains heading west were not as crowded, although the trains pulling out are certainly still full.\n\nA volunteer in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv helps a baby on board a train to Poland\n\nWhat's the motive behind the Russian invasion in Ukraine? - Karen Keven, Nigeria\n\nThe truth is we don't really know for sure.\n\nVladimir Putin claims that he's coming to the rescue of Russian speaking populations of Eastern Ukraine who are victims of \"genocide\" (of which there's no evidence) by the government in Kyiv.\n\nHe's demanding that Ukraine officially hand over some territory in the east, including Crimea which he annexed in 2014, to Russia. He also wants Ukraine to give up on its ambition to join Nato.\n\nDoes he have wider ambitions? Perhaps. We know he views Nato (and in particular the former Soviet countries that joined after 1997) as a threat to Russian security.\n\nMoscow has demanded changes to Nato structure - it wants, for example, European countries like Germany, which host US nuclear weapons, to return them to America.\n\nThere are analysts who say we also can't rule out the possibility that Mr Putin's nurturing an ambition to re-build the Soviet Union - given how its break-up appears to be a continuing and humiliating source of deep regret for him.\n\nIs it possible for the United Nations to send troops into Ukraine and also enforce a no-fly zone? If so, why have they not made any attempt? - Joseph Akinwunmi, Lagos\n\nThe United Nations would have to be asked and authorised to come in, usually by the UN Security Council. But at the moment this war is raging and, in some comments, Russia even denies it has invaded its neighbour. It still calls this a \"special military operation\" to defend Russia from threats.\n\nUkraine has repeatedly called for a no-fly zone. It has been repeatedly ruled out.\n\nWestern/Nato powers know this would draw them into direct conflict with Russia.\n\nA no-fly zone would not just involve targeting Russian warplanes, it would also require attacks on Russian assets on the ground.\n\nIf Russia takes control of the whole of Ukraine, what would the response be from Nato and the US? - Jeff Moono, Lusaka\n\nThat's the nightmare scenario for Nato, which has bolstered troop numbers in neighbouring countries but which, for the reasons outlined above, does not want to be drawn into a war with Russia.\n\nThere's speculation that, before that eventuality arose, Kyiv might be persuaded to do a deal with Moscow - in other words, hand over some of its territory in return for a cessation of hostilities.\n\nHowever, the problem with that scenario is, firstly, that Kyiv doesn't want to give ground, and secondly, there's also a fear that such an outcome might embolden Mr Putin.\n\nNevertheless, right now most analysts assume that Russia would struggle to hold Ukraine in the long term.\n\nAs the fighting continues and more people and soldiers will suffer horrific injuries from the bombing, will they have enough blood supplies. Should people be donating their blood? - Linda Potter\n\nI remember when this invasion started more than two weeks ago that a call went out for blood donations.\n\nUkrainians are signing up to fight, and to donate blood - wherever and whenever they can. But, like you, you they must be asking if they have enough.\n\nWhen do all of the sanctions go into effect? - Alfred Pons, Albuquerque, US\n\nMany have already taken effect but others are pending.\n\nThe UK has just announced sanctions on 386 members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, who support the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAnd the EU says it remains ready to impose more sanctions.\n\nCan you tell us what Belarus is doing in this conflict? Is any of their army actually taking part? - Steve Simmons-Jacobs, Romsey\n\nNeighbouring Belarus became a staging ground for Russian troops and heavy weaponry in the weeks leading up the invasion (even though it was described as military exercises). It then became a launching pad for Russia to move into Ukraine, and for Russian missile strikes across the border.\n\nSo far, the US says it sees no evidence that Belarussian forces have become directly involved.\n\nBelarus has also hosted talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiating teams close to the border.\n\nIn 2020, Russian forces helped the Belarussian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, survive an unprecedented uprising against his rule. Russian President Vladimir Putin expects him to return the favour.\n\nHowever, although it was announced before the invasion that Belarus could join the fight, Lukanshenko recently said he wouldn't.\n\nThe Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, also made a direct appeal to Belarus last month, saying \"Be Belarus, not Russia.\"", "Ukrainian families are grieving over the deaths of the country's fallen soldiers.\n\nThe bodies of the first victims of the Ukraine-Russia war have been returned home and laid to rest.\n\nThe BBC's Fergal Keane reports on the emotional scenes.", "Wagner member in the Donbas region in 2014/15\n\nSocial media channels and private messaging groups are being used in Russia to recruit a new brigade of mercenaries to fight in Ukraine alongside the army, the BBC has learned.\n\nThe BBC has spoken to a serving mercenary and a former fighter with close links to one of Russia's leading mercenary organisations, who have shared details of the recruitment campaign.\n\nThe serving mercenary said many veterans of the secretive Wagner organisation were contacted on a private Telegram group a few weeks before the start of the war. They were invited to a \"picnic in Ukraine\", with references to tasting \"Salo\", a pork fat traditionally eaten in Ukraine.\n\nThe message appeals to \"those with criminal records, debts, banned from mercenary groups or without an external passport\" to apply. The message also included that \"those from the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk republics and Crimea - cordially invited\".\n\nThe Wagner group is one of the most secretive organisations in Russia. Officially, it doesn't exist - serving as a mercenary is against Russian and international law. But up to 10,000 operatives are believed to have taken at least one contract with Wagner over the past seven years.\n\nThe serving mercenary who spoke to the BBC said new recruits are being placed in units under the command of officers from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence unit of the ministry of defence.\n\nHe stressed that the recruitment policy had changed, and fewer restrictions were applied. \"They are recruiting anyone and everyone,\" he said, unhappy with what he described as the lower professionalism of the new fighters.\n\nHe said the new units being recruited are no longer referred to as Wagner, but new names - such as The Hawks - were being used.\n\nIn 2021, the BBC gained access to an electronic tablet left behind by a Wagner fighter in Libya\n\nThis seems to be part of a recent tendency to steer away from the Wagner group's reputation, as \"the brand is tainted\", says Candace Rondeaux, professor of Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European studies at Arizona State University.\n\nWagner has faced repeated accusations of human rights abuses and war crimes in its operations in Syria and Libya.\n\nThe mercenary sources who spoke to the BBC, said the recruits are trained at the Wagner base in Mol'kino in southern Russia, next to a Russian army base.\n\nAs well as the private messaging groups, there has also been a public campaign in Russia to recruit mercenaries.\n\nOn the Russian social media platform VK, a page that describes itself as a specialist in security activities, posted an advert during the first week of the invasion calling for \"security guards\" from other former Soviet Union countries to apply for \"the near abroad\". Military experts have said this is a reference to Ukraine.\n\nPreviously, a criminal record was a block for those wanting to join the mercenaries. Also restrictions were placed on anyone born outside Russia because of doubts around loyalty.\n\nTranslated advert for mercenaries on the VK social media site\n\nThere is a \"high demand on fighters\" and to make a difference on the ground \"they're going to need thousands of mercenaries\", says Jason Blazakis, senior research fellow at the Soufan Centre, a US-based security think tank.\n\nOn Friday, the Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu said that 16,000 fighters from the Middle East had volunteered to fight with the Russian army. The Russian president Vladimir Putin gave orders allowing fighters from the Middle East to be deployed in the war.\n\nIt has been reported that up to 400 fighters from the Wagner group have been in Ukraine.\n\nThe Wagner group was first identified in 2014, when it was backing pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.\n\nThe serving Wagner fighter explained that in the first days of the invasion of Ukraine he was sent to the country's second city, Kharkiv, where he said his unit successfully completed a mission without revealing what it was.\n\n\"We were then paid $2,100 (£1,600) for a month's work and returned home to Russia,\" he told the BBC.\n\nBlazakis describes using mercenaries as a \"sign of desperation\" to keep the Russian public's support. Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has stirred several protests in Russia. Thousands have been arrested. Blazakis added that using mercenaries allows the Kremlin to \"keep the death toll down because mercenaries are used like cannon fodder\".\n\nMoscow has always denied any links with mercenary groups.\n\nThe BBC asked the Russian ministry of defence whether the base in Mol'kino was being used to recruit additional forces for what the Russian authorities call \"a special military operation in Ukraine''. No response was received.", "Previous executions have triggered protests like this one in New York three years ago\n\nSaudi Arabia says it executed 81 men on Saturday - more than during the whole of last year.\n\nThe group - including seven Yemenis and one Syrian national - were convicted of \"multiple heinous crimes\", including terrorism, state news agency SPA said.\n\nSome were charged with belonging to the Islamic State group (IS), al-Qaeda or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.\n\nRights organisations say many do not receive fair trials in Saudi Arabia, an allegation the government rejects.\n\nAccording to SPA, the latest group had been tried by 13 judges and gone through a three-stage judicial process.\n\nThey were accused of plotting attacks on vital economic targets, killing or targeting members of the security forces, kidnapping, torture, rape and smuggling weapons into the country.\n\nSaudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world - fifth in a list compiled by Amnesty International, the other four being China, Iran, Egypt and Iraq.", "Covid infections are increasing across the UK with about one in 25 people infected, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).\n\nIn Scotland, 300,000 people - one in 18 - have coronavirus, the highest level recorded during the pandemic.\n\nA sub-variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is now thought to be the most common strain in most of the UK.\n\nThe ONS says it's too early to say what's behind the rise in cases.\n\nBut some scientists believe the BA.2 variant's increased transmissibility, recent easing of restrictions and waning immunity from the vaccines could all be factors.\n\nAsked if there were worries about sub-variants Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the government had \"no concerns at all\".\n\nHe said Omicron had been the last variant to be considered of concern but that the country had \"successfully navigated\" it, but he said the government continued to monitor the situation \"very carefully\".\n\n\"There's a world-class surveillance system in place, and whilst in some regions we have seen a modest rise in infections, overall case numbers are still very low and hospitalisation numbers are way below their peak,\" he said.\n\nThe ONS infection survey, which tests thousands of people randomly in households across the UK, estimates that 2.6 million people would have tested positive in the week ending 5 March - up from 2.4 million the previous week - roughly one in 27.\n\nThere were also rises across the four UK nations:\n\nOlder age groups are now experiencing rising levels of infection with 2.9% of over-70s testing positive in England - the highest level since mid-January.\n\nAn extra vaccine booster is being offered this spring to people over 75, care-home residents and the most vulnerable over-12s to top up their protection.\n\nThese groups will be invited to have a jab six months after their most recent vaccination.\n\nThe booster vaccines offer good long-term protection against severe disease and death from Covid, but they provide little protection against infection.\n\nEven a small drop-off in vaccine immunity over time could have a large impact, increasing the numbers of at-risk people needing hospital treatment.\n\nNHS England says the spring booster rollout will begin in April - with the exception of a small number of extremely vulnerable people, who will be invited in late March - with no plans to bring it forward.\n\nIn Scotland, additional booster doses started being given to the most vulnerable this week.\n\nLinda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said it would be \"great\" to accelerate the booster programme \"to keep numbers in hospital low\" and also to make sure people continued to be treated for other health issues, after very long waits.\n\n\"We have always expected there to be new infections as we opened up,\" Prof Bauld said.\n\n\"We have decoupled the worst health harms of Covid due to vaccines, but getting the further booster delivered in March and April is going to be critical.\"\n\nThe number of people with Covid in Scottish hospitals is at its highest level for 13 months. There were 1,636 patients in hospital on Wednesday, which is higher than the peak during the Omicron wave in January.\n\nHealth boards said that while far fewer people needed intensive care, the large numbers of Covid patients were affecting availability of beds and other services.\n\nAfter falling steadily since January, official data shows Covid hospital admissions have also been going up gradually in the rest of the UK - with England showing the most obvious rise since the end of February. In Wales, admissions are staying relatively stable.\n\nNearly 12,000 people are in UK hospitals with a positive test for Covid but data suggests most of those patients are being treated for something else rather than Covid-19 itself.\n\nEarlier this week, Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said the presence of the BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant and slight increase in infections in over-55s in England \"show the pandemic is not over\".\n\n\"We can expect to see Covid circulating at high levels,\" Dr Harries said.\n\n\"Vaccination remains the best way to protect us all from severe disease and hospitalisation due to Covid-19 infection.\n\n\"We urge you to come forward for your primary or booster doses straight away if you have not already done so.\"", "Fabian at work on his spamming website\n\nA Norwegian computer expert has created a website enabling anyone to send an email about the war in Ukraine to up to 150 Russian email addresses at a time, so that Russian people have a chance to hear the truth their government is hiding.\n\nAll over Russia email inboxes are pinging.\n\nMillions of messages are being received with the same intriguing subject Ya vam ne vrag - I am not your enemy.\n\nThe message appears in Russian with an English translation and it begins: \"Dear friend, I am writing to you to express my concern for the secure future of our children on this planet. Most of the world has condemned Putin's invasion of Ukraine.\"\n\nThe lengthy email goes on to implore Russian people to reject the war in Ukraine and seek the truth about the invasion from non-state news services.\n\nIn just a few days, more than 22 million of these emails landed in Russian inboxes, and they're being sent by volunteers around the world, who are donating their time and email addresses to the cause.\n\nIt's one of a growing number of unusual ways that hackers, activists and every day people around the world are trying to reach out to Russian people online to circumvent media blocks and censorship. One Polish Twitter user's idea to post reviews talking about the war to Russian businesses on Google and Yandex went viral.\n\nElsewhere hacker groups claim to have defaced Russian news websites with messages to Russian people to \"stop Putin\".\n\nBut the spam email campaign created by a small team in Norway seems to have caught the imagination of thousands of people searching for ways to help Russians learn about the war.\n\nA US transport aircraft dropping leaflets on Korea, during the 1950-1953 Korean War\n\n\"During the Second World War, and in earlier wars, people flew over Germany with leaflets and dropped them out. This is just a more modern way of trying to get people to open their eyes,\" says Fabian, who came up with the idea.\n\nThe 50-year-old Norwegian, who runs a computer network business, doesn't want his surname to be published for fear of retaliation from the Russian authorities. He says he felt compelled to do something after becoming increasingly anxious about the possibility of World War Three.\n\nHis website, which the BBC is not naming, is circumventing Russian censorship through a mix of clever computing and people power. The system allows people to send his templated message to dozens of Russian email addresses at once, and he estimates that tens of thousands of volunteers have done this since the website went live.\n\nFabian built it with five colleagues, who worked flat-out last weekend to get the job done. They started by trawling the internet for known Russian email addresses and compiled a list of 90 million accounts they believe are active. He says the strength of the system lies in getting volunteers to use their own email accounts instead of bulk-messaging the email addresses using spam software.\n\nUsers can choose to contact from one to 150 Russian people. Then, with a click, the volunteer's default email client (Outlook or Gmail, for example) is loaded up with the unique email addresses, subject and body text ready to send.\n\nPeople are also able to personalise the contents too, to increase the chances of getting their email read.\n\nSome foreign news websites are still accessible from Russia, but the BBC is blocked\n\nThere are two reasons, says Fabian, for using people's personal email accounts: the emails get through email spam filters if they are sent from real accounts, and in small numbers.\n\n\"But also, people can actually receive replies from Russians and engage with them and have conversations about the war.\"\n\nFabian says some accounts will be less active than others and in some cases the email may end up in the junk mail folder. But many of the messages are being read, he says, and some Russians are replying.\n\nAlex, also in Norway, was asked to test the system by Fabian's team, but has kept sending emails since.\n\n\"I've sent around 500 emails so far and got around 20 replies within a day, so I'm hoping for more,\" he says. \"Most of the replies are people asking me to take them off my mailing list but I got talking to a 35-year-old woman from St Petersburg. She told me she wasn't sure what was going on in the conflict and wanted to know more. She said there was a lack of news coming out of Europe and she wanted to read about it all but didn't know how to get through the blocks on websites.\"\n\nAlex then explained how she could sidestep Russia's internet blocks\n\n\"I think I've got a friend in her now!\" he says.\n\nAnother 18-year-old volunteer shared the reply she received from an unknown Russian. The message argued strongly that she was wrong and it was Ukraine that was killing innocent people which is why \"this special operation is a necessary measure\".\n\nFabian says his team are constantly tweaking the text and subject of their email template to evade email spam filters, and hope many of the 90 million email addresses will eventually receive the message. If they run out of emails to try he says the team will find more.\n\nThey have also had to fend off attacks from unknown hackers trying to bring the site down.\n\nFabian argues that what he is doing is \"not propaganda\". Asked how he feels about spamming millions of people, he replies that the intrusion is justified because the stakes are so high.\n\nIs he putting unsuspecting recipients in danger?\n\n\"You can't charge the recipient of the email. They're served our email without being able to consent to it, so it's kind of involuntarily receiving a leaflet. It's literally a war. You have to stand up for what you believe in. And I believe in this.\"", "Lucas wore a graduation gown to celebrate the day he was finally able to leave hospital\n\nA baby boy born at 23 weeks with a 15% chance of survival has been able to go home for the first time.\n\nLucas weighed just 1lb 3oz (539g) when he arrived into the world on 16 October at Liverpool Women's Hospital.\n\nHe spent almost five months on a ward after struggling with complications including sepsis and collapsed lungs.\n\nHis mother Sarah Chialton described him as her \"little miracle\" and thanked medical staff at the hospital for \"saving his life\".\n\n\"I can't even describe my emotions,\" said the 30-year-old, about the moment she first stepped foot through the front door with her little boy.\n\n\"It was amazing. It was unbelievable.\"\n\nThe first-time mother, from Litherland in Merseyside, described her pregnancy as \"normal\" until she noticed an unusual discharge when she was 23 weeks and one day.\n\nShe was advised to go to the hospital for a check-up and was informed she was 2cm dilated, despite not feeling any pains or contractions.\n\nLucas was described as a \"fighter\" after being born prematurely\n\n\"It was unlikely to be a good outcome for a baby born at 23 weeks,\" Ms Chialton, a nurse, said.\n\n\"They were saying at the start there's a 15% chance of survival.\n\n\"I can't really remember much about it. I just remember feeling quite overwhelmed.\"\n\nLucas was born at 23 weeks and four days, appearing little more than the size of a \"Biro pen\", his mother said.\n\n\"I just remember one of the doctors saying \"he's breathing, he's breathing\" so they rushed him over to the side,\" she continued.\n\n\"He was a very poorly baby at the start and I remember the doctors saying 'just prepare yourself'.\"\n\nLucas spent 142 days in hospital after suffering six different infections, two collapsed lungs as well as needing several blood transfusions.\n\nBut on Sunday, Sarah was able to bring her little boy, who now weighs 8lb 4oz (3.7kg), home for the first time.\n\nSarah said her son was doing well but will need oxygen for the first year of his life\n\n\"The neo-natal unit was just unbelievable. From day one the support that I got from the nurses was amazing,\" Ms Chialton said.\n\n\"They saved my little boy's life. I can't thank them enough.\"\n\nShe added she wanted to share her story to hopefully give some comfort to other parents going through similar experiences, urging them to \"hold onto hope\".\n\n\"Hope is all I had from the start and it worked,\" she said.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nCoverage: Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Ulster; text commentary and highlights on BBC Sport website and mobile app.\n\n\"They beat us and they beat us up.\"\n\nIn the bowels of the Aviva Stadium, Joe Schmidt's post-mortem was blunt.\n\nHis Ireland side, full of momentum after an autumn win over the All Blacks, had been brought to a juddering halt. The opposition were an unfancied England side that had finished fifth in the previous year's Six Nations.\n\nPhysicality had bridged the gap. Brute power had upset the odds.\n\nThat was the verdict. And that was 2019.\n\nThree years on, the approach to Saturday's Twickenham meeting is eerily familiar.\n\nOnce again, Ireland are upwardly mobile; their smart, quick rugby straining defences with a blizzard of options and different plays.\n\nAnd England, as in early 2019, are groping in the dark. Fans try and plot progress from a pebbledash mix of performances. Players point to moments in matches, rather than offering a clear 80-minute vision. Where they stand in the world order remains frustratingly unclear.\n\nAmid the doubt and uncertainty, the same spirits that haunted Schmidt in the 2019 Aviva aftermath have been summoned once again.\n\nThe mood music from the England camp has all been heavy metal.\n\n\"They haven't played a game as physical as this for a long time,\" promised coach Eddie Jones.\n\n\"Big lads putting in big shots and big carries,\" said centre Henry Slade when asked what the current team could learn from their past success.\n\nIt's isn't just blind bluster. There is more evidence to suggest route one is the surest way to victory against Ireland.\n\nEleven of Ireland's starting XV play their provincial rugby together at Leinster, including six of the eight forwards.\n\nYou can see Ireland's cohesion in well-worn running lines, the array of intricate attacking moves, the instinctive way players feed off each other. By contrast, England's starting XV is drawn from eight Premiership clubs.\n\nBut, the Leinster connection also gives a glimpse of underbelly.\n\nBecause Leinster's European Champions Cup campaigns have ended in similar ways over the past three seasons. Each time, La Rochelle and Saracens' powerful packs squeezed them into submission.\n\nCould Ireland's attacking patterns be similarly scattered at Twickenham?\n\nPerhaps. France's relentless carries eventually sapped Ireland's spirit in Paris a month ago after all.\n\nBut England are not France. Not by a long way. Through a mix of accident and design, Saturday's team is built for a different game.\n\nThe slighter, swifter Sam Simmonds starts at eight after Alex Dombrandt's brush with Covid.\n\nTom Curry's time on the ball will be eaten up by repelling Tadhg Beirne and Peter O'Mahony at the breakdown.\n\nManu Tuilagi's latest injury absence robs England of the midfield punch Bundee Aki gives Ireland. Max Malins will be giving up height and weight to James Lowe on the wing.\n\nThe cavalry looks to be weighted the visitors' way as well, with four recent British and Irish Lions - Iain Henderson, Jack Conan, Conor Murray and Robbie Henshaw - on the Ireland bench.\n\nInstead England will have to rely on something else. Something that, behind the headline-grabbing kilowatt power, was there in spades in the 32-20 win in Dublin in 2019.\n\nYou could see it in the opening 90 seconds. The accuracy of Jamie George's line-out throw over the back. The ambition in Owen Farrell's mis-pass to Elliot Daly. The ruthlessness of Jonny May's finish.\n\nEngland set about Ireland with power that day, but also with a plan. Backed into a corner, England came out fists raised and a clutch of jokers up their sleeve as well.\n\nGeorge, one of six survivors from that win, has hinted that something similar maybe brewing this time around.\n\n\"We are going to throw a few different things at Ireland and try and make them uncomfortable,\" he told Rugby Union Daily earlier this week.\n\n\"There is a sense of excitement around that, there really is.\"\n\nIf they back up that talk with a win, it could be a turning point. A performance, like in Dublin three years ago, that gives direction, impetus and belief to a team in need of all three.\n\nA victory that could forge them together and fire them towards a final-weekend match against France, with proof of what's possible.\n\nThe alternative is stark. Rather than a title decider in Paris, a defeat would have Jones' side scrapping to avoid a second-straight fifth place finish.\n\nIt was a defeat by Ireland that confirmed last year's dismal standing. The morning after a tame 32-18 defeat in Dublin, Jones tore into his squad.\n\nOver breakfast he told his players their credit had run out. All bets were off, all comers would be considered. Ollie Lawrence, Ben Earl, Dan Robson, and Mako and Billy Vunipola were shuffled to the door and a revamped 'New England' was ushered in.\n\nThe fresh era still lacks a defining performance. Saturday, 18 months out from the start of France 2023, is high time it arrived.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nRoman Abramovich has been in charge of Chelsea since 2003 Chelsea's credit card facilities have been temporarily suspended while banks assess the implications of sanctions imposed on Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. The club has been given a special licence to operate despite Abramovich having his assets frozen by the UK government. Banks want to assess the licence criteria to ensure it does not breach the government's sanctions and Chelsea do not know when the suspension will be lifted. As part of the licence terms, Chelsea cannot receive money for match tickets which have not already been sold, future gate receipts for FA Cup games or merchandise from the club shop. That is likely to leave the club with a huge shortfall, with their monthly wage bill amounting to £28m a month. In discussions with the government on Thursday and Friday Chelsea made applications to change the terms of the licence which would allow the club to receive money for ticket sales, and also boost its limits on spending. The current licence allows £500,000 to be spent on home matches and allows a £20,000 limit on away travel. Talks were also held regarding an amendment to the licence about a potential sale of the club and included Raine Group - the American investment firm instructed to handle the sale before Abramovich was sanctioned. The Football News Show: What do sanctions mean for the sale of Chelsea? On Friday, a spokesman for the Prime Minister later said the government was \"in constant contact\" with Chelsea and the Premier League and said the Blues could apply for an \"amended licence\". They added: \"I believe Chelsea have said that they will do that, and we'll obviously work with the club and the league to consider any operationally necessary changes.\" The club has already sold tickets for its game at home to Newcastle on Sunday and Chelsea are set to travel to Lille for a Champions League tie on Wednesday. The home match against Brentford on 2 April is sold out, but tickets will not be able to be sold for games after that. It is unclear what would happen to gate receipts for the club's FA Cup quarter-final against Championship side Middlesbrough on 19 March, with 45% going to each team.\n• None Q&A: What do UK government sanctions on Abramovich mean for Chelsea?\n• None The Sports Desk: Life after Abramovich - what's next for Chelsea and English football? Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel raised the prospect of his players wearing a \"message for peace\" on their shirts, after mobile network provider Three suspended its shirt sponsorship deal with the club. \"Maybe the worry is more to find enough shirts that we can play in, with the sanctions,\" Tuchel added. \"But as long as we have enough shirts, and as long as the bus is full of fuel, we will arrive and we will be competitive. Manager Thomas Tuchel expresses hope for Chelsea in light of sanctions \"This is what everybody can be sure of and this is what we demand of ourselves and when it's a big storm, you dig in, you are all together and then you stay strong and go through it. \"But messages for peace can never be wrong.\" Meanwhile, Chelsea fans have been urged to stop chanting in support of Abramovich, after supporters sang the Russian's name during Chelsea's win at Norwich on Thursday. Technology minister Chris Philp told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that fans need to remember Abramovich has close ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose regime has committed \"barbaric acts\" in Ukraine. 'We're in 2022 and to see this is horrible for everybody' Premier League managers gave their views on the sanctioning of Abramovich for the first time on Friday. Former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte - now in charge at Tottenham - said: \"It's very sad that this serious situation, this war between Russia and Ukraine, is affecting football and the sporting world. \"To know that Russia athletes are banned from competition is very sad. I think it's not fair. I know very well the work that they do every day for this competition. \"You have to pay for this situation, I think it's not right. Honestly, I hoped the situation is going to be solved, because it's creating a lot of damage. We're in 2022 and to see this is horrible for everybody.\" Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp sympathised with employees at Chelsea but believes the government was \"right\" to sanction Abramovich because \"he is close\" to Putin. Newcastle manager Eddie Howe believes the sanctions will not change how Chelsea perform, while Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers - who previously worked at Chelsea as a youth and reserve-team coach - said Tuchel's situation is challenging. \"I've total empathy for him and for the players, but they're very professional,\" said Rodgers. \"They're an outstanding team and I'm sure they'll focus on that element between now and the end of the season.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Mark Drakeford said there must be \"no more prevarication\" on Ukrainian refugees\n\nWales' first minister has strongly criticised the UK government's handling of the Ukrainian refugee crisis.\n\nMark Drakeford said the gap between what ministers say and the actions they delivered was \"shamefully wide\".\n\nThe UK government is expected to introduce a new visa scheme on Monday.\n\nHowever, addressing the Welsh Labour conference, Mr Drakeford said UK ministers had shown \"a real dereliction of the moral and practical duty\" to Ukrainians.\n\nIt is understood that under a new visa scheme individuals and organisations may be allowed to sponsor Ukrainians to come to the UK if they do not have family connections.\n\nSpeaking at the conference in Llandudno on Saturday, Mr Drakeford told party members that he had had several discussions with UK ministers over the last two weeks to discuss what help Wales can give to Ukrainian refugees.\n\nHe said the Welsh government was ready to help refugees as soon as they arrive in the UK and that UK ministers say \"they share the same intentions\".\n\nHowever Mr Drakeford said: \"If, as the prime minister says, he stands shoulder to shoulder with people in Ukraine, that must seem a very long way off to all those who are dealing with what charities on the ground are calling a 'chaotic, heartless and unkind' response when trying to access the prime minister's good will.\n\n\"The gap between what the Conservative government says and the actions it delivers is shamefully wide.\n\n\"Shameful to the UK's reputation around the world, shamefully at odds with the instinctive generosity of so many people across our country.\n\n\"And, most shamefully of all, a real dereliction of the moral and practical duty we have to do everything we can to help those innocent people whose lives have been destroyed by Russian action.\n\n\"Let the message from this conference be clear - no more prevarication and no more claiming to lead the world, while being the world's leading foot-dragger.\"\n\nThe prime minister has told Sky News the UK would be \"generous\" to those fleeing Ukraine, and that details of a second visa scheme would be announced on Monday.\n\nDefending the current visa rules, Mr Johnson said: \"People want us to be generous but also careful.\"\n\nThe UK has been criticised for only taking in about 1,000 refugees so far.\n\nSpeaking earlier at the conference on Ukraine, UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was time to \"tackle the oligarchs here by going after their stolen wealth and assets\".\n\n\"And while we're at it clean up our own politics, once and for all,\" he said.\n\nHe added: \"There is no justification for Putin's actions. They are an affront to the values of this country, this party and the international institutions, which we helped to build.\n\nSir Keir said he had just returned from Estonia where he had the opportunity to thank Nato forces, which included the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Welsh, for their work.\n\nMr Drakeford has previously welcomed the UK government relaxing visa rules, but agreed with Sir Keir that more needs to be done to help refugees.\n\nSir Keir Starmer arrived at the conference with shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens (left) and deputy Welsh Labour leader Carolyn Harris\n\nIn an interview, Sir Keir stopped short of supporting Mr Drakeford's call for visa requirements to be dropped for Ukranian refugees but said the pair were \"coming from exactly the same place\" on the issue.\n\nHe said \"a simple, safe, quick and efficient route to sanctuary\" was needed and the current system was \"too narrow, too slow, with too many hurdles in place\".\n\nAsked whether he was supporting Mr Drakeford's call for Ukrainian refugees to be allowed into the UK without visas, Sir Keir said they both wanted \"a simple safe route to sanctuary\".\n\nWelsh minister Mick Antoniw spoke on an emergency motion expressing solidarity with the people of Ukraine.\n\nMr Antoniw, the Welsh government's Counsel General, or most senior legal adviser, comes from a Ukrainian family.\n\nHe said: \"Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War, we are now witnessing in Europe the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity on a scale previously unimaginable.\n\n\"We're witnessing the emergence of a new fascism, a fascism with a difference, a fascism that has global links, a level of military technology greater than anything previously experienced and nuclear weapons.\"\n\nOn refugees, he urged UK ministers \"to remove the shackles on the immigration system that they have actually created\" to allow Wales to \"show the world what it means to be a nation of sanctuary\".\n\nMick Antoniw (right) has said he felt guilt at leaving Ukraine on the eve of the invasion\n\nMr Antoniw, who visited Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion, concluded his words with what he said was now the traditional way of ending a Ukrainian speech.\n\n\"Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes - we will win,\" he said, to applause and a standing ovation.\n\nLater, he told BBC Wales that people in the UK willing to sponsor Ukrainian refugees should be allowed to apply for visas on their behalf.\n\n\"You cannot expect people in a war zone facing missiles and roadblocks, who don't even know if they will have the internet tomorrow, to access online to be able to go through these processes,\" he said.\n\nPlans to expand the Welsh Parliament were backed by the conference\n\nIn the first conference debate of the weekend, Welsh Labour backed proposals to increase the size of the Senedd.\n\nThe conference unanimously voted for a motion saying the 60-member parliament should grow to between 80 and 100 members.\n\nBut it leaves open the question of how Senedd members (MSs) will be elected.\n\nParties in the Senedd are negotiating on a plan to reform the institution and swell its size.\n\nLabour will hold a one-off conference to decide whether it will endorse the outcome of those negotiations.\n\nUnder the law, any reforms would need to be approved by two-thirds of MSs, making Labour's position crucial.\n\nLabour said the way MSs are elected should be \"at least as proportional\" as the current system.\n\nWhile it did not rule it out, it warned there were \"risks\" to adopting the single transferable voting system that some parties want.", "The Queen will not attend next week's Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace has said.\n\nThis is usually a significant occasion for the Queen and earlier in the week it had been hoped she would attend.\n\nThe decision is understood to be about concerns over her discomfort with travelling, rather than illness.\n\nPrince Harry is also now not expected to come to the UK for a service of thanksgiving for Prince Philip, to be held later this month.\n\nThe message from Buckingham Palace does not mention the health of the 95-year-old Queen, but says not attending the Commonwealth Service on Monday was decided \"after discussing arrangements with the Royal Household\".\n\nIt is understood not to be related to an illness - but there have been concerns about the Queen's ability to travel and her mobility.\n\nAs she told defence staff in a meeting last month: \"As you can see, I can't move.\"\n\nThe Queen, who recently recovered from Covid, is said to regret not being able to attend the event celebrating the Commonwealth, in what would have been one of her biggest public appearances of the year so far.\n\nShe has been carrying out diplomatic engagements at Windsor Castle, such as meeting the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and is expected to continue with such in-person audiences next week.\n\nThe Commonwealth Service was one of two major events in the Queen's diary this month - the other being the service of thanksgiving for her husband, Prince Philip.\n\nBut her grandson Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will not travel to the UK for that service commemorating Prince Philip's life, to be held on 29 March.\n\nA spokesperson said that Prince Harry hoped to visit his grandmother as soon as possible.\n\nPrince Harry has been involved in a legal dispute over the provision of security when he visits from the United States.\n\nAt the annual service marking Commonwealth Day, the Queen will be represented by Prince Charles and other senior royals will be there, including Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.\n\nThe monarch last missed the event in 2013, when recovering from a bout of gastroenteritis, but before that she had not been absent from the service for 20 years.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Gloucester are not attending, after the duke tested positive for Covid.\n\nThe service at Westminster Abbey, with a focus on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, will be addressed by the former Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, and will hear music from Emeli Sandé and Mica Paris.", "Samuel Crawford spoke about his Christian faith when he addressed his church in December 2020\n\nA man who died on the UK's highest mountain last Tuesday was Samuel Crawford from Newtownards, County Down.\n\nThe 28-year-old was climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland on 8 March when he suffered fatal injuries.\n\nMr Crawford was married just 18 months ago and his wife is expecting their first child, their minister said.\n\nThe Reverend Garth Wilson, from Sandown Free Presbyterian Church in east Belfast, expressed \"heartfelt sympathies\" to the Crawford family.\n\nIn a tribute on the church's Facebook page, the minister said: \"He was one of the brightest lights in our congregation in Sandown and we will miss him terribly.\"\n\nHe described Mr Crawford as a \"fantastic husband\" and said he \"would have been the best father\".\n\nSpeaking to BBC News NI, Mr Wilson said Mr Crawford had a \"very, very strong Christian faith\" and the congregation was taking comfort in that.\n\nJust over a year ago, Mr Crawford spoke at the church about how his faith had helped him through serious illness.\n\nSamuel Crawford was with friends on Ben Nevis when he was fatally injured on Tuesday\n\nStrangford MP Jim Shannon said he had known the Crawford family for years and was \"incredibly sorry to hear of his passing\".\n\n\"He was very committed to his family... he was from a family of great faith, which will be all the more necessary now,\" the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician said.\n\nMr Shannon also expressed his sympathy to his \"many friends who are missing him\" and added: \"He is very much in our prayers.\"\n\nBen Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK\n\nMr Crawford was among 24 people who got into difficulty on Ben Nevis on 8 March.\n\nThe other climbers were helped to safety by the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, search and rescue helicopters and a group of soldiers who were climbing the mountain at the time.", "Footage shows a large fireball lighting up the night sky over the Ukrainian city of Lutsk, in the early hours of Friday morning.\n\nAccording to eyewitness accounts, a nearby airfield was hit by three strikes.", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nIreland kept their hopes of a Six Nations title alive as they finally saw off a valiant, spirited England who played 78 minutes with 14 men after Charlie Ewels' red card.\n\nEwels was dismissed with just 82 seconds on the clock after clashing heads with James Ryan in an attempted tackle.\n\nIreland, the pre-match favourites, seemed set for a procession. Instead they were dragged into a desperate, captivating dogfight by the depleted hosts.\n\nJames Lowe and Hugo Keenan scored first-half tries, but Marcus Smith's boot kept England in touch with three penalties for a 15-9 scoreline at the break.\n\nSmith potted another two to bring England level after the hour. It seemed an extraordinary heist may be on as Twickenham roared like it rarely has before.\n\nIreland though finally made their advantage and strength in depth pay as they came on strong late on with Jack Conan and Finlay Bealham crossing to squash the resistance.\n\nThe defeat ends England's hopes of winning the Six Nations, but they could have a say in the trophy's destination. Denying France in Paris next weekend would open the door for Ireland, who take on Scotland in the final round.\n• None Rugby Union Daily: England see red & Ireland eye up the title\n• None Six Nations permutations - how France and Ireland can win the title\n\nThe pre-match pyrotechnics were still floating on the Twickenham air when the momentum swung decisively in Ireland's favour.\n\nSecond row Ewels' tackle on Ryan was more clumsy than callous, but, whether he was trying to strip the ball or hold his man up in the tackle, his body height was high and risky.\n\nThe clash of heads was nasty, the mitigation non-existent. To the consternation of the crowd, French referee Mathieu Raynal brandished red after just 82 seconds - the earliest dismissal in the Championship's 139-year history.\n\nEwels trudged to the touchline, Johnny Sexton slotted the penalty, and jeers rolled down from all sides.\n\nAfter the disbelief, came the defiance.\n\nEngland raged against perceived injustice, throwing caution to the wind and their bodies into the fray.\n\nHarry Randall tapped and went, Maro Itoje swarmed over the line-out and breakdown, Ellis Genge milked opposing prop Tadhg Furlong for a string of penalties as wing Jack Nowell filled in at flanker at the scrum.\n\nCoach Eddie Jones had cast England as the underdog in the build-up and, with their odds dramatically lengthened, his team and their crowd seemed to relish their status.\n\nShortly after Ewels' departure, wing Lowe trotted in following good work from hooker Dan Sheehan and flanker Josh van der Flier to put Ireland into an 8-0 lead.\n\nBut the visitors could not make the cold logic of their superior numbers count.\n\nReferee Raynal ruled out a Caelan Doris score with a highly debatable knock-on call, while the penalty count was 9-4 in favour of England at the break.\n\nKeenan's short-range surge on 37 minutes ensured Ireland reached half-time with a 15-9 lead, but captain Sexton was in animated discussion with Raynal all the way down the tunnel.\n\nSexton's concern was justified. England refused to submit. Ireland continued to fumble their advantage.\n\nTadhg Beirne forced a pass and knocked on when another phase would surely have unpicked the England defence.\n\nEngland revelled in the error. They whooped and hollered as they sent the Ireland front row, badly missing the injured Andrew Porter, into reverse once again. Hooker Jamie George exhorted more volume from the crowd and slowly the apparently impossible became tantalising feasible.\n\nSmith slotted penalties in the 53rd and 61st minutes to finally bring parity on the scoreboard. Doubt gnawed at Ireland, England grew shirt sizes.\n\nBut the final quarter was always going to be the hardest. Ireland unloaded a bench that contained four British and Irish Lions, fatigue ambushed England and the home fans' dream withered.\n\nItoje escaped more severe punishment for a cynical piece of breakdown skulduggery inside his own five metre, while Doris butchered a glorious chance to put Conor Murray in under the posts.\n\nBut the dam finally burst as Conan crashed over in the wake of Andrew Conway's break and Bealham picked and burrowed through some flagging white shirts in the final four minutes.\n\nThe two teams took a lap of appreciation after the final whistle, accepting applause for a thrilling spectacle that few saw coming after Ewels' early dismissal.\n\nThe result is only England's third loss in their past 26 Six Nations games at home and Ireland's second win at Twickenham since 2010.\n\nReplacements: Ford for Steward (79), Daly for Marchant (69), Youngs for Randall (52), Marler for Genge (67), Blamire for George (79), Stuart for Sinckler (38), Dombrandt for Curry (14), Launchbury for Dombrandt (67).\n\nReplacements: Henshaw for Aki (66), Carbery for Sexton (79), Murray for Gibson-Park (67), Kilcoyne for Healy (53), Herring for Sheehan (53), Bealham for Furlong (73), Henderson for Ryan (2), Conan for O'Mahony (61).\n• None What power does the platform hold over us?\n• None Dive into a raw and unfiltered motorsport with promise of high-speed crashes", "Walt Disney's CEO has apologised for his \"painful silence\" on a Florida sex education bill critics warn will isolate LGBT youth.\n\n\"You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights and I let you down. I am sorry,\" Bob Chapek told employees.\n\nHis comments come amid internal complaints that \"gay affection\" is routinely cut from some Disney films.\n\nThe so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill is due to become law.\n\nIt bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten to third grade classes (aged 8-9) or when \"not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards\".\n\nFormally known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, it also allows private citizens to sue and seek unspecified damages if they believe a school district has violated the law.\n\nThe White House has decried its passage as \"hateful legislation targeting vulnerable students\".\n\nLGBT leaders at Disney have been clamouring for the company to speak out against the bill.\n\nIn a letter to Disney leadership, a copy of which was obtained by the BBC, LGBT employees at Pixar - the company's computer animation division - accused the parent company of stepping back from public debate around \"bigoted legislation\" while continuing to profit from the LGBT community.\n\nThey also levelled a more serious charge: that Disney has cut \"nearly every moment of overtly gay affection\" from its content \"regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar\". The company did not reply to BBC's requests for comment.\n\nOn Friday, Mr Chapek told employees in a memo that he was wrong to have been silent on the 'Don't Say Gay' bill.\n\nThe admission came after he had claimed earlier in the week that he believed \"corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds\" and Disney's involvement would make it \"a political football\" - a statement that was denounced by animators on social media, who called it a \"momentous misstep\".\n\nThis Instagram post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Instagram The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip instagram post by animationguild This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nAmid the public criticism, Mr Chapek backtracked, telling shareholders on Wednesday that Disney had been \"opposed to the bill from the outset\" and he had phoned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis - who plans to approve the bill - to express his concerns.\n\nMr Chapek also pledged a $5m (£3.8m) donation to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) LGBT advocacy group.\n\nBut the volte-face created even more fallout.\n\nHRC turned down Disney's donation and called on the entertainment giant to take \"meaningful action\" against the bill.\n\nThe company is a major tourism driver in the state, drawing some 58 million people per year to its flagship Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. It also employs 77,000 Floridians.\n\nAnd at a rally, Governor DeSantis told supporters the company has fallen for \"phony hysteria\" and wants to appease angry liberals.\n\nHis office confirmed to the BBC the governor took a call from Mr Chapek but intends to sign the bill.", "England in West Indies: Zak Crawley hits hundred as tourists dominate day four in Antigua Last updated on .From the section Cricket\n\nCrawley's hundred is his second in 19 Tests and first since 2020 Zak Crawley hit his second Test hundred as England dominated West Indies on day four of the first Test to set up an outside chance of victory. Crawley capitalised on a lifeless Antigua pitch to make an unbeaten 117, while captain Joe Root reached 84 not out at the close. Having started the day behind the game and in the field, England were 217-1, leading by 153 runs, when rain brought an early finish. Earlier they took just three deliveries to claim the final West Indies wicket as the hosts were dismissed for 375 with a first-innings lead of 64. But, despite the early loss of debutant Alex Lees for six, Crawley and Root wiped out the deficit and batted England into the ascendancy with a mammoth unbeaten stand of 193. The tourists, who have struggled for large parts of the Test, now look the more likely side to win. However, the placid nature of pitch means any quest to bowl out West Indies on the final day will be a struggle. In this three-match series, England are bidding to improve on a dreadful run which has seen them win just one of 14 Tests. The pitch is very helpful to batting and the opposition modest but this day revealed a hint of what England will hope for during this much-talked about red-ball reset. What little danger there is in the surface - just a hint of uneven bounce - was neutered by 24-year-old Crawley and Root, 31, and afterwards they progressed calmly with ease. The West Indies attack, without any express pace or world-class spin, was as blunted as England's had been across the previous two days. Crawley and Root began to up their scoring late on, with England starting to look to set up a declaration. The only wickets to fall all day were Jack Leach's lbw dismissal of West Indies number 11 Jayden Seales and the fall of Lees, who, as in the first innings, went lbw missing a straight ball from round the wicket by seamer Kemar Roach. That suggests the draw is by far the most likely result. The rain late on did not help England's cause, in taking time out of the game. There were 22 innings between Crawley's two Test hundreds Crawley's classy knock is significant in the Test but even more so for England's future in this format. Root's side are in desperate need of a settled top-order and this knock will secure the Kent opener's place for a long period. Crawley dazzled when making his first Test hundred, a stunning 267 against Pakistan in 2020. This was a more measured knock where he clipped the ball smartly off his pads. It could have been different - Crawley was given out lbw on nought but overturned the poor decision on review, with the ball comfortably missing leg. But with his captain a steady presence alongside him, Crawley did not offer another chance all day. The right-hander had a barren spell after his maiden ton which led to him being dropped last year when averaging 11.14 across seven Tests. Now, having regained his place in the third Ashes Test in December and impressing with 77 against Australia a game later, England will hope that that poor run is behind him. 'We'll have a good go' at the win - reaction England's Zak Crawley, speaking to BT Sport: \"It's a very special feeling. It was tough year last year, I didn't think I would get this opportunity again. \"We certainly want to try and win it tomorrow, we'll have a good go in the morning, then try and bowl them out.\" BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew: \"It was certainly England's day. They began it under a lot of pressure having to try and make sure they weren't bowled out cheaply, To finish with a lead of 153 is a very good effort. \"Both batsmen played very well. It was the sort of innings you want to see from Crawley, very patient. Root, as usual, was his busy self, albeit under strangulated conditions.\"\n• None A gruelling look at 'The Dragon's Back' challenge\n• None Is this it for Villanelle and Eve? Watch the thrilling new series of Killing Eve now", "It's already week three of the Russian invasion - and the scenes below are becoming all too familiar across Ukraine.\n\nCities across the country often wake up to the haunting call of air raid sirens and skies filled with traces of rockets, missiles and artillery strikes, like this one from Baryshivka, east of the capital, Kyiv.\n\nRussia may have been slow to advance inside Ukrainian territory, but the shelling has been intense.\n\nThe Russians say they are hitting military targets - the scene below is from a storage facility in Kalynivka, in the centre of the country.\n\nUkrainians, however, say the occupying force has been aiming for civilian targets indiscriminately.\n\nOne of the worst-hit cities has been Kharkiv in the east.\n\nThe BBC's Quentin Sommerville says entering the centre of the city is almost like entering another world. Few neighbourhoods have escaped some kind of damage.\n\nThe relentless Russian shelling has meant that most of the 1.5 million population has fled.\n\nEarly in the mornings, queues can still be seen at pharmacies, banks, supermarkets and petrol stations, as those who stayed behind stock up on supplies, our correspondent says.\n\nA huge logistical and humanitarian effort is going on behind the scenes to keep Kharkiv running - these volunteers below are preparing food for the defenders, and others who may need it.\n\nAnd the toll is mounting by the day. Even though official figures are patchy, thousands are believed to have lost their lives or sustained serious injuries, many losing limbs in the shelling.\n\nThe situation is said to be dire in the port city of Mariupol, which has been surrounded by Russian troops for nearly two weeks.\n\nAuthorities say nearly 1,600 have died as a result of Russian shelling alone - and they are unable to collect the bodies amid unrelenting Russian firepower to force it to surrender.\n\nNot far from Mariupol, another battle is being waged to conquer the city of Mykolaiv. Cluster bombs have been used, but the locals are resisting.\n\nHowever, Mykolaiv's governor Vitaly Kim is loath to celebrate prematurely, telling the BBC's Andrew Harding, \"We are winning this fight, but not this war.\"\n\nDnipro was hit for the first time on Friday - a day when Russia expanded its strikes from east, where the city lies, to the west.\n\nThe capital city is bracing for the worst. Ukrainian forces have been holding the Russians back for days on the outskirts.\n\nAnd in Kyiv city itself, volunteers have been preparing - digging trenches and building barricades. The city is turning into a fortress, says our correspondent there Jeremy Bowen.\n\nOthers are trying to contribute to the effort. Field kitchens have sprung up in various neighbourhoods.\n\nHowever, for many Ukrainians - women and children only, as men have to stay behind to fight - the scramble to flee has become the norm. More than 2.5 million people have now left the country.\n\nThe shock is all too real. Here in Moldova, Smadar the Clown tries to lighten the mood with this mock interview with a young Ukrainian girl at a refugee centre in the country's capital, Chisinau.\n\nCulture is randomly a victim of the war, too, as seen in too many conflicts this century alone. The picturesque western city of Lviv has been left untouched, so far.\n\nBut it is preparing - the checkpoints on main roads and the soldiers on the streets can be seen by all - but some preparations are taking place behind closed doors, says the BBC's Joel Gunter.\n\nIn Lviv's galleries, museums and churches, a huge operation is under way to safeguard the city's cultural heritage, he says.", "Evgeny Lebedev is the owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers\n\nRussian-British businessman Evgeny Lebedev has denied posing a \"security risk\" to the UK, declaring \"I am not some agent of Russia\" in an article.\n\nIt follows reports that the security services had raised concerns about him being made a peer in 2020.\n\nWriting in the London Evening Standard, which he owns, Lord Lebedev said he had \"no option but to respond\".\n\nHe said it was \"crucial we do not descend into Russophobia\" during the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe UK government has been ratcheting up sanctions against individuals and companies linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin since his invasion of Ukraine was launched on 24 February.\n\nSeven oligarchs including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and 386 Russian MPs were among the latest to be sanctioned by the UK.\n\nIn this climate, some people with ties to Russia are coming under closer scrutiny in the UK as the war in Ukraine escalates.\n\nLast week, the Sunday Times reported that in March 2020, the commission that vets peerage appointments advised Prime Minister Boris Johnson against granting Mr Lebedev a seat in the House of Lords on security grounds.\n\nThe newspaper said the assessment was withdrawn after Mr Johnson - a long-time friend of Lord Lebedev - personally intervened.\n\nThe commission can advise but has no veto over peerage appointments, which are ultimately decided by prime minsters and formalised by the Queen.\n\nAsked at prime minister's questions this week, if he had \"overruled\" security service advice, Boris Johnson said \"no\".\n\nLord Lebedev, the owner of the Independent and the London Evening Standard newspapers, was given a peerage in July 2020, for philanthropy and services to the media, after being nominated by Mr Johnson.\n\nBoris Johnson with his sister Rachel and Lord Lebedev at an Evening Standard party in 2012\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee to investigate the appointment, calling it a \"matter of national security\".\n\nBut in his article on Friday, Lord Lebedev, who holds both Russian and British citizenship, said \"I am not a security risk to this country, which I love\".\n\nThe son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer, he came to London at the age of eight when his father began working in the Soviet embassy.\n\nIn his article, Lord Lebedev said he was educated in the UK and was \"proud to be a British citizen and consider Britain my home\".\n\nHe acknowledged his father \"was a foreign intelligence agent of the KGB, but I am not some agent of Russia\".\n\nHe said his father \"spent his time campaigning against corruption and illegal financial dealings\" and his family \"has a record of standing up for press freedom\" in Russia.\n\nHaving a Russian name, he said, \"does not automatically make one an enemy of the state\".\n\n\"It is crucial we do not descend into Russophobia, like any other phobia, bigotry or discrimination,\" he added.\n\nThe article is the second Lord Lebedev has published in the Evening Standard since the war in Ukraine started.\n\nAt the end of February, he wrote a letter to Mr Putin, in which he urged the Russian president to \"bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end\".", "Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for foreign volunteers to be able to fight against Ukrainian forces.\n\nSpeaking at a Russian security council meeting, he said those who wanted to volunteer to fight with Russia-backed forces should be allowed to.\n\nRussian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East ready to fight alongside Russia-backed forces.\n\nUS officials said these could include Syrians skilled in urban combat.\n\nMoscow is a long-standing ally of Syria and Mr Putin has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's civil war.\n\n\"If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,\" Mr Putin told his defence minister.\n\nMr Shoigu also proposed handing over captured Western anti-tank missile systems to Russian-backed rebel fighters in the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas region.\n\n\"Please do this,\" Mr Putin said.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, responding in a video message, said \"thugs from Syria\" would be coming to kill people \"in a foreign land\".\n\nForeign fighters, including former and current British army personnel, have also been arriving in Ukraine to fight for the government in Kyiv.\n\nMr Zelensky said recently that 16,000 foreigners had volunteered for the cause, part of what he called an \"international legion\".\n\nCharles Lister, an analyst with the US-based Middle East Institute, questioned how useful any Syrian forces would be to Mr Putin.\n\n\"If [President] Assad's regime begins sending troops to Ukraine, they'll be no more than cannon fodder in a battle and environment that's completely alien to them,\" he wrote on Twitter.\n\nThere was no evidence of any actual recruitment of Syrians having taken place, he added.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Parham Ghobadi meets some of the foreign men hoping to help defend Ukraine from the Russian attack\n\nThe televised security council meeting move came as Russian forces in Ukraine began attacking new targets in different areas of the country:\n\nAccording to the Wall Street Journal, US officials have told the paper that Russia has recently been recruiting fighters from Syria, hoping their expertise in urban warfare can help take Kyiv and deal a devastating blow to the Ukraine government.\n\nAt the same time, US private security firms have been seeking to recruit former soldiers to help evacuate people from Ukraine.", "CCTV image from the video allegedly showing the mayor being marched away\n\nResidents in the Ukrainian city of Melitopol have come out to protest against the alleged abduction of the mayor by Russian forces.\n\nUkrainian officials have posted video saying it shows Ivan Fedorov being led away blindfolded on Friday.\n\nIn a message, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of \"moving to a new stage of terror\".\n\nMelitopol, a small city in south-eastern Ukraine, was one of the first to fall to the Russians.\n\nRussia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, arguing it felt threatened by a neighbour intent on joining Western-led organisations such as the Nato military alliance.\n\nIn his message late on Friday, Mr Zelensky called Mr Fedorov a \"mayor who bravely defends Ukraine and the members of his community\".\n\n\"This is obviously a sign of weakness of the invaders,\" he said.\n\n\"They have moved to a new stage of terror in which they are trying to physically eliminate representatives of legitimate local Ukrainian authorities.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Myroslava Petsa This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Fedorov told the BBC days ago that his administration was not going to co-operate with the Russians \"in any way\".\n\nHe said that invading forces had ransacked his offices, exiling his team to another location where they are attempting to continue running their city.\n\nThere have been protests in Melitopol every day since the Russian occupation.\n\nOn Saturday, hundreds surrounded the administration building demanding the mayor's release.", "Mountain rescue teams and a helicopter had been searching for Neil Gillingham and his dog\n\nPolice have confirmed that a body recovered on Stob Coire Sgreamhach in Glen Coe is that of missing hillwalker Neil Gillingham.\n\nThe 43-year-old and his springer spaniel had been missing since Sunday 6 March.\n\nThe pair were last seen at about 13:30 near Stob Coire Nam Beith, a summit on the mountain Bidean Nam Bian.\n\nMr Gillingham had planned to walk to both locations with his dog before descending to the Lost Valley.\n\nSearches covered Glencoe, Lochaber and Oban and involved RAF and police mountain rescue teams and a coastguard helicopter.\n\nOn Saturday, Police Scotland confirmed the hillwalker's family had been made aware of the find and were being supported by officers.\n\nThe death is not being treated as suspicious and, as with all sudden deaths, a report will be sent to the procurator fiscal.\n\nSgt Keith Almond said: \"Our thoughts are with Neil's family at what is a very difficult time for them.\n\n\"Officers would like to pass on their thanks to the mountain rescue teams, HM Coastguard helicopter crews and members of the public who assisted with the searches.\n\n\"We would also like to thank all those who shared and responded to our appeal.\"\n\nPolice also confirmed that the dog was found safe and well on Monday.\n• None Hillwalker and his dog missing on Glen Coe walk", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Richard Ratcliffe speaks to press after his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's return to the UK was announced\n\nThe husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says he is looking forward to the \"beginning of a new life\" with her as she returns to the UK.\n\nThe British-Iranian woman had been held in Iran since 2016 accused of plotting to overthrow Iran's government - which she denied.\n\nRichard Ratcliffe said he was \"deeply grateful\" she had been released.\n\nHe said he and their seven-year-old daughter Gabriella were looking forward to being a \"normal family\" again.\n\n\"We can't take back the time that's gone,\" he said. \"But we live in the future not the past. We'll take it one day at a time.\"\n\nHe said Gabriella had picked out which toys to take to show her mother when her plane lands - and he had promised one of the first things he would do was make her a cup of tea.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been under house arrest since March 2020, when she was released from prison, and she was given her British passport back this week.\n\nMr Ratcliffe had campaigned tirelessly for his wife's release including staging a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office.\n\nTheir enforced separation had been a \"cruel experience\" in many ways, he said, but had also been \"an exposure to such a level of kindness and care\" from people across the country.\n\nHe said his wife had remained \"pretty agitated\" in the run-up to her release and that things had been \"bumpy\" in her final days before she was freed.\n\nA picture has been released of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane leaving Iran\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, is on her way back to the UK along with fellow British-Iranian national Anoosheh Ashoori.\n\nMr Ashoori was arrested in 2017 and accused of spying, a claim he denied.\n\nMorad Tahbaz, who has Iranian, UK and US nationality, has been released from prison but is not yet allowed to leave Iran.\n\nThe British government said it had settled a £400m debt owed to Iran from the 1970s which had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country.\n\nBut Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said it was wrong to link the payment of the debt to the releases, adding: \"These two persons were released on humanitarian grounds.\"\n\nGabriella was 22 months old when her mother was detained while they were visiting relatives in Iran\n\nMr Ratcliffe said he had been \"kept out of the loop\" on discussions about the debt and the situation had been \"kept behind close doors\".\n\nSpeaking to reporters in London about his plans, he said: \"There will probably be a couple of days peace and quiet somewhere else, and then back here.\n\n\"The first thing she wanted was for me to make her a cup of tea, so we will do.\n\n\"I think actually we were looking at the house and it needs a bit of tidying, so there might be a bit of tidying, perhaps directed by mummy when she comes back.\"\n\nA photograph has now been released by MP Tulip Siddiq of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe on a plane back to the UK, having flown via Oman. She is due to land on Wednesday evening.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Tulip Siddiq This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nLooking to the future, Mr Ratcliffe said it would be \"the beginning of a new life, a normal life\".\n\n\"Homecoming is a journey, not an arrival,\" Mr Ratcliffe said.\n\n\"I don't think it will just be today, there will be a whole process, and hopefully we'll look back in years to come and just be a normal family and this will be a chapter in our lives, but there are many more chapters to come.\"\n\nHe asked his daughter \"do we still quite believe it?\" about her return - adding it was going to be \"lovely\" to finally see her again.\n\nMr Ratcliffe noted his wife had a \"big grin\" in a picture released of her leaving Iran.\n\nHe said when she is back \"we can stop being a moment in history and start being a normal family again\".\n• None Nazanin on her way home to 'new life' in UK", "Here are five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.\n\nAfter more than two years, New Zealand has announced it's bringing forward plans to reopen its border to international travellers. The border was closed to control the spread of coronavirus but soon people will be able to come to the country providing they show a negative Covid test. Australians will be allowed to enter from 13 April but travellers from elsewhere will have to wait until 2 May to visit. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand is \"ready to welcome the world back\".\n\nFace coverings are no longer mandatory at Heathrow Airport but will remain as a recommendation. This applies in terminals, railway stations or office buildings and comes as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are the latest airlines to relax their policies. Read more here.\n\nA surge in Covid cases means tens of millions of people across China face restrictions, which are are among the biggest since the start of the pandemic. This is having a knock-on effect on businesses with the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut reporting sales plunged by 20% in the first two weeks of March. Yum China has closed stores temporarily, offering takeaways instead but sales are \"still trending down\".\n\nA spike in coronavirus cases in Scotland has meant face coverings must continue to be worn in shops and on public transport until another review in two weeks. It would be \"prudent\" to keep mask rules in place, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said as she lifted all other restrictions on businesses and services from Monday. Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, all travel restrictions for international arrivals will be removed on Friday.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The laws on wearing face coverings will not be lifted\n\nWhat was life like after we emerged from lockdown? A snapshot of that has been put together for a film and exhibition. It focuses on Coventry where people were asked to use their phones to capture life in parts of the city centre for two weeks last August. Take a look.\n\nWhat options are available to treat Covid? We've investigated.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "The Queen welcomed Mary Simon and her husband Whit Fraser to Windsor Castle\n\nThe Queen has hosted an afternoon tea for Canada's governor general, the day after missing the Commonwealth Service.\n\nMary Simon was welcomed to Windsor Castle by the Queen, 95, on Tuesday.\n\nThe monarch's absence from the annual Westminster Abbey service is understood to have been due to concerns about her ability to travel and her mobility.\n\nShe was represented by the Prince of Wales at the event. In a message, she praised the Commonwealth as a force for good \"in these testing times\".\n\nHer Commonwealth Day message also repeated the lifelong commitment she made when she was 21, that she would devote her life in service.\n\nThe ceremony in Westminster, attended by royals including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, celebrated the work of the Commonwealth and also focused on the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.\n\nThe Queen has recently recovered from Covid and returned to holding diplomatic audiences and meetings in person. She has also been carrying out some virtual engagements.\n\nMs Simon and her husband Whit Fraser were greeted by the Queen in the castle's Oak Room.\n\nThe Queen, who is also monarch of Canada, was pictured standing without the walking stick she has been seen using recently as she shook hands with Ms Simon.\n\nMs Simon is Canada's first indigenous governor general and took up her post last July.\n\nEarlier on Tuesday, the Queen held two virtual audiences at her Berkshire residence, receiving the ambassadors of Mongolia and Tajikistan via video link.\n\nShe is due to be represented by Prince Charles again at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, due to take place in Rwanda in June.", "Mandi Arnold with her two youngest children, Presley and Phoenix\n\nTwo days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Mandi and John Arnold were curled up on the sofa of their home in Shropshire, streaming a film about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Netflix.\n\nIt struck a nerve with the mum-of-four - she and John were both born in 1986, the same year as the disaster. So later that week when Mandi saw news of millions of Ukrainians fleeing their homes to escape Russian attacks, including in the Chernobyl area, she jumped at the chance to help.\n\n\"From the moment this all started to evolve, my heart just went straight out to them and I thought if I could help anyone I would do so without any reservations,\" she says.\n\nOn Monday evening Mandi, 35, was among the almost 90,000 people to register their interest in a new visa scheme allowing people in the UK to host Ukrainian refugees in their own homes.\n\nMany of those who have signed up to help are doing so because their children have all grown up, left home and they've got some extra space.\n\nBut Mandi's house is a pretty hectic place to be. She and John live with their sons, one-year-old Presley and four-year-old Phoenix, and Mandi's nine-year-old daughter, Amalia - not to mention pet cat Nala and Oakley the Labrador. Mandi's 19-year-old daughter, who's studying in Scotland, is also \"in and out\" of the house.\n\n\"It's quite a busy household anyway, it's constantly on the go,\" Mandi says.\n\n\"Adding more would just be more love, more memories.\"\n\nThe family will free up one of the bedrooms for refugees to live in. They'll bring in an old single bed from the garage and have space for a child as well as an adult, if needed.\n\nMandi and John's sons aren't quite old enough to understand that they'll be sharing their home with strangers in the near future, but Mandi has explained it to her daughter, Amalia. She's excited about meeting new people and will \"welcome anyone with open arms\", Mandi says.\n\nUnder the newly-launched Homes for Ukraine scheme, UK households can offer a space for a refugee to live for at least six months.\n\nEach host household will be offered £350 a month, tax-free, as a \"thank you\" payment. They won't be expected to provide food and living expenses, but can choose to offer this.\n\nMandi says her daughter Amalia (left) is excited to meet any refugees. Her younger brothers Presley (centre) and Phoenix will share a room to make more space\n\nMandi fled an abusive relationship when she was younger, leaving her network of friends and family behind to start a new life.\n\nTo begin with she had nowhere to call home, so lived in hotels for months.\n\nShe and John scraped the money together from what he'd saved up from his business selling private number plates.\n\nMandi says she knows fleeing a warzone is \"completely different\" to what she went through, but she can relate to the feeling of disconnect many Ukrainian refugees might have as they step foot on UK soil for the first time.\n\n\"I know the feeling of removing yourself from somewhere that you once called home, or once felt secure and safe,\" she says.\n\n\"I've been in times of struggle, I've been in situations where I really needed someone to help. To know that I've overcome that and got to where I am now, I know it's something that can be achieved and all it takes is time and love. And these people deserve that.\"\n\nBy moving Presley in with Phoenix, this room in the Arnold's home can be freed up for refugees\n\nMandi says she thinks the whole family will benefit from taking in Ukrainian refugees.\n\n\"My kids, they've got all the love to give and we don't have much family. I'm not saying I'm going to grab [the refugees] and say 'you're my family now,' but they will be welcomed as a family member,\" she says.\n\n\"I've got a lot of love to give and it's the perfect opportunity to give it to someone who's in need.\"\n\n...from people across the UK who have hosted refugees or asylum seekers in their own homes in the past:\n\n1. Be prepared for the mental impact. Lucy Stevens, near Colchester: It is likely people will be very traumatised. Our foster son was highly traumatised and required a lot of input with regards to mental health [which] also has an impact on your own family.\n\n2. Find people who match your stage of life. Ruth Elphinston, Birmingham: If you've got young kids, bring in families with young kids. Or if your kids have left home, think about hosting a young adult. It makes things easier as they'll fit in with the way you're living your life already.\n\n3. Lean on your community. Ruth: Ask neighbours and friends to help you out. They could maybe show your refugees around the area, offer them work, or have you all over for a meal.\n\n4. Think about ground rules. Alison Baxter, Oxford. Sharing the sitting room, smoking and if you will cook for them are all points to consider. It's better to set down clear guidance because your guest is going to be anxious if you just say \"make yourself at home\".\n\n5. Give them space. Robert and Margaret Spooner, Sheffield: Don't force your guests to speak about their experiences. Instead focus on finding common bonds, as well as giving them the chance to do small jobs or make food to take their mind off things.\n\n6. Get the GP sorted early. Karina Litvack, London: I've never found access to the NHS to be a problem for the refugees I've helped, but you sometimes have to book an interpreter which takes longer.\n\n7. Don't feel bad about saying no. Justyna Bell, Belfast: Have a conversation with your entire household before you decide for sure about taking someone in. Really open up and don't think it's not very humanitarian if you have some objections.", "The attack came as Ukraine's president made an unannounced visit to meet Canada's PM in Ottawa.", "Mask-wearing at Heathrow Airport has moved from being a rule to a recommendation\n\nThe UK's largest airport has dropped mandatory face masks for passengers.\n\nHeathrow Airport no longer requires people to wear them in its terminals, railway stations or office buildings but will continue to recommend they do so.\n\nBritish Airways and Virgin Atlantic are the latest airlines to relax their policies on face coverings.\n\nPassengers must still wear them on board flights if the country they're travelling to requires it.\n\n'Plan B' measures ended in late January, meaning masks were no longer legally required on some public transport and in shops.\n\nHowever Heathrow, which handles a large number of international flights, had kept the rule that face coverings must be worn, until this week.\n\nHeathrow's chief operating officer, Emma Gilthorpe, said the airport was pleased to move away from mandatory face mask requirements.\n\nShe said: \"While we still recommend wearing them, we can be confident the investments we've made in Covid-secure measures - some of which aren't always visible - combined with the fantastic protection provided by the vaccine will continue to keep people safe while travelling.\"\n\nHeathrow said that if there was a significant rise in infections or a future variant of concern, it would not hesitate to bring the mandate back.\n\nThe airport said face coverings would remain available for people who still want to wear them.\n\nVirgin Atlantic said it was also changing its face mask policy from Wednesday, making it a personal choice for customers and crew to wear them on board.\n\nThis will only happen on services where international regulations on mask-wearing do not apply.\n\nFor now, that means flights between Heathrow and Manchester and destinations in the Caribbean such as Barbados, St Lucia and Antigua.\n\nThe airline said customers may be asked to wear a mask when getting on and off planes and at destination airports.\n\nIt highlighted that on routes to or from the US, masks would still be required until at least 18 April.\n\nVirgin Atlantic's chief customer and operating officer, Corneel Koster, said its policy would be introduced gradually. He encouraged passengers to respect each other's choices.\n\nFrom Wednesday, British Airways (BA) customers will only have to wear a face covering on board flights if the destination they're travelling to requires it.\n\nBA's chief operating officer, Jason Mahoney, said the move was \"welcome\" and \"a positive step forward\".\n\nEarlier this month, the airline and tour operator Jet2 relaxed its rules on face coverings for flights to and from England and Northern Ireland. Since Friday, Tui has done the same.\n\nRyanair boss Michael O'Leary has said he would like to see the end of mandatory face masks by April or May. He added that cabin crew were being consulted.\n\nThe aviation industry is hoping that the easing of travel restrictions will lift the curtain on a busy summer, after two years of major disruption due to the pandemic.\n\nFrom Friday, all travellers will be able to enter the UK without filling in a passenger locator form or taking Covid tests.\n\nHolidaymakers will still need to be aware of, and follow, and rules where they're going.\n\nOn Friday Heathrow's chief executive John Holland-Kaye said the recovery of aviation \"remains overshadowed by war and Covid uncertainty\".\n\nThe airport's passenger numbers last month were still nearly 50% down on pre-pandemic levels.\n\nHowever the airport is recruiting 12,000 staff to try and cope with demand during the summer peak.\n• None All UK Covid travel rules will end, says government", "The new law could allow foreign leased aircraft to keep flying domestic routes in Russia\n\nRussia has implemented a new law making it harder for foreign aircraft leasing companies to repossess their planes in the face of Western sanctions.\n\nThe new law will allow foreign jets to be registered in Russia \"to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of activities in the field of civil aviation\".\n\nRussian airlines have 515 jets leased from abroad worth about $10bn (£7.7bn).\n\nForeign owners have until 28 March to get them back from Russian companies before sanctions kick in.\n\nThe move comes after Bermuda and Ireland, where nearly all foreign-leased planes operating in Russia are registered, said they were suspending certificates of airworthiness for those aircraft.\n\nThe measure, signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, could circumvent that by bringing registration and certification of safety within Russia's borders and use the foreign aircraft to fly domestic routes across the vast country.\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, Western companies have been terminating leases and asking for planes to be returned.\n\nThe majority of international air routes out of Russia are not being flown and many countries, including the UK, have banned Russia's national airline Aeroflot from flying in their airspace.\n\nHundreds of foreign-owned aircraft remain in Russia. To comply with sanctions, leasing companies are trying to get them back. But that is looking highly unlikely.\n\nIf Russia does hang onto these aircraft - collectively worth billions of dollars - they will be able to continue flying, in Russia and a handful of former Soviet republics at least.\n\nBut it's one thing to steal aircraft, it's quite another to keep them operating for any length of time.\n\nAirbus and Boeing cannot supply spare parts, so when something needs to be replaced it will have to be taken from another plane, or be manufactured by a third party.\n\nThat has serious safety implications. It will also make it virtually impossible to insure those planes outside Russia. Servicing is also a concern - many aircraft are flown elsewhere for maintenance.\n\nAnd when the crisis is over there will be a huge bill to pay.\n\nIf aircraft are not maintained properly, their value will plummet. So even if lessors get them back, they will demand compensation.\n\nInternational aviation is an international business, and you have to play by the rules.\n\nRussia could decide to thumb its nose at the rest of the world now. But one day it will want to rejoin the club - and the conditions for rejoining could be very harsh.", "Last updated on .From the section European Football\n\nThere were protests from the Manchester United players that the referee went to blow his whistle but then didn't in the build-up to the Atletico Madrid goal Manchester United's Champions League campaign ended in the disappointment of defeat by Atletico Madrid at Old Trafford to leave them with only a Premier League top-four place to fight for this season. Ralf Rangnick's side were not short on endeavour but lacked the guile to break down Atletico's trademark resilience as Renan Lodi's far-post header four minutes before half-time sent the Spanish champions into the last eight. United dominated possession for large portions of the second half but, as they have done so often, Atletico built a wall of defensive resistance - and when they did threaten, goalkeeper Jan Oblak provided the final barrier. He saved brilliantly from Raphael Varane's header in front of the Stretford End as United were left to fight for a place in next season's Champions League in the final weeks of the domestic season.\n• None Follow all the reaction from Old Trafford here Manchester United went the same way as so many teams before them who have suffered at the hands of this remarkably durable Atletico machine assembled by Diego Simeone. United showed plenty of effort and had Old Trafford rocking with a high-intensity start but they simply ran out of ideas and inspiration the longer the game went on - Atletico digging in and defending with the sort of relish they have shown many times over the years. Cristiano Ronaldo produced a couple of classic early touches but he was a peripheral figure long before the end, with Rangnick and United's desperation illustrated when struggling captain Harry Maguire was replaced by veteran Juan Mata. United were also infuriated by the erratic refereeing of Slovenian official Slavko Vincic, particularly when they felt Anthony Elanga had been fouled moments before Lodi arrived unmarked to head home Antoine Griezmann's cross at the far post. Over the two legs, however, United have simply not been good enough to progress and now face an uphill task to reach the Premier League's top four, as they lie fifth behind Arsenal having played three games more. Simeone does it again At the final whistle, Atletico coach Simeone showed a neat turn of pace to turn left and sprint off towards an infuriated Stretford End, straight down the tunnel without a backwards glance, pelted with objects and drinks as he disappeared from view. Behind him, Manchester United players and fans were left with a familiar feeling of having the rug pulled out from under them by Simeone - and by the Atletico side he has drilled so fiercely and with such discipline. Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp felt exactly the same after Atletico won at Anfield at this same stage two years ago and while La Liga's champions may not be among the Champions League favourites, no-one will particularly relish being paired with them. They have players who can provide class in attack and in Oblak they possess one of the world's great goalkeepers.\n• None Juan Mata (Manchester United) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Diogo Dalot (Manchester United) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of Manchester United is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything United - go straight to all the best content", "Two journalists working for Fox News have been killed in Ukraine, staff at the US network say.\n\nCameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, 24, were killed when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire in Horenka, on the outskirts of Kyiv.\n\nTheir colleague, Benjamin Hall, 39, was wounded and remains in hospital.\n\nFox News CEO Suzanne Scott said it was a \"heartbreaking day\" for the organisation.\n\nMs Scott said Zakrzewski's \"passion and talent as a journalist were unmatched\".\n\n\"Pierre was a war zone photographer who covered nearly every international story for Fox News from Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria during his long tenure with us,\" she said.\n\nNational security correspondent for Fox News, Jennifer Griffin, said Zakrzewski was \"wildly popular\" and \"profoundly committed to telling the story\".\n\n\"His talents were vast and there wasn't a role that he didn't jump in to help with in the field - from photographer to engineer to editor to producer, and he did it all under immense pressure with tremendous skill,\" she tweeted.\n\nMs Griffin described Kuvshinova as a \"bright light and talented journalist\". \"The loss we feel cannot be put into words,\" she said.\n\nSenior field producer for Fox Yonat Friling said Kuvshinova had been working with the team for the past month and \"did a brilliant job\".\n\n\"We have lost a beautiful brave woman\" Ms Friling said. \"She loved music and she was funny and kind.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Yonat Friling (Frühling) This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIrish Prime Minister Micheál Martin said he was \"deeply disturbed\" by the killing of Kuvshinova and Zakrzewski, who was an Irish citizen.\n\n\"My thoughts are with their families, friends and fellow journalists,\" the taoiseach tweeted.\n\nNews that Mr Hall was injured emerged on Monday but Ms Scott gave no further detail.\n\nOn Monday Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, posted on Telegram that Mr Hall was in a serious condition.\n\nMr Hall, dual US-UK citizen, joined Fox News in 2015 and has been heavily involved in the network's foreign affairs coverage.\n\nThe attack which killed Zakrzewski and Kuvshinova follows the death on Sunday of 50-year-old US journalist Brent Renaud, who was shot and killed in the town of Irpin.\n\nAccording to Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights chief, at least two other Ukrainian journalists have also been killed in the conflict.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. President Putin \"did not understand what he would encounter\" in Ukraine, says Boris Johnson\n\nUkraine is \"paying the price\" for the West's failure to understand the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, the PM says.\n\nBoris Johnson told the BBC the Russian president's invasion had \"already failed\" because he underestimated the \"strength of resistance\" in Ukraine.\n\nBut he blamed European countries who \"went back to treating [Putin] as part of the community\" after his annexing of Crimea in 2014.\n\nHe said the West needed to ensure it was \"never again vulnerable to Putin's blackmail\" - especially when it came to relying on Russian oil and gas.\n\nBut Labour criticised Mr Johnson for the visit, saying he was going \"cap in hand from one dictator to another\".\n\nDuring his trip, Mr Johnson met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for an hour and 45 minutes for talks about ending reliance on Russian oil and gas.\n\nAfterwards, Downing Street said the UK and Saudi Arabia had \"agreed to collaborate to maintain stability in the energy market\" and boost renewable energy sources.\n\nA spokesman added the two countries had also agreed to boost co-operation in defence, security, trade and culture.\n\nHowever, a number of MPs had called on the PM to cancel the visit over the Saudi government's human rights record. Last week 81 men were executed in one day.\n\nThe prime minister insisted that he did not \"turn a blind eye\" to the incidents and raised them with the country's officials.\n\nBut he said he had to be \"realistic\" and \"look at the global picture\" when it came to energy security.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea - a territory of Ukraine - in 2014. He subsequently backed an eastern rebellion by pro-Russian separatists, who have fought Ukrainian forces in an eight-year war that has claimed 14,000 lives.\n\nDespite years of western sanctions, Russia remains firmly in control of Crimea, which it absorbed following a referendum vote discredited by much of the international community.\n\nSpeaking to BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, the PM said: \"If you look back at 2014 and what happened when Putin took part of Crimea... what we totally failed to understand [was] the threat that he posed and we renormalized.\n\n\"European countries went back to treating him as though he was part of the community.\n\n\"Ukraine is paying the price for that now.\"\n\nHe also pointed to the strength of the resistance in Ukraine, adding that Mr Putin was committing war crimes in the country.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"He won't be able to crush and conquer Ukraine, because they've shown fundamentally that they have an indomitable spirit.\n\n\"He's got to withdraw. He's got to close this thing down. He's got to take back his his tanks and his armour. And there's got to be as a solution that respects the will of the of Ukrainian people.\"\n\nAfter Russia began its invasion in Ukraine last month, numerous governments introduced sanctions to hit the country's economy.\n\nAnd many countries - including the UK - pledged to phase out their use of the country's oil and gas to hit it even harder.\n\nMr Johnson said he planned to look to at solar, wind and to \"make some big bets\" on nuclear power going forward, but short-term solutions were also necessary.\n\n\"The UK has a historic and a long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia, which goes back many, many decades,\" said the PM.\n\n\"That should not in any way stop us from raising issues of human rights.\"\n\nHe added: \"I want to be clear, we don't we don't just turn a blind eye, we don't wink at them, we don't ignore it, we raise it and we make the argument.\n\n\"But what we also try to do is look at the global picture and look at the the impact on the world economy, and particularly the impact on the UK [as a] consumer of hydrocarbons.\n\n\"We're in a transitional phase now and we've got to be realistic about the continuing transitional importance of hydrocarbons in our in our economies.\"", "North Korea has fired an \"unknown projectile\" which appeared to fail immediately after launch, South Korea's military said.\n\nThe suspected missile was fired from an airfield outside the capital Pyongyang.\n\nThe airfield has been the site of several launches, including previous tests of what were the US alleges were intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).\n\nIt comes as North Korea has in recent weeks stepped up its weapons testing.\n\n\"North Korea fired an unknown projectile from the Sunan area around 09:30 today, but it is presumed that it failed immediately after launch,\" Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.\n\nSpecialist news site NK News cited witnesses as saying loud \"blowing\" sounds, similar to that of a large aircraft, were audible in Pyongyang, followed by a loud \"crash\". It added that it had seen an image showing a red-tinted ball of smoke in the sky above the capital.\n\nSpeaking to NK News, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Ankit Panda said this image was consistent with that of a \"catastrophic failure\". He added that \"reddish-orange smoke\" is associated with liquid fuel - something that is \"very toxic\" to humans.\n\nNorth Korea has so far carried out nine weapons tests this year, including what the US claims were tests of parts of a new ICBM, saying they were likely to have been experimental launches before a probable full-range ICBM launch.\n\nWith a minimum range of 5,500km (3,417 miles), ICBMs can reach the US. They are designed for nuclear arms delivery.\n\nThe UN prohibits North Korea from ballistic and nuclear weapons tests, and has imposed strict sanctions.\n\nThe North had put a moratorium in place on testing long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear tests after talks with then US President Donald Trump. But in 2020, Mr Kim announced he was no longer bound by this promise.\n\nPyongyang has however, maintained that the launches on 26 February and 4 March were focused on developing a reconnaissance satellite.\n\nEach launch does help scientists learn what works and what doesn't. But this is a big year for Kim Jong-un. It's his 10th year in charge, he will want success not failure.\n\nAlso as one expert pointed out - at what point did this launch fail?\n\nIt was launched at the country's main airport, Sunan. Any major explosion near the ground could damage the airport.\n\nAnd any explosion further up could risk debris falling on populated areas. We will know more after further analysis by US and South Korean defence ministries.\n\nEither way, it is unlikely this failure will deter North Korea. Kim Jong-un has a wish list of weapons - he will press ahead.", "Oleksandr Kamyshin, 37, says Ukraine's railway staff have helped an estimated 2.5 million people to reach safety\n\nThere is a last-minute change of plan. He won't be leaving from the main station after all. The bodyguards move fast and we follow, racing along the quiet streets behind the convoy, and into the suburbs.\n\nThe Russians would like to kill him.\n\nOleksandr Kamyshin is sure of this. So the 37-year-old chairman of Ukraine's railway network constantly changes his travel plans. Never stay in one place too long. Never have a routine that the Russians can discover.\n\n\"We have to be faster than those people who try to track us,\" he tells me.\n\nThe railway is the country's biggest employer with 231,000 staff across 233,000 square miles (603,470 sq km) of territory - Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe.\n\nSo far Mr Kamyshin estimates his staff have helped to move 2.5 million people to safety. But the vast operation has come at a cost. Schedules have to be constantly updated because of Russian attacks. Since Vladimir Putin's invasion began, 33 railway staff have been killed.\n\n\"They hit our track daily. They hit the stations. Our people risk their lives. They go under shelling. They keep saving people,\" says Mr Kamyshin.\n\nWhen we first meet, he is sitting at a long table with his close advisors, studying a map of the national rail network. Police guard the entrance to the room.\n\nMr Kamyshin keeps his guards and advisors close\n\nThere are constant phone calls. \"Thank you for your support. But I also have a request,\" he says to one caller. \"Please help us build trade between Ukraine and Poland.\" He hangs up and smiles. \"That was the Polish minister for infrastructure,\" he says.\n\nMr Kamyshin wants to set up a joint venture with Poland to send Ukrainian exports west.\n\nBefore joining the railways Mr Kamyshin was a financier but he is now one of the most important men in the country. In a few weeks he has gone from reforming the rail sector to a wartime director of operations.\n\n\"All people in Ukraine were businesspeople, farmers and all other professions before the war started. Now all people in Ukraine are at war. All of us have started doing war,\" he says.\n\nHis own life is a blur of rail journeys, stopping at one place to talk to local staff, at another to meet government officials, and constantly in contact with the senior leadership in Kyiv.\n\nMr Kamyshin is convinced he is a target for Russian forces\n\nHe hasn't seen his wife and two young sons since the war started nearly three weeks ago.\n\nNot only do the railways keep refugees moving, they also deliver tonnes of aid to the embattled areas of the country, transport troops to frontline cities, and continue to export whatever Ukraine can produce in these wartime conditions. A Russian blockade has closed the key ports in the south.\n\nMr Kamyshin comes across as a man who is planning for a long campaign. \"Instead of seaports we go west,\" he explains. \"We have launched a programme to relocate production from east to west. So we can move people, ideas, plans, maybe machinery to launch new production in the west.\"\n\nIt is an ambitious project and could be essential to the country's economic survival. However, Mr Kamyshin believes the West needs to do more than supply weapons and humanitarian aid.\n\nSince Russia's invasion began, thousands of people have been packing train platforms daily to travel to safer locations\n\nHe wants the Nato military alliance to enforce a no-fly zone. It is a mantra repeated by government officials at nearly every opportunity - however unlikely the prospect of it happening.\n\n\"This war will be won by Ukraine anyway. Now the only thing that needs to happen is the closing of the sky by the West.\"\n\nMy last sight of Mr Kamyshin is close to midnight at a suburban rail depot. He is walking along the side of the tracks in darkness until the spotlight of the approaching train briefly illuminates his small group.\n\nThe train pulls alongside and a stewardess welcomes him on board. I cannot say where his train is heading, but the night ahead will be filled with calls and discussions. There will be a few hours of sleep, perhaps, and constant checking of where the Russians have recently attacked.\n\n\"We will keep repairing the tracks once the firing stops,\" he says before leaving. \"We will keep the trains running as long as we can. There is no other option for us.\"", "Most of the dual nationals imprisoned by Iran have been held at Tehran's notorious Evin prison\n\nThe plight of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was arbitrarily detained for almost six years in Iran on spying charges that she strongly denied, focused attention on Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency being held in the Islamic Republic's prisons.\n\nIran does not recognise dual nationality, and there are no exact figures on the number of such detainees given the sensitive nature of the information. Some of the most prominent are:\n\nAhmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in October 2017\n\nThe 51-year-old specialist in emergency medicine was arrested in April 2016 while on a business trip from Sweden.\n\nAmnesty International said Djalali was held at Evin prison by intelligence ministry officials for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was given access to a lawyer.\n\nHe alleged that he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment during that period, including threats to kill or otherwise harm his children, who live in Sweden, and his mother, who lives in Iran.\n\nIn October 2017, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran convicted Djalali of \"spreading corruption on Earth\" and sentenced him to death. His lawyers said the court relied primarily on evidence obtained under duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely because of his refusal to use his academic ties in European institutions to spy for Iran.\n\nTwo months later, Iranian state television also aired what it said was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran's nuclear programme for Israel. It suggested he was responsible for identifying two Iranian nuclear scientists who were killed in bomb attacks in 2010.\n\nIn February 2018, Sweden confirmed that it had given Djalali citizenship and demanded that his death sentence not be carried out. He had previously been a permanent resident.\n\nIn November 2021, Djalali's wife, Vida Mehran-Nia, said he had been informed by prison authorities that he faced imminent execution. He spent five months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, until April 2021, when he reportedly was moved to a multi-occupancy cell.\n\nJust over a year later, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Djalali's death sentence was \"final\" and was \"on the agenda\" of authorities.\n\nHe also insisted that the case was not linked to the war crimes trial in Sweden of former Iranian judiciary official Hamid Nouri, who was sentenced to life in prison over what prosecutors said was his leading role in the mass executions of Iranian opposition supporters in 1988.\n\nDjalali's wife and human rights groups have said Djalali is a \"hostage\" who Iran is threatening to execute in an attempt to negotiate a swap for Mr Nouri.\n\nNahid Taghavi was an advocate for women's rights in Iran\n\nThe 69-year-old retired architect, who is a German-Iranian dual national, was arrested at her apartment in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of \"endangering security\".\n\nShe was placed in solitary confinement at Evin prison and not given access to lawyers, German diplomats or members of her family, according to her daughter Mariam Claren.\n\nTaghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning without the presence of lawyers, according to Amnesty International. Interrogators reportedly asked her about meeting people to discuss women's and labour rights, and possessing literature about those issues.\n\nIn August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran of \"forming a group composed of more than two people with the purpose of disrupting national security\" and \"spreading propaganda against the system\". She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison.\n\nTaghavi had denied the charges, the first of which was apparently related to a social media account about women's rights, and Amnesty said the trial was \"grossly unfair\".\n\nMs Claren wrote on Twitter that her mother \"did not commit any crime. Unless freedom of speech, freedom of thought are illegal\".\n\nShe has said her mother has been denied adequate healthcare by prison and prosecution authorities, despite doctors saying in September 2021 that she needed surgery on her spinal column.\n\nIn July 2022, Taghavi was granted urgent medical leave from prison for treatment for back and neck problems. She was sent back to Evin four months later.\n\nA fellow inmate in the prison warned in June 2023 that Taghavi's life was \"in danger\" following a further 220 days in solitary confinement.\n\n\"The pain is so severe that it can be clearly seen on her face. She can barely get out of her bed,\" a message posted on human rights activist Narges Mohammadi's Instagram account said.\n\nThe 64-year-old researcher at Sciences-Po university in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a number of books.\n\nAt the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was examining the movement of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had spent time in the holy city of Qom.\n\nAdelkhah was accused of espionage and other security-related offences.\n\nShe protested her innocence and after going on hunger strike, she was admitted to hospital for treatment for severe kidney damage.\n\nProsecutors dropped the espionage charge before her trial began at the Revolutionary Court in April 2020. The following month, the court sentenced Adelkhah to five years in prison for conspiring against national security and an additional year for propaganda against the establishment.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her release.\n\nIn October 2020, due to what Sciences-Po called her \"health circumstances\", Adelkhah was released on bail and allowed to return to her home in Tehran.\n\nHowever, Iran's judiciary announced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to prison, accusing her of \"knowingly violating the limits of house arrest dozens of times\". French President Emmanuel Macron called the decision \"entirely arbitrary\".\n\nIn February 2023, Adelkhah Adelkhah was released from Evin prison after three and a half years in detention.\n\nHowever, Iranian authorities refused to return her identity papers, making it impossible for her to leave the country or resume her work as a researcher.\n\nJamshid Sharmahd with his wife (L) and daughter, Gazelle\n\nSharmahd, 68, a German citizen who lived in the US, arrived in the United Arab Emirates in July 2020 and was awaiting a connecting flight to India when he disappeared. It is believed that he was kidnapped by Iranian agents in Dubai and then forcibly taken to Iran via Oman.\n\nThe following month, Iran's intelligence ministry announced that it had arrested Sharmahd following a \"complex operation\", without providing any details. It also published a video in which he appeared blindfolded and confessed to various crimes.\n\nIn February 2023, Iran's judiciary said Sharmahd had been sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran after being found guilty of \"spreading corruption on Earth through planning and leading terror operations\".\n\nIt alleged that he was the leader of a terrorist group known as Tondar and that he had \"planned 23 terror attacks\", of which \"five were successful\", including the 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in that killed 14 people.\n\nTondar - which means \"thunder\" in Persian - is another name of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran (KAI), a little-known US-based opposition group that seeks to restore the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International, Sharmahd created a website to publish statements from the KAI, including claims of explosions inside Iran. He also read out statements in radio and video broadcasts.\n\nHowever, he denied his involvement in the attacks, saying he was only a spokesman, and rejected all accusations during his trial.\n\nAmnesty said Sharmahd told his family that he had been tortured and subjected to other ill-treatment in detention, including by being held in prolonged solitary confinement.\n\nHe also told them that he had been denied adequate healthcare, with access to medications required for his Parkinson's disease delayed routinely.\n\nIn July, Sharmahd's daughter Gazelle told the BBC that he could be executed at any time.\n\n\"They're killing him softly in solitary confinement in this death cell. But even if he survives that, they're killing him by hanging him from a crane in public.\"\n\nThe 61-year-old retired Iranian merchant navy captain is a US permanent resident.\n\nHe has been detained in Iran since April 2016, when he visited Tehran to attend his father's funeral. He was later convicted of \"collaborating with a hostile state\" and sentenced to 10 years in prison.\n\nHis wife - who is a US citizen - broke her silence in March 2022, saying in a video statement that he had been imprisoned unjustly for six years and appealing to President Joe Biden to \"bring Shahab home\".\n\nIn August 2023, his son, Darian, complained that he was not part of a prisoner exchange deal between the US and Iran, which saw five US-Iranian dual nationals released the following month.\n\n\"He feels betrayed. He is demoralized. He believes that the US would bring back anyone that they want to bring back,\" Darian told Reuters news agency.\n\nA US state department spokesman declined to tell reporters why Dalili was not included, but did reveal he had not yet been declared \"wrongfully detained\" - a designation that would mean the department dedicated more resources to their case and assigned it to a presidential envoy.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUkraine has accused Russian forces of bombing a theatre where civilians were sheltering in the besieged southern city of Mariupol.\n\nDeputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that between 1,000 and 1,200 people had sought refuge in the building.\n\nWhile the number of casualties is unclear, a local MP said the basement where people were gathered had withstood the bombing.\n\n\"It looks like most of them have survived,\" Dmytro Gurin told the BBC.\n\nBut Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city's mayor, earlier said emergency workers were struggling to reach the building due to constant shelling.\n\nImages of the theatre, verified by the BBC, showed extensive damage and smoke rising from the site.\n\nRussia's air strikes and shells have previously hit a maternity hospital, a church and apartment buildings.\n\nMariupol's city council said in a statement that Russian forces \"deliberately and cynically destroyed\" the theatre, saying a \"plane dropped a bomb on a building where hundreds of peaceful Mariupol residents were hiding\".\n\nBoth Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, and the city council accused Russia of a \"war crime\" in the wake of the attack.\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the bombing and said Russia had deliberately targeted the theatre.\n\n\"Our hearts are broken by what Russia is doing to our people. To our Mariupol,\" he said in a video address late on Wednesday evening.\n\nSatellite pictures taken on 14 March - released by the US company Maxar - showed the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters to warn Russian jets away from the building.\n\nThe BBC was earlier told that many children and elderly people were sheltering inside, and that conditions were quickly deteriorating.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol since the start of the war, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAn estimated 300,000 residents are trapped inside the city, where running water, electricity and gas have been cut off. Food and water supplies are running low, as Russian troops have not allowed the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nHours after news of the destruction emerged, the Russian defence ministry denied it had carried out an air strike against the theatre, the RIA news agency reported.\n\nAbout 1,500 cars had managed to flee Mariupol on Wednesday, according to Mr Orlov, the deputy mayor. But, he said, an attack by Russia on the convoy left at least five wounded, including a child.\n\nPeter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, called for better access to civilians caught up in the war, which he said was causing \"enormous suffering\". Mr Maurer, who arrived in Ukraine for a five-day visit, described the situation in Mariupol as a \"waking nightmare\".\n\nElsewhere, at least 10 people waiting in a queue for bread in the northern city of Chernihiv were killed by Russian shelling on Wednesday, the country's prosecutor general said. Unverified footage released by a local outlet showed bodies on a street.\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Russia's foreign ministry says it has imposed sanctions on US President Joe Biden and 12 other US officials.\n\nThe list includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, press secretary Jen Psaki and other members of the administration.\n\nBut it also includes two surprises: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Biden's son Hunter.\n\nThe measures block their entry into Russia and freeze any assets held in the country.\n\nHowever, the ministry has said the sanctions will not impede necessary high-level contacts for the affected individuals.\n\nOther names on the list are:\n\nThe ministry has said it is applying sanctions \"on the basis of reciprocity\".\n\nRussia is now the most sanctioned country in the world.\n\nWestern countries have already sanctioned top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.\n\nOn Tuesday, the US announced sanctions on 11 Russian defence leaders and signalled that it could levy sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Moscow-allied Belarus.\n\nEarlier, the UK slapped sanctions on another 370 Russian individuals, including former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev.\n\nPresident Biden is due to travel to Europe next week to attend an emergency Nato summit in Brussels where he will assert Washington's \"iron-clad\" backing to its allies, the White House said on Tuesday.\n\nHillary Clinton can abandon dreams she may have had of buying a vacation dacha in Sochi.\n\nAny Joe Biden post-presidency plans for starting a business in Moscow will have to be shelved.\n\nJokes aside, the Russian \"stop\" order placed on the US President, senior White House staff and - interestingly - a former secretary of state who has not held public office in nine years is a symbolic but not particularly consequential reprisal for the staggering sanctions the US and allies have imposed on Russia. It's not like any of the listed Americans had significant financial interests in Russia.\n\nThe move is a reflection, however, of the growing chasm between the US and Russia in the wake of the latter's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nProhibiting the top American diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, from even setting foot on Russian soil suggests relations between the two nations are at a post-Cold War nadir.\n\nThat has very real consequences outside of the Ukrainian conflict, as the US and Russia had hoped to co-operate on Iranian nuclear negotiations, counterterrorism, global warming and other pressing international issues. Chances of that happening now are increasingly dim.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after she was released from house arrest in Tehran in March 2021\n\nBritish-Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has had her UK passport returned, her MP has said.\n\nShe has been detained in Iran for nearly six years after being arrested while visiting her family. She was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied.\n\nTulip Siddiq said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was still at her family home in Tehran, where she is under house arrest.\n\nBoris Johnson said negotiations were \"going right up to the wire\".\n\nMs Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, said she understood British negotiators were in the Iranian capital.\n\nShe met Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband Richard for \"yet another strategy meeting\" on Tuesday - saying she hoped there would not be many more.\n\nMr Johnson said during a visit to Abu Dhabi that talks with Iran over Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release were \"moving forward\".\n\nHe said he would not comment further \"because those negotiations continue to be under way and we're going right up to the wire\".\n\nThe prime minister also said negotiations for the release of dual nationals in Tehran had been going on \"for a long time\".\n\nAccording to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's employer the Thomson Reuters Foundation, her lawyer Hojjat Kermani has said he is \"hopeful that we will have good news soon\".\n\nA £400m debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country - although the government has said the two issues should not be linked.\n\nDowning Street said it was committed to paying the debt and was \"exploring options to resolve it\", but said it had not been resolved.\n\nA Foreign Office spokesman said it continued to \"explore options\" to resolve the debt but would not comment further as discussions were ongoing.\n\nHe added the Foreign Office would not comment on speculation about Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe but had long called for the release of \"unfairly detained British nationals in Iran\".\n\nFormer foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt - who has campaigned for her release - said it was traditional for clemency to be shown to some prisoners to coincide with Persian New Year, Nowruz.\n\nThis year's festival falls this Sunday so Mr Hunt said it could be \"a very, very critical next few days\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ros Atkins looks at the story behind Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's detention in Iran - and her husband's campaign to free her\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, who has always denied the charges against her, was first jailed for five years in 2016 after being accused of plotting against the regime - spending the last year of her sentence under house arrest at her parents' home.\n\nAfter that sentence expired she was then sentenced to another year's confinement in April 2021 on charges of \"spreading propaganda\", which has been served at her parents' house in Tehran.\n\nHer husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lives with their daughter Gabriella in Hampstead, London, has campaigned for her release, including by going on hunger strike in October last year.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 5 live there had been \"so many false hopes\" over the last five or six years so it was hard to tell \"if this is a really positive sign or just the Iranian government playing games again\".\n\nShe said her sister-in-law was on edge when things like this happened because she did not want to get her hopes up.\n\n\"We have everything crossed, but remain sceptical,\" she said.\n\nHer mother-in-law, Barbara Ratcliffe, told the BBC Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe \"seemed really quite upbeat when I last spoke to her\", but added that the family was \"all a bit battle-scarred\", having had disappointments in the past.\n\nSacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK's chief executive, warned the latest reports should be treated with caution as there had been \"false dawn after false dawn\" in the long-running process.\n\nAnd Rupert Skilbeck, director of the Redress human rights organisation, echoed such sentiments.\n\n\"We remain cautious and continue to encourage the UK government to do the right thing and ensure the debt it owes to Iran is paid, and that it does everything in its power to secure Nazanin's release,\" he said.\n\nThere are other Western passport holders detained by Iran including Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer from London, who was convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency in 2019.\n\nFor more on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's story you can listen to Radio 4's Nazanin series on BBC Sounds.", "An explosion at an apartment building on Friday\n\nHundreds of people are crammed into the basement of a large public building in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, but are running out of food, with many also in need of urgent medical help.\n\n\"Some have developed sepsis from shrapnel in the body,\" said Anastasiya Ponomareva, a 39-year-old teacher who fled the city at the start of the war but was still in contact with friends there. \"Things are very serious.\"\n\nThe city is encircled by Russian troops and remains under constant bombardment with almost 400,000 people still trapped without running water, and food and medical supplies quickly running out. The local authorities say the war there has left at least 2,400 civilians dead, but even they acknowledge that this is an underestimate.\n\nMs Ponomareva's friends are with other families in the basement of the building. They have all left homes that are no longer safe or no longer standing.\n\n\"People who managed to hide in underground shelters basically live there permanently,\" Ms Ponomareva said from the western city of Drohobych, where she was living. \"They practically cannot leave at all.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nMost of their day is spent hiding in the basement. From time to time they go upstairs for some sunlight, but rarely outside. Conditions, she was told, were quickly deteriorating, as some people had a fever and nothing could be done to treat them. \"There is no medical help, no antibiotics.\"\n\nSome streets are so dangerous that few go out to pick up the dead. Many are being buried in mass graves. The almost non-stop Russian attacks have turned their old neighbourhoods into wasteland. New drone footage (pictured above) showed the vast extent of the damage, with fire and smoke billowing out of apartment blocks and blackened streets in ruins.\n\n\"On the left bank, there's no residential building intact, it's all burned to the ground,\" Ms Ponomareva said. \"The city centre is unrecognisable.\"\n\nSheltering in the same building, a family of four has been in touch with Serhii Kozyrkov, a 40-year-old pastor who left Mariupol two weeks ago. \"It's very crowded and there isn't enough food,\" Mr Kozyrkov, who is now in Lviv, said. \"People get ill because it's very cold and everyone is lying next to each other.\"\n\nThe family are desperate to flee. On Tuesday, about 2,000 cars managed to exit Mariupol, the city council said, and 2,000 more were ready to go. It was the second day that residents were allowed to leave. Previous evacuation attempts had failed, with Ukrainian authorities accusing Russia of attacking the city and even routes to be used by civilians, despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n\nBut, again, no humanitarian aid was allowed into the city. Sergei Orlov, the deputy mayor of Mariupol, said things were \"getting more difficult by the hour\".\n\n\"The situation is horrible,\" he said. \"There isn't enough food, water, medicine, insulin, baby food. Everyone has specific needs.\" According to Mr Orlov, cars with supplies have been waiting for four days but the Russians have not let it in. \"We get a lot of calls. For example, a mother who says 'I have a child in my hands [who] is dying from hunger.' Or we get a call 'Here's our address. We're blocked in the basement. What should we do?',\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"Unfortunately,\" he said, \"we can't do anything.\"\n\nBack in the basement, the family told Mr Kozyrkov they could hear the sound of explosions nearby but that their building remained intact. There is one generator which they use to recharge their phones and, from time to time, they venture outside to make some calls.\n\n\"The shelling doesn't stop,\" he said. \"They're very frightened.\"\n\nMs Ponomareva said the situation was \"very difficult, to put it mildly.\" People need a humanitarian corridor, she said. \"Otherwise, it's a slow death from hunger and thirst.\"\n\nAre you in Mariupol, or do you have concerns for relatives or friends living in the area? If it is safe for you to do so, please email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Last updated on .From the section Premier League\n\nLiverpool moved to within one point of Premier League leaders Manchester City as they emerged impressive winners after a tough examination at Arsenal.\n\nThe Gunners, well in the fight to finish in the top four, pushed Liverpool hard until Jurgen Klopp's quadruple-chasing side ruthlessly took control after the break.\n\nLiverpool keeper Alisson saved crucially from Martin Odegaard after Thiago's misplaced backpass before Diogo Jota put Liverpool ahead, beating Aaron Ramsdale at his near post in the 54th minute.\n\nJota and Luis Diaz were immediately replaced by Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, the latter doubling Liverpool's advantage just after the hour mark with a perfect flick from Andrew Robertson's cross.\n\nLiverpool have now reeled off nine Premier League wins in succession while Arsenal remain in fourth, a point ahead of Manchester United but with two games in hand.\n• None Go straight to all the best Arsenal content\n\nOnce Jota made the breakthrough for the visitors there was no way back for the Gunners, but before then the Reds were indebted to Alisson's significant contribution when he made that block from Odegaard.\n\nTo that point Arsenal were in confident mood, playing fearlessly, but they were again undone by Jota - the scourge of Mikel Arteta's team in the Carabao Cup semi-final in January - although the Portuguese was helped by Ramsdale's weak effort to save his near-post shot.\n\nKlopp's Midas touch worked again when he removed Jota and substitute Firmino showed his silky touch to slide a near-post flick past Ramsdale.\n\nArsenal were deflated and Liverpool moved even closer to Manchester City, who were held to a draw here in the capital by Crystal Palace on Monday.\n\nThe advantage still lies with Pep Guardiola's reigning champions - but the margin is slender and this was another potentially difficult hurdle overcome by Liverpool.\n\nArsenal's players were applauded off by the home fans at the final whistle in recognition of their efforts, especially the outstanding Gabriel Martinelli, who gave Trent Alexander-Arnold a torrid time.\n\nAnd they remain in prime position to achieve their remaining goal this season, a place in the top four, but they are still finding it tough to overcome the sides they will eventually want to rival.\n\nLiverpool have now completed the league double over Arsenal, as have Manchester City, while they have also lost at home to Chelsea and away to Manchester United.\n\nThe Gunners were in contention for a long time, led by the verve of Martinelli, but ultimately it was Liverpool who had the cutting edge and greater quality.\n\nThere is no doubt Arteta's Arsenal are on an upward curve and this was a far more convincing performance than that League Cup loss, but they still have a long road to travel before the old glories can be contemplated once more.\n\n'We lost the game in the boxes'\n\nArsenal manager Mikel Arteta to BBC MOTD: \"From box to box, we did everything that we'd planned. What happened in the boxes was a different story, that's where we lost the game.\n\n\"I think the whole team played fantastically well. I don't think the result reflects the performance, but in the box they had the decisive moments. They put the ball in the net twice.\"\n\nLiverpool manager Jurgen Klopp to BBC MOTD: \"Coming here and winning against Arsenal is already special, but winning the game like it was - more special. We started really well then it became an open game. We wanted to improve in the second half.\n\n\"I'm very excited about the team and the situation we are in but that does not change everything. We just need to keep going. We really want to enjoy the situation we are in by winning football matches.\"\n• None Attempt missed. Gabriel Martinelli (Arsenal) right footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Granit Xhaka.\n• None Attempt blocked. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) left footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Thiago.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Kieran Tierney tries a through ball, but Gabriel Martinelli is caught offside.\n• None Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Offside, Arsenal. Cédric Soares tries a through ball, but Nicolas Pépé is caught offside. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page\n• None Our coverage of your Premier League club is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment", "Diesel prices in the UK rose by an average of more than 2p in a day as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to affect global oil costs.\n\nThe fuel jumped to a record £1.76 per litre on Tuesday, up from almost £1.74 on Monday.\n\nPetrol prices, which have also increased to record highs, rose to almost £1.65p a litre from about £1.64.\n\nThe continuing price rises come amid warnings of potential global oil supply problems.\n\nRecent rises in the global price of oil has pushed up prices at the pumps in the UK, but there are hopes recent falls will transfer to cheaper fuel.\n\nSimon Williams, fuel spokesman for the RAC, said drivers could save almost 4p a litre by buying their fuel at one of the big four supermarkets, where the average for petrol is 161p and 171p for diesel.\n\n\"We continue to remain hopeful that retailers will soon start to pass on recent reductions in the price of wholesale fuel to drivers when they next buy supply. That ought to lead to petrol stabilising at around 160p while diesel ought to stay where it is based on current wholesale prices,\" he said.\n\nThe British Retail Consortium (BRC), whose members include major supermarkets which sell fuel, has said retailers understand the cost pressures facing motorists.\n\nAndrew Opie, of the BRC, said they would do everything they could to offer the best value-for-money across petrol forecourts.\n\nThe International Energy Agency (IEA) said high commodity prices and sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine were \"threatening to create a global oil supply shock\".\n\nIt estimated three million barrels per day of Russian oil could be taken out of the global market as a result of international sanctions.\n\nThe agency warned only Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have enough spare production capacity to offset the shortfall in Russian output, which it said was the largest oil exporter in the world.\n\nRussia continues to export oil for the time being due to deals and trades made before Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine, the IEA said. New business has all but dried up, however, because many Western countries are seeking alternative fuel supplies.\n\nSome countries, such as the US and Canada, have banned Russian oil imports, but by contrast, the EU, which is much more reliant on Russian energy, has stopped short of a ban.\n\nMeanwhile, the UK has said it will phase out imports of Russian oil in response to Russia's actions by the end of the year.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has travelled to discuss energy security and other issues in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.\n\nA Rosneft oil rig drilling the first exploration well in the Khatanga Bay, Russia\n\nThe IEA said the world was \"faced with what could turn into the biggest supply crisis in decades\", with global energy markets \"at a crossroads\".\n\nIt added the \"implications of a potential loss of Russian oil exports to global markets\" could not be understated.\n\n\"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought energy security back to the forefront of political agendas as commodity prices surge to new heights. While it is still too early to know how events will unfold, the crisis may result in lasting changes to energy markets,\" it said.\n\nThe price of Brent crude oil - the global benchmark for prices - hovered around $100 per barrel on Wednesday, having previously reached record highs of more than $130 a barrel in the immediate aftermath of Western countries hitting Russia with sanctions.\n\nThe UK only imports about 6% of oil from Russia, but is affected by the global shifts in price which are driven by supply and demand forces.\n\nRAC fuel spokesman Mr Williams said UK fuel prices had increased at the fastest rate on record, with petrol rising 13p since the start of the month and diesel increasing by nearly 21p.\n\nHe said a full tank of unleaded for a family car was now almost £91 on average.\n\nUK motoring groups have said fuel prices are likely to fall as global oil prices stabilise.\n\nYet, there is a concern some retailers might be reluctant to lower their prices for fear of being caught out if wholesale costs jump back up again.\n\n\"The big question is how keen will retailers be to pass on those savings at the pumps as they will no doubt be extremely conscious of protecting themselves from any more rises that could suddenly materialise,\" said Mr Williams.\n\n\"Drivers badly need a break from these relentless daily rises.\"\n\nThe RAC has called on the chancellor to cut fuel duty or VAT in his upcoming Spring Statement.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nThe Ricketts family, who own Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs, and a consortium featuring Lord Coe, both intend to make a bid for Chelsea by Friday's deadline.\n\nThe Ricketts said they are leading a bid from a group of investors.\n\nRoman Abramovich's attempt to sell the club has been halted after he was sanctioned by the UK government.\n\nThat move came in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Abramovich understood to have strong ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.\n\nBBC Sport understands the Ricketts group bid also includes US hedge fund entrepreneur Ken Griffin.\n\nA statement on Wednesday from the Ricketts, who have had a majority interest in the Cubs since 2009, said they would share further details \"in due course\".\n\n\"The Ricketts Family, owners of the Chicago Cubs, can confirm they will be leading an investment group that will make a formal bid for Chelsea this Friday,\" the statement read.\n\n\"As long-time operators of an iconic professional sports team, the Ricketts Family and their partners understand the importance of investing for success on the pitch, while respecting the traditions of the club, the fans and the community.\"\n\nThe bid is described as \"very serious\" by one insider, with the family understood to have already done due diligence when they previously enquired about buying the club in 2018.\n\nBroughton, who announced his intention to buy Chelsea over the weekend, told the BBC \"I am absolutely delighted to welcome Lord Coe to our bid. His reputation speaks for itself, and he will bring phenomenal insight, leadership, and sporting knowledge to Chelsea Football Club.\"\n\nHis group is expected to submit a bid in the next 48 hours.\n\nCoe said he was \"certain that Sir Martin is the right man to lead Chelsea Football Club into its next chapter\" citing his \"exceptional track record in British business\".\n\nCoe added \"most importantly, like me, he is a lifelong Chelsea supporter and Shed End season ticket holder. I know that this bid is for the millions of Chelsea fans around the world. We love our club and will always put the fans first\".\n\nBroughton, 74, is a former British Airways chairman and now chairs private investment firm Sports Investment Partners. He was briefly Liverpool chairman in 2010.\n\nThose close to the consortium declined to tell BBC Sport who was financing the bid or who else was involved.\n\nCoe would take a seat on the Chelsea board if Broughton's bid is successful, according to the PA news agency.\n\nMore than 20 credible parties are interested in buying the Premier League club.\n\nBritish businessman Nick Candy said earlier this month he was exploring \"a number of options for a potential bid\".\n\nFormer Chelsea striker Gianluca Vialli announced on Wednesday that he is working with Candy on his bid.\n\nVialli co-owns Tifosy, a mergers and acquisitions company for the football sector.\n\nThe former Italian international said: \"I am proud and feel very privileged to support Mr Candy's bid to buy Chelsea Football Club.\"\n\nThe 57-year-old added: \"We share the same view that if the bid is successful, we will try to be the best possible custodians of the club, knowing that it is imperative that supporter concerns are front and centre of any owner's priorities.\"\n• None Is this a moment of reckoning for English football ownership?\n\nWho else has announced their bid to buy Chelsea?\n\nOnly some of the interested parties or bidders have come forward so far:\n\nSwiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and US businessman Todd Boehly have formed part of a consortium to try to take over Chelsea.\n\nWyss told Swiss newspaper Blick that he had been offered the chance to buy the club.\n\nThe 86-year-old is worth an estimated £3.9bn.\n\nBoehly, who is a part owner of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, was previously linked with a takeover of Chelsea in 2019.\n\nTurkish billionaire Muhsin Bayrak says he is one of those to have launched a bid to buy the club, adding \"we will fly the Turkish flag in London soon\".\n\nBayrak is chairman of AB Grup Holding, which he founded in 1999, and has investments in crypto currency, construction, tourism and energy sectors.\n\nSources close to Bayrak told BBC Sport he is determined to buy Chelsea and his lawyer was set to be in London for talks last week.\n\nOther parties reported to be interested include New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and a Saudi Arabia-based consortium.\n\nBritish billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who owns Ineos and bought French club Nice in 2019, has previously shown interest, but will not seek to purchase Chelsea because he does not see it as good value.\n\nWho are the Ricketts family?\n\nThe Ricketts family bought the Cubs in 2009 and renovated their Wrigley Field stadium as part of a push to create a winning team.\n\nThe Cubs won the World Series title in 2016, ending a 108-year wait and the longest title drought in the game.\n\nIt was estimated five million people attended the Cubs' victory parade in Chicago.\n\nThomas Ricketts is chairman of the Cubs, while his siblings also sit on the board.\n\nThe family also own a 25% stake in American TV network CSN Chicago.\n\nThe American investment firm tasked with selling the club expects a sale could happen by the end of March following positive conversations with the UK government.\n\nOne issue the bid already faces is the patriarch of the family - 80-year-old Joe Ricketts - and influential figure in conservative US politics, had to apologise in 2019 for anti-Muslim comments he made in leaked emails.\n\nA source close to the Ricketts camp told the BBC that Mr Ricketts would have no role or involvement in the bid for Chelsea, which is being headed up by his children Tom, Laura and Todd.\n\nRussian Abramovich had his British assets, which includes Chelsea, frozen last week and was disqualified as a director of the club.\n\nThe Blues are allowed to continue operating after a special licence was issued by the UK government,\n\nThis also ensures Chelsea's staff are paid and allows existing season ticket holders to attend matches, but a new licence will need to be issued for the club to be sold.\n\nAbramovich has owned Chelsea since 2003, with the club winning 21 trophies during his tenure.\n\nMeanwhile, Uefa is seeking clarification from the European Union on future Champions League matches involving Chelsea.\n\nAbramovich was sanctioned by the EU on Tuesday.\n\nWednesday's last-16 tie against Lille in France, where the Blues hold a 2-0 advantage, went ahead.\n\nThomas Tuchel's side are the current holders of the Champions League trophy after they beat Manchester City 1-0 in last year's final.\n\n\"Uefa is fully committed to always implementing relevant EU and international sanctions,\" Uefa said.\n\n\"Our understanding is that the present case is assessed in the context of the licence issued in the UK which allows Chelsea FC to continue minimum football activity whilst providing a safeguard that no financial gain will result for Mr Abramovich.\n\n\"We will work with the EU and relevant member states to ensure we have full clarity and remain in lockstep with all relevant and applicable measures in line with latest developments.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Chelsea will avoid a 10-hour round trip by bus for their FA Cup tie at Middlesbrough on Saturday after the government increased its cap for away travel as part of the club's operating licence.\n\nThe cap was set at £20,000 after Abramovich was sanctioned, as part of a set of conditions to allow the club to run day-to-day.\n\nBut the increase will allow the team to fly to the North East for the quarter-final tie.\n\nChelsea's players and staff flew to Lille for Wednesday's Champions League tie because it was already arranged prior to the sanctions.\n\nA Chelsea spokesman said: \"We are grateful for the government's continued attention to our requests for amendments to the licence.\"\n\nThe government has already increased spending for home matches from £500,000 to £900,000, with talks continuing over ticket, retail and merchandise revenue.\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "A man who caused the death of an 86-year-old Army veteran with a single punch has been detained.\n\nFrank Fishwick was attacked after he confronted a group of youths who had congregated outside his flat in Fulwood, Preston, on 10 September.\n\nHe initially refused an ambulance but died in hospital the next day as a result of internal bleeding.\n\nMohammed Al Aaraj, 19, was sentenced at Preston Crown Court to four years in a young offenders institution.\n\nMr Fishwick, a former Royal Engineer, was at home in The Paddock when he was disturbed by a group of young people at about 15:00 BST.\n\nFrancis McEntee, prosecuting, said Mr Fishwick, who he called a \"feisty older man\", confronted the group, first through his window and then by going out to them.\n\nThe Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the veteran became frustrated with the situation and directed racially offensive language at one of the teenagers.\n\nFormer Royal Engineer Frank Fishwick was an \"adored\" grandfather and father, his family says\n\nSyrian refugee Al Aaraj, of Sheffield Drive in Preston, then punched Mr Fishwick in the face and fractured his nose.\n\nIn police body-worn camera footage shown to the court, Mr Fishwick was seen in his flat, holding his bloody nose and telling an officer he asked the group to move but they had refused.\n\nMr Fishwick told police officers he did not want medical attention but his nose continued to bleed and he was admitted to hospital later that day.\n\nA post-mortem examination found the cause of his death was internal bleeding.\n\nSentencing Al Aaraj, Judge Robert Altham said: \"The comments made by Mr Fishwick do form part of the background in this case, however even the making of those comments cannot begin to excuse the defendant, a young man, punching an 86-year-old man in the face.\"\n\nAl Aaraj was charged with manslaughter, which he initially denied.\n\nThe CPS said he changed his plea to guilty after officers produced CCTV evidence and Mr Fishwick's account from a police officer.\n\nSenior Crown Prosecutor Paul Robinson described it as an \"extremely tragic case\".\n\n\"Frank was frustrated and used inappropriate language that cannot be condoned, but Al Aaraj and his friends could have simply walked away, and they chose not to,\" he said.\n\nMr Robinson said his death had been \"devastating\" for his daughter, who had not seen her father for a long time due to the pandemic.\n\nIn a statement, Mr Fishwick's daughter, Judith Taylor Fishwick, who lives in America, said her relatives' lives were \"turned upside down\" by the attack.\n\nHer father was taken from his loved ones by a \"cruel act of violence\", she added.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The family of a British-Iranian man who is returning to the UK after being freed from Iran have said they are \"delighted\" by his release.\n\nAnoosheh Ashoori, 67, a retired civil engineer, had been detained in Evin prison for almost five years.\n\nHe and fellow British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were released earlier on Wednesday.\n\nMr Ashoori's family said his freedom had been \"a long time coming\" and thanked all who helped bring him home.\n\nIn a video message posted on Twitter, his daughter, Elika Ashoori said: \"1,672 days ago our family's foundations were rocked when our father and husband was unjustly detained and taken away from us.\n\n\"Now, we can look forward to rebuilding those same foundations with our cornerstone back in place.\"\n\nShe said this week had been an \"emotional rollercoaster\" and that it was not until her family was told his plane had left Iran that \"we allowed ourselves to feel joy for the very first time\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. We are waiting to welcome him with cake and beer, says Anoosheh's daughter Elika\n\nElika spoke to her father when he was in Muscat and said he was \"excited\" - but noted it was \"very surreal\" to see him again, and that he had lost a lot of weight and that his hair had gone white while he was imprisoned.\n\nHe was looking forward to being able to \"finally sleep in a comfortable bed\" and \"to turn the lights off\" - as fluorescent lights are on all day and night at the prison.\n\n\"All we're thinking about is him coming back tonight to his home and being with his family and surrounded by people who love him,\" she said.\n\nMr Ashoori was arrested in August 2017 while visiting his elderly mother in Tehran, and was detained in Evin prison.\n\nDespite living in the UK for 20 years, he was later convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and sentenced to prison for 10 years.\n\nHis and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release followed months of intensive diplomatic negotiations between London and Tehran and the repaying of a debt owed by the UK to Iran.\n\nA third dual national, Morad Tahbaz, has been released from prison in Iran but will not be returning to the UK. The government has pledged to keep working to secure his return.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said: \"We have the deepest admiration for the resolve, courage and determination Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad, and their families, have shown.\n\n\"They have faced hardship that no family should ever experience and this is a moment of great relief.\"\n\nMr Ashoori's MP, Labour's Janet Daby, said it was a \"day of celebration\" for his family.\n\nThe MP for Lewisham East told the Commons: \"As Anoosheh's member of Parliament I am, of course, thrilled beyond belief for his release and for Nazanin. I'm incredibly happy for Anoosheh's wife Sherry, for his children, as well as for their families and friends.\"\n\nMs Truss confirmed the UK government had settled the debt it owed to Iran from the 1970s \"in parallel\" with the release of the detainees.\n\nThe UK paid £393.8m owed to Iran after it cancelled an order for British-made Chieftain tanks following the overthrow of the Shah in the revolution of 1979.\n\nMs Truss said the debt had been paid \"in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations\".\n\n\"These funds will be ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods,\" she added.\n\nMrs Zhagari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Racliffe, had long claimed that his wife was being used as a pawn in a dispute between the UK and Iran over the unpaid debt.\n\nSanctions on the government in Tehran had been one of the key sticking points in being able to settle the debt.\n\nBut Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said it was wrong to link the payment of the debt to the releases, adding: \"These two persons were released on humanitarian grounds.\"\n\nMs Daby thanked Ms Truss for helping secure her constituent's release but said his detention could have been avoided.\n\nAsked why it had taken so long to secure the detainees' release, Ms Truss added: \"What I will say about the process of securing the release of our detainees is the foreign secretaries, the prime minister, Foreign Office officials, have worked tirelessly on this.\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Badr Albusaidi - بدر البوسعيدي This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nOman's foreign minister Badr Albusaidi tweeted a picture of Mr Ashoori and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe arriving in the Gulf state, which has been closely involved in negotiations to secure their release.\n\nHe said: \"Soon they will be with their loved ones at home. We hope this result will bring further progress in the dialogue between the parties [the UK and Iran].\"\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson, who is visiting Gulf states, welcomed news of their release.\n\n\"The UK has worked intensively to secure their release and I am delighted they will be reunited with their families and loved ones,\" he tweeted.\n\nAccording to Amnesty International UK, Mr Ashoori was \"subjected to torture, repeatedly interrogated without a lawyer present and forced to sign 'confessions' while sleep deprived\".\n\nIn January 2020, Mr Ashoori's wife Sherry Izadi, who lives in London, said she feared he had no \"hope in hell\" of being released.\n• None Nazanin on her way home to 'new life' in UK", "Teddie's injuries would have had him \"screaming in pain\", the trial had heard\n\nThe former partner of a man who murdered a 12-week-old baby said she warned police \"if you do not stop him\" he would kill a woman or child.\n\nKane Mitchell killed his then partner's son Teddie at the flat they shared in St Neots, Cambridgeshire in 2019.\n\nA previous partner of Mitchell's told the BBC she \"tried so hard to tell everybody what he was like, they just didn't take it seriously\".\n\nIn February 2021 Mitchell was jailed for a minimum of 18 years after being found guilty of murder, while the boy's mother Lucci Smith was sentenced for cruelty to a child.\n\nKane Mitchell and Lucci Smith raised Teddie as if Mitchell was the father\n\nMitchell, who was not Teddie's father but was raising him, assaulted the boy on 1 November 2019.\n\nTeddie died in hospital 10 days later and was found to have suffered 17 rib fractures, fractures to his right collarbone, a fatal skull fracture, and brain, spinal and eye injuries.\n\nThe trial was told of numerous interactions between the family and the authorities, including after a fight between Smith and Mitchell in September 2019 when a social worker raised the issue of domestic violence with Smith while her partner was in the flat.\n\nA month before Teddie was born Smith received a letter from social services following an anonymous tip-off.\n\nAround this time a multi-agency safeguarding hub report was made, but social services in Cambridgeshire reviewed the case and felt no further action was required.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Listen: Lucci Smith was advised to \"call an ambulance immediately\"\n\nThe killer's former partner Olivia (not her real name), has told the BBC she was abused by Mitchell and that the police came to the house \"26 or 27 times\".\n\n\"They had pictures, videos - my face was all bruised, my lips. I had bruises all over my cheeks, handprints round my throat and they had all that evidence and nothing was done, nothing,\" she said.\n\nShe said on one occasion Mitchell tipped hot curry over her head after going \"ballistic\" when a bit of rice went over him during a food fight.\n\nOlivia said: \"I told the police if you do not stop him he's going end up killing me... or a woman or a child. I told the police that's what he'll do and I meant it. It's got now to a baby dying because they didn't listen.\n\n\"I tried so hard to tell everybody what he was like, they just didn't take it seriously - they didn't do enough, and now a poor baby has died, and I know in my heart I did everything I could.\"\n\nTeddie Mitchell's mother called him a \"perfect little baby\" but was convicted of cruelty to a child\n\nShe said that social services also told her Mitchell \"wasn't allowed around my children\".\n\n\"If he wasn't allowed around my children, then why would he be allowed around anyone else's children? If he was violent towards me, why wouldn't he be a risk to other women?,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm upset that a poor baby had to die for him [Mitchell] to be where he is. I'm upset that my children had to go through what they went through, their lives destroyed, for that to happen. They weren't listened to. I wasn't listened to.\"\n\nThe BBC understands the local child safeguarding practice review was originally due to be published in January - the same month a Channel 4 documentary on Teddie's murder was broadcast.\n\nHowever, the review has still not been made public and there remains no confirmed date for this.\n\nA review into Teddie's death is still ongoing\n\nThe Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Partnership Board said the report, written by an independent author, would be published \"imminently\".\n\nA spokesperson said the board \"felt it essential to allow sufficient time to gain accounts from relevant parties including family members\".\n\nA Cambridgeshire County Council spokesperson said it welcomed the review, adding: \"It is essential that lessons are learned.\n\n\"Until the review is published it would not be appropriate for the council to comment on or anticipate the findings of the report.\n\n\"We continue to improve our safeguarding best practice and all of us who have a role in protecting our children do so with absolute dedication to their safety and wellbeing. We will take on board any actions and recommendations made in the review.\"\n\nCambridgeshire Police said it had \"fully supported\" the ongoing review.\n\nThe force added: \"We will, of course, take on board and action any learnings which come from the review. This forms a part of our continual review processes which strives to embed learning and best practice from local and national reviews.\n\n\"As the review has yet to be published, it is not appropriate for us to pre-empt the findings and recommendations.\"\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk", "When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last month, 27-year-old Nigerian Ottah Abraham was outraged.\n\nHe picked up his phone and tweeted: \"I want to join the team.\"\n\nHe was some 8,700km (5,400 miles) away from the front line, in a small apartment in Nigeria's main city, Lagos.\n\nThe philosophy graduate is one of several hundred Africans, from countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Algeria, who say they are willing to take up arms in the battle against Russia, partly to escape the bleak prospects faced by many young men at home.\n\n\"We know that it's war, it's not child's play,\" he told the BBC. \"But being a soldier in Ukraine would be better than being here.\n\n\"I'll probably be allowed to stay if the war ends, plus I'll be a hero and fight an undeniable enemy.\"\n\nThis is about beating a bully - injustice for one is injustice for all\"\n\nUkraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that some 20,000 volunteers from across the world had already applied to enlist. They came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a global appeal for foreign fighters to \"come and stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians\".\n\nThe government has temporarily axed its visa requirements and offered equipment and a salary to those with a valid passport and military training. There has been no official confirmation that foreign fighters will be allowed to stay in the country after the war.\n\nKereti Usoroh, a Nigerian living in the capital, Abuja, said his motivations for volunteering had nothing to do with financial gain or the prospect of citizenship.\n\n\"I already live a comfortable life. If I wanted to go to Europe, I'd do it through education, not war,\" the 29-year-old lawyer said.\n\n\"This is about beating a bully - injustice for one is injustice for all.\"\n\nSentiments to gladden the hearts of Ukrainian diplomats and days after President Zelenksy's appeal, dozens of hopeful volunteers headed to the Ukrainian embassy in Abuja, with ambitions of enlisting.\n\nBut the Ukrainian embassy in Nigeria - like others in Africa - has had to back-pedal as many of the continent's governments do not want their nationals to fight in Ukraine.\n\n\"Nigeria discourages the use of mercenaries anywhere in the world and will not tolerate the recruitment,\" Nigeria's foreign ministry wrote in a statement.\n\nBohdan Soltys, a Ukrainian embassy official in Nigeria, said they were not paying Africans to fight - and people would have to pay for their own flights to reach Europe.\n\n\"There's a fine line between foreign volunteers and mercenaries,\" he told the BBC.\n\nA British paramedic was pictured crossing into Ukraine on 5 March to join the international legion\n\nHe later clarified that he had been instructed to turn away any volunteers who arrived at the embassy.\n\nSenegal also warned its citizens against enlisting in the war and ordered the Ukrainian ambassador to take down a Facebook post that had called for Senegalese volunteers, calling the recruitment effort \"illegal and punishable by law.\"\n\nThe Algerian foreign ministry issued a similar order to its Ukrainian embassy.\n\n\"My country says I'm not allowed to go. I tried writing to the foreign ministry. They didn't answer me, but I will try again,\" 28-year-old Algerian Belhadj Hani Amir told the BBC.\n\n\"I want to go to Ukraine, but I also hope this war ends as soon as possible.\"\n\nUkraine's ambassador to South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana Liubov Abravitova told the BBC that hundreds of people from across southern African had volunteered to fight or work in a humanitarian capacity - but she was unable to act on their requests as she was waiting for instructions from their governments. South Africa has a strict law against mercenaries.\n\nIn fact, Ukraine's official website for recruiting the \"international legion\" of volunteers, which provides the contact details of local embassies around the world, no longer includes missions in African countries.\n\nA representative working for the website confirmed that some African countries were removed because of \"regulatory restrictions\".\n\nAlgeria, Senegal and South Africa were among 17 of Africa's 54 countries which abstained from the vote at the UN to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, as they wanted to avoid antagonising Russia.\n\nA pro-Russian rally was held in Bangui, capital of CAR, earlier this month\n\nAnd Russia is not without support in Africa. It has expanded its influence on the continent - especially militarily, by helping countries like the Central African Republic (CAR), Libya, Mali and Sudan fight rebels or Islamist militants.\n\nA video purporting to show soldiers from CAR vowing to join their \"Russian brothers\" has also been circulating online, though the BBC could not independently verify the source and a government official has not responded to a request for comment.\n\nLast Friday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that \"over 16,000 fighters\" from the Middle East had volunteered to fight with the Russian army - it is not clear if this includes any from North Africa.\n\nBut with African governments clamping down on the recruitment of their own citizens, it is unclear if any of the men will make it to the front line - and a Ukrainian official in charge of registering foreign volunteers told the BBC that no Africans had arrived.\n\nFor some, like David Osagie Adeleke from Nigeria's south-western Oyo state, this was a devastating blow.\n\nPrince Nkem Nduche (L), who wanted to fight in Ukraine, trained in Russia at a military academy several years ago\n\nThe 21-year-old, who has worked as an emergency rescue worker for the Red Cross, had been preparing to enlist as a combatant, having collected the necessary documentation, including a letter of recommendation.\n\n\"I went straight to the police station to collect my documents,\" he said, explaining that a clean criminal record was one of the requirements for enlisting.\n\n\"I'm disappointed to hear that the embassy is now saying it won't take us Africans.\"\n\nWith his emails to the Ukrainian embassy now bouncing back, he is looking into alternative routes to get to the country's border.\n\n\"I've got an interview with the Polish embassy in Nigeria,\" he said.\n\nPrince Nkem Nduche, who was among those at the Ukrainian embassy in Abuja, has more knowledge than most about the situation in Ukraine and is more sanguine.\n\nHe actually spent some time in Russia as a youngster, has dual citizenship and even enrolled at Russia's military academy - but was jailed for a short time, accused of being a spy after he was spotted at the American embassy.\n\nHe said he fled the country seven years ago, via Ukraine - and would happily fight against Russia, but accepts it is not to be.\n\n\"I wanted to go on my own but as the Nigerian government said we can't go… I will obey them,\" he told the BBC.", "Fiona Gibson, 12, and her brothers Alexander, eight, and Philip, five, died after the fire on 19 June, 2020\n\nA blaze that killed three children from the same family was started after a cigarette lighter set bedding on fire, investigators have ruled.\n\nFiona Gibson, 12, and her brothers Alexander, eight, and Philip, five, died at their Paisley flat in June, 2020.\n\nA fire service report into the accident said the source was a cigarette lighter that ignited bedding.\n\nThe children's mother, Julie Daley, was injured in the fire but survived.\n\nThe Scottish Fire and Rescue Service incident report said that all three children died after being overcome by smoke.\n\nThe report estimated that the fire had been going for between five and 30 minutes before being discovered.\n\nFive fire engines attended the incident, with the first arriving after five minutes.\n\nPolice Scotland said at the time that they were not treating the fire as suspicious.\n\nThe funeral cortege passed St Catherine's Primary School, where the two boys were pupils\n\nThe children's funeral in July, 2020 saw people line the streets as the procession passed through the Gallowhill area of Paisley.\n\nThe cortege passed close to St Catherine's Primary School where the two younger boys were pupils.\n\nA JustGiving page set up by a family friend at the time of the accident raised tens of thousands of pounds for the children's mother Julie and their father Alex Gibson, who was out at the time of the fire.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA powerful earthquake that hit north-east Japan left at least two people dead and 160 injured, officials said, but caused relatively minor damage.\n\nTwo million homes initially lost power and a bullet train was derailed, but none of its passengers were hurt.\n\nThe magnitude 7.4 quake was in the same area as the one which caused the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster but it was not damaged this time, officials said.\n\nIn some areas the earthquake was too forceful for people to stand, and buildings rattled in the capital Tokyo.\n\nIn many places, such as here in Soma in Fukushima Prefecture, cracks appeared in roads\n\nThe quake took place at 23:36 on Wednesday (14:36 GMT), at a depth of 57 kilometres (35.4 miles), Japanese authorities said.\n\nThey warned of possible aftershocks in Fukushima, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures.\n\nImmediately after the event, Japan's meteorological agency issued an advisory for tsunami waves of one metre (3.3ft) for parts of the north-east coast, but it was withdrawn on Thursday morning after waves one-third of that height reached shore.\n\nResidents sheltered at an evacuation centre in Soma, Fukushima prefecture on Thursday\n\nA number of people across north-eastern Japan were hurt by falling objects or in falls, and in the city of Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, local media reported that one man in his sixties had died. A second death was reported in Miyagi Prefecture.\n\nSome media reports said four people died in the quake, but government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said the number of fatalities directly caused by it was still being confirmed.\n\nElectricity to more than 2.2 million homes was temporarily cut in 14 prefectures, including the Tokyo region, but by mid-morning power had been restored to most places, the local electricity provider said.\n\nThere was a lucky escape for those on board a bullet train that was derailed by the quake north of Fukushima city - fortunately it was not going fast and no-one was hurt.\n\nPassengers and staff were trapped for four hours on board before being able to escape.\n\nThe Tohoku shinkansen bullet train derailed but no-one was injured\n\nJapan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters earlier the government was still trying to assess the extent of any damage, and authorities said emergency services had been inundated with calls.\n\nBuildings in Tokyo shook for more than two minutes. Further north in Fukushima the shaking was much more powerful.\n\nIn Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, a city official told AFP news agency he had been woken up by \"extremely violent shaking\".\n\n\"I heard the ground rumbling. Rather than feeling scared, I immediately remembered the Great East Japan earthquake,\" he said, referring to the 2011 disaster.\n\nAbout 700,000 of those left for hours without power were in Tokyo, according to the capital's electricity supplier\n\nThursday's earthquake happened almost 60km off the coast of Fukushima, not far from the epicentre of the most powerful earthquake in Japan's history, which killed 18,000 people when it struck 11 years ago.\n\nThe 2011 earthquake triggered a tsunami and destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant, sparking a major disaster after radiation leaked from the plant.\n\nNuclear authorities said that no abnormalities had been detected after Wednesday night's earthquake at the damaged Fukushima site.\n\nHave you been affected by the earthquake? If it is safe to do so, you can get in touch by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.\n• None First pictures of earthquake hitting Japan. Video, 00:00:31First pictures of earthquake hitting Japan", "The astronaut has spent 355 days in space\n\nA US astronaut will now be returning to Earth, after fears his Russian lift home might not materialise.\n\nIt was originally thought Mark Vande Hei - who has been in space for 355 days - might be left behind on the ISS due to heightened tensions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBut it has been confirmed he will travel aboard a Russian capsule to Kazakhstan.\n\nThe American and two Russian cosmonauts will be brought back to Earth.\n\n\"I can tell you for sure Mark is coming home... We are in communication with our Russian colleagues. There's no fuzz on that,\" Joel Montalbano, Nasa's International Space Station (ISS) programme manager said.\n\nHe admitted the astronauts were \"aware of what's going on\" in the world, but they still work as a team.\n\nUnder international space law, astronauts from all nations must \"provide all possible help\" to other astronauts when needed, \"including emergency landing in a foreign country or at sea\".\n\nDmitry Rogozin, chief of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, had previously warned about sanctions causing technical issues to the ISS but Mr Montalbano said it had continued to run smoothly.\n\n\"All these activities have continued for 20 years and nothing has changed in the last three weeks. Our control centres operate successfully, flawlessly, seamlessly,\" he said.\n\nThe US controls power and life support aboard the ISS and Russia controls things such as its propulsion.\n\nEarlier this month on Russian state TV, Mr Rogozin announced Roscosmos would halt rocket sales to the US in response to sanctions against Russia.\n\nMr Vande Hei, 55, has now made a new US record for the most time spent in space.", "The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called Russia's attack on Ukraine \"an act of great evil\"\n\nThe Church of England is putting pressure on TotalEnergies over its decision not to cut business ties with Russia in the wake of its Ukraine invasion.\n\nThe church's investment funds said they would reconsider their shareholding in the French energy giant.\n\nThe two funds also called for the firm to urgently review its decision.\n\nTotalEnergies has condemned Russia's aggression, but has not followed BP and Shell in withdrawing from Russia.\n\nThe company did not respond to a request for comment.\n\nIt was not immediately clear how large a stake the Church of England's Pensions Board and the Church Commissioners investment fund hold in TotalEnergies. They did not respond to requests for comment.\n\nIn a joint letter to TotalEnergies chief executive, Patrick Pouyanne, the pension board and the Church Commissioners for England noted the company was at odds with the actions taken by many of its peers.\n\nLast month, the church's pensions board and the Church Commissioners fund dumped £20m worth of investments in Russian businesses. They also banned any further investments in the country.\n\nIn a statement to The Times, the church said it made the move \"in response to the attack on Ukraine by Russia and supporting the sanctions announced by the UK and other governments\".\n\nThe Church Commissioners manage a £9.2bn investment fund while the pensions board oversees a fund worth £3.7bn.\n\nIn February, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said Russia's \"horrific and unprovoked attack on Ukraine is an act of great evil\".\n\nThe church's letter to TotalEnergies comes after two French NGOs - Greenpeace France and Les Amis de la Terre (Friends of the Earth) France - said they planned to take legal action against the oil giant over possible human rights abuses unless it cuts its business ties with Russia.\n\nRussia represented 24% of TotalEnergies' reserves and 17% of its combined oil and gas production in 2020, company documents show.\n\nActivist investor Clearway Capital has also written to the board of TotalEnergies asking it to exit its operations in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUkraine's president invoked the horror of the 2001 terror attacks on the US as he pleaded for more military aid in a historic address to the US Congress.\n\nVolodymyr Zelensky said via video link that Ukraine was enduring a 9/11 every day as it battled Russian forces.\n\nHe again urged the US and Nato allies to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying: \"I need to protect the sky.\"\n\nUS President Joe Biden is later set to sign off an extra $800m (£612m) in military aid to Ukraine.\n\nMr Zelensky urged the assembled US politicians to remember coming under attack in the past - at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and on 11 September 2001 - saying Ukrainians were experiencing the same thing every day.\n\n\"In your great history, you have pages that would allow you to understand the Ukrainian history. Understand us now,\" he said.\n\nHe also referenced US civil rights leader Martin Luther King's famous speech: \"I have a dream, these words are known to each of you - today I can say I have a need. I need to protect the sky,\" he said.\n\nThe Ukrainian leader also showed a video of missile strikes on his country's cities and the resulting dead and wounded people.\n\nHe has repeatedly called on Nato to impose a no-fly zone over his country's airspace, but Nato has refused.\n\nA no-fly zone over Ukraine would mean that Nato forces would have to engage directly with any Russian planes spotted in those skies and shoot at them if necessary.\n\nAs an alternative to a no-fly zone, Mr Zelensky pleaded for air-defence systems and aircraft.\n\nHe has previously asked the US and the EU for Polish MiG-29 fighter jets, but this has been rejected by Mr Biden over fears this would pull Nato members into the war.\n\nAddressing President Biden directly in English, President Zelensky said: \"I wish you to be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means being the leader of peace.\"\n\nVolodymyr Zelensky again demonstrated he had a firm grasp on how to plead his nation's case to a foreign audience in a language they could understand - both literally and figuratively.\n\nSpeaking to the British Parliament last week, the Ukrainian president referenced Winston Churchill. In his video address to Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky compared his nation's daily aerial bombardment to Pearl Harbor and September 11.\n\nHe also mentioned the carvings of US presidents at Mount Rushmore and Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech - saying his nation had a \"need\" for more US assistance.\n\nThe American public has been transfixed by video footage of the Russian onslaught, and Zelensky used sometimes graphic images of dead and injured children and bombed cities to drive home his request to \"close the skies\" to Russian attacks.\n\nThen the former actor made one final gesture of theatrical flair, ending his speech in English, framing the fight in Ukraine as a battle for the values of Europe and the world.\n\nWhen the stakes are framed this way, Zelensky may hope, it will be difficult for the US and its allies to say no.\n\nAfter the speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted that it had been a \"distinct privilege\" to hear from the Ukrainian president, and that the US was \"unwavering in our commitment to the people of Ukraine as they courageously defend democracy\".\n\nThe $800m in funding set to be signed off later will go towards anti-armour and anti-aircraft weapons, such as Stingers and Javelins, US media report.\n\nThe funding is covered by a spending bill on humanitarian, defensive and economic assistance to Ukraine that was approved by Congress last week.\n\nIn the past year, the Biden administration has provided $1.2bn in weapons for the country, including Mi-17 helicopters, patrol boats and small arms such as grenade launchers and machine guns, the New York Times reports.\n\nThe Ukrainian president was greeted with a standing ovation from the assembled US politicians\n\nOn Wednesday, attacks by Russian forces continued in cities and towns across the country:\n\nMeanwhile, Nato defence ministers are meeting in Brussels to discuss their response to the invasion.\n\nMr Biden is expected to travel to Brussels next week to meet Nato allies and participate in a summit of European Union leaders.\n\nThe US president will \"discuss ongoing deterrence and defence efforts,\" and reaffirm his country's commitment to its Nato allies, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said.\n\nOn Tuesday, the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic met Mr Zelensky in the evening as a curfew began in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.\n\nAfterwards, the Czech leader told Ukrainians that they were \"not alone\". The group are the first Western leaders to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded last month.", "The Met has apologised and admitted the incident should not have happened\n\nA black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.\n\nThe \"traumatic\" search by Metropolitan Police officers took place without another adult present at the girl's secondary school in Hackney in 2020.\n\nA safeguarding report on the incident concluded it was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nScotland Yard said the officers' actions were \"regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nAccording to the report, the impact on the pupil - referred to as Child Q - was \"profound\" and the repercussions \"obvious and ongoing\".\n\nFamily members described her as changing from a \"happy-go-lucky girl to a timid recluse that hardly speaks\", who now self-harms and needs therapy.\n\nPolice were called to a school in Hackney at the end of 2020 by teachers, who told investigators they had been concerned the teenager had drugs in her possession because she smelt of cannabis.\n\nShe was taken to the medical room and strip-searched by two female officers, while teachers remained outside.\n\nDuring the ordeal her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review. No drugs were found.\n\nHer family strongly believe the strip search was a racist incident, and the review found her experiences are \"unlikely to have been the same\" had she not been black.\n\nThe Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review, published in March, was conducted by City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP) .\n\nIt said it was highly likely that \"adultification bias\" was a factor - where adults perceive black children as being older than they are because they see them as more \"streetwise\".\n\nIn a written statement to the review, the girl said she wanted everyone who allowed the strip search to happen to \"be held responsible\".\n\nShe said: \"I need to know that the people who have done this to me can't do it to anyone else ever again, in fact so no-one else can do this to any other child in their care.\"\n\nInvestigators found that school staff deferred to the police's authority and \"should have been more challenging\".\n\nThis has been accepted by the school, with one staff member saying: \"I have never known, nor would I condone, a strip-search of a young person on a school site.\"\n\nThe Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was now investigating, the Met confirmed.\n\nDet Supt Dan Rutland, of the Met's Central East Command, said: \"We recognise that the findings of the safeguarding review reflect this incident should never have happened.\n\n\"It is truly regrettable and on behalf of the Met Police I would like to apologise to the child concerned, her family and the wider community.\"\n\nMayor of London Sadiq Khan said this was a \"deeply disturbing case\" that no child should face and he would be \"closely following\" the IOPC review.\n\nHackney Council's mayor and deputy mayor have condemned the \"humiliating, traumatising and utterly shocking treatment\" by police officers.\n\nThey have asked for a report in six to nine months on progress made regarding the review's eight findings and 14 recommendations.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n• None Met apology to woman over language in strip search", "The BBC is recognised by audiences in the UK and around the world as a provider of news that you can trust. Our website, like our TV and radio services, strives for journalism that is accurate, impartial, independent and fair.\n\nOur editorial values say: \"The trust that our audience has in all our content underpins everything that we do. We are independent, impartial and honest. We are committed to achieving the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our audiences.\n\n\"Our commitment to impartiality is at the heart of that relationship of trust. In all our output we will treat every subject with an impartiality that reflects the full range of views. We will consider all the relevant facts fairly and with an open mind.\"\n\nResearch shows that, compared to other broadcasters, newspapers and online sites, the BBC is seen as by far the most trusted and impartial news provider in the UK [PDF].\n\nEven so, we know that identifying credible journalism on the internet can be a confusing experience. We also know that audiences want to understand more about how BBC journalism is produced.\n\nFor these reasons, BBC News is making even greater efforts to explain what type of information you are reading or watching on our website, who and where the information is coming from, and how a story was crafted the way it was. By doing so, we can help you judge for yourself why BBC News can be trusted.\n\nWe are also making these indicators of trustworthy journalism \"machine-readable\", meaning that they can be picked up by search engines and social media platforms, helping them to better identify reliable sources of information too.\n\nThese indicators comprise the following areas:\n\nThe BBC has long had its own Editorial Guidelines that apply to all of our content and set out the standards expected of our journalists. To make it easier to see how BBC guidelines are used in our newsroom, we have listed all the relevant sections on this page.\n\nMission Statement: The mission of the BBC is to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services that inform, educate and entertain. Full details are in the BBC Charter.\n\nOwnership Structure, Funding and Grants: We are independent of outside interests and arrangements that could undermine our editorial integrity. Our audiences should be confident that our decisions are not influenced by outside interests, political or commercial pressures, or any personal interests. Learn more about how BBC News is funded, in the UK and internationally, in the BBC Charter on the independence of the BBC.\n\nFounding Date: The BBC was founded on 18 October 1922. Read more about the history of the BBC.\n\nEthics Policy: The BBC's Editorial Guidelines outline the editorial values and practices that all our output is expected to conform to.\n\nDiversity Policy: Learn about BBC News' commitment to diversity in the BBC Charter.\n\nDiversity Staffing Report: Find out about how BBC News is working to increase diversity in the BBC's Equality Information Report.\n\nCorrections: The BBC is committed to achieving due accuracy. Policies relating to corrections can be found in the following sections of our Editorial Guidelines.\n\nOur output must be well sourced, based on sound evidence, thoroughly tested and presented in clear, precise language. We should be honest and open about what we don't know and avoid unfounded speculation. Claims, allegations, material facts and other content that cannot be corroborated should normally be attributed.\n\nWe are open in acknowledging mistakes when they are made and encourage a culture of willingness to learn from them.\n\nIf an article has been edited since publication to correct a material inaccuracy, a note will be added at the end of the text to signal to the reader there has been an amendment or correction with the date of that change. If there is a small error in a story that does not alter its editorial meaning (eg name misspelling), the correction will be made without an additional note.\n\nUnless content is specifically made available only for a limited time period, there is a presumption that material published online will become part of a permanently accessible archive and will not normally be removed. Exceptional circumstances may include legal reasons, personal safety risks, or a serious breach of editorial standards that cannot be rectified except by removal of the material.\n\nVerification/Fact-checking Standards: The BBC's accuracy and verification policy is outlined in the Editorial Guidelines on Accuracy.\n\nUnnamed Sources: The BBC's policy and guidance on the use of anonymous sources is detailed in the Editorial Guidelines.\n\nActionable Feedback: The BBC's complaints procedure is outlined in the BBC Complaints Framework.\n\nLeadership: Meet the senior executive team that runs the news division: BBC News Board.\n\nBBC News articles based on original reporting carry bylines (the name of the journalist), as often do those authored by journalists who have a subject specialism.\n\nGeneral news stories, which tend to combine information from a variety of sources, including news agencies, BBC Newsgathering and BBC broadcast output, or which may have been produced by several members of staff over the course of the day, do not as a rule carry bylines.\n\nArticle bylines for many correspondents and editors link to individual blog pages, where biographical information, expertise, and social media details can be found.\n\nBBC News distinguishes between factual reporting and opinion. We use machine-readable labels in six categories:\n\nOur output, as appropriate to its subject and nature, should be well sourced, based on sound evidence, thoroughly tested and presented in clear, precise language. We strive to be honest and open about what we don't know and avoid unfounded speculation.\n\nWhere BBC News relies on a single source for a key aspect of its coverage, we will strive to credit that source, where possible. We usually link to official reports, sets of statistics and other sources of information, to enable you to judge for yourself the underlying information that we are reporting on.\n\nWhenever appropriate, we also offer links to relevant third-party websites that provide additional information, source material or informed comment.\n\nFor in-depth pieces of work, such as complex investigations or data journalism projects, we will help you understand how we went about our work by showing the underlying data and by disclosing any caveats, assumptions or other methodological frameworks used - for example, the study-design; the sample size; representativeness; margins of error; how the data was collected; geographical relevance and time periods.", "NI Health Minister Robin Swann, EJ Havlin, Director of Adoption UK, and Kathy Brownlee with her adopted son, Mack, on the steps of Parliament Buildings at Stormont on Tuesday\n\nA move to overhaul Northern Ireland's out-of-date adoption laws has passed its final hurdle at Stormont.\n\nHealth Minister Robin Swann said it was among the most important bills brought to the assembly. The review of the law was 16 years in the making, he added.\n\nThere are more than 700 adoptive families here, but the laws were last updated in the 1980s.\n\nOn average, it takes more than three years for a child to be adopted from care in Northern Ireland.\n\nBut it can vary greatly depending on a child's individual circumstance.\n\nIn other legislative developments on Tuesday:\n\nThe new adoption law allows courts to impose a timescale for adoption, and aims to make sure post-adoption assessments consider a child's needs, as well as give adopters more support through social services.\n\nIn the year to March 2020, 111 children were adopted from care in Northern Ireland.\n\nAs assembly members passed the final stage of the bill on Tuesday, Mr Swann said it would \"change lives\".\n\n\"It will mean that adoptive families can enjoy support, and strengthen and widen support for families in need,\" he added.\n\n\"Sixteen years after this process started, I'm delighted to say I commend this bill to the house.\"\n\nSinn Féin's Colm Gildernew, chair of the health committee, said the bill was \"overdue\" and one of the \"most rewarding\" pieces of legislation he had ever worked on.\n\nFor the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Colin McGrath said the passing of the bill showed what politicians could do when they worked together.\n\nWatching Stormont at work lately has been like waiting on a bus - you wait ages for one then loads arrive at once.\n\nFour bills crossed the finish line in the assembly today and will now become law - but why?\n\nThere is a rush to get outstanding legislation completed before the assembly wraps up for the election in just under two weeks' time.\n\nExtra sittings will happen next week - rumours of a Saturday sitting have even been whispered.\n\n27 bills that looked in doubt last month when the executive collapsed - on a range of issues affecting the lives of many people - should make it in time.\n\nA reminder of how fast Stormont can move when it has to.\n\nHe said it showed the assembly could \"deliver change\".\n\nThe Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) Pam Cameron also welcomed the bill becoming law and said it was a \"momentous day\".\n\nShe praised the work of all those who had helped to push the bill through its legislative process.\n\nThere were warm words from Alliance's Paula Bradshaw. who said the passing of the bill was an \"exciting day\" and said the changes filled her \"heart with joy\".\n\nThe bill was stalled after public consultation processes and the previous collapse of the Stormont institutions.\n\nThe Department of Health said the bill is expected to become law in the coming months, following which regulations would be developed and guidance put in place.\n• None 'We were left to our own devices after adopting'", "Last updated on .From the section Man Utd\n\nManchester United midfielder Paul Pogba says his home was burgled during his side's Champions League game against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.\n\nThe France player came on after 67 minutes as the Spanish side won 1-0.\n\nPogba said \"our family's worst nightmare was realised when our home was broken into ... while our babies were sleeping in their bedroom\".\n\nThe family's nanny was at home at the time and Pogba has offered a reward to \"anyone who has a clue to help us\".\n\nPogba's two children are aged three and one.\n\nThe 29-year-old has been at United since re-joining the Old Trafford club in a then-world record £89m transfer from Juventus in 2016.\n\nHis contract with the club runs out in the summer.\n\n\"My wife and I rushed home not knowing if our children were safe and unharmed,\" added Pogba.\n\n\"As a father there is no feeling worse in this world than not being able to protect your children and I sincerely hope that no-one ever has to feel what I felt last night.\"\n\nGreater Manchester Police (GMP) said officers were called to a report of a burglary at a property in the Rossmill Lane area of Hale Barns at 22:54 GMT on Wednesday.\n\n\"Initial enquiries have established that the unknown offender entered the property before stealing a safe,\" added a GMP statement.\n\n\"Enquiries are ongoing. No arrests have been made. No-one was injured in the incident.\"\n\nManchester City defender Joao Cancelo was injured when he tried to fight off a gang of intruders during a break-in over the Christmas period.\n\nAnd, in January, the wife of Manchester United defender Victor Lindelof said her family were the subject of a break-in while the centre-back played against Brentford.\n\nManchester United are working with all their players to review and strengthen security at home.\n• None Our coverage of Manchester United is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything United - go straight to all the best content", "Belfast is to stage its first St Patrick's Day parade in two years after a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nOne group is working to increase diversity in the parade.\n\nBeat Carnival's theme for this year's pageant parade is “we are all Patrick”.", "The fine of £1,050,000 is the largest ever imposed by the Lloyd's Enforcement Board.\n\nLloyd's of London has fined a member firm £1m due to some male managers' heavy drinking, initiation games and sexual remarks about female staff.\n\nAtrium Underwriters admitted charges relating to bullying and misconduct during annual 'boys' nights out'.\n\nSome of the inappropriate behaviour was led, participated in and condoned by two senior leaders, Lloyd's found.\n\nAtrium said it accepted the ruling, was sorry for the hurt caused and would ensure it never happened again.\n\nThe fine of £1,050,000 is the largest ever imposed by Lloyd's independent disciplinary committee and its first for non-financial misconduct.\n\nAtrium must also pay Lloyd's costs of £562,713, the committee's report said. The findings followed an investigation by Lloyd's enforcement team.\n\nIn a notice of censure, Lloyd's said Atrium had sanctioned and tolerated an annual boys' night out over a number of years up until 2018.\n\nOn these nights out some male members of staff, including two senior executives in leadership roles, engaged in unprofessional and inappropriate conduct, Lloyds found.\n\nThis included initiation games, heavy drinking and making inappropriate and sexualised comments about female colleagues.\n\nThese comments were found to be discriminatory and harassing to female members of staff.\n\nBehaviour by one male staff member - called Employee A in the document - \"included a systematic campaign of bullying against a junior employee over a number of years\", Lloyd's found.\n\nOnce Atrium became aware of the bullying it failed to investigate, take disciplinary action or adequately protect the junior employee, it said.\n\n\"Instead, Atrium negotiated a settlement package with Employee A, and allowed him to resign from Atrium rather than face disciplinary sanction,\" it said.\n\nThe document noted that Atrium had a previously good disciplinary record and had co-operated at all times with Lloyd's inquiry and enforcement proceedings.\n\nIt added Atrium had now implemented changes including \"updating its policies and procedures relating to disciplinary issues, whistleblowing and diversity and inclusion, as well as its guidance and training for senior managers\".\n\nLloyd's chief executive, John Neal, said: \"We are deeply disappointed by the behaviour highlighted by this case, and I want to be clear that discrimination, harassment and bullying have no place at Lloyd's.\"\n\nChristopher Stooke, independent non-executive chairman at Atrium, said the firm had failed to live up to its values and had made serious errors in handling what happened.\n\n\"The behaviour outlined in the notice of censure has no place in our business or our industry, and we recognise that we must go further to ensure that this situation is never allowed to happen again,\" he said.\n\nIn 2019, Lloyd's vowed to tackle its male dominated culture after almost one in ten workers said they had witnessed sexual harassment.", "The invasion of Ukraine has led many Western brands to shun Russia, but some still have outlets open in the country and say they are not able to shut them.\n\nMarks and Spencer, Burger King, and hotel groups Marriott and Accor are restricted by complex franchise deals preventing them from withdrawing.\n\nThe firms have outsourced the Russian businesses to third parties and do not own the operations bearing their name.\n\nTogether the firms have almost a thousand outlets still open in Russia.\n\nM&S has 48 shops and Burger King has 800 restaurants still open, whilst Marriott and Accor have 28 and 57 hotels open respectively.\n\nThe BBC understands the brands are locked into legal franchise agreements, making it difficult for them to remove their name from Russia's High Streets and shopping malls.\n\nA lot of Western firms have held such agreements for decades. For example, Marks and Spencer stores have been operated by a Turkish company called FiBA, which has held the rights to sell the retailer's products across Eastern Europe, since 1999. The retail giant has said it has suspended shipments of its goods to FiBA in response to the war.\n\nBurger King has said its agreements aren't easy to change\n\nMeanwhile, Burger King's owner Restaurant Brands International also told the BBC its restaurants are run by franchisees. These \"long-standing legal agreements are not easily changeable in the foreseeable future,\" it said.\n\nIt is understood hotel groups Marriott, IHG and French chain Accor, which has Ibis and Novotel among its brands, are all operating in Russia under similar deals.\n\nMarriott told the BBC its hotels in Russia were owned by third parties but said it would \"continue to evaluate the ability for these hotels to remain open\", suggesting it was looking into its franchise agreements.\n\nFranchising is a business method of distributing products or services. It involves a franchisor, a company which has established the brand's name, and a franchisee, a company which pays a fee for the right to do business under the franchisor's name and sell its products.\n\nGraeme Payne, a specialist in UK and international franchising at law firm Bird&Bird, told the BBC franchising was useful to Western brands who want to enter markets in different countries, but do not have local knowledge, money, or ability to enter them.\n\n\"You would as a member of the public… think why don't they just close their stores? But just from a pure business and contractual perspective, it's very difficult to do so without some far reaching legal consequences,\" said Mr Payne.\n\nThose consequences could have serious financial implications for Western businesses, who could be sued by franchisees if they did break any agreement, which are often 10 or more years long.\n\nVictoria Hobbs, a partner at Bird&Bird who deals with franchise disputes, told the BBC if a franchise owner was found to have links to Russian President Vladimir Putin or had been sanctioned, then from a UK perspective, a deal could be terminated.\n\nHowever, Ms Hobbs said although agreements often have a clause that states \"if the franchisee is doing something to damage our reputation we can terminate\", the problem currently in Russia is that many franchisees themselves are not doing anything wrong.\n\n\"It is quite challenging for them because, from an English law perspective, they don't really have a right to bring the agreement to an end - that's the problem,\" she said.\n\nEven if a brand managed to succeed in getting a UK court judgment against a franchise in Russia, \"the Russian courts wouldn't enforce it\", according to John Pratt, a partner at the largest team of specialist franchise lawyers in Europe.\n\nIn the meantime, the firms are trying to do what they can to help with the situation and all have announced support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion.\n\nHowever, while many brands are stuck in Russia, Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Pizza Hut, said it was finalising an agreement with its main franchisee to temporarily halt Pizza Hut operations.\n\nMs Hobbs, partner at law firm Bird&Bird said she believed brands were \"very worried\" about any potential reputational damage from continuing to operate in Russia.\n\n\"They are worried obviously on a human and moral level about what is happening, but I also think they are worried [that] a number of companies have been threatened with boycotts.\"", "Over 1.7m Ukrainian refugees have fled to Poland since Russia's invasion began\n\nWith Russia's war in Ukraine raging on its doorstep, Poland is holding its breath.\n\nIt feels vulnerable on two fronts as the number of refugees coming into the country swells and a military base near its border with Ukraine was attacked.\n\nAs a first responder in one of Europe's biggest refugee crises since World War Two, over 1.7m Ukrainians have chosen to flee to Poland, according to the UN's latest figures.\n\nSome move on, but most choose to stay because of cultural, linguistic or family ties. As a result, population figures have swollen by 15% in the Polish capital Warsaw over the past two weeks.\n\nIn terms of security, alarm bells are also ringing. Over the weekend, Russia bombed a Ukrainian military base in Yavoriv, just 16 km (10 miles) from the Polish border.\n\nPoland warned the West for years that Russia planned to redress the balance of power in Europe in its favour. Polish leaders were dismissed as alarmists at the time. But no longer.\n\nOn Monday, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said Ukrainian soldiers needed and deserved Western support. They were fighting not only for their own freedom, he insisted, but also the freedom of their Eastern European neighbours.\n\nHe also described Russian President Vladimir Putin's onslaught in Ukraine as a calculated part of his geopolitical plan.\n\nOnce side-lined by some in Nato as a post-communist Russophobe, Poland has now become a linchpin in the eastern flank of the alliance. The strongest part of the chain now linking the West with Ukraine.\n\nMost of the weapons convoys sent by the West to help the Ukrainian military travel through Poland. On Saturday, Moscow declared those convoys \"legitimate military targets\" inside Ukraine.\n\nBut do Poles believe the Kremlin would attack their country - a member of the European Union - and, more significantly in this case, Nato?\n\nThe Western defence alliance's charter says an attack against one of its nations will be viewed as an attack against all.\n\nThat would mean a face-off between two global nuclear powers - Russia and the US - something the West is keen to avoid. Moscow too, it hopes.\n\nWarsaw's mayor Rafal Trzaskowski has called for more international assistance (file photo)\n\nWarsaw's mayor and high profile political figure, Rafal Trzaskowski, told me his country wasn't panicking, but that people were beginning to ask questions - especially after Russia's missile strike so close to the Polish border, and Nato's talk of Russia possibly planning chemical attacks.\n\nSomething urgent needs to be done about the refugee crisis too, the mayor insisted.\n\nHe said one of President Putin's goals was to divide, and therefore weaken, the West.\n\n\"Putin is happy to use fake news, disinformation campaigns or a refugee crisis,\" Mr Trzaskowski argued, warning that, \"if refugee numbers keep rising, the system in Poland will crash.\"\n\nHe's called for more international assistance - from the European Union and United Nations - in terms of practical help, financial aid and housing refugees in other countries.\n\nBrussels says Ukrainians are welcome across the bloc. It has pledged funds to Poland too.\n\nBut the authorities here say it's not enough. The European Commission is coy about mentioning exact figures.\n\nMayor Trzaskowski has also appealed to the UK to \"get rid of its red tape\" and allow Ukrainian refugees more easily into Britain.\n\nArguably, Poland's painful past makes it a lot more anxious about the future.\n\nThe arrival of Ukrainian refugees here has evoked national memories of war, followed by decades of Soviet occupation.\n\nThis week in Warsaw, I met Polish pensioner Kristina and her friends, busy making Ukrainian flag solidarity ribbons.\n\n\"I'm too poor to give money and too old to hold a gun,\" Kristina explained, \"so I do what I can for the refugees. Partly, because I fear for my own tomorrow.\"", "\"Walls are not everlasting\" read graffiti on the Berlin Wall in 1989\n\nJust over three decades ago I stood on top of the Berlin Wall which - for almost three decades before - had torn friends and families apart, split a country and set the division of Europe in concrete.\n\nI watched and held my breath with thousands of others on that heady night in November 1989, when one brave young man dared to jump off the wall into what had been \"no man's land\".\n\nDays earlier he would have been shot, joining all those who had paid with their lives for daring to try to bridge the gap between East and West. Not on the night the wall fell. He held out a flower to a bewildered-looking East German soldier who, after a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, held out his hand and accepted the gesture of peace. The crowd lining the wall cheered wildly.\n\nThey - we - dreamt that Europe might now be \"free and whole\". People might soon be free to choose who governed them - whether they lived in Berlin or Prague, Warsaw or Budapest and perhaps, just perhaps, in Moscow and St Petersburg too.\n\nI am back in Berlin - a city facing up to the fact that that dream is now dead thanks to Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine and to bomb its people into submission.\n\nGermany's leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, spoke of this being a historic turning point. In German they have a word for it (they have a word for everything). It is zeitenwende.\n\nMr Scholz announced his country would now offer real military aid to Ukraine.\n\nA few weeks before, his government had been mocked for its offer of 5,000 helmets to equip the Ukrainian army. The head of the German navy had to resign after he observed that all Mr Putin wanted was respect and that he probably deserved it.\n\nThe German chancellor has now pledged to spend more - €100bn (£84bn) more - on defence. What that means is that this country will soon become the biggest military power in Europe and the third biggest in the world - behind only China and the United States.\n\nNot so very long ago, that prospect would have been greeted with fear abroad and protests at home.\n\nAs a young man - a member of what he calls \"the 1989 generation\" - Nils Schmid studied in Ukraine in what was then part of the Soviet Union. These days, he is a German MP and foreign affairs spokesman for the governing Social Democrats. He told me he and his fellow countrymen and women now had to accept that the \"iron curtain\" which divided Europe had simply moved.\n\nOnce it had stood a few hundred yards from his office. Now, long after the fall of the wall, it is on the border between Nato countries - whose defence is guaranteed by the US - and those who look to Moscow.\n\nOpposite his office stands the vast Russia embassy - in what used to be East Berlin. It is now protected by police and there are barricades decorated with anti-war posters. A blanket lies on the ground and is filled with soft toys. The message to passers by is that it could be your children dying in Ukraine.\n\nA \"Freedom Square\" sign in Ukraine's national colours in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, 13 March\n\nThere, I met Michael - a biker from the Black Forest in south-west Germany. He was recording a video next to his Yamaha, which he had re-painted in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag. He had ridden for eight hours carrying a folder bulging with 600 messages to Vladimir Putin - from friends, neighbours and colleagues calling on the Russian president to stop the war.\n\nThe embassy staff had refused to accept it. Michael had come to realise that talking to Russia (what used to be called detente) was not enough. Germany now had to be prepared to confront Moscow.\n\nWhat that means is the children of that 1989 generation will not enjoy the same freedoms as their parents. They will not grow up believing that wars are what happened in the past. Indeed a recent poll showed that seven in 10 Germans fear the spread of this war.\n\nPeople from Ukraine queuing for mobile phone cards in Berlin, 14 March\n\nAnd no wonder. The refugees driven from their homes by this conflict are pouring off trains into Berlin's stations at a rate of, some say, 10,000 a day.\n\nThis war is re-shaping how Europe's most powerful country thinks. That will have dramatic consequences which are only just beginning to be thought through.\n\nYou have to be almost 40 years old to remember the day when the wall fell back in November 1989. These days of February and March 2022 are turning out to be just as consequential.", "Edward Meenan's body was found in an alleyway in Creggan Street on 25 November 2018\n\nOne man has been found guilty of murder and another man guilty of manslaughter in relation to the killing of Edward Meenan in Londonderry.\n\nMr Meenan's body was found in an alleyway behind Creggan Street on 25 November 2018.\n\nSean Rodgers, 34, of no fixed abode, and Ryan Walters, 22, from Station Park in Crossgar, denied murder.\n\nThe victim's brother, Terry Meenan, said his life had been taken away \"in the most horrific fashion\".\n\nA jury on Tuesday found Rodgers guilty of murder, and Walters not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.\n\nA third man, Derek Creswell, 29, of King's Lane in Ballykelly, had already pleaded guilty.\n\nWalters was also found guilty of assault on William McConnell - a friend of Mr Meenan's - on the same date.\n\nAfter a trial lasting six weeks, the jury deliberated for 10 hours before returning a verdict.\n\nDuring the trial, the jury was told Mr Meenan sustained 52 stab wounds and there were more than 100 signs of assault, including two broken legs.\n\nAfter the verdict, Judge Donna McColgan thanked the jury, describing them as \"the most attentive I have ever come across\".\n\nShe told Rodgers the only sentence she could pass was a life sentence. A tariff hearing will be held at a later date to determine the minimum time he will serve.\n\nSpeaking to BBC Radio Foyle, Terry Meenan said the men had shown \"disregard for human life\" and had taken away the \"most precious thing we had, our brother\".\n\n\"The people who did it have shown no remorse whatsoever.\n\n\"How human beings can do that to another human being I'll never know,\" he continued.\n\n\"It's been an unforgettable, unimaginable three years and we've had to suffer that every day, every night, every morning, the thoughts of what they actually did to my brother.\"", "Ukrainians have been arriving in neighbouring countries with only the possessions that they can carry\n\nNorthern Ireland can play a full role in housing Ukrainian refugees in spite of the absence of an executive at Stormont, MPs have been told.\n\nMichael Gove, Secretary of State for Communities, said on Monday night that all parts of the UK would be involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme.\n\nPeople who take in refugees will be known as sponsors.\n\nSponsors in Northern Ireland will be entitled to claim £350 a month like the rest of the UK.\n\nThe Homes for Ukraine scheme is now taking applications from people in Northern Ireland who want to offer shelter.\n\nNorthern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis has said people would be matched from Friday, \"if they're able to offer accommodation, whether it's people who've got spare accommodation, businesses and individuals\".\n\nHowever, Stormont is currently without a functioning devolved government, known as the Northern Ireland Executive.\n\nIt collapsed on 4 February when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) pulled its first minister out of office, which meant other executive ministers cannot take any significant decisions or agree a budget.\n\nSpeaking in the House of Commons, Mr Gove acknowledged the complications at Stormont.\n\n\"We know the political situation in Northern Ireland, but we did have the opportunity to talk to Jayne Brady [the head] of the Northern Ireland Civil Service in order to make sure that Northern Ireland was fully looped into this approach, and both the secretary of state and the minister of state in the Northern Ireland Office are committed to doing everything to help,\" he told MPs.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nDUP MP Gavin Robinson and Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry both raised questions about how the scheme would operate in Northern Ireland.\n\nIt is not clear exactly how extra funding required for school places and health services would be managed in the absence of an executive.\n\nAn online portal for people to register their interest in providing accommodation for families fleeing the war in Ukraine has opened on the UK government website.\n\nA spokesperson for the Executive Office at Stormont said the sponsorship scheme would operate in Northern Ireland and expressions of interest in providing accommodation from both individuals and groups was strongly encouraged.\n\n\"While the details will be announced by Westminster, we are working at pace, making preparations so we stand ready to provide sanctuary to Ukrainian refugees,\" the spokesperson added.\n\n\"Mindful of the pressure on social housing stock, officials are also engaging with councils and the voluntary and community sector to find creative ways of bringing suitable accommodation into use and identifying all available capacity.\"\n\nThe spokesperson added they were also in contact with the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing.\n\n\"We will participate fully in this humanitarian effort,\" the Executive Office said.\n\n\"Partnership across sectors and wider society will be key to ensuring we can support as many Ukrainian people seeking sanctuary here as possible.\"\n\nDemocratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he had space within his home and \"would be pleased to receive some of those fleeing from Ukraine\".\n\nIt is understood Alliance leader Naomi Long is considering doing the same, but would not seek payment.\n\nIn the Republic of Ireland, the cabinet is set to hold an urgent video conference on Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine, broadcaster RTÉ reports.\n\nThe taoiseach (Irish prime minister) is currently in the US ahead of events to mark St Patrick's Day, but will chair the meeting.\n\nAccommodation is expected to be a key focus for the meeting, with Ukrainian ambassador to Ireland Larysa Gerasko saying almost 6,000 refugees have arrived in Ireland over the last two weeks.\n\n\"It's very difficult for them, some of them don't have friends or relatives here,\" she said.\n\n\"They don't understand how the system in the country works.\"\n\nMs Gerasko thanked the Irish government and people for the warm welcome Ukrainians had received.\n\nShe added that while it was difficult to predict the number of refugees who would seek help in Ireland, she estimated it could be about 80,000 people.\n\nThe Irish government announced the lifting of visa requirements between Ukraine and Ireland last month, but Ms Gerasko said many people did not know that.\n\nIrish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said he expected further sanctions against Russia to be announced in the near future.\n\nHe said sanctions were \"undermining\" Russia and the European Commission was \"currently considering what further steps can be taken\".", "Kyiv has been hit by more Russian strikes, with a number of tower blocks damaged and set ablaze.\n\nTwo people have been killed in an airstrike that hit one residential building, according to Ukraine's state emergency service.", "Secondary breast cancer indicates the cancer has spread from the primary source to other parts of the body\n\nWomen with secondary breast cancer in Northern Ireland have called for access to the same treatment and drugs available in other parts of the UK.\n\nThat is one of the goals included in a manifesto from a group of 16 women calling for improved services.\n\nThe women are all living with incurable secondary breast cancer (SBC), also known as metastatic breast cancer.\n\nPatients with SBC in England and Wales are going to be counted in a special audit funded by the NHS.\n\nThe women said an audit in Northern Ireland was essential to bring about change and improve services.\n\nSecondary breast cancer is when the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body.\n\nA number of pictures from the exhibition Seen to be Heard are being used at Stormont's long gallery where the women presented their manifesto to MLAs.\n\nThe portraits see \"beyond the pain\" of women living with secondary breast cancer\n\nAs well as having access to drugs and treatment, the manifesto also advocates that women:\n\nWhile each woman's cancer story is different, a common thread is a hope that they can improve services for those who come behind them.\n\nThe group said a special audit of how many people here are living with the disease would provide official statistics required to shape services.\n\nCampaigner Julie Ann Lillis said more information could change women's prognosis from a \"death sentence\" to a \"chronic disease\".\n\nAnother campaigner, Cheryl Graham, said women with SBC often felt \"they aren't important anymore\".\n\nDiagnosed 12 years ago with breast cancer, it has now spread to Cheryl's lymph glands, lungs and spine.\n\nHer second diagnosis came on 18 November 2020 - the day her son turned 18.\n\n\"I left feeling numb, almost as though I wasn't important anymore,\" she said.\n\n\"But taking part in the photographic exhibition shows I am still here, I am entitled to a life, and I want people to sit up and take notice.\"\n\nNoelle McAlinden has been cancer-free for five years, but has said she was not naïve. She has described the system as \"broken\".\n\n\"Ladies are united with passion and purpose in affecting change in cancer services provision and enquiry for those living with SBC,\" Noelle said.\n\nThe Department of Health has said data collection was a central focus of its 10-year cancer strategy.\n\nHowever, the women told BBC News NI that they were disappointed their voices were not present in the strategy.\n\nThe women have presented their case to members of Stormont's health committee.\n\nCommittee chairman Colm Gildernew said the women's campaign \"deserves huge credit and support\".\n\n\"I met with the women and they are truly inspirational,\" he said.\n\nHe said the workforce crisis in health and social care, including the need to recruit specialist nurses, needed urgently addressed.\n\nCommittee deputy chairwoman Pam Cameron described the exhibition as \"powerful\".\n\n\"Through each of the portraits shines the inner strength and human dignity of these woman in the face of heart-breaking personal circumstances,\" she said.\n\nA Department of Health spokesperson said the health minister is deeply sympathetic and supportive of all those experiencing a cancer diagnosis.\n\nThe Health Minister, Robin Swann, has asked officials for an update on the latest position regarding availability of the drug Trodelvy, the statement said.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. \"I can communicate with someone just like me.\"\n\nThe mother of a boy born without hearing in one ear has criticised delays to Northern Ireland's sign language bill.\n\nThe parties agreed two years ago to legally recognise British and Irish sign language through new legislation.\n\nBut the bill will not be able to be passed at Stormont without a functioning executive.\n\nGillian Douglas-Rea said politicians were \"doing a disservice to the whole deaf community\".\n\n\"This is about recognising their culture and identity,\" she said.\n\nMs Douglas-Rea's son, Jensen, was also born non-verbal, so she decided to take up sign language but initially found it difficult to access support and ended up paying to take classes online.\n\nGillian Douglas-Rea had to find resources herself in case her son Jensen's hearing deteriorated in the future\n\n\"We had to seek out charities and places and at the beginning of our journey, we didn't know what to do,\" she said.\n\nShe said she was glad she had persevered as it had given her son the \"tools\" he needed in case Jensen's hearing deteriorated in the future.\n\nBut she would like to see a sign language act in place as soon as possible.\n\n\"Our politicians need to get moving,\" she added.\n\nPlans to introduce a sign language bill for Northern Ireland are facing a delay without a functioning Stormont executive, according to Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey.\n\nThe Sinn Féin minister said her officials had been developing the bill for some time, but executive approval would be needed.\n\nWithout it, Northern Ireland could become the only part of the UK without such laws.\n\nDeirdre Hargey says plans to introduce a sign language bill are facing a delay without a functioning executive\n\nA sign language act would require the government to ensure the use of British and Irish sign language across public services.\n\nIt would also ensure a duty to promote sign language in educational settings and allow more people to learn it for free.\n\nScotland has had laws in place since 2015 recognising sign language, and the Republic of Ireland followed suit in 2017.\n\nLater this week, Westminster will debate plans to change the laws in England and Wales, but it will not apply in Northern Ireland.\n\nThe New Decade New Approach deal said the parties were committed to bringing forward a bill for British and Irish sign language \"at an early stage\".\n\nAsked why Ms Hargey had not already introduced the legislation, as it falls within her remit, she said she wanted to ensure it was as \"comprehensive\" as it could be.\n\n\"We're working with the deaf community to ensure it meets all their needs,\" she told BBC News NI.\n\n\"I could have rushed this through but, coming from those conversations, we needed to take the additional time.\n\n\"All new legislation needs to go through the executive, the policy work is continuing to be done.\n\n\"Let's hope after the election, we get the executive up and running again so that the legislation can come through.\"\n\nThe British Deaf Association estimates that about 18,000 people in Northern Ireland use British or Irish sign language.\n\nThe Department for Communities said it had committed £1.2m to the British or Irish sign language community since the onset of the pandemic until the end of this financial year.\n\nIt is also working with members of the British Deaf Association to co-design proposals and develop the sign language bill.", "It is almost six years since Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first detained by the Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nSince then there were repeated attempts to secure her release - all failed. So why has she now come home?\n\nThe basic answer is London-Tehran relations are better than they have been.\n\nThe International Revolutionary Guard and Iran's judiciary no longer feel they need Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe for leverage in relations with the UK.\n\nShe was a diplomatic pawn held hostage by the Iranian authorities to put pressure on London.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to make nice, they would treat her well, give her access to medical help, perhaps increase the frequency of visits, possibly even allow her a temporary furlough from jail.\n\nIf Tehran wanted to exert pressure on London, then her conditions might worsen and privileges might be withdrawn.\n\nThe UK paying the historic £400m debt for tanks sold but not delivered will have made a huge difference.\n\nFor years, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) claimed the two issues were not connected. But in practice, the Iranians made them one and the same issue.\n\nSome in the FCDO had wanted to pay the debt but were prevented initially by reluctance within the Treasury and the United States, fearing it would reward hostage-taking and even fund terrorism.\n\nThere were also fears the US would penalise any British financial institution that paid the money to the Iranian defence ministry in breach of international sanctions.\n\nThere is also the sheer relentlessness of the families' campaigning and the UK's diplomacy.\n\nAt first there were mistakes, such as Boris Johnson's false claim that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists in Iran, a claim that prompted Iran to level fresh charges.\n\nNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (right), pictured with her husband Richard and daughter Gabriella, who is now seven, was first detained by Iranian authorities in April 2016.\n\nBut the tireless campaigning by Nazanin's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and others kept up the pressure on the UK government.\n\nAnd that was reflected by the work of British diplomats behind the scenes, refusing to let Iran forget about the case.\n\nThere was almost a deal to release the detainees last year. It fell through. But since then British diplomats have visited Iran several times to try to reach a fresh agreement.\n\nIranian officials at their Ministry of Foreign Affairs were frequently frustrated that this dispute got in the way of the rest of the UK-Iran relationship.\n\nMr Ratcliffe campaigned for his wife's release, including by going on hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office last October.\n\nBut the Iranian diplomats were not in charge - the IRGC and the judges were.\n\nEventually, enough people with the Iranian government seemed to have realised that a permanently hostile relationship with the UK was not in Tehran's best interests.\n\nThat might apply directly to the talks taking place in Vienna, designed to revive the agreement under which Iran limited its nuclear activities in return for seeing economic sanctions lifted.\n\nIran's economy has been suffering, Iran clearly wants to agree a new deal, better relations with the UK might make that happen.\n\nThe deal has still not been agreed but diplomats say agreement is getting close.\n\nAnd in recent weeks, during the Ukraine conflict, Britain and Iran's interests have also come closer together.\n\nIf sanctions can be lifted and Iran can start selling its oil again, that could help reduce global energy prices.\n\nThat is in the interests of both the UK and Iran. In that context, both sides might want to clear the diplomatic decks and make a deal more likely.", "Lack of trust between both sides is 'biggest problem in rescuing civilians'\n\n\"The best way to stop the threat of another Mariupol is more far-reaching political conversations on peace and ceasefire negotiations,\" the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer told the BBC on a visit to Kyiv. Asked about the ICRC’s description of conditions in the besieged southern port city as \"apocalyptic\", Maurer said it was \"important to recognise this wasn't only the ICRC's voice, but the voice of so many civilians trapped in the city\". He said the lack of trust between the warring sides was \"the biggest problem\" in rescuing civilians stuck between front lines. Maurer, who has been in close contact with senior Ukrainian and Russian officials, said more people were now escaping through agreed humanitarian corridors. But he said Mariupol, a key target for Russian forces advancing on Ukraine’s southern coast, was more difficult \"in military strategy and political significance\". However, even there, he said some civilians were now managing to get out. Maurer also pointed to another major worry which has brought the head of the ICRC, the guardian of the rules governing war, to Ukraine: \"Respect for international humanitarian law and the obligations under the Geneva Conventions with regards to prisoners of war, dead soldiers, missing and detained civilians.\" The ICRC’s special role is founded on confidential dialogue with warring sides. Asked about accusations that Russia was targeting civilian infrastructure, Maurer replied that \"basic principles of proportionality and precaution which inform the conduct of hostilities, and the Geneva Conventions, are interpreted in very different ways which is why we try to establish minimal agreement on what we mean by these words\".", "The Slovenian, Polish and Czech prime ministers, together with Poland's ruling party leader, took the long journey from Warsaw\n\nUkraine has praised the courage of three European leaders who made a long, hazardous journey by rail from Poland to Kyiv in a show of support as the city came under further Russian attack.\n\nThe prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday evening as a curfew began in Kyiv.\n\nAfterwards, the Czech leader told Ukrainians that they were \"not alone\".\n\nThey are the first Western leaders to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded.\n\n\"We admire your brave fight,\" Petr Fiala wrote in a tweet. \"We know that you're also fighting for our lives. You're not alone, our countries stand by your side.\"\n\n\"Your visit is a powerful expression of support for Ukraine,\" Mr Zelensky is quoted as telling the group.\n\nThe European leaders held a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv\n\nOn Wednesday, Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki tweeted that Ukraine was reminding Europe what courage was. It was time for \"sluggish and decayed\" Europe to reawaken and \"break through her wall of indifference and give Ukraine hope\", he said.\n\nThe leaders had arrived back in Poland on Wednesday morning, a Polish government spokesperson said.\n\nAlso on the trip was Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of Poland's ruling party, and he called for the creation of a Nato or international peacekeeping mission that \"will also be able to defend itself and operate in Ukraine\".\n\nHowever, one of his advisers later clarified that Mr Kaczynski had not been calling for Nato to get involved militarily.\n\n\"Here the position is unchanged. Neither Poland nor Nato are taking, or will take part, in the war,\" Michal Dworczyk told Polish Radio.\n\nUkraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on Twitter that \"devastating\" sanctions against Russia had been discussed during the meeting in Kyiv, including the \"recognition of Russia as a sponsor of terrorism\".\n\nAs the talks took place on Tuesday evening, loud explosions could be heard from fighting on the western edge of the capital city.\n\nThe European Union said the politicians were not carrying any particular mandate, but that leaders in Brussels were aware of the trip, as it was mentioned during an informal EU summit in Versailles, France, last week.\n\nPoland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz admitted the trip was risky, but said it was \"worth taking for the sake of values\". He said they had told the Russians the visit was taking place.\n\nAll three leaders on the trip to Kyiv have been vocal supporters of Ukraine in recent weeks. Slovenia's prime minister said last week that the EU should send a strong message that Ukraine will eventually be granted membership.\n\nCzech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the visit was a strong and important gesture to show solidarity with Ukraine.\n\n\"Ukraine's security is European security; therefore we need to do everything possible to help them survive this sickening barbaric Russian attack,\" he told the BBC.\n\nThe leaders decided to travel by train because flying by Polish military jet could have been viewed by Russia as dangerously provocative, BBC Europe editor Katya Adler reports.\n\nUkraine's president has repeatedly called on Nato to impose a no-fly zone over his country's airspace, but Nato has refused.\n\nMr Zelensky said Ukrainians now understood they could not join Nato: \"We have heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. It's a truth and it must be recognised. I am glad that our people are beginning to understand this and rely on themselves and our partners who help us.\"\n\nAt least five people were killed in Russia's bombardment of Kyiv on Tuesday, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko ordered a curfew to run from 20:00 (18:00 GMT) on Tuesday to 07:00 on Thursday.\n\nThe city was facing a difficult and dangerous moment, he said: \"This is why I ask all Kyivites to get prepared to stay at home for two days, or if the sirens go off, in the shelters.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. More residential buildings are set ablaze after explosions in Kyiv\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experiences if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "When patients arrive at hospital by ambulance they should be handed over within 15 minutes. This data shows the proportion of ambulance patients who waited 30 minutes or more, in the week shown. It comes from daily situation reports which are published weekly during the winter in England. As this is fast-turnaround data, the NHS says only minimal validation can be carried out but it is considered fit for purpose.\n\nScotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not publish ambulance queue data.\n\nPatients at A&E should be seen within four hours of arrival. This data shows the proportion of patients attending A&E who waited longer than four hours to be treated, discharged or admitted.\n\nThis data is published monthly for England and Wales and weekly for Scotland. Northern Ireland publishes its data quarterly and Winter 2021 is not yet available.\n\nIf a patient at A&E needs to be admitted, the wait from decision to admit to being given a bed on a ward is recorded in England. The bed waits figure is the proportion of patients admitted via A&E who waited longer than four hours for a ward bed.\n\nIn Wales, bed wait data is not published, so the figure shown is the occupancy level in general and acute beds. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not publish bed wait or bed occupancy data.\n\nData for England is show by NHS trust, where the trust includes at least one hospital with a Type 1 A&E department. Type 1 means a consultant-led 24 hour A&E service with full resuscitation facilities.\n\nWhen you enter a postcode for a location in England you will be shown a list of NHS trusts in your area. They will not necessarily be in order of your closest hospital as some trusts have more than one hospital. Data for Wales and Scotland are shown by NHS board.\n\nComparative data from two years ago is shown where available. However, where trusts have merged there is no like-for-like comparison to show. Bed occupancy data in Wales only goes back to April 2020.", "The first 36 of a new T-shaped design of electricity pylon have been wired up, National Grid has announced.\n\nThe pylons, the first major UK redesign since 1927, will be rolled out where possible across England and Wales.\n\nInstead of an Eiffel-Tower-style lattice A-frame with a series of arms holding the electricity cables, they are strung below a cross-arm atop a single pole.\n\nThe aim is to reduce the visual impact on the environment.\n\nThe new design, submitted by Danish company Bystrup, was selected from more than 250 entries in a 2011 competition run by the Royal Institute of British Architects and the government.\n\nAt 35m (115ft), they are about a third shorter than traditional high-voltage pylons, with a smaller ground footprint.\n\nThe first ones form part of a 57km (35-mile) route that will carry low-carbon electricity between Bridgwater and Portbury, in Somerset.\n\nThe pylons will connect the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to homes\n\nThey will connect the Hinkley Point C Nuclear power station to six million homes and businesses, National Grid says.\n\nThe electricity supply will be turned on in October.\n\nAs part of the project, 249 old-style pylons will be removed.\n\nTheir design, submitted by US engineering company Miliken Brothers, was chosen by leading British architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, the designer of London's Lambeth Bridge, in a 1927 competition.\n\nFormally known as \"transmission towers\", they became known as \"pylons\" from the Greek word \"pyle\" meaning \"gateway\".\n\nEgyptology was all the rage after the 1922 discovery of boy king Tutankhamun's tomb and mummy.\n\nAnd the public thought the new steel towers resembled the impressive obelisks on either side of the doors of ancient Egyptian temples.\n\nThere are about 22,000 pylons in England and Wales, covering more than 4,300 miles.\n\nThey need to be high to straddle obstacles such as roads, rivers and railway lines and ensure nothing comes too close to them.\n\nThe electricity cables on pylons are uninsulated, so there is a very high risk of electric shocks.\n\nBut birds are not electrocuted, because they are not touching the ground, so the electricity stays in the power line.", "Two serving Met police constables and an ex-officer have denied sharing grossly offensive messages with Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens.\n\nPC Jonathon Cobban, 35, PC William Neville, 33, and former officer Joel Borders, 45, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court accused of the offences between April and August 2019.\n\nCouzens, 49, murdered Ms Everard last year while serving as a Met officer.\n\nAll three defendants were released on bail and a trial was set for 28 July.\n\nPC Cobban, of Didcot, Oxfordshire, is charged with five counts of sending a grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message on a public electronic communications network, while PC Neville, of Weybridge, Surrey, is charged with two counts of the same offence.\n\nFormer Met officer Mr Borders, of Preston, Lancashire, also faces five counts of the same charge.\n\nThe alleged offences took place two years before Couzens kidnapped Sarah Everard in a fake arrest in March 2021, before raping and murdering the 33-year-old marketing executive.\n\nThe Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) previously said the charges arose from an investigation into the phone records of Couzens.\n\nIn court, the three spoke only to confirm their names, addresses and dates of birth and to enter not guilty pleas to each of the charges, during a hearing lasting about 20 minutes.\n\nThe Met said the serving officers had been suspended from duty.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. WATCH: Marina Ovsyannikova speaks to reporters about the reasons for her live TV protest\n\nWhen Marina Ovsyannikova burst into Russian living rooms on Monday's nightly news, denouncing the war in Ukraine and propaganda around it, her protest highlighted a quiet but steady stream of resignations from Russia's tightly controlled state-run TV.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked her, appealing to anyone working for what he calls Russia's propaganda system to resign. Any journalist working in what he calls the fourth branch of power risks sanctions and an international tribunal for \"justifying war crimes\", he warns.\n\nSome of Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest cheerleaders on state-run TV have already faced sanctions, including Vladimir Solovyov who presents a talk show on Russia's biggest channel Rossiya-1, and Margarita Simonyan who has accused anyone ashamed of being Russian at this point of not really being Russian.\n\nRussia's state-run channels are required to toe the Kremlin line, so who has quit in response to the war?\n\nHours after Marina Ovsyannikova's on-screen protest, three resignations came to light.\n\nChannel One colleague Zhanna Agalakova quit her job as Europe correspondent while two journalists have left rival NTV. Lilia Gildeyeva had worked for the channel as a presenter since 2006 and Vadim Glusker had been at NTV for almost 30 years.\n\nLilia Gildeyeva revealed on Tuesday she had left Russia and resigned\n\nRumours abound that journalists have also headed for the door at All-Russia state TV group VGTRK.\n\nJournalist Roman Super said people were quitting its Vesti news stable en masse, although that has not been confirmed. However, renowned TV host Sergey Brilev quashed reports that he had resigned, pointing out he has been on a business trip for more than a week.\n\nMaria Baronova is the highest-profile resignation at RT, formerly known as Russia Today. Former chief editor at RT, she told the BBC's Steve Rosenberg this month Mr Putin had already destroyed Russia's reputation and that the economy was dead too.\n\nThere was a big love of my life, Russia, and now it's dead as well\n\nA number of other RT journalists have also resigned, including non-Russian journalists working for its language services.\n\nFormer London correspondent Shadia Edwards-Dashti announced her resignation on the day Russia invaded Ukraine without giving a reason. Moscow-based journalist Jonny Tickle quit on the same day \"in light of recent events\".\n\nFrench RT presenter Frédéric Taddeï said he was leaving his show because France was \"in open conflict\" with Russia and he could not continue to host his programme Forbidden to Forbid \"out of loyalty to my country\".\n\nDays later, the EU said it was banning all of RT's various outlets as well as those of fellow Kremlin outlet Sputnik for their \"campaign of disinformation, information manipulation and distortion of facts\". Russia's German-based state news agency Ruptly has also endured a spate of resignations, according to Reuters news agency.\n\nRussia's non-Kremlin media have come under repeated attack for years, so many journalists who have worked under constant threat of losing their livelihoods at independent outlets will be unimpressed by the current crop of resignations. Some have been hit with the Soviet-era label of foreign agent.\n\nDozhd (TV Rain), which was forced off mainstream TV in 2014, has had to halt its online broadcasts because of the Ukraine invasion and a number of its journalists have fled Russia for their safety.\n\nRadio Ekho Moskvy has also been taken off the air amid Russia's new legislation on so-called false information. BBC Russian is among a number of Western outlets that have been banned, while journalists working for Latvia-based Meduza were forced out of Russia.\n\nIt is not just journalists who have disappeared from state TV.\n\nOne of Russia's biggest talk show hosts, Ivan Urgant, has taken a break from his prime-time Evening Urgant show on Russia's second biggest channel, Channel One, the same station as Marina Ovsyannikova.\n\nHe reacted to the war by posting a black square on his Instagram account with the simple message: \"Fear and pain. No War.\" He has since told his followers not to panic, and that he's taken a holiday and will be back soon.\n\nRussia's number one celebrity couple Alla Pugacheva and Maxim Galkin are among a number of other showbiz figures who have also gone on holiday. Galkin said on Instagram: \"There can be no justification for war! No War!\"", "Ukrainian sources say the fourth Russian general to die in Ukraine is Oleg Mityaev\n\nUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says another Russian general has been killed during fighting.\n\nHe didn't name the officer, but an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev had been killed by the far-right Azov regiment.\n\nGen Mityaev was killed near Mariupol, Ukrainian media said.\n\nHe is the fourth general reportedly killed, leading some to ask why such senior members of the Russian military are so close to the front line.\n\nAnalysts believe that around 20 generals are leading Russian operations in Ukraine, meaning that if all the reported deaths are confirmed, one fifth of Russia's generals have been killed in action.\n\nWith such high losses, some experts believe that the generals have not simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that Ukraine is likely to be targeting top-level Russian officers.\n\n\"I don't think this is an accident. One is an accident, but this many is targeted\", Rita Konaev of Georgetown University told the BBC.\n\nSpeaking to the Wall Street Journal, a person within President Zelensky's inner circle said Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia's officer class.\n\n\"They look for high profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders,\" the person told the newspaper.\n\nWith Ukraine's military outnumbered, its targeting of high-level individuals could be an important part of the information war, according to Ms Konaev.\n\n\"Assuming there is an element of targeting, this feeds Ukraine's own morale. There is the element of being victorious. It is inspiring.\"\n\nFor Ukraine to target specific Russian officers, it needs to know where they are. Analysts say that Russia has been using open channels of communications which could give clues about where certain targets are located.\n\n\"If the Russians are using mobile phones or analogue radios to communicate with senior officers, the Ukrainians have everything on their plate,\" defence analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting told the BBC.\n\nAfter the death of another senior officer - Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov - Ukraine released a recording purporting to be two Russian security officers discussing the general's death, and complaining that their secure communications network was not working.\n\nIt is unusual for such high-ranking officers to put themselves in danger by getting so close to the battlefield, and western sources believe that they have done so in order to get some control over operations which have, in some areas, badly stalled.\n\nRussia's military is also traditionally top-heavy, with officers often conducting day-to-day activities, says Mr Muzyka. Although this is starting to change, it could explain why generals felt the need to direct operations from the front.\n\n\"In recent years there's been a big shift to force battalion commanders to think independently in a way that would give them freedom to make decisions\", Mr Muzyka said. \"But this was introduced only three years ago, so maybe it didn't properly have an effect yet on their performance\".\n\nThe details of the generals' deaths are unclear, and getting solid facts from the ground is difficult. There has been an assumption that they were all caught up in fighting on the front line, but that is not necessarily the case, says Ms Konaev.\n\n\"It doesn't necessarily mean the generals were at the front line. They could have been in transit or inspecting resupply lines for example,\" she told the BBC.\n\nMaj Gen Oleg Mityaev reportedly died somewhere near the city of Mariupol, a city in south-east Ukraine which has seen some of the heaviest fighting so far.\n\nThe far-right Azov regiment claims to have killed him.\n\nHe was a commander of the Russian army's 150th motorised rifle division, a relatively new unit formed in 2016, and based in the Rostov region close to the Ukrainian border.\n\nUkraine claims that the unit was created in order to take part in the conflict in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies that its military was involved in fighting there.\n\nMaj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, of the 29th combined army, was killed in fighting on March 11, according to official Ukrainian sources.\n\nThe circumstances of his death were not given.\n\nAfter Kolesnikov became the third Russian general reportedly killed in Ukraine, one western official told the Press Association that the Russian army may be suffering from low morale, which is why high-ranking military officers are moving closer to the front line.\n\nMaj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.\n\nKharkiv, close to the Russian border, has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.\n\nUkraine's military released a recording of what it said was two Russian security service officials discussing Gerasimov's death, and complaining that their secure communication networks no longer worked in Ukraine.\n\nGerasimov was involved in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.\n\nMaj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander at the same unit as Gerasimov, was reportedly killed by a sniper on 3 March.\n\nLike Gerasimov, Sukhovetsky was part of Russia's military operations in Crimea and in Syria.\n\nUnlike the other generals, Sukhovetsky's death was reported in the Russian media and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a speech that a general had died in Ukraine.", "The BBC News app is available for Android and iOS devices\n\nWith the latest news and analysis from our journalists around the world and the unique human stories behind current events, we've got the best of our journalism in one place on the BBC News app.\n\nClick here to download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.\n\nClick here to download the BBC News app from Google Play for Android devices.\n\nWe would like to know what you think of the new app - click here to give us your feedback.\n\nDepending on the contract you have, data charges may apply for accessing the internet on your mobile device.\n\nIf you are not sure about the potential charges, please ask your mobile network provider. You may find some costs are included in your existing price plan or that you can opt for a data package that gives reduced charges for accessing the internet.\n\nThe BBC does not charge you to access mobile content.", "Scotland's rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will remain in place until April due to a rise in cases of Covid-19.\n\nAll other restrictions on businesses and services are to move from legal requirement to guidance from 21 March.\n\nBut First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it would be \"prudent\" to keep mask rules in place due to a spike in cases.\n\nThese will be reviewed again in two weeks, and are likely to be converted to guidance by 4 April.\n\nMs Sturgeon said a sharp rise in infections was putting \"significant pressure on hospital capacity\", but that vaccines were still giving people good protection.\n\nShe also told MSPs that mass testing will be wound down in April, with routine testing and contact tracing to end by May.\n\nThe average number of new cases reported each day in Scotland is more than 12,000, up from an average of 6,900 per day three weeks ago.\n\nThere has also been a rise in the number of people in hospital with Covid-19, from 1,060 three weeks ago to 1,996 today.\n\nMs Sturgeon said the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron was now the dominant strain of the virus in Scotland, accounting for more than 80% of cases - adding that while it spreads much more quickly, there is no evidence it causes more severe illness than previous variants.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The laws on wearing face coverings will not be lifted\n\nUnder the government's strategic framework for managing the virus, remaining legal restrictions - including mask-wearing and the need for businesses to record customer contact details and follow other guidance - were to be lifted on 21 March.\n\nThe rules for businesses will be dropped as planned, but Ms Sturgeon said she needed to \"ask everyone to be patient for a little while longer on face coverings\".\n\nShe said: \"I know this will be disappointing for businesses and service providers such as day care services.\n\n\"However, ensuring continued widespread use of face coverings will provide some additional protection - particularly for the most vulnerable - at a time when the risk of infection is very high, and it may help us get over this spike more quickly.\"\n\nThe first minister stressed that the lifting of other measures marked \"steady progress back to normal life and a more sustainable way of managing this virus\".\n\nTesting in England is being wound down by the end of March, but Ms Sturgeon said there would be no change in Scotland until Easter.\n\nAsymptomatic people will still be advised to test regularly until 18 April - with tests free of charge - and people with symptoms should continue to get a PCR test until the end of that month.\n\nHowever, the population-wide testing and contact tracing system will come close at the end of April, with people with symptoms advised to stay at home.\n\nFrom May onwards, testing will be used on a targeted basis to monitor levels of the virus in society and to look out for new variants.\n\nThe Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland said changes were slower than many would like, adding that \"the impression that Scotland has a first-in, last-out approach to Covid restrictions frustrates many\".\n\nThe Scottish Chambers of Commerce said the announcement about face coverings was a \"bitter disappointment\".\n\nChief executive Dr Liz Cameron said: \"Businesses cannot continue to operate with the start-stop lever being pulled just weeks apart.\"\n\nAnd the Scottish Licensed Trade Association said the move will confuse visitors from England, where face coverings are no longer required by law.\n\nIt has become almost second nature - grab your mask alongside your keys as you dash out the front door. And in Scotland, unlike any other part of the UK, you will be doing it for a while longer.\n\nMany in public health think this is not a big ask, a sensible move at a time when community transmission is so high.\n\nIt is a very visible reminder that Covid has not gone away, and they point to a growing body of research that suggests community mask wearing can offer some protection against infection spread.\n\nHowever, others argue the evidence is not compelling and the reality is people don't wear masks in the places where they would make the most difference, at home with family and friends.\n\nAfter all, Scotland is experiencing a surge in cases despite such measures being in place.\n\nThe Scottish Conservatives said the retention of the mask rules was \"a blow for households and businesses\".\n\nLeader Douglas Ross urged Ms Sturgeon to trust people to manage their own risks, adding: \"We can't get complacent with Covid, but we need to move forward - we can't stay stuck with Covid rules forever.\"\n\nLabour's deputy leader Jackie Baillie said hospitals were \"overwhelmed\" with staff absences rising, and called for more information about testing for health workers.\n\nMs Sturgeon said health and care staff would continue to test twice weekly after the wider programme ends, and that the system would focus on high-risk settings like hospitals and care homes.\n\nMeanwhile Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said it was disheartening that \"despite the extra sacrifices that have been made in Scotland, our infection rates are still so stubbornly high\".\n\nHealth Secretary Humza Yousaf later told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime he expects Covid hospital occupancy levels to reach record levels in the next few days.\n\nHe also defended the extension of the face covering rules and described the evidence for their effectiveness as \"indisputable\".\n\nAsked if he was concerned about another wave of infections given the current case numbers, Mr Yousaf said he has been reassured by the success of the vaccination programme.\n\nHe told the programme: \"If you have not had your first, second or indeed your booster dose then please get it because that is clearly and significantly been the difference in terms of severity of illness.\n\n\"If we had these case numbers that we are seeing today, and we have seen over the last number of weeks, without a vaccine we would be frankly in lockdown.", "Last updated on .From the section West Ham\n\nThe RSPCA says it has started prosecution proceedings against Kurt Zouma and brother Yoan for their roles in filming Kurt kicking a cat.\n\nDagenham & Redbridge's Yoan, 23, filmed 27-year-old Kurt kicking and slapping one of his pets.\n\nAfter the video appeared, the RSPCA removed two cats from Kurt's home and began liaising with Essex Police about the incident.\n\nKurt continued to play for West Ham despite the controversy.\n\nAn RSPCA spokesperson said: \"Following a full and thorough investigation, we have started the process of bringing a prosecution against Kurt Zouma and Yoan Zouma under the Animal Welfare Act.\n\n\"The two cats continue to be cared for by the RSPCA. We will be in a position to release more information once a court date is confirmed.\"\n\nWest Ham said they were \"aware of the RSPCA statement in relation to its investigation\".\n\nThe club added: \"Kurt continues to co-operate fully, supported by the club. It is our understanding that Kurt's cats have been checked by a vet, are in good health and have suffered no physical injuries.\n\n\"For legal reasons, neither Kurt or the club will be making any further comment at this time.\"\n\nFollowing the incident, West Ham said they had fined the elder brother \"the maximum amount possible\" and the fee would be donated to animal welfare charities.\n\nHowever, Hammers sponsor Experience Kissimmee said it would end its deal with the club and another sponsor, Vitality, suspended its deal with the club.\n\nGerman sportswear firm Adidas also announced it had ended its deal with Kurt.\n\nNational League club Dagenham & Redbridge suspended Yoan and he has only recently returned to the squad.\n\nA club statement said \"any further suspension from the team would be detrimental to both the club and Yoan\".\n• None The tale of a trillion-dollar conman who sold a dream to the oldest club in the Football League\n• None Cillian Murphy shares tracks that have been integral to the feel of the programme", "Anna Tymchenko was scared. She had been in labour for hours but her hometown was being bombed and her apartment was shaking. She and her husband were trapped with no electricity, running water or doctor.\n\nThe small town of Bucha, 30km (18.5 miles) from the capital Kyiv, had come under relentless bombardment since the start of the war.\n\nTwenty-one-year-old Anna, along with her husband and brother, had previously taken refuge in the basement of their block of flats. But when the electricity was cut off and the heating stopped working, the basement was plunged into darkness, and it was bitterly cold.\n\nAnna's husband Volodymyr was torn between remaining in Bucha or trying to flee. When they did finally try to escape by car, they had had to turn back when they heard that a column of Russian military vehicles was heading their way.\n\n\"We then decided to stay in the apartment,\" Anna told the BBC. \"I preferred to give birth at home and not in a dusty basement. I had difficulty breathing, my lungs hurt.\"\n\nWhen she went into labour late on 7 March, she called her neighbours for help. They agreed to come, but none of them had experience delivering babies.\n\nViktoria Zabrodskaya, Anna's 49-year-old neighbour, told the BBC they worried that if something went wrong, they wouldn't know what to do.\n\nThe room was lit with candles and the only available water was freezing cold from bottles.\n\n\"I never imagined that I would give birth in such conditions,\" Anna says. \"It was surreal. It was my first child and I didn't know anything.\"\n\nIn desperation, Anna's neighbours tried to contact medical staff, but the phone signal was poor. They were eventually able to make contact with a gynaecologist in Bucha after getting a signal from the balcony. He agreed to come but never appeared.\n\nLater that day, he messaged with an apology and explained that he had been stopped by a Russian patrol who had broken his phone.\n\nAnna's neighbours would have to deliver the baby themselves. Only one of them - Irina Yazova - had any medical expertise.\n\n\"When the baby's head came out, we got scared,\" Viktoria says. \"She was blue and we didn't know what to do. Then Irina gently turned the baby's head and she came out. She didn't cry at first - we started hitting her, and then she cried and we all cheered.\"\n\nHusband Volodymyr cried tears of relief for baby Alisa, who was born on 8 March - International Women's Day.\n\nTwo days later, it was announced that Bucha was one of the evacuation corridors agreed by the Ukrainian government and the Russian defence ministry.\n\n\"We spent the whole night discussing whether to go or not,\" Anna says.\n\nShe and her husband finally decided to leave with their new-born child. They tried to contact people to ask if the route was safe, and downloaded maps on to their phones.\n\nDriving out of Bucha, Anna and Volodymyr saw the destruction caused by Russian strikes\n\nThe following day, 21 cars left the town heading towards Kyiv. Viktoria, who had helped deliver Anna's baby, drove at the front of the convoy, a white flag wrapped around a mop attached to her car and a sign saying \"Children\".\n\n\"On the way we saw horrible scenes,\" Anna says. \"I never thought that I would see such things in real life - only in movies. There were dead bodies lying on the road. The houses were destroyed. Russian tanks parked, pointing their barrels at the road. We were so scared that they could fire when we passed by.\"\n\nAfter several hours the evacuees had safely passed all the Russian checkpoints and arrived in Kyiv - and from there went their separate ways.\n\n\"When we got out, I couldn't stop smiling,\" Anna says. \"I couldn't believe that we managed to flee.\"\n\nAnna is enjoying motherhood and is looking forward to introducing her parents to their new granddaughter. But while many of her relatives have now left the country, she and her husband cannot leave - and Anna says that she still doesn't feel completely safe.\n\n\"All my thoughts are with what's happening [in Bucha] and in the rest of the country,\" she says. \"It's just unbelievable but we hope that we can return home soon.\"", "Every few seconds a sick child is brought in to the emergency room of the main hospital in Lashkar Gah in a race against time to save the youngest casualties of Afghanistan's hunger crisis.\n\nAmidst the heart-rending sound of dozens of hungry babies crying, and desperate pleas for help from their mothers, nurses scramble to prioritise children who need urgent care. There are many such babies.\n\nLashkar Gah is a city in the capital of Helmand, one of Afghanistan's most war-ravaged provinces and lies roughly 400 miles (644km) south-west of Kabul.\n\nJalil Ahmed is brought in hardly breathing. His hands and feet have gone cold. He's rushed through to the resuscitation room. His mother Markah says he's two and a half years old, but he looks a lot tinier. He's severely malnourished and has tuberculosis. Doctors work fast to revive him.\n\n\"I'm helpless as he suffers. I've spent the whole night scared that at any minute he'll stop breathing,' she says.\n\nSpace has to be made in an already full intensive care unit for little Jalil. A doctor carries him there in his arms, as a nurse follows holding up the bottles of fluid and medicines that are being injected into his body through multiple tubes.\n\nThere's no time for the staff to stop. They must quickly put another baby, five-month-old Aqalah, back on oxygen. It's her third time in hospital. Doctors say that a few hours earlier, they thought she wouldn't make it, but right now, she's just about holding on.\n\nOne in every five children admitted to critical care is dying, and the situation at the hospital has been made worse in recent weeks by the spread of the highly contagious measles disease that damages the body's immune system, a deadly blow for babies already suffering from malnutrition.\n\nThe hospital, run by charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, is one of a handful of fully-functioning facilities in a province that's home to around 1.5 million people. It's completely overwhelmed. It has 300 beds, but is seeing around 800 patients a day, most of them children.\n\nThere's almost nowhere else for people to turn to. Cutting off the foreign money which ran Afghanistan has dealt a double blow. It's triggered an economic crisis that has brought an already poor population to the brink of starvation, and it's led to the near collapse of the public healthcare system that it almost entirely funded before the Taliban takeover.\n\nChild malnutrition has long been a problem in Afghanistan, but data collected by Unicef (United Nations Children's Fund) shows a massive surge in the number of children with severe acute malnutrition admitted to hospitals, from 2,407 in August 2021, to 4,214 in December 2021.\n\nThe increase can, in part, be attributed to it being safer to travel to hospitals now that the frontlines have gone, but also misses a large number of malnourished children not taken to hospital because their families cannot afford the journey. Even if they could, they'd need to travel for hours on rubble roads, and it would be hard to find a medical facility that's not dysfunctional.\n\nThe Musa Qala and Gereshk district hospitals are overrun with malnourished children, but neither hospital has operational critical care. There are no female doctors. The hospital buildings are run-down, cold and dark. Electricity comes and goes. Night time temperatures drop to 4C.\n\nIn Gereshk a small heater hooked to a gas cylinder kept in the centre of the rooms provides barely any warmth. Mothers and babies sit huddled under blankets. The smell of disease hangs thick in the air.\n\nAt Musa Qala, when the breathing of another baby, one-and-a-half-year-old Walid, became irregular, he had to be carried through alleys and doorways to a decaying building next door which had the only oxygen cylinder we saw at the hospital.\n\nThe father of 10-day-old Zakiullah was sent out to find a saline drip solution in the market, because the hospital had no supplies.\n\nDr Aziz Ahmed who has worked at Gereshk hospital for more than a decade says they have few medicines and barely any staff, and yet have hundreds of patients coming in every day. They have to turn seriously ill children away because they don't have the facilities to help them, and Dr Ahmed says some have died before they got to a fully functioning hospital.\n\nHe and the other staff didn't receive salaries from August till October. From November, they and some other hospitals in the region have been receiving some payments through humanitarian organisations like Unicef, WHO (World Health Organization) and local charity Baran (Bu Ali Rehabilitation and Aid Network).\n\n\"The humanitarian family is just trying to provide a survival bridge for these children while the world figures out the politics, but we cannot fully fund the health system,\" says Salam Janabi of Unicef.\n\n\"Don't mix up children in politics. The moment here in Afghanistan is critical for children, and every decision the world makes, the politicians make, will impact them.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nWhen you travel through Helmand province, destruction caused by war can be seen in almost every area. The scale of it in Sangin town is particularly shocking.\n\nThere are swathes of land covered with debris and mud, where once homes and shops had stood. These areas are where foreign and Afghan troops encountered some of their fiercest battles and where British soldiers were posted.\n\nAbdul Raziq is from a community that has lived on the frontline for decades.\n\n\"We are happy there is peace now, but we have no food, no work and no money. Wheat and fuel have become too expensive', he says.\n\n\"Hundreds of children in my village are malnourished. In every house, you will find two or three. We have nothing to feed their mothers, that's why they're being born like this.\"\n\nIn a mud home nearby lives Hameed Gul. Two of his daughters, Farzana and Nazdana, are malnourished. Nazdana is so ill he's sent her to her grandparents because he's unable to feed her. His 10-year-old son Naseebullah has already begun to work on the fields to help out.\n\nThe unending suffering of his family is the legacy of foreign actions, present and past. Hameed's home was bombed in American airstrikes five years ago. Ten of his family, including his parents, six brothers and a sister were killed.\n\n\"We had no connection with the Taliban. My house was unjustly bombed. Neither the Americans, the previous government or the new one offered to help me,\" Hameed says.\n\n\"We eat just dry bread. About two to three nights a week, we go to bed hungry.\"\n\nEverywhere we went, we asked what people had eaten that day. Most described sharing a few pieces of dry bread between whole families.\n\nChildren are the most vulnerable in this crisis of hunger. Afghanistan's youngest generation is being left to die.\n\nIn many of the areas we visited, malnutrition deaths might not even get recorded or counted. The world might never know the scale of the tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Braemar Lodge Hotel is a former shooting lodge built in 1870\n\nThe occupants of a hotel have escaped without injury after a major fire and explosion in Aberdeenshire.\n\nSix fire engines were dispatched to the Braemar Lodge Hotel when emergency services were alerted just after 07:30.\n\nPolice Scotland confirmed that seven guests, two staff and the owner were evacuated from the building to safety.\n\nA large explosion was captured on video, and flames could be seen in the hotel's upper floor and roof.\n\nThe Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said they received an initial report of a shed being on fire at the property.\n\nIt is thought a liquefied petroleum gas cylinder may have exploded in an external building before the fire spread to the main building.\n\nThe fire spread through the upper floor and roof of the building\n\nDating from 1870, the hotel building is a former Victorian shooting lodge.\n\nThe A93 Glenshee Road was closed near the hotel and local diversions were put in place.\n\nHe told BBC Scotland: \"We heard an explosion - it was very loud - and we wondered what it was, got dressed, and there's the smoke and the flames.\"\n\nScottish Fire and Rescue had been called out to an initial report of a shed being on fire\n\nThe Victorian building from 1870 was devastated by the blaze\n\nAberdeenshire Council said lessons at nearby Braemar Primary School would be taking place online. The council hopes to reopen the school on Thursday.\n\nThe SFRS said in a statement: \"We were alerted at 07:37 to reports of a shed on fire at Glenshee Road, Braemar.\n\n\"Operations control mobilised six fire appliances, one height vehicle and one water carrier to the scene where the fire is affecting a nearby commercial building.\n\n\"Firefighters are still at the scene and there are no reported casualties at this time.\"", "The star donned a Newcastle United t-shirt that was thrown onstage by a fan\n\n\"This is that expensive rap,\" says Stormzy, half-way through the track Rachael's Little Brother. \"It's coming like a dying art.\"\n\nThe lyric isn't a monetary reference, he's explained, but a metaphor for the sort of \"classy, skilled, catching-all-the-pockets\" lyricism he aspires to.\n\nAnd yet… he's not afraid to loosen the purse strings when circumstances demand.\n\nTake, for example, the star's first UK arena tour, which hit Newcastle on Tuesday night.\n\nPut together by the teams behind Beyoncé's historic Coachella set and Stormzy's 2019 Glastonbury performance, it's a lavish, no-corners-cut, stage and light show that asserts the Stormzy's status as the country's biggest rapper.\n\nThis is the sort of show that makes room for pyrotechnics in almost every song; alongside a 12-piece band, a two-pronged catwalk, five budget-busting video screens and - symbolism ahoy - a serpentine lighting rig that twists into the shape of a crown.\n\nBut for all that spectacle, the main focus is the man born Michael Owuo Jr - from the moment he emerges on a swaying platform, high above the arena floor; to the closing bars of Vossi Bop, where his vocals are drowned out by 11,000 phone-wielding fans.\n\nHe opens the show with a trio of his fiercest songs - Big Michael, Audacity and Know Me From - high-stepping through fireworks as he whips the crowd into a frenzy.\n\nFor the first half an hour, he's the only person on the stage, his charismatic swagger the show's sole source of energy (if it could be bottled, it could presumably solve the fuel crisis).\n\nAcknowledging that all eyes are on him, the ultra HD video screens emphasise his lyrics - especially on the punchy First Things First, which tackles everything from depression to institutional racism, via the demonisation of UK rap and his love of Adele.\n\nAfter six songs, Stormzy switches up the pace with a stirring gospel-soul section that introduces a full live band, featuring no less than six backing singers.\n\nThey lead us through the star's more contemplative songs (Crown, Superheroes, Do Better) while adding a late-night urgency to the sensually-charged Cigarettes & Cush. As the tempo slows, the star lets out his playful side, flirting with the crowd and busting out some surprisingly supple dance moves.\n\n\"We're going to create some memories tonight,\" he declares. \"I want everyone to leave here with a little bit of joy in their heart.\"\n\nTo be brutally honest, the slow-groove soul revue outstays its welcome by at least two songs - and it's a relief when Stormzy ratchets the energy back up with the ferociously articulated Wiley Flow (the line \"I can't drop the bag, I am the bag,\" remains a highlight of his discography).\n\nThe pace doesn't falter after that, as the star races through his biggest hits - Clash, Big For Your Boots, Blinded By Your Grace, Shut Up and Vossi Bop.\n\nSome of these are performed inside a giant, oscillating scale of justice (which, like the metaphor, went completely over my head). Others are delivered, to maximum audience approval, while wearing a Newcastle United t-shirt that's been thrown onstage.\n\nThroughout the show, Stormzy is in jubilant form, turning the Utilita Arena into a giant shoobz, or all-out grime party. For many in the audience, it was their first concert since the Covid lockdowns - a fact that wasn't lost on the star.\n\n\"A lot of you bought a ticket two years ago, so to see you here today is a real thing,\" he said.\n\n\"The past two years for me… I've done a lot of growing as a man and I've been making music, and I've been chilling, and I've been spending time with my family, and I've been so away from everything.\n\n\"So even driving to the arena and seeing everybody waiting outside, I was like, 'We're still here man, we're still alive.' I love you guys.\"\n\nAnd for all the expense and all of the spectacle, that's what endears Stormzy to his fans: The humanity of his music and his actions.\n\nThat's why the best moment of this, the first full show of his 2022 tour, came after the music finished and the house lights went up.\n\nInstead of being whisked away to a velvet-roped VIP area, Stormzy climbed off the stage and spent time with the people who'd waited two years to see him.\n\nThe crowd frequently threatened to swallow him whole - but he was undeterred, shaking hands and posing for selfies for as long as time would allow.\n\nIt was a personal gesture of gratitude; a sign that, for all of his stature, Stormzy knows where his power comes from.\n\nAnd he repaid that debt by announcing his forthcoming third album to them first - not on social media, or in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone, but in a video played exclusively to the fans in the arena.\n\nThis is that expensive rap, and it's coming like a dying art.\n\nThe Heavy Is The Head Tour continues through March and April with dates in Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, London and more.\n\nFollow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.", "Robert Mokaya is the UK's only black chemistry professor. His applications for research grants to the country's main funding body have all been turned down.\n\nOf the 575 chemistry professors in the UK, just one is black.\n\nIn the 15 years Robert Mokaya has been a professor at Nottingham university, he has had all his applications for funding for research projects turned down by Britain's main chemistry funding body, now called the UK Research and Innovation agency.\n\n\"That is not typical for a professor,\" he tells me phlegmatically.\n\n\"I have had research papers published which I would have expected would have enabled me to obtain funding to do follow-up research.\n\n\"I wonder if this is typical for someone of my sort of surname.\n\n\"It has been very, very difficult,\" he says.\n\nFunding applications are reviewed and decided by fellow experts in the field whose names are not published, but the name of the applicant is known to the reviewers.\n\nDespite the constant rejections of funding applications, Robert has done extremely well for himself. He is a noted materials chemist, specialising in the study of materials for sustainable energy storage and has had numerous publications in scientific journals.\n\nHe was able to do his research because of funding from charities and learned societies, such as the Royal Society, which funds only the researchers it judges to have a track record of excellence in their work.\n\nRobert is currently a pro-vice-chancellor at Nottingham university and a trustee of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).\n\nThe RSC has published an investigation which shows that racism is ''pervasive'' in the field. The report finds that it is \"hard to challenge\" and marginalisation of minorities has become \"normalised\" in universities and industry.\n\nThe investigation also bears out Robert's experience, finding that minority ethnic researchers are less likely to get grant funding, promotions and are paid significantly less. In 2019/20 the average grant for a minority ethnic chemical sciences researcher was £320,000, compared with £355,000 for white colleagues.\n\nThe RSC's chief executive, Dr Helen Pain, described the stories of discrimination she had seen as part of the investigation as \"shocking\".\n\n\"Racism is unfortunately a reality of chemical sciences, just as it is in wider society\" she told BBC News.\n\n\"We need to do better. We need to make a difference.\n\nSandile Mtetwa says her fellow black PhD students have opted out of university research because they don't believe they will be supported\n\nIn response to the report, Prof Melanie Welham, UKRI's executive champion for people, culture and talent, told BBC News that the agency was reviewing its processes to address concerns about unequal treatment.\n\n\"We know we must do more, and we're committed to doing so.\"\n\n\"This includes piloting and learning to embed effective practice on equality, diversity and inclusion in our expert review and assessment practices, such as through double-blind reviewing, and allowing applicants to evidence their contributions in a wider range of ways.\n\nThe RSC report also shows that ethnic minority students are interested in studying chemistry at university, but they are put off by what they perceive to be an unwelcoming atmosphere of academic research. This is especially true of black students and researchers.\n\nOfficial figures show that at undergraduate level 4.9% of students studying chemistry-related subjects identify as black, significantly higher than the national 3.0% of the UK population. But most choose not to enter research. Those who do fall away at every stage of the career ladder: 1.4% of postgraduate chemistry researchers identify as black, 1% of lecturers and 0% of professors.\n\nThere are no black professors in the official statistics because the number 1 is rounded down to zero for accounting purposes. Robert's good humour subsides, though, as he tells me about his journey to becoming the UK's only black chemistry professor. He says: ''It has been a struggle.\"\n\n\"In academia you have to get signals from more senior colleagues that it is time to apply for a more senior role that comes up. Early in my career the signals I got is that this is not the place for you and it is not the right time for you.\n\n''This was the most difficult part of my career and this is where the main blockage is for black chemists. Once I broke through and was networked it got better''.\n\nSandile Mtetwa is a black PhD student at Cambridge University. She co-founded a group for African students studying science subjects. She says many of them have decided not to struggle through. Instead they have decided to get jobs in the private sector because they felt there was \"prejudice\", and they would not be supported if they went into academic research.\n\n\"The chemical sciences community is so network driven. You have to know someone to get on,'' she tells me.\n\n''Someone senior has to support you, to help you get a position, to get a grant. If someone up there is not cheering for you, you can't do much about it\".\n\nThe RSC report says that there is little incentive for chemistry organisations to improve. Most initiatives are voluntary and appear to be having a limited impact, it says.\n\nIt finds that just 21 universities out of the 93 that signed up for the award hold a bronze Race Equality Charter award, run by the higher education charity Advance HE. None have received a silver or gold award, despite the scheme being launched in 2016. Similarly, 37% of FTSE 100 companies have no representation of minority ethnicities on their board, despite a target set by an independent review, also in 2016, to have one director from a minority ethnic background on every board by 2021.\n\nThe RSC has launched a race and ethnicity unit to push for change in organisations. It has also set up a five-year mentoring scheme to help school leavers follow to chemistry-focused degrees and is working with employers to provide ethnic minority students with job opportunities and to help them with their career progression.\n\nRobert Mokaya says he hopes that these initiatives will bring about changes for the next generation of ethnic minority chemical scientists.\n\n\"I am concerned for those coming through the system.\n\n\"I don't think it is fair that those who get to a senior position in chemical sciences should have to go through what I have had to go through.\"\n• None Black experts say UK science is blighted by racism", "The mystery of a decades old tank debt with Iran, and how it may have ended up costing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe her freedom today.\n\nWhat’s the key to bringing home Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British woman who has been held hostage in Iran for almost six years? And how closely linked is Nazanin’s release to a tank deal debt more than 40 years old? In episode 1 of Nazanin, former Today programme editor, Ceri Thomas, explores the origins of the debt, the apparent corruption which surrounded the deal which created it, and its long, difficult legacy. It’s a story which begins in the freewheeling 1970s when the need to ‘grease the wheels’ of big arms deals seemed barely controversial, and when the Shah of Iran and a notorious middleman known around Whitehall as ‘Mr 1%’ were able to pocket millions in commissions paid by the UK. And it leads back to the fate of more than one hostage today.", "Even the worst war comes to an end. Sometimes, as in 1945, the only outcome is a fight to the death. Mostly, though, wars end in a deal which doesn't satisfy anyone entirely, but at least brings the bloodshed to an end.\n\nAnd often, even after the worst and most bitter conflicts, the two sides gradually resume their old, less hostile relationship.\n\nIf we're lucky, we're beginning to see the start of this process happening now between Russia and Ukraine.\n\nThe resentment, particularly on the Ukrainian side, will last for decades. But both sides want and need peace: Ukraine, because its towns and cities have taken a terrible battering, and Russia, because it has already, according to the Ukrainian president, sacrificed more men and material than it lost in its two shockingly violent wars in Chechnya - although that is impossible to verify.\n\nBut no-one willingly signs a peace agreement which is likely to lead to their own downfall.\n\nFor Russian President Vladimir Putin the search is on for ways of saving face. Ukraine's President Zelensky has already shown remarkable skill as a diplomat, and he's clearly willing to say and do whatever is acceptable to himself and his people in order to get Russia off his country's back.\n\nFor him, there's one overriding objective - to make sure that Ukraine comes out of this appalling experience a united, independent country, not a province of Russia, which is what President Putin originally seemed to think he could turn it into.\n\nFor President Putin, all that counts now is that he can declare victory. No matter that everyone in his entire administration will understand that Russia has been given a bloody nose in this unnecessary invasion. No matter that the 20% or so of Russians who understand what's really going on in the world will know that Putin has bet the house on a fantasy of his own devising, and lost.\n\nThe battle will be for the support of the remaining majority of the population, who tend to believe implicitly what they're told on state television - even when there are moments such as the sudden popping-up on screen of the extraordinarily brave TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova with a placard to say that everything people are being told is propaganda.\n\nSo what will make President Putin come out of this disastrous war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?\n\nFirstly, an assurance, perhaps even to be written into Ukraine's constitution, that it has no intention of joining Nato in the foreseeable future. President Zelensky has already prepared the way for this, by asking Nato for something it couldn't agree to (establishing a no-fly-zone over Ukraine), then criticising the alliance for letting him down on this, and finally musing out loud that he wasn't sure that if Nato behaved like this, it was actually worth joining.\n\nAs clever and wise political positioning goes, it doesn't get much better than this. Nato gets the blame, which it can easily cope with, and Ukraine gets the freedom to act as it wants.\n\nBut that's the easy bit. It'll be harder to finesse the urgent ambition which Zelensky and Ukraine have to join the EU, something Russia is almost equally hostile to, though there are ways around that too. Hardest of all for Ukraine to swallow will be Russia's outright theft of Ukrainian territory, in total defiance of the solemn international treaty it had signed to protect Ukraine's borders.\n\nThe loss of Crimea in 2014 is something Ukraine may well be forced to give its formal acceptance to, in some way. And Russia clearly intends to hang on to those areas in eastern Ukraine which are pretty much effectively under Russian control already - and perhaps more.\n\nIn 1939, Joseph Stalin invaded Finland, which had once been part of the Russian empire. He was sure his troops would carve their way through it in no time - just as Putin thought about Ukraine in 2022. Stalin's generals, understandably terrified for their lives, promised him he was right. And, of course, he wasn't.\n\nThe Winter War dragged on into 1940, the Soviet army was humiliated, and Finland was left with a justifiable national pride in itself for resisting a superpower. It lost territory, because autocrats like Stalin and Putin need to come out of these things looking as though they've scored a victory. But Finland kept the most important, most imperishable thing: its full independence as a free, self-determining nation.\n\nAs things stand today, Ukraine - having beaten off so many Russian attacks and made Putin's forces look feeble and ineffective - should be able to do that. Unless Putin's armies can capture Kyiv and much more of Ukraine's territory, then Ukraine will survive as a national entity, just as Finland did in 1940.\n\nLosing Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine would be a bitter, illegal and wholly unjust loss. But Vladimir Putin would have to start using far more serious weapons even than he has already, if he's to come out on top. As things stand, in the third week of fighting, no-one can seriously doubt who the real winner in this war will be.\n\nJohn is the BBC's World Affairs editor. His weekly news programme, Unspun World with John Simpson, is broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 23:15 GMT on BBC Two, and on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.", "Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran nearly six years ago, is on her way to the UK where her family await.\n\nHer husband Richard Ratcliffe campaigned for his wife's release, while caring for their daughter, Gabriella.", "The attack came as Ukraine's president made an unannounced visit to meet Canada's PM in Ottawa.", "Pregnant women should be asked how much alcohol they are drinking and the answer recorded in their medical notes, new \"priority advice\" for the NHS says.\n\nThe advice, from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is designed to help spot problem drinking that can harm babies.\n\nInfants with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) can be left with lifelong problems.\n\nThe safest approach during pregnancy is to abstain from alcohol completely.\n\nBabies cannot process alcohol well - passed from mother to child through the placenta, it can stay in their body for a long time and stop them developing normally in the womb.\n\nThere is no particular treatment for FASD - and the damage to the brain and organs such as the heart and kidneys is irreversible.\n\nThe more someone drinks while pregnant, the higher the chance of FASD - and there is no proven \"safe\" level of alcohol.\n\nBut the risk of harming the baby is \"likely to be low if you have drunk only small amounts of alcohol before you knew you were pregnant or during pregnancy\", the Department of Health says.\n\nAnd official statistics suggest one in 10 pregnant women says they have had some alcohol in the past week.\n\nAn earlier draft of the recommendations for NHS staff in England and Wales suggested transferring data on a woman's alcohol intake to her child's medical notes - but this has now been dropped, following concern women who needed help might hide their drinking.\n\nThe Royal College of Midwives spokeswoman Lia Brigante said: \"As there is no known safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, the RCM believes it is appropriate and important to advise women that the safest approach is to avoid drinking alcohol during pregnancy and advocates for this.\n\n\"We are pleased to see that the recommendation to record alcohol consumption and to then transfer this to a child's record has been reconsidered.\n\n\"This had the potential to disrupt or prevent the development of a trusting relationship between a woman and her midwife.\"\n\nClaire Murphy, from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, stressed the vast majority of pregnant women drank below levels associated with harm.\n\n\"We remain concerned about the routine questioning of women throughout pregnancy on this issue,\" she said.\n\n\"Our research shows women find antenatal discussions about alcohol - even when they don't drink at all - can supersede other issues important to them, like their own mental health and wellbeing.\n\n\"Those supporting pregnant women must be able to provide care that meets the needs of the individual before them, not just to fill in boxes on a checklist.\"\n\nDr Paul Chrisp, director of NICE's centre for guidelines, said: \"This quality standard aims to improve the diagnosis and care offered to children and young people with FASD as well as ensuring that women are given consistent advice about their alcohol consumption during pregnancy.\n\n\"FASD is a series of preventable mental and physical birth defects associated with alcohol use during pregnancy.\n\n\"Helping women to drink less or no alcohol during their pregnancy will reduce the number of children and young people affected by FASD.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nRussian state TV's Channel One plays a crucial part in the Kremlin's media messaging. It is Russia's second most popular channel, and its flagship news programme Vremya (Time) is watched by millions.\n\nNormally, there is no room for deviation from the party line.\n\nSo when Marina Ovsyannikova ran on to the set behind the news anchor in prime time, brandishing a poster saying \"Stop the War!\", it was an unprecedented moment of dissent against the Kremlin which reached into living rooms across the country.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova, who has a Ukrainian father and Russian mother, has been fined 30,000 roubles (£214, $280) for an anti-war video she had also released.\n\nHer protest is extraordinary in more ways than one.\n\nTo start with, Channel One viewers are not even used to hearing the word \"war\" used to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The government has ordered the media to call it a \"special military operation\" launched to \"demilitarise and denazify\" Ukraine.\n\nMs Ovsyannikova's protest also targeted the core President Putin supporters: most Russians still use state TV as their main source of news, rather than from reports in the diminishing number of independent websites or from social media.\n\nIt soon emerged that Ms Ovsyannikova was a Channel One editor who had earlier recorded a video statement\n\nStaging a protest like this takes extraordinary courage. Ten days earlier, Russia approved a law under which anyone challenging the Kremlin's version of events in Ukraine can face up to 15 years in jail.\n\nAlmost 15,000 anti-war protesters have been detained since the invasion began, according to the Ovd-info website. None of them have reached into as many Russia homes as Ms Ovsyannikova did.\n\nBeyond a few seconds of exposure on Channel One, state media have ignored the protest. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed her action as hooliganism.\n\nFor fear of being targeted, independent Russian websites have blurred out or pixelated Ms Ovsyannikova's poster.\n\nNovaya Gazeta, for example, left only one line from her poster still legible: \"Don't believe propaganda.\"\n\nIndependent website Novaya Gazeta left only one line of the poster unblurred\n\nIt is a different story on social media, where this anti-Putin moment has been seen as a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak Russian media landscape.\n\n\"Marina Ovsyannikova is a hero of Russia!\" opposition politician Ilya Yashin said on Twitter.\n\n\"Five seconds of truth can wash away the dirt of weeks of propaganda,\" said another opposition politician, Lev Shlosberg.\n\nHer protest is not the only crack to appear in the Kremlin media machine's campaign to convince Russians that the operation in Ukraine is neither a war nor an invasion.\n\nLilia Gildeyeva had worked for NTV since 2006\n\nNews broke hours afterwards that a veteran presenter from another top television channel, NTV, had left the country.\n\n\"First, I left [Russia] because I was afraid they would not let me go just like that, then I submitted my resignation,\" Lilia Gildeyeva told a prominent blogger.", "Children with mental health problems in Northern Ireland were found to be at \"serious risk\" while living in a care home run by the charity Praxis Care.\n\nRQIA inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in staff training and in record keeping, which placed \"both children and staff at risk\".\n\nThe home has been de-registered by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA).\n\nPraxis said it would ensure a managed transition for staff and children.\n\nDe-registration means the charity can no longer operate a care service on that site.\n\nThe South Eastern Health trust has taken over responsibility for the staffing and management of the home instead.\n\nIt is the first children's service to have registration cancelled through enforcement action.\n\nPraxis Care is one of Northern Ireland's leading mental health charities.\n\nIt operates a number of services including several residential homes for children with mental health problems under the age of 16.\n\nHealth inspectors found \"significant shortcomings\" in staff training and in record keeping in the care home\n\nThe inspection of this home in the South Eastern health trust took place in February this year, according to the RQIA.\n\nThe facility is not being named in order to protect the identity of the children.\n\nAt this stage it is understood the police have not been asked to carry out an investigation.\n\nIn a statement, the RQIA said it identified that \"insufficient skilled and competent staff were in place to meet the complex needs of the children in their care, to promote their rights, and safely respond to their needs\".\n\n\"Serious risk\" may include insufficient numbers of staff to care for children with extremely challenging behaviour.\n\nIn an unusual move, the RQIA made a successful application on 3 March 2022 to a Justice of the Peace for an order to cancel the home's registration.\n\nAdequate numbers of skilled staff is believed to be at the heart of this problem.\n\nPraxis runs a number of services including several residential homes for children with mental health problems\n\nPraxis said it was \"saddened\" to confirm that \"following extensive engagement with both the South Eastern Trust and RQIA, regarding the difficulties in recruitment and retention of staff, we very reluctantly concluded that we could no longer maintain the service and notified the trust to that effect\".\n\n\"The following day RQIA indicated their intention to formally cancel the registration,\" Praxis added.\n\n\"We are now working in partnership with the South Eastern Trust to ensure there is an appropriate and well managed transition for the children and our staff who have worked tirelessly in very difficult circumstances.\"\n\nIt is normal practice for the RQIA not to publish details of the inspection of a children's home.\n\nAs facilities are small and the children vulnerable, it is feared that children and staff could be identified.\n\nHowever, BBC News NI understands that a review of this practice is currently under way.\n\nStakeholders are examining what exactly could be published around the inspection of children's facilities which would ensure that the privacy and dignity of children is protected, while allowing for transparency.\n\nStaffing such facilities is clearly a problem across Northern Ireland.\n\nMost of the staffing vacancies in health and social care are in the care of children and adults with complex needs.\n\nA spokesperson for the RQIA said the safety and wellbeing of services for vulnerable children is of \"paramount importance\".\n\nIt added that it will continue to \"monitor and inspect this service and work with other stakeholders to ensure that it meets the required standards\".\n\nMeanwhile, the children and young people continue to live in the facility but in the care of the South Eastern Health Trust.", "To extract oil and gas from a facility like this, a series of wells are drilled into the seabed and then the products extracted to a ship moored to the seabed. This offloads the oil onto big ships called tankers, while the gas is sent down a pipeline.\n\nThe drilling and anchoring of the ship, as well as chemicals released, have the potential to disturb the seabed and damage habitats - and potentially kill animals living there such as soft corals and sea spiders.\n\nThere is also a lot of noise produced underwater when oil is extracted. This is important because many species in the marine environment use sound to communicate.\n\nThere are a number of laws such as The Conservation of Offshore Marine Habitats which ensure damage is minimised and where possible avoided. The regulator will have looked at how rare the species in this environment are and the area of seafloor disturbed before approval.\n\nThe biggest environmental impact would come from any accidental spill. The worst marine oil spill in history was in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico from a BP site. The incident spilt four million barrels of oil over nearly three months. BP was required to pay up to $8.8bn (£7.25bn) for damages to the natural environment.\n\nSuch spills are rare - the frequency of a blowout of a well at the site is estimated at less than 0.0004%.\n\nMillions of barrels of oil poured in the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon spill Image caption: Millions of barrels of oil poured in the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon spill", "Talks with Iran to free Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe are \"moving forward\" and \"going right up to the wire\", Boris Johnson has said.\n\nShe has been given her UK passport back, nearly six years after she was arrested while visiting family.\n\nThe British-Iranian detainee was accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government, which she denied.\n\nTulip Siddiq, her MP, told the BBC her family were feeling \"more hopeful\" that she could return to the UK.\n\nSpeaking during a visit to Abu Dhabi, Mr Johnson said negotiations for the release of dual nationals in Tehran had been going on \"for a long time\".\n\nHe said talks \"continue to be under way and we're going right up to the wire\".\n\nMs Siddiq said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 43, is still in her family home in Tehran, where she has been under house arrest since 2020.\n\nShe told BBC Breakfast that she is \"technically on a travel ban\", despite having been given her passport.\n\nThe MP for Hampstead and Kilburn in London said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been \"dreaming\" about the day she can return to the UK.\n\nShe said there was a British negotiating team in Iran, adding: \"It's difficult to think why they would be there if there wasn't some leeway in what was happening.\"\n\nShe said Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, was \"feeling hopeful\".\n\n\"I also was in touch with Nazanin as well, who definitely sounds a bit more stressed and a bit more nervous than Richard does,\" she said.\n\n\"But at the same time is talking about coming home, being reunited with her husband and her daughter, being back at home in West Hampstead and saying that this is the day that she's been dreaming about for six years now.\"\n\nA £400m debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s had been linked to the continued detention of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country - although the government has said the two issues should not be linked.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss told BBC Breakfast the debt was \"legitimate\" and that the government was \"looking for ways to pay\" it.\n\nShe said securing the release of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other detainees - like Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer, and Morad Tahbaz, a businessman and wildlife conservationist - was \"an absolute priority\".\n\nMorad Tahbaz, who holds American and British citizenship, was arrested during a crackdown on environmental activists\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Elika Ashoori is campaigning to free her father from an Iranian jail\n\n\"They have been through an appalling ordeal and we want to secure their release as soon as possible,\" she said.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has always denied the charges against her, was first jailed for five years in 2016 after being accused of plotting against the regime - spending the last year of her sentence under house arrest at her parents' home.\n\nAfter that sentence expired she was then sentenced to another year's confinement in April 2021 on charges of \"spreading propaganda\", which has been served at her parents' house in Tehran.\n\nHer husband Richard Ratcliffe, who lives with their daughter Gabriella in Hampstead, London, has campaigned for her release, including by going on hunger strike in October last year.\n\nMrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sister-in-law Rebecca Ratcliffe told BBC Breakfast that the family \"find it hard to get too excited\" because there have been \"many ups over the last six years\".\n\nShe said the present talks seemed \"like a very positive step\", but feared they \"may just be a stunt from the Iranians\".\n\n\"We've had this before. You know, we've had many ups over the last six years and been told she's been about to be released. So there's an element of false hopes and I think our family, Nazanin, her parents, find it hard to get too excited at the moment,\" she said.\n\n\"Since Sunday, neither Nazanin nor her parents can settle. I think there's a lot of twitching going on in that flat, a sort of high tension and just waiting to see what happens.\"\n\nFor more on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's story you can listen to Radio 4's Nazanin series on BBC Sounds.", "Edwin Poots has said he wants farmers to grow more potatoes and cereal crops in response to the Ukraine war\n\nAgriculture minister Edwin Poots has warned of potential grain shortages and price rises as the war in Ukraine continues.\n\nHe confirmed he had asked Stormont's finance department for £70m to help farmers hit by supply issues.\n\nUkraine and Russia are major exporters of basic foodstuffs, and the war has hit crop production, driving up prices.\n\nMr Poots has asked the UK government to press the EU to relax rules on importing agriculture seeds.\n\nHe has said he wants farmers to grow more potatoes and cereal crops in response to the war.\n\nThe seed trade comes under the Northern Ireland Protocol - part of the Brexit deal - and involves an onerous import process.\n\nMr Poots told members of his assembly scrutiny committee he had \"grave concerns that the longer the conflict continues the more likely we are to see a real and damaging impact on local industries\".\n\nHe said the consequences of supply chain difficulties could be \"brutal\" and consumers would see less choice on the shelves.\n\n\"The Northern Ireland agricultural food sector had already undergone a period of severe disruption as a result of the Covid pandemic and unworkable complexities of the Northern Ireland protocol,\" he added.\n\nAbout 40% of Northern Ireland's corn supply is sourced from Ukraine, he said.\n\nMr Poots said some pig farmers are at risk of going out of business\n\nMr Poots also said much of the grain exported from Ukraine was used for animal feed, and warned that a fall in supply will have significant consequences for the chicken, pork and dairy industries.\n\nHe continued to say some pig farmers are at risk of going out of business as the problems are most acute in the pork sector.\n\nNorthern Ireland also rely on nitrogen fertiliser imported from Russia so a reduction in supply would also result in lower crop yields.\n\n\"There is not going to be cheap fertiliser,\" he said.\n\n\"The question is, is there is going to be fertiliser? There will be fertiliser at a price.\"\n\nOn the issue of fuel, the minister said he hoped people would show common sense.\n\n\"If people stop panic buying then that would be a good thing and perhaps prices would settle a bit,\" he said.\n\nOn Monday, Mr Poots met his ministerial counterparts from across the UK to discuss the difficulties the war in Ukraine was causing to the food supply chain in Northern Ireland.\n\nHe also confirmed he had written to George Eustice, the UK Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to urge greater Government intervention.\n\n\"Alongside reductions in labour supply, rising input costs, supply chain disruptions and concerns about long-running inflation, they're all combining to create that perfect storm,\" said the Agriculture minister.\n\n\"It is vital we protect Northern Ireland's food supplies, making sure everyone can access safe quality food at prices that are affordable.\"", "Prime Minister Boris Johnson is one of the few western leaders to visit Saudi Arabia since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has said he raised human rights when meeting Gulf leaders for talks about ending reliance on Russian oil and gas after the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHe discussed energy security and other issues in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.\n\nHe said a global coalition was needed \"to deal with the new reality we face\".\n\nBut critics have expressed concerns about the human rights records of the countries.\n\nLast weekend, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 81 men in one day, and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.\n\nOn Wednesday, Saudi news agency SPA announced three further executions, in what the Reprieve group described as a \"provocative act\" designed to \"flaunt the Crown Prince's power\".\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said \"going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is not an energy strategy\".\n\nHatice Cengiz, the fiancee of Mr Khashoggi, told the BBC Mr Johnson should not be \"doing deals\" with Crown Prince Salman unless he insisted \"on the truth and justice for Jamal's murder\".\n\nLabour deputy leader Angela Rayner told MPs Mr Johnson was on \"a begging mission to the Saudi prince\" after failing to invest in home-grown energy.\n\nBut Mr Johnson said if western countries wanted to \"avoid being blackmailed\" by Russia's President Vladimir Putin, they needed to move away from using his country's fossil fuels and explore other partnerships.\n\nIn the Saudi capital, Riyadh, Mr Johnson told the BBC he raised human rights and \"what we can do to stabilise oil prices\" in his meeting with Crown Prince Salman.\n\nWhen asked if the recent executions were discussed, Mr Johnson said \"in spite of the news that you've referred to, things are changing in Saudi Arabia\", adding, \"that's why we see value in the partnership\".\n\nEarlier, he pointed towards Saudi Arabia announcing a £1bn investment in green aviation fuel in the UK as \"the kind of thing we want to encourage\".\n\nThe prime minister inspected a guard of honour after arriving at Abu Dhabi airport\n\nMr Johnson landed at Abu Dhabi airport in the UAE, where he was met by British Ambassador to the UAE Patrick Moody.\n\nHe then travelled to the Saudi capital, where he met Crown Prince Salman and Saudi ministers.\n\nRecent executions in Saudi Arabia have drawn criticism from MPs and human rights groups.\n\nTory MP Crispin Blunt said the executions left Mr Johnson with \"exquisite difficulties\" in asking Saudi Arabia for help with oil supplies.\n\nOne of the world's largest oil producers and influential on the international stage, Saudi Arabia is ruled by a monarchy which restricts political rights and civil liberties.\n\nThe rise of Crown Prince Salman as de-facto ruler in 2017 has seen moves towards liberalising some laws and diversifying the economy.\n\nBut the Saudi government's image has been damaged in recent years, particularly by the assassination of the prominent US-based journalist in 2018, Mr Khashoggi.\n\nHe was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia said he had been killed in a \"rogue operation\" by a team of agents sent to persuade him to return to the kingdom.\n\nBut a UN investigator concluded that Mr Khashoggi was \"the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution\" for which the Saudi state was responsible. Crown Prince Salman denied any role.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mohammed bin Salman is asked: \"Did you order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi?\"\n\nMr Khashoggi's fiancee Ms Cengiz, who accompanied him to the entrance of the consulate, said Mr Johnson's rationale for meeting Crown Prince Salman was a \"flawed argument\".\n\nHe \"should not run from the arms of one unpredictable tyrant\" to another, she said.\n\n\"Johnson must demand to know the truth and to get justice for the brutal killing of Jamal and for all human rights abuses,\" Ms Cengiz said. \"He cannot act as though nothing has happened. This would be so shameful.\"\n\nOpposition parties and some Conservatives too are uneasy about the government's association with Saudi Arabia - and have been for years.\n\nThat's more acute after dozens of executions there a few days ago.\n\nLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is no substitute for an energy strategy.\n\nBut for the government, handling the fallout of the conflict in Ukraine means what are described as \"hard-headed\" decisions, even if it's \"distasteful\".\n\nWith huge diplomatic and economic forces at play, there are no straightforward options.\n\nDisentangling Russia's economy from the West's may seem a diplomatic no-brainer, but the cost and complications of doing so simply can't be ignored.\n\nRead more from Laura here.\n\nThe energy talks come during a global spike in energy prices driven by tight supplies, President Putin's invasion of Ukraine and western attempts to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas.\n\nSaudi Arabia is the largest producer in the oil cartel Opec and has the spare capacity to help lower prices by increasing supplies.\n\nMr Johnson was hoping to convince Crown Prince Salman to boost his kingdom's oil production and garner his support for action against Russia.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said while the UK did not agree with \"every single policy of Saudi Arabia or the UAE\", they \"do not pose a threat to global security in the way that Vladimir Putin does\".\n\n\"We need to bring those countries into the circle of influence of the UK and pull countries away from dependence on Russia,\" she said.\n\nSaudi Arabia, the UAE and other Gulf states have so far refrained from overtly condemning Russia, although they did vote in favour of a UN resolution denouncing the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nTheir muted reaction has caused some consternation among western nations including the UK, Dr Tobias Borck, a researcher of Middle East security at the RUSI think tank says.\n\n\"In the past 10 years this idea has taken hold in the Gulf that the West doesn't stand for anything anymore, that the West is no longer willing to wield its power in the world,\" Dr Borck told the BBC.\n\nHe said Mr Johnson's trip was a vital opportunity to rebuild relations with the Gulf states and convey to them why the invasion of Ukraine \"is a watershed moment for European security\".\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Keir Starmer says that “going cap-in-hand from dictator to dictator” is not an energy policy.\n\nMeanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities continued as the worst war Europe has seen in decades entered its 21st day.\n\nThe attacks came as Ukraine and Russia held peace talks, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded that Nato membership was not on the table, in an apparent concession to Moscow.\n\nMr Zelensky said the talks were becoming \"more realistic\", while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was \"some hope for compromise\".\n\nThe Ukrainian president addressed the US Congress by video link, having made similar appearances in parliaments across Europe, including the UK's.", "Last updated on .From the section Formula 1\n\nCharles Leclerc won a close battle with Red Bull's Max Verstappen before taking a classy victory as Ferrari took a one-two in a dramatic season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.\n\nLeclerc and Verstappen staged a thrilling wheel-to-wheel dice after their first pit stops, swapping places five times in two laps before Leclerc moved ahead.\n\nThe closing laps were packed with drama, with a safety car period and then reliability problems forcing Verstappen's retirement promoting Carlos Sainz to second.\n\nAnd then the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez suffered a failure at the first corner of the final lap leaving Lewis Hamilton to take the final podium place for Mercedes.\n\nHamilton had looked set for fifth place as Mercedes' pace problems became ever clearer during the race but Red Bull's nightmare provided the seven-time champion an unexpected boost.\n\nThe irony that Hamilton gained from Red Bull's misfortune in the first race after he lost the world title in the controversial climax to last season will be lost on few.\n\nLeclerc's victory was out of the top drawer and underlined his quality as one of the leading lights of the new generation.\n\nAnd if Ferrari can stay competitive throughout this long, 23-race season, he will be a serious contender for the championship.\n\nIt was clean getaway for every car at the start\n\nVerstappen should have taken second place but he suffered as Red Bull's day imploded in the final three laps.\n\nThe Dutchman tried his best, fighting vigorously with Leclerc after their first pit stops but ultimately losing out in the fight, and was looking set for a frustrated second place before his race unravelled.\n\nHe had already started to complain about heavy steering, and then a lap into the final sprint after the safety car he asked what was happening with the battery. He slowed and pulled into the pits with three laps to go.\n\nSainz moved into second and Perez was left holding off Hamilton for third place.\n\nThe Mexican was also suffering problems but was managing to keep Hamilton just at bay when he spun at the start of the final lap as the engine suddenly stopped and Red Bull went from second and fourth to nothing in a few moments.\n\nTeam principal Christian Horner said he did not yet know what had gone wrong but it \"looks like an issue in the fuel system\" for both cars.\n\nVerstappen said: \"It looked like there was no fuel coming to the engine and everything just turned off so I just rolled into the pit lane.\"\n\nAfter snatching pole position from Verstappen with the very final lap of qualifying, Leclerc held off the Dutchman's charge at the first corner and consolidated his lead through the first stint.\n\nThe Monegasque was 3.7 seconds in front by the time Verstappen made his first pit stop, but when Leclerc stopped the next time around, the Red Bull was right on the Ferrari's tail.\n\nThe defining period of the race followed.\n\nVerstappen tracked Leclerc for a lap before diving down the inside into the lead into Turn One at the start of lap 17.\n\nLeclerc repassed Verstappen around the outside into Turn Four, cutting across Verstappen as he edged ahead, but remained under threat.\n\nVerstappen passed again at Turn One the next time around, and again Leclerc re-took the lead into Turn Four, this time diving to the inside.\n\nVerstappen tried again into Turn One for a third time the next time around, but locked his front tyre, and slid straight on, allowing Leclerc to retake the lead.\n\nFrom there, the Ferrari driver eked out his advantage again, building a lead of close to five seconds.\n\nThe last few crazy laps\n\nAfter that, the Ferrari driver had just that bit too much pace for Verstappen.\n\nRealising they had nothing to lose, Red Bull threw the dice with just over 10 laps to go, fitting soft tyres to Verstappen's and Perez's cars for a final sprint to the flag.\n\nFerrari chose not to follow Verstappen in with Leclerc but the new dynamic had no time to play out as Pierre Gasly pulled off with his Alpha Tauri in flames and the safety car was deployed.\n\nLeclerc judged the restart beautifully, while Verstappen's attempt to harry Leclerc before he bolted from the last corner backfired and he came under pressure from Sainz.\n\nHe held him off, only for his race to unravel.\n\nGeorge Russell took fourth for Mercedes ahead of the revived Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas' Alfa Romeo, a strong drive from the Finn after a dreadful start dropped him right down the field from his sixth place on the grid.\n\nThe new rules introduced this year with the aim of closing up the field and making overtaking easier have certainly shuffled the pack, with Mercedes and McLaren the biggest losers and Ferrari and Haas gaining most.\n\nBut the race did not provide sufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion to be drawn as to whether their prime intentions have succeeded.\n\nWhat happens next?\n\nThe Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next weekend - last year's maiden race on the fast Jeddah street circuit was dramatic.", "The man pulled out on Saturday is one of the luckiest as the barracks has been reduced to rubble\n\nScores of Ukrainian soldiers are feared to have been killed after an attack on a military barracks on Friday.\n\nAbout 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks when three Russian missiles hit the base on the northern edge of Mykolaiv, a source told the BBC. Some 57 injured people were being treated in hospitals, another source said.\n\nThere are no official casualty figures.\n\nRescue workers crawling over giant piles of rubble found a survivor on Saturday - 30 hours after the attack.\n\nThe man was carried down the steep mountain of rubble in a stretcher and taken away by ambulance towards the city centre.\n\nHowever, the temperature in Mykolaiv last night was minus 6C and it's feared there may not be many more survivors.\n\nVitaly Kim, head of the regional administration, blamed Russians for hitting \"sleeping soldiers with a rocket in a cowardly manner\".\n\n\"At least 50 bodies have been recovered, but we do not know how many others are in the rubble,\" a soldier named Maxim was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.\n\nAnd the rescue work at the site is being carried out amid fears of new Russian attacks.\n\nWith a crane pulling away chunks of concrete and twisted metal, suddenly soldiers guarding the base shouted at journalists to run for cover, as the sound of a plane, or possibly a missile, could be heard overhead.\n\nSeconds later a dull explosion could be heard somewhere to the north-east.\n\nNear the army base is the site of an attack which killed nine civilians queueing outside a shop. There we meet Yulia, who is in tears as she tells the BBC what happened.\n\n\"I can't tell you how scared we are,\" she says. \"We all live in the cellar now. When the bombs hit the army base - everything shook.\"\n\nTwo blocks away, Andre Ansimov is trying to clear up from another Russian strike. The crater is so big, a car and a house fell into it.\n\nOnly by chance were Andre and his family away when the bomb hit.\n\n\"This isn't a war between armies,\" he said. \"The Russians are trying to destroy us all.\"\n\nMykolaiv has been blocking Russia's advance west along the Black Sea coast for weeks. Overnight there was more heavy shelling in the south of the city.\n\nThere are also reports that Russian reconnaissance teams, sent in to locate military targets for attack, have been found there.", "The state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco plans to sharply increase the amount it invests in energy production, after it reported a doubling of profits in 2021.\n\nThe firm aims to boost output significantly over the next five years.\n\nEnergy prices have soared in recent months as demand has outstripped supplies of oil and gas.\n\nThe war in Ukraine and a reluctance to rely on Russia for energy has added to the pressure to find additional sources of energy.\n\nSaudi Aramco's move is likely to be welcomed by political leaders worried about the impact of high energy prices, although the boost to investment is aimed at increasing output over the course of the next five to eight years.\n\nLast week prime minister Boris Johnson visited Saudi Arabia to try to persuade the country to release more oil into world markets in the short term.\n\nSaudi Arabia is the largest producer in the oil cartel Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and by raising production it could help to reduce energy prices which are currently at 14-year highs.\n\nHowever, the country has been condemned for a range of human rights abuses: its involvement in the conflict in neighbouring Yemen, the murder in 2018 of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, for jailing dissidents and for widespread use of capital punishment.\n\nThe Labour Party accused the government of going \"cap in hand\" from one dictator to another to tackle the energy crisis.\n\nThe chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the prime minister was \"absolutely right\" to engage with Saudi Arabia over increasing energy supplies.\n\n\"It would be wrong if we weren't exploring all the avenues we could to bring cheaper energy and more secure energy to people in this country,\" Rishi Sunak told the BBC.\n\nThe prime minister had \"constructive dialogue\" about human rights abuses during the visit, he said.\n\nShadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the UK should be focusing on boosting domestic production of energy through new nuclear and on and off-shore wind generation, to reduce reliance on states like Russia and Saudi Arabia.\n\n\"Getting to net zero is the mission of our generation,\" she said.\n\n\"We've got to do more to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, which is why investment in homegrown electricity is so important.\"\n\nEnergy markets have been volatile during the pandemic, as sudden changes in economic activity have influenced both supply and demand.\n\nIn 2020 Saudi Aramco's profits dropped sharply as the world economy slowed.\n\nBut a reopening in many countries led to a sharp rise in energy prices in 2021. That boosted revenues at all the large energy generating companies.\n\nSaudi Aramco said it planned to increase its capital expenditure to $45-$50bn this year with further increases until the middle of the decade. Last year capital expenditure was $31.9bn.\n\nIt would raise its crude oil \"maximum sustainable capacity\" to 13 million barrels a day by 2027, the company said. It also aims to increase gas production by more than 50% by 2030. Saudi Arabia produced just over 10 million barrels of oil per day in February.\n\nThe oil company more-than doubled its net profit to $110bn in 2021, up from $49bn in 2020.\n\nThe price of a barrel of Brent crude oil increased by around 50% in 2021 and, with energy prices remaining high, analysts expect profit to increase further in 2022.\n\nSaudi Aramco said it planned to develop a significant hydrogen export capability and become a global leader in carbon capture and storage technology.", "P&O Ferries' sacking of 800 staff without warning last week was \"awful\" and \"wrong\", Chancellor Rishi Sunak has told the BBC.\n\nThe government is examining the legality of the firm's actions, the chancellor confirmed.\n\nHowever, the Sunday Times reports that ministers knew of the plan to sack crew beforehand, but failed to challenge it.\n\nThe Department for Transport said \"full details\" were not available at that stage.\n\nA memo sent to ministers by a senior Whitehall official - and seen by the Sunday Times - outlined P&O Ferries' strategy before the sackings took place, the newspaper said.\n\nAccording to the Sunday Times, the note said the sackings were designed to ensure P&O remained \"a key player in the UK market for years to come through restructuring\".\n\nThe memo, as reported in the newspaper, said: \"We understand that P&O Ferries have an intention to try and re-employ many staff on new terms and conditions or use agency staff to restart routes; they estimate disruption to services lasting 10 days.\"\n\nIt was circulated before Thursday's announcement, made over Zoom, telling 800 P&O staff that they were losing their jobs with immediate effect.\n\nThe news was met with outrage from trades unions representing crew and ministers responded with strong criticism, announcing they would review all government contracts with the firm.\n\nMr Sunak, speaking to Sophie Raworth on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, said P&O's approach was \"appalling in the way that they've treated their workers\".\n\nThe government does not appear to have voiced concerns directly to P&O before the sackings.\n\nThe Department for Transport (DfT) said it was standard practice for officials to outline what they had been told by a private firm in an internal memo.\n\n\"This was sent before ministers were advised of the full details and as soon as they were informed, they made clear their outrage at the way in which P&O staff had been dismissed,\" a DfT spokesperson said.\n\nThe DfT said the memo made clear that the department's priority was to \"work with unions to ensure workers' rights continue to be protected\".\n\nThe transport secretary had urged the company to \"sit down with workers and reconsider this action\", the DfT added. Grant Shapps has said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move.\n\nProtests have taken place outside the P&O head office near Dover\n\nLouise Haigh MP, Labour's shadow transport secretary, said: \"This bombshell letter proves that the government was not only aware of P&O ferries' scandalous action - but complicit in it.\n\n\"They knew people's livelihoods were on the line and they knew P&O was attempting to use exploitative fire and rehire practices. But they sat back and did nothing.\"\n\nIn a statement, P&O Ferries said: \"We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn't survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.\"\n\nChris Parker, a director at DFDS, one of P&O's competitors, told the BBC that his company is prepared to hire some of those sacked by P&O Ferries.\n\n\"We reduced the capacity of vessels quite sharply during the pandemic because of social distancing. We're increasing that back up again now and we're looking for some staff to come in and help us with that,\" he said.\n\nP&O Ferries is owned by Dubai logistics giant DP World which is, in turn, controlled by the Dubai sovereign wealth fund.\n\nLast year, DP World's revenue soared by more than a fifth to over £3.7bn ($4.9bn) as the global economy began to pick up after coronavirus lockdowns. The company received support of around £10m during the pandemic to furlough 1,100 workers.", "North Moreton, in Oxfordshire, is hoping to take in up to 60 Ukrainian refugees.\n\nThe village is home to just 350 residents, with those who can't take people in offering their support in the form of cooking, teaching or transport.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says he has told Volodymyr Zelensky he will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia\n\nBoris Johnson has told President Volodymyr Zelensky that the UK will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia.\n\nThe prime minister said he had spoken to the Ukrainian president by telephone on Friday morning.\n\nHe said he vowed to stand with Ukraine at a time when its people were \"facing such horror with such courage\".\n\nMr Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky: \"We know that we must do more to help. I pledge to you that we will.\"\n\nAnd he said he had told the president that he knew Ukraine was fighting \"not just for your lives and your homes but for the cause of democracy and freedom itself\".\n\nMr Johnson was speaking at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen, where he told delegates that the UK had \"led the way\" in providing weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.\n\nBut he added: \"I think that we all feel that we can, and we will, do more around the world.\n\n\"We will do more with defensive weapons to help our Ukrainian friends against these pitiless bombardments.\n\n\"We will do more to tighten the vice around Putin's economy - and with every day that the slaughter and the inhuman behaviour of Putin's war machine continues, I think that the resolve of the world to do more is growing and I am more than ever convinced that Putin will fail\".\n\nMr Zelensky has repeatedly called for the west to take tougher action against Russia\n\nMr Johnson said Russia had \"fatally underestimated\" both the resolve of the Ukrainians to fight and the strength of western unity.\n\nBut he said it was vital that the world now started to wean itself off dependence on Russian oil and gas, and called for a national and international effort to \"double down\" on wind, tidal, solar and nuclear energy.\n\nHe said it was \"crazy\" to talk of shutting down the UK's domestic oil and gas production if it meant buying oil and gas at a \"vast mark-up\" from Russia.\n\nBut he stressed that the UK was still committed to reaching a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.\n\nMr Johnson also said it was \"incredible\" that the SNP still wanted to get rid of the UK's nuclear weapons despite Mr Putin's \"sabre-rattling\".\n\nMr Johnson was welcomed to the conference by Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross\n\nThe prime minister's speech came just two months after Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross publicly urged him to quit over Downing Street parties during lockdown, saying has position had become \"untenable\".\n\nMr Ross withdrew his call for Mr Johnson to resign last week, saying that the sole focus should currently be on the war in Ukraine.\n\nThe two men shook hands on stage, with the prime minister later paying tribute to Mr Ross's record as party leader in his speech.", "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Russia to meet for talks, saying it was time to restore \"territorial integrity and justice\" for Ukraine.\n\nHis appeal appeal came as fierce fighting continued, 23 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nBoris Johnson has been criticised for comparing the struggle of Ukrainians fighting Russia's invasion to people in Britain voting for Brexit.\n\nIn a speech he said Britons, like Ukrainians, had the instinct \"to choose freedom\" and cited the 2016 vote to leave the EU as a \"recent example\".\n\nThe comments have caused anger among politicians both in the UK and Europe.\n\nDonald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, called the comments offensive.\n\nConservative peer Lord Barwell said voting in a referendum was not \"in any way comparable with risking your life\" in a war, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said it was an \"insult\" to Ukrainians.\n\nThe row comes as the prime minister strongly urged China to condemn the Russian invasion in an interview with the Sunday Times. He suggested Beijing was having \"second thoughts\" about its neutral stance.\n\nMr Johnson likened the Ukrainians' fight to Brexit in a speech to the Conservative Party's spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday.\n\nHe said: \"I know that it's the instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom, every time. I can give you a couple of famous recent examples.\n\n\"When the British people voted for Brexit in such large, large numbers, I don't believe it was because they were remotely hostile to foreigners.\n\n\"It's because they wanted to be free to do things differently and for this country to be able to run itself.\"\n\nMr Johnson also cited as an example British people choosing to get vaccinated against coronavirus because they \"wanted to get on with their lives\" and \"were fed up with being told what to do by people like me\".\n\nBut his remarks, intended to rally the Tory faithful, attracted criticism from political figures in the UK and Europe.\n\nMr Tusk tweeted \"Boris, your words offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense\", while Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, said the comparison was \"insane\".\n\nAsked about Mr Johnson linking the plight of Ukraine to Brexit, Chancellor Rishi Sunak told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: \"I don't think the prime minister was making a direct comparison between these two things - clearly they're not directly analogous.\"\n\n\"He was making some general observations about people's desire for freedom,\" he added.\n\nMr Sunak said the prime minister had been galvanising global opinion to send a strong message to Vladimir Putin, and \"that's the thing we should be focused on\".\n\nShadow chancellor Rachel Reeves called for the prime minister to withdraw his comments and apologise.\n\nShe told the BBC: \"The people of Ukraine, who are fighting for their lives - in any way to draw a parallel to voting to leave the European Union, it is shameless.\"\n\nShe pointed out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to join the EU - and that \"he clearly sees no such parallel\".\n\nLord Barwell, who served as Theresa May's chief of staff in No 10, said: \"Apart from the bit where voting in a free and fair referendum isn't in any way comparable with risking your life to defend your country against invasion, and the awkward fact the Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom to join the EU, this comparison is bang on.\"\n\nUkraine applied for fast-track membership of the European Union last month, shortly after the Russian invasion.\n\nMr Zelensky said on Friday he had spoken to the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and expected progress to be made on its application in the coming months.\n\nOthers who criticised Mr Johnson's comments included Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, who tweeted: \"Comparing the Ukrainian people's fight against Putin's tyranny to the British people voting for Brexit damages the standard of statecraft we were beginning to exhibit.\"\n\nThe Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed called the prime minister a \"national embarrassment\", adding: \"To compare a referendum to women and children fleeing Putin's bombs is an insult to every Ukrainian. He is no Churchill: he is Basil Fawlty.\"\n\nSNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said Mr Johnson's comments were \"crass and distasteful\".\n\nMeanwhile in his interview with the Times, Mr Johnson has urged China to join in the global condemnation of Vladimir Putin's invasion.\n\nHe warned Beijing that supporting Russia was akin to choosing the wrong side in World War Two, describing it as a battle between good and evil.\n\nMr Johnson told the paper that he believed some in Xi Jinping's administration were having \"second thoughts\" about the neutral stance adopted by Beijing.\n\nIt comes just a few days after the US warned China that it would face consequences if it helped Russia evade sanctions.\n\n\"As time goes on, and as the number of Russian atrocities mounts up, I think it becomes steadily more difficult and politically embarrassing for people either actively or passively to condone Putin's invasion,\" Mr Johnson said.\n\n\"There are considerable dilemmas now for people who thought they could sit this one out, who thought they could sit on the fence.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Boris Johnson says he has told Volodymyr Zelensky he will do more to help Ukraine in its war with Russia", "The Anonymous hacktivist collective has been bombarding Russia with cyber-attacks since declaring \"cyber war\" on President Vladimir Putin in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. Several people operating under its banner spoke to the BBC about their motives, tactics and plans.\n\nOf all the cyber-attacks carried out since the Ukraine conflict started, an Anonymous hack on Russian TV networks stands out.\n\nThe hack was captured in a short video clip which shows normal programming interrupted with images of bombs exploding in Ukraine and soldiers talking about the horrors of the conflict.\n\nThe video began circulating on the 26 February and was shared by Anonymous social media accounts with millions of followers. \"JUST IN: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what happens in #Ukraine,\" one post read.\n\nIt quickly racked up millions of views.\n\nThe video was sent to a woman in the US, Eliza, by her father in Russia\n\nThe stunt has all the hallmarks of an Anonymous hack - dramatic, impactful and easy to share online. Like many of the group's other cyber-attacks it was also extremely hard to verify.\n\nBut one of the smaller groups of Anonymous hackers said that they were responsible, and that they took over TV services for 12 minutes.\n\nThe first person to post the video was also able to verify it was real. Eliza lives in the US but her father is Russian and called her when his TV shows were interrupted. \"My father called me when it happened and said, 'Oh my God, they're showing the truth!' So I got him to record it and I posted the clip online. He says one of his friends saw it happen too.\"\n\nRostelecom, the Russian company that runs the hacked services did not respond to requests for comment.\n\nThe hackers justified their actions saying innocent Ukrainians were being massacred. \"We will intensify the attacks on the Kremlin, if nothing is done to restore peace in Ukraine,\" they added.\n\nAnonymous says it has also taken down Russian websites and stolen government data, but Lisa Forte, a partner at cyber-security company Red Goat says most of these attacks have so far been \"quite basic\".\n\nHackers have mostly been using DDoS attacks, where a server is overwhelmed by a flood of requests, she said. These are relatively simple to carry out and only take websites offline temporarily.\n\n\"But the TV hack is incredibly creative,\" she said, \"and I would think quite difficult to pull off.\"\n\nAnonymous hackers have also defaced Russian websites. Forte says this involves gaining control of a website to change the content displayed.\n\nSo far, the attacks have caused disruption and embarrassment, but cyber-experts have become increasingly concerned by the explosion of hacktivism since the invasion.\n\nThey are worried that a hacker might accidentally knock out a hospital's computer network or interrupt critical communication links.\n\n\"I've never seen anything like this,\" says Emily Taylor from the Cyber Policy Journal.\n\n\"These attacks do carry risks. [They] could lead to escalation, or someone could accidentally cause real damage to a critical part of civilian life.\"\n\nAnonymous has not been this active in years. Roman, a Ukrainian tech entrepreneur who heads a group of hackers called Stand for Ukraine, had no links with the organisation until Russia invaded his country.\n\nBut he told me that when he and his team briefly defaced the website of the Russian state news agency, Tass, with an anti-Putin poster, they included an Anonymous logo.\n\nRoman works from his apartment in Kyiv, co-ordinating his team as they create websites, Android apps and Telegram bots to help Ukraine's war effort, and hack Russian targets.\n\n\"I am ready to go and pick up a rifle for Ukraine, but at the moment my skills are better used at the computer. So I'm here in my home with my two laptops, co-ordinating this IT resistance.\"\n\nRoman at work: \"Sometimes I see rockets in my sky\"\n\nHe says his group took a Russian regional train ticket service offline for a number of hours, although the BBC has not been able to verify this.\n\nHe defends his actions saying: \"These things are illegal and wrong until there is a threat to you or your relative.\"\n\nAnother group that has merged with Anonymous is a Polish hacking team called Squad 303, named after a famous Polish fighter squadron in World War Two.\n\n\"We work together with Anonymous all the time and I now consider myself a member of the Anonymous movement,\" says one of the group, who uses the name of WW2 pilot Jan Zumbach as his moniker.\n\nHe didn't want his photograph published but another member of his team, a Ukrainian, sent a picture of himself in a helmet and mask. He described his situation as \"on the barricade with a rifle during the day and hacking with the Squad/Anonymous at night\".\n\nSquad 303 has built a website allowing members of the public to send text messages to random Russian phone numbers, telling them the truth about the war. They claim to have facilitated more than 20 million SMS and WhatsApp messages.\n\nTwo Anonymous groups I spoke to cited this as the most impactful thing the collective has done so far for Ukraine.\n\nAsked how he justified the Squad's illegal activity, Jan Zumbach said they did not steal or share any private information and were only trying to speak to Russians, with the aim of winning the information war.\n\nHowever he also said they were planning a more impactful hack in the coming days.\n\nVigilante groups in Russia are also carrying out attacks on Ukraine, but seemingly on a smaller scale.\n\nThere have been three major waves of co-ordinated DDoS attacks against Ukraine since January, plus three incidents of more serious \"wiper\" attacks that deleted data on a small number of Ukrainian computer systems.\n\nOn Wednesday a manipulated video of President Zelensky appeared on the Ukraine 24 TV channel website after an apparent hack.\n\nIn the current environment, though, it's hard to know exactly who is behind any given cyber-attack.\n\n\"The Achilles heel of Anonymous is that anyone can claim to be Anonymous, including state actors operating against what we're fighting for,\" says long-standing Anonymous hacker Anon2World.\n\n\"With our current rise in popularity, it's (almost) a given that there will be obvious repercussions from a government entity. As for adding to the chaos, we're used to chaos, especially online.\"\n• None The return of the Anonymous hacker collective", "Kinzhal missiles have been fitted to Russian MiG-31K fighter jets, as shown in this defence ministry handout\n\nRussia's military has fired a hypersonic ballistic missile and destroyed a big underground arms depot in western Ukraine, the defence ministry in Moscow has said.\n\nIf confirmed it would be Russia's first use in this war of the Kinzhal, or Dagger, ballistic missile launched from the air, most likely by a MiG-31 warplane.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin has repeatedly highlighted Russia's investment in hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.\n\nThe statistics are impressive: according to Russian officials the Kinzhal can hit a target up to 2,000km (1,240 miles) away and can fly faster than 6,000 km/h. But does that make them any more dangerous than other missiles or even artillery which can cause just as much death and destruction?\n\n\"I don't view it as that significant,\" says James Acton, nuclear policy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. \"I don't know how much of an advantage Russia is getting from using hypersonic missiles.\"\n\nPresident Putin boasted last December that Russia was leading the world in hypersonic missiles, which are hard to track because they can change direction while mid-flight.\n\nRussia posted a video of what it said was its missile strike on the arms depot in Deliatyn, a village in south-western Ukraine only 100km from the border with Romania.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Минобороны России This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\n\"It's a sign of showmanship. Even if it's used we should consider it as an isolated moment because Russia doesn't have a large number of these missiles,\" said Dominika Kunertova of the Center for Security Studies in Zurich.\n\nThe Russian leader unveiled the Kinzhal four years ago as one of a series of \"invincible\" weapons that he said would evade enemy defences. The other hypersonic missiles are the Zirkon and the Avangard, which is both faster and has a far greater range.\n\nThe Kinzhal can carry a nuclear warhead as well as a conventional one and recent reports said MiG-31 fighters had been sent to Kaliningrad, bringing numerous European capitals within reach. There is no indication from where the attack on the arms depot was launched.\n\n\"It's a signal to the West, because Putin is annoyed that the West is daring to shift all these weapons [to Ukraine],\" Ms Kunertova told the BBC. \"It's questionable that it's so accurate, so it's not a game changer.\"\n\nJames Acton said the Kinzhal was thought to be an Iskander missile that had been modified for fighter jets, and Iskander-M missiles have already been fired by Russian ground launchers since the start of the war.\n\nAlthough the Iskander-M has a far shorter range than the air-launched missile, Ukraine's defence ministry claimed this week that Russia had fired almost all its Iskander missiles during the first 20 days of the war.\n\nA US defence official was quoted as saying on Friday that Russian forces had fired more than 1,080 missiles since 24 February.\n\n\"[That] is an astonishing number and a very significant fraction of Russia's pre-war inventory,\" Mr Acton told the BBC, pointing to the increasing use of unguided bombs in Russian aerial attacks. \"They may very well be running short of accurate munitions.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Russian cosmonauts arrive at the ISS in Ukrainian colours\n\nRussia's space agency has rejected claims that three Russian cosmonauts boarded the International Space Station wearing Ukrainian colours, in a possible statement against the war.\n\nThe first arrivals since Russia's war began were shown wearing bright yellow suits with blue trimmings.\n\nThey were warmly welcomed on board, hugging and greeting their fellow American, Russian and German crew.\n\n\"Sometimes yellow is just yellow,\" said the Roscosmos space agency.\n\nThe ISS is a joint project between Russia, America, Canada, Japan and several European countries.\n\nIt is led by a US-Russian partnership that has continued for two decades despite fluctuating tensions between the two world powers.\n\nRussian cosmonauts Denis Matveyev, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov docked at the ISS after a three-hour flight which blasted off from a Russian-owned facility in Kazakhstan.\n\n\"Congratulations on the successful docking,\" a voice from Russia's mission control said.\n\nA few hours later, two sets of hatches were opened and the three smiling men floated into the space station one by one in their yellow suits.\n\nThe standard-issue Russian uniform is plain blue, and at least one of the men was seen wearing this before take-off.\n\nThe moment was live-streamed by both Roscosmos and Nasa, the American space agency.\n\n\"It became our turn to pick a colour,\" Mr Artemyev said when he was asked about the suits in a live-streamed press conference.\n\n\"We had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it,\" he joked. \"That's why we had to wear yellow.\"\n\nSince the invasion of Ukraine, people around the world have used the colours of its national flag to show solidarity and support.\n\nBut Roscosmos's press service dismissed the reports as a \"funny invention\" by foreign bloggers and media.\n\n\"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy.\"\n\nThe head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, is a strong supporter of the invasion and he suggested the claims that the cosmonauts were wearing Ukrainian colours had come from Ukrainian nationalists.\n\nRoscosmos later published another picture of Oleg Artemyev wearing an obviously Russian suit.\n\nMr Artemyev was later seen posing in a white suit with the colours of the Russian flag\n\nThe three Russians will begin a science mission on the ISS that is set to last just over six months.\n\nThey will replace three current crew members who are scheduled to fly back to Earth on 30 March.\n\nThe colours certainly speak to the moment, but what is the real motivation in wearing them? Does it signal support for Ukraine or the opposite? After all, the suits do display Russian flags.\n\nPerhaps neither view is correct.\n\nIt has been suggested that the colours are a reflection of the fact that all three cosmonauts attended the Bauman Moscow State Technical University which has a similar colour scheme. It's a \"Bauman crew\", the university has been trumpeting.\n\nThe cosmonauts themselves, however, said noticeably little.\n\nWhat we do know is that 400km (248 miles) above the Earth, East and West have no choice but to continue friendly relations.\n\nWhile space co-operation is falling apart elsewhere - witness the ExoMars rover, for example - on the ISS the partners are joined at the hip. Russia provides the propulsion for the station, the Americans provide the power. The ISS cannot exist without either party.", "Forensic teams have been at a house in Northampton\n\nA woman has been charged with murder after a body was found buried in a garden.\n\nThe body was found in the garden of a house in Moore Street, Kingsley in Northampton, on Saturday.\n\nFiona Beal, 48, was charged with murder just after midnight after being arrested at a hotel in Cumbria on Wednesday.\n\nThe body is believed to be that of a 42-year-old missing man.\n\nMs Beal, of Moore Street, is due to appear at Northampton Magistrates' Court on Monday.\n\nNorthamptonshire police said they began searching the property after being called to the house on Wednesday.\n\nThe remains are expected be taken to Leicester for examination\n\nForensic officers and specialist search teams, including a cadaver dog, were deployed and the body found on Saturday afternoon, the force said.\n\nThe remains are expected be taken to Leicester where they will be forensically examined by a Home Office pathologist.\n\nDet Ch Insp Adam Pendlebury said: \"Regrettably, I can confirm that a body has been found in the rear garden of the address.\n\nA police scene remains in place at the house on Moore Street\n\n\"We believe it to be that of a missing 42-year-old male, but formal identification has yet to take place.\"\n\nHe asked anyone with information to come forward.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Russia's leader Vladimir Putin is trapped in a closed world of his own making, Western spies believe. And that worries them.\n\nFor years they have sought to get inside Mr Putin's mind, to better understand his intentions.\n\nWith Russian troops seemingly bogged down in Ukraine, the need to do so has become all the more necessary as they try to work out how he will react under pressure.\n\nUnderstanding his state of mind will be vital to avoid escalating the crisis into even more dangerous territory.\n\nThere has been speculation that Russia's leader was ill, but many analysts believe he has actually become isolated and closed off to any alternative views.\n\nHis isolation has been evident in pictures of his meetings, such as when he met President Emmanuel Macron, the pair at far ends of a long table. It was also evident in Mr Putin's meeting with his own national security team on the eve of war.\n\nMr Putin's initial military plan looked like something devised by a KGB officer, one Western intelligence official explains.\n\nIt had been created, they say, by a tight \"conspiratorial cabal\" with an emphasis on secrecy. But the result was chaos. Russian military commanders were not ready and some soldiers went over the border without knowing what they were doing.\n\nWestern spies, through sources they will not discuss, knew more about those plans than many inside Russia's leadership. But now they face a new challenge - understanding what Russia's leader will do next. And that is not easy.\n\n\"The challenge of understanding the Kremlin's moves is that Putin is the single decision-maker in Moscow,\" explains John Sipher, who formerly ran the CIA's Russia operations. And even though his views are often made clear through public statements, knowing how he will act on them is difficult intelligence challenge.\n\n\"It is extremely hard in a system as well protected as Russia to have good intelligence on what's happening inside the head of the leader especially when so many of his own people do not know what is going on,\" Sir John Sawers, a former head of Britain's MI6, told the BBC.\n\nMr Putin, intelligence officials say, is isolated in a bubble of his own making, which very little outside information penetrates, particularly any which might challenge what he thinks.\n\n\"He is a victim of his own propaganda in the sense that he only listens to a certain number of people and blocks out everything else. This gives him a strange view of the world,\" says Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology and co-author of a forthcoming book The Psychology of Spies and Spying. The risk is what is called \"group think\" in which everyone reinforces his view. \"If he's a victim of group think we need to know who the group is,\" says Prof Furnham.\n\nThe circle of those Mr Putin talks to has never been large but when it came to the decision to invade Ukraine, it had narrowed to just a handful of people, Western intelligence officials believe, all of those \"true believers\" who share Mr Putin's mindset and obsessions.\n\nThe sense of how small his inner circle has become was emphasised when he publicly dressed down the head of his own Foreign Intelligence Service at the national security meeting just before the invasion - a move which seemed to humiliate the official. His speech hours later also revealed a man angry and obsessed with Ukraine and the West.\n\nThose who have observed him say the Russian leader is driven by a desire to overcome the perceived humiliation of Russia in the 1990s along with a conviction that the West is determined to keep Russia down and drive him from power. One person who met Mr Putin remembers his obsession with watching videos of Libya's Col Gaddafi being killed after he was driven from power in 2011.\n\nWhen the director of the CIA, William Burns, was asked to assess Mr Putin's mental state, he said he had \"been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years\" and described his views as having \"hardened\" and that he was \"far more insulated\" from other points of view.\n\nIs the Russian president crazy? That is a question many in the West have asked. But few experts consider it helpful. One psychologist with expertise in the area said a mistake was to assume because we cannot understand a decision like invading Ukraine we frame the person who made it as \"mad\".\n\nThe CIA has a team which carries out \"leadership analysis\" on foreign decision makers, drawing on a tradition dating back to attempts to understand Hitler. They study background, relationships and health, drawing on secret intelligence.\n\nAnother source are read-outs from the those who have had direct contact, such as other leaders. In 2014, Angela Merkel reportedly told President Obama that Mr Putin was living \"in another world\". President Macron meanwhile when he sat down with Mr Putin recently, was reported to have found the Russian leader \"more rigid, more isolated\" compared with previous encounters.\n\nDid something change? Some speculate, without much evidence, about possible ill-health or the impact of medication. Others point to psychological factors such as a sense of his own time running out for him to fulfil what he sees as his destiny in protecting Russia or restoring its greatness. The Russian leader has visibly isolated himself from others during the Covid pandemic and this also may have had a psychological impact.\n\n\"Putin is likely not mentally ill, nor he has changed, although he is in more of a hurry, and likely more isolated in recent years,\" says Ken Dekleva, a former US government physician and diplomat, and currently a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.\n\nBut a concern now is that reliable information is still not finding its way into Mr Putin's closed loop. His intelligence services may have been reluctant before the invasion to tell him anything he did not want to hear, offering rosy estimates of how an invasion would go and how Russian troops would be received before the war. And this week one Western official said Mr Putin may still not have the insight into how badly things are going for his own troops that Western intelligence has. That leads to concern about how he might react when confronted with a worsening situation for Russia.\n\nMr Putin himself tells the story of chasing a rat when he was a boy. When he had driven it into a corner, the rat reacted by attacking him, forcing a young Vladimir to become the one who fled. The question Western policymakers are asking is what if Mr Putin feels cornered now?\n\n\"The question really is whether or not he doubles down with greater brutality and escalates in terms of the weapon systems that he's prepared to use,\" said one western official. There have been concerns he could use chemical weapons or even a tactical nuclear weapon.\n\n\"The worry is that he does something unbelievably rash in a vicious press-the button way,\" says Adrian Furnham.\n\nMr Putin himself may play up the sense that he is dangerous or even irrational - this is a well-known tactic (often called the \"madman\" theory) in which someone with access to nuclear weapons tries to get his adversary to back down by convincing them that he may well be crazy enough to use them despite the potential for everyone to perish.\n\nFor Western spies and policymakers understanding Mr Putin's intentions and mindset today could not be more important. Predicting his response is pivotal in working out how far they can push him without triggering a dangerous reaction.\n\n\"Putin's self concept does not allow for failure or weakness. He despises such things\" says Ken Dekleva. \"A cornered, weakened Putin is a more dangerous Putin. It's sometimes better to let the bear run out of the cage and back to the forest.\"", "Last updated on .From the section Rugby Union\n\nFrance strutted to a first Grand Slam in 12 years as they ran in three tries to comfortably see off England in front of a jubilant Stade de France.\n\nTries from Gael Fickou and Francois Cros gave the hosts a healthy half-time lead and left England playing catch-up in the Six Nations finale.\n\nEngland's Freddie Steward, deployed on the wing, stepped and swooped to score after Joe Marchant's break after the interval.\n\nBut it was a rare moment of danger from England, who were kept at arm's length.\n\nFrance captain Antoine Dupont darted under the sticks soon after and the hosts played out the final 10 minutes in comfort as their fans started the party.\n\nLa Marseillaise reverberated round the stands and tricolores fluttered from every seat as the final scrum was set with the clock in the red.\n\nGregory Alldritt's kick to the stands moments later was the signal for his team to drop to their knees and savour a clean sweep that has been brewing for the last couple of campaigns.\n\nEngland finish third in the Six Nations, but this contest revealed the chasm that separates them from the champions.\n\nFrance were superior in every area. Stronger up front, more accurate in the backs, tighter in defence, more clinical in attack.\n\nFor England, defeat is a sobering reality check. There are still 18 months until the start of the Rugby World Cup, but to close the gap on France in that timeframe requires swift, steep improvement.\n\nThere was little sign of it at the Stade de France. A campaign that started with Eddie Jones' side stifled by Scotland, ended with them overwhelmed in Paris, and there have been precious few positives in between.\n\nFrance shoot for the stars at the Stade\n\nEngland had creaked long before the opening score. Fickou knocked on as an intricate pre-planned move prised open a hole for him before Jonathan Danty's offload went to ground on a dangerous broken-field counter.\n\nThe visitors' luck could not hold. France duly got a grip of the ball and the match. Gabin Villiere's dart down the left dragged England's defence out of shape and Romain Ntamack's looping mispass found an unguarded Fickou, who dived over on the opposite wing.\n\nEngland's kick-heavy tactics worked on occasion. Twice in the first half, Freddie Steward chased Marcus Smith's hoofs and managed to win the aerial battle.\n\nBut on both occasions, France were quicker into the breakdown to turn over possession and stem the momentum. The rest of the bombardment was eagerly gobbled up by full-back Melvyn Jaminet and his two wings.\n\nFrance's threat was never far from the surface, but England dredged in vain for a way through the defence.\n\nThe visitors rarely looked like stringing together a series of profitable phases to build pressure and only clung within range thanks to a pair of Smith penalties as half-time loomed.\n\nCros ensured the difference between the sides was better represented on the scoreboard by the break though as he stretched over to make it 18-6 after a sky-hooked one-hand pass from Fickou had sent Villiere scampering clear.\n\nEngland's toil suddenly, unexpectedly bore fruit early in the second half. Marchant barrelled through a hole, Smith and Henry Slade combined to get the ball wide and Steward stepped inside the covering Ntamack to score.\n\nSmith converted from the touchline. The lead was trimmed to five points.\n\nIt could have been where the Stade de France got twitchy. It could have been there the pressure of ending a Grand Slam drought bore down on the players. This generation is different though. Just as when Ireland threatened a comeback in round two, they found another gear.\n\nNumber eight Alldritt picked and went round the fringe and slipped the ball inside to Dupont, with whom he has played on and off since the pair were boys at the small-town southern club of Auch.\n\nWorld Player of the Year Dupont did the rest, shrugging off two tacklers on his way in.\n\nThey are both stars on the biggest stage now. Few would bet against them or their team for the biggest prize either when France hosts the Rugby World Cup next year.\n\n'Two wins not acceptable for England' - best of the reaction\n\nFormer England wing Ugo Monye on Radio 5 Live: \"Third place is a fair reflection of where England are. Will the fans be frustrated? Absolutely.\n\n\"This England team have been in a cycle of boom or bust. Last year was a clear bust but to back it up with the same number of wins, for the level of players we have, for the player pool we have, the financial backing we have and the coach we have, it's just not good enough.\n\n\"France are streets ahead of every other team in this competition. They have a brilliant style. They have flair with work rate and physicality, but they're also devoid of those big moments that have cost them down the years.\"\n\nFormer England scrum-half Matt Dawson on BBC Radio 5 Live: \"Dupont is not even halfway in his career and goodness me, he's just going to get better and better.\n\n\"He's one of those, it doesn't matter what sport it is, the best players make it seem like they are playing in slow motion.\"\n\n'We wanted to write our names in history'\n\nFrance scrum-half and captain Antoine Dupont said: \"This is our third tournament together as a team. We were very close twice so we know how difficult it is to win.\n\n\"We wanted to write our place in history.\n\n\"Of course we have next year's World Cup in mind, we discuss it between us, but for now we'll enjoy the Grand Slam and we'll start thinking about the World Cup later.\"\n\nFrance team manager Raphael Ibanez, speaking to ITV: \"Twelve years is a very, very long time and this was an intense final game but we have a fantastic group of players.\n\n\"We were thinking we needed to hold on and fair play to England, they tried to break us down.\"\n\nBest of the pictures\n\nFrance: Jaminet; Penaud, Fickou, Danty, Villiere; Ntamack, Dupont; Baille, Marchand, Atonio, Woki, Willemse, Cros, Jelonch, Alldritt.Replacements: Ramos for Jaminet (76), Lucu for Dupont (76), Gros for Baille (49), Mauvaka for Marchand (49),Haouas for Atonio (54), Flament for Woki (71), Taofifenua for Willemse (49), Cretin for Cros (71).England: Furbank; Steward, Marchant, Slade, Nowell; Smith, Youngs; Genge, George, Stuart, Itoje, Isiekwe, Lawes,Underhill, Simmonds.\n\nReplacements: Ford for Furbank (76), Daly for Nowell (25), Randall for Youngs (64), Marler for Genge (64),Sinckler for Stuart (49), Chessum for Isiekwe (61), Dombrandt for Underhill (64).\n• None Robert Pattinson reveals all about taking on the role of the caped crusader\n• None Philippe Coutinho and fan-owned Dublin club Bohemian FC feature on this week's episode", "Police have named the 19-year-old victim as British student Sabita Thanwani\n\nA man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 19-year-old woman who died in student accommodation in central London.\n\nStudent Sabita Thanwani was found with neck injuries in the halls of residence in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell.\n\nPolice and medics went to Arbour House at about 05:10 GMT on Saturday but she died at the scene.\n\nMaher Maaroufe, understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Thanwani, has been arrested, police said.\n\nThe 22-year-old was also arrested on suspicion of assault on police. He remains in custody.\n\nMr Maaroufe was arrested by officers in Clerkenwell area after a police appeal to trace him.\n\nMs Thanwani attended City, University of London, which is near to the student accommodation where she died.\n\nArbour House, near City, University of London, is owned by Unite Students and houses 188 students\n\nDet Ch Insp Linda Bradley said Ms Thanwani's family were being supported by officers.\n\nShe said: \"Our deepest condolences are with them.\n\n\"I would ask everyone to respect their privacy at this indescribably devastating time for them as they come to terms with Sabita's murder.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination has also been arranged.\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone, of the Met Police, said he understood the student community and local people would be concerned.\n\nHe said: \"I share their sadness and their concerns. And I can assure them that a thorough homicide investigation is under way, led by skilled and experienced detectives who will work tirelessly to identify and arrest whoever is responsible.\"\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "America is learning the art of humility. That's a good thing for the rest of the world.\n\nThe country that began this century by invading not one but two countries, has become more modest in the face of the nightmare that is Ukraine. Forget shock and awe, this is the era of caution and apprehension. That's what having no good options will do for you.\n\nFriday's two-hour phone call with China's President Xi, superpower to superpower, was a sign of how hard it will be for America to stop this war. The US's leverage over China is limited, and readouts from both sides suggest the call didn't achieve much. But it was part of an orchestrated diplomatic strategy that contrasts with much of the first year of Joe Biden's presidency.\n\nAfter the fiasco of the Afghan withdrawal last summer, America lost credibility with its European allies. US intelligence looked unprepared, and the operation of leaving was staggeringly incompetent. What's more, European diplomats complained, America didn't really consult with allies. America pulled out on its own precipitous timetable, leaving countries that still had forces and personnel in the country scrambling. When some Europeans said it would be smart to leave a residual Nato force, the White House ignored the pleas.\n\nThat heavy-handed mission was followed by another. In September, the White House announced a nuclear submarine security pact between Australia, Britain and the US. The pact left the French, who had been negotiating their own sub sale to the Australians, out in the cold. Worse, the Elysee Palace said it learned of the new deal from the press. It was a masterclass in how not to handle your oldest ally. The French were so furious that President Biden apologised and admitted the US had been clumsy.\n\nBy the autumn of 2021 Europeans were disappointed in the Biden administration and felt their hopes that a post-Trump America would be more collegial were ill-founded. When Washington started ringing the alarm bell about Russia and Ukraine, Europeans weren't in much mood to listen. \"War-mongering\" was how one EU diplomat described it to me.\n\nWhether it was the lesson of Afghanistan or the nature of this particularly difficult catastrophe, we don't know, but the White House handled this crisis very differently.\n\nFrom the start it has consulted with its allies, many of whom were sceptical. There are reports that US diplomats approached Europeans as equals not subordinates. The administration shared highly secret intelligence in a manner that was unprecedented. In the months that led up to the invasion senior White House officials made multiple trips to meet their European counterparts. President Biden made regular phone calls to European leaders.\n\nThis wasn't Iraq in 2002, it wasn't Trump's America First, it wasn't Afghanistan in 2021. This was genuine alliance building.\n\nOn 27 January there was an indication that the shuttle diplomacy was bearing fruit. A full month before the invasion, during an otherwise ordinary press briefing, the White House spokeswoman, Jennifer Psaki, announced that German Chancellor Olaf Sholz would visit the White House on 7 February.\n\nSecuring that visit of the brand new German leader was an indication that the administration both anticipated what was coming, and knew what was needed: German co-operation. A visit to the White House is a coup for any foreign leader, it's a useful weapon of soft power. Yes, President Zelensky's articulate appeals also played a big part in shifting German policy, but US diplomacy helped win German support.\n\nBeyond diplomacy, there is a new recognition here of Washington's military limits, a realisation that force won't get America everything it wants, however strong its army. That's an unusual position for the world's biggest military.\n\nWhen Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait in 1990, the US rallied the world to put boots on the ground to get him out. In 1999 President Clinton ordered Nato jets to conduct airstrikes in Kosovo. After 9/11, the US strong-armed a coalition of the unwilling to invade Iraq. In 2011, the US military was part of the operation that helped topple Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.\n\nToday Washington is holding back, resisting the emotional pleas of Zelensky to use that military clout. It's sending weapons, intelligence and cyber-support. But for the moment it won't do more.\n\nAmerica knows it could impose, and most probably enforce, a no-fly zone. It has the jets and missiles and pilots to do so. But, as the White House says repeatedly, mobilising the might of the Pentagon won't necessarily end this war, it might make it worse. The more America leads, the greater the risk that Putin can sell this to his own people as a fight between Russia and the US.\n\nWhich is why you won't hear this White House talk about regime change, or democracy, or even freedom in Russia.\n\nI reread President Bush's second inaugural address, delivered in 2005, at the height of the Iraq war, when neo-conservatives ran US foreign policy.\n\n\"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nature and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world,\" the newly re-elected president declared. Talk about hubris.\n\nYet the White House also understands the risks of not being more assertive. It knows that not intervening could lead to the deaths of countless more Ukrainian civilians, and President Putin may strike a Nato country anyway. So it walks a tightrope with potentially horrifying consequences, recognising that there are no good answers. The US is left to help Ukrainians from the sidelines. And maybe that is all they can do.\n\nIt is enough to make anyone more humble.", "Despite the high demand for tickets, Nottingham Forest have covered 97 seats\n\nNottingham Forest has left 97 seats vacant for their match with Liverpool to honour those who lost their lives due to the Hillsborough disaster.\n\nThe clubs are meeting on Sunday for the first time in the FA Cup since their 1989 semi-final, which led to 97 spectators losing their lives.\n\nThey are expected to be the only empty seats at the sell-out match at City Ground.\n\nNottinghamshire Police have asked all fans to enjoy the match safely.\n\nNottingham Forest said it was looking forward to welcoming 4,000 away fans.\n\nDespite the high demand for tickets, the club made 97 seats unavailable to purchase.\n\nInstead, they have been covered with a banner paying tribute to the Liverpool fans who lost their lives after overcrowding occurred on the terraces of Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium on 15 April 1989.\n\nIn 2016, inquests concluded that the fans who had died had been unlawfully killed.\n\nNo-one has ever been convicted over police actions concerning the disaster, in what a senior government minister described as \"the greatest scandal of British policing of our lifetimes\".\n\nPolice are warning fans not to try taking flares or smoke bombs into the stadium\n\nNottingham Forest have already beaten Huddersfield, Leicester and Arsenal in the lead-up to the quarter-final match.\n\nThere was violence in the city ahead of the clash against Leicester.\n\nWith a trip to Wembley at stake, Nottinghamshire Police is asking fans not to let their emotions get the better of them.\n\nFans have also been warned not to try taking flares or smoke bombs into the stadium.\n\nThe match kicks off at 18:00 GMT.\n\nFollow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nRomelu Lukaku scored his 12th goal of the season as Chelsea beat Championship side Middlesbrough to reach the FA Cup semi-finals.\n\nMiddlesbrough had knocked out Manchester United and Tottenham on their way to the quarter-finals but their hopes of claiming another Premier League victim were dealt an early blow when Lukaku tapped in from Mason Mount's cross after a quick Chelsea counter.\n\nHakim Ziyech made it 2-0 midway through the first half with a superb dipping effort from the edge of the box before Lukaku was denied a second when Anfernee Dijksteel cleared off the line.\n\nMiddlesbrough showed plenty of endeavour in the second half as they looked to mount an unlikely comeback, with Arsenal loanee Folarin Balogun shooting wide after a promising counter, while Duncan Watmore also sent an effort over the bar from a good position.\n\nHowever, Chelsea could have grabbed a late third when substitute Timo Werner met a free-kick but Middlesbrough goalkeeper Joe Lumley did well to palm away.\n\nChelsea will find out who they will play in the semi-finals, which will be played at Wembley on 16 and 17 April, when the draw is made before Sunday's quarter-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool (18:00 GMT).\n\nThere had been a bit of needle before this game with Chelsea having had to make an awkward U-turn over their request for the game to be played behind closed doors for \"sporting integrity\".\n\nThe club were unable to sell their entire 4,500 ticket allocation for the fixture because of sanctions that have been imposed by the government on Russian owner Roman Abramovich because of his connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nIt meant they were backed by around 700 supporters who had got their tickets before the sanctions were brought in, while Middlesbrough were cheered on by a sell-out crowd at the 34,000 capacity Riverside Stadium.\n\nChelsea players have responded well amid the uncertainty surrounding the club off the pitch. They had been unsure if they would have a 10-hour round trip by coach to get to Middlesbrough just hours after returning from a Champions League tie in Lille because of financial constraints.\n\nSince Abramovich had his assets frozen on 10 March as part of sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Chelsea have won all three games they have played and this was an ultimately routine victory against a side who have performed well against Premier League opponents in this year's FA Cup.\n\nLukaku has endured a difficult campaign in which he has not looked completely happy at Chelsea but he was handed a start in this game.\n\nAnd he made a key contribution, opening the scoring for a third FA Cup goal in four games, making an important clearance from a Marcus Tavernier free-kick with the score 1-0, and was denied a second only by a goalline clearance.\n\nThe Belgian's celebration of his goal was muted, doing little to quash speculation about his long-term future, but he did what he was asked to do as Chelsea kept alive their hopes of a ninth FA Cup title.\n\nIt has been an excellent run in the FA Cup by Middlesbrough, who have been rejuvenated since Chris Wilder took charge on 7 November.\n\nThey started this game well and were not afraid to press high against a side who had won seven of their last eight games.\n\nUltimately, that bold start proved costly as they were caught on the counter for the opener but their run in the competition and their performances against Premier League opposition will give them confidence as they now switch focus to joining their recent FA Cup opposition in the top flight next season.\n\nMiddlesbrough are eighth in the Championship, two points off sixth but with two games in hand over most of those above them.\n• None Offside, Chelsea. César Azpilicueta tries a through ball, but Harvey Vale is caught offside.\n• None Kenedy (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Lee Peltier (Middlesbrough) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Jonny Howson (Middlesbrough) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\n• None Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Attempt blocked. Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by N'Golo Kanté.\n• None Attempt blocked. Timo Werner (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "This is the damage caused when a car reversed into a shop window in Gorseinon on Friday evening\n\nTwo teenage girls aged 15 and 16 are being held in custody after a car reversed into a shop front.\n\nSouth Wales Police was called at 22:52 GMT on Friday after a car drove into Gorseinon Eye Centre, High Street, Gorseinon, Swansea.\n\nBoth girls have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated vehicle taking.\n\nThe younger girl has also been arrested on suspicion of driving a motor vehicle while over the legal alcohol limit.\n\nThis Facebook post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Facebook The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts. Skip facebook post by Gorseinon Eye Centre This article contains content provided by Facebook. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Facebook cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Facebook content may contain adverts.\n\nOwner Helen Silverberg, who runs the business with her husband Jeremy, and David and Mandy Griffiths, praised neighbouring businesses and residents for their support.\n\n\"From the staff at Greggs bringing us coffees to the Crossroads clinic offering us space if we need it next week - so many residents and passers-by have wished us well,\" she said.\n\nIn a Facebook post, the business said it would remain closed on Saturday and, as it had been unable to access its appointment diary, it apologised to anyone with an appointment who had not been contacted.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Blocks of flats and a shopping mall have been completely destroyed in Mariupol, Ukraine.\n\nThe besieged port city has faced constant shelling since the war started three weeks ago.\n\nThe Mayor of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko told the BBC that fighting has reached the city centre.\n\nRead more on the attack on Mariupol here.\n\nThis video has no sound", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge show off their dance moves in Belize\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been dancing with locals and sampling chocolate at a cocoa farm as they explored Belize.\n\n\"They were shaking their waists like nobody's business,\" said Laura Cacho, a local festival organiser who danced with William.\n\nOn the second day of their Caribbean tour, the royals visited the Che 'il chocolate farm\n\nThey ground cacao nibs, before the future king jokingly asked for a job.\n\nThe duke and duchess were rewarded with a taste of the products at the family-run cocoa farm in the village of Maya Center in southern Belize, with Catherine admitting their children would be \"jealous\".\n\nThe duke and duchess later showed off their moves on the dancefloor as they experienced the culture of the Garifuna community in the coastal village of Hopkins.\n\nMs Cacho, 57, said it was a \"pleasure\" to dance with William.\n\n\"He shook his waist to the music. He had beautiful rhythm. It was a pleasure for me.\n\n\"Kate was excellent as well and definitely has Garifuna culture in her.\"\n\nThe duchess also had a shimmy to the delight of the Belize crowds\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge got stuck in to grind cacao nibs on a visit to a family-run chocolate farm in southern Belize\n\nEarlier, during the trip to the cocoa farm, the royal couple learnt first-hand about the work that goes into producing the chocolate.\n\nWilliam, 39, who had been pounding away with a mortar and pestle made from volcanic rock, quipped about swapping his royal day job for one on the farm, asking the owner, Julio Saqui: \"Do you take apprentices?\n\n\"Can I come and work for you? It's my kind of thing.\"\n\nThe duke and duchess were shown cocoa trees laden with fruit, with Catherine, 40, asking the owner's brother, Narcisio, how often they are harvested.\n\nAs they took a break from the blistering sun under a marquee, the royal couple heard from Narcisio about the importance of the cocoa bean.\n\nThe future king joked about swapping his royal day job for an apprenticeship on the farm\n\nWilliam and Catherine tasted the farm's fruit as they learnt about the importance of the cocoa bean\n\nThe Saqui family are part of Belize's Maya community, where the cocoa bean is sacred and has been a key part of their culture for thousands of years.\n\nThe cocoa bean was once considered more valuable than gold to the Maya people, who served it to royalty and continue to offer it to important guests.\n\nThe duke expressed his surprise after using a club to break open a cocoa pod - which was filled with white sticky seeds that have to be fermented, dried, roasted and ground to make chocolate - exclaiming: \"That's not what I expected at all.\"\n\nThe couple later got to taste some of the farm's goods as they dipped tortilla chips into chocolate fountains, and tried hot chocolate made from organic products.\n\nThe duchess admitted the couple's three children - Prince George, eight, Princess Charlotte, six, and Prince Louis, three - would be \"very jealous\".\n\nWilliam and Catherine later met conservationists on the Hopkins' beach to learn about the area's marine environment and efforts to preserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Belize MFAFT 🇧🇿 This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nWilliam and Catherine's tour of the Che 'il chocolate farm came after a planned trip to a similar producer had to be axed after reported opposition from local residents.\n\nThe Cambridges' visit to the Akte 'il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village was cancelled amid a reported dispute between villagers and Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which has William as patron, over land owned by the conservation organisation.\n\nResidents are also reported to have raised concerns saying they were not consulted about plans for the couple's helicopter to land on a local football pitch.\n\nKensington Palace and the Belize government confirmed the schedule change, while a spokesman for FFI said the charity would \"support the livelihoods, educational opportunities and the customary rights of local people\" as part of its project in the area.\n\nOn landing at Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport on Sunday, the duke and duchess were greeted by Belize's governor general and a guard of honour from the Belize Defence Force.\n\nThey royal couple later met Prime Minister Johnny Briceno and his wife Rossana, with Mr Briceno telling them: \"We're so happy you're here.\"\n\nThe Cambridges landed at Belize City's airport on Sunday\n\nThe royal couple will also visit Jamaica and the Bahamas as part of their eight-day tour, with highlights set to include a sailing regatta in the Bahamas in honour of the Queen's 70-year reign, and a celebration of Jamaica's musical and sporting heritage.", "Last updated on .From the section FA Cup\n\nLiverpool will play Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley after edging past Nottingham Forest in a pulsating encounter at the City Ground.\n\nDiogo Jota scored the only goal of the game for the visitors, prodding in Konstantinos Tsimikas' cross from the left with 12 minutes remaining.\n\nJurgen Klopp's quadruple-chasing side dominated possession but were made to work for their victory by their relentless Championship opponents.\n\nSteve Cooper's side saw a late penalty appeal turned down by VAR when midfielder Ryan Yates fell after a challenge with Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson.\n\nThe hosts also regarded Philip Zinckernagel's miss as decisive to the outcome, the Danish winger side-footing wide from six yards from Brennan Johnson's inviting cross just a couple of minutes before Jota's goal.\n\n\"I think the game was decided on a defining two minutes - we had a good chance that we didn't take and they created one and did,\" said Cooper.\n\nWhile Forest had already beaten both Arsenal and Leicester in this season's competition, they found themselves taking a significant step up in class against Liverpool despite Klopp making seven changes to his starting XI.\n\nAnd while they were galvanised by the electric atmosphere in what was the first meeting between the clubs in the FA Cup since the rescheduled 1989 semi-final that followed the Hillsborough disaster, they spent long periods of the game under severe pressure.\n\nYates also had a chance to head a late equaliser, but Liverpool, who also carved open several excellent opportunities of their own, deservedly advanced to the last four.\n\nWhile Forest made an encouraging start despite the absence of three first-choice defenders, Liverpool's Premier League pedigree quickly became evident.\n\nThe visitors' slick movement repeatedly caused problems as did the hosts' own attempts to play out from the back.\n\nAnd had Roberto Firmino not fluffed a golden chance to open the scoring, Klopp's side would have headed into the interval with a deserved advantage and possibly having laid the platform for a more convincing performance.\n\nInstead the Brazilian's attempted dink was well saved by Forest goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, who bailed out his team after Jack Colback's glaring mistake.\n\n\"It was the game we expected, especially if you don't use your chances,\" said Klopp.\n\n\"We could have played better, but we should have scored in the first half. If we scored earlier it would be a completely different game. Everything was prepared to give us a knock as well but because we were prepared for a fight we came through.\"\n\nReinforcements were summoned just after the hour mark with Jordan Henderson, Thiago, Takumi Minamino and Luis Diaz all introduced to try and turn the contest in Liverpool's favour.\n\nBut having survived a scare at one end of the pitch it was Jota who made the difference with his 19th goal of the campaign - his best ever return in front of goal in a single season.\n\nAnd it ensured that Liverpool reached the semi-final of the competition for the first time under Klopp and maintained their superb domestic form which has seen them win 13 consecutive games plus the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea after a penalty shootout.\n\nForest were bottom of the Championship when Cooper took charge in September and the former England Under-17s boss has since overseen a significant upturn in fortunes.\n\nThis was only Forest's second defeat since the turn of the year and, while they will take heart from pushing one of Europe's elite clubs so close, they can now focus all of their attention on trying to join Liverpool in the Premier League next term.\n\nForest are three points off the Championship play-off positions with games in hand on all the sides around them in the table.\n\nAnd if the likes of Joe Worrall, Joe Garner and Keinan Davis continue to perform in the same vein as they did here, they appear to have the spine of a team capable of reaching the top flight for the first time since 1999.\n• None Attempt missed. Diogo Jota (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box is high and wide to the right. Assisted by Takumi Minamino.\n• None Offside, Liverpool. Jordan Henderson tries a through ball, but Roberto Firmino is caught offside.\n• None Attempt missed. Cafú (Nottingham Forest) right footed shot from the right side of the box is close, but misses the top right corner. Assisted by Tobias Figueiredo with a through ball.\n• None Attempt saved. Ryan Yates (Nottingham Forest) header from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Brennan Johnson with a cross.\n• None Brennan Johnson (Nottingham Forest) wins a free kick on the right wing.\n• None Goal! Nottingham Forest 0, Liverpool 1. Diogo Jota (Liverpool) right footed shot from very close range to the top right corner. Assisted by Konstantinos Tsimikas with a cross.\n• None Attempt missed. Philip Zinckernagel (Nottingham Forest) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Brennan Johnson with a cross following a fast break.\n• None Attempt blocked. Takumi Minamino (Liverpool) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Navigate to the next page Navigate to the last page", "Last updated on .From the section Basketball\n\nLeBron James passed Karl Malone to become the NBA's second all-time leading scorer, despite the Los Angeles Lakers' loss to the Washington Wizards.\n\nJames scored 38 points in the 127-119 defeat, taking his career total to 36,947 points.\n\nOnly Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has scored more points than the 37-year-old.\n\n\"At some point I'll be able to look back at this moment, but right now the feeling I have, I can't separate it [from the loss],\" James said.\n\nThe Lakers have not won back-to-back matches since they claimed four in a row between 31 December and 7 January.\n\nJames scored six points in the first quarter before a dunk and three three-pointers brought him level on points with Malone.\n\nA lay-up later on in the second quarter than took him beyond Malone's record.\n\nIt was not enough, however, to stop the Wizards overturning a 16-point deficit to end a six-match losing streak.\n\nWhen asked if he could break Abdul-Jabbar's record, James said: \"I will not allow myself to think about it.\n\n\"I've always just played the game the way I've been playing it over the years, and these things have just happened organically by just going out and playing the game the right way.\n\n\"I hope to accomplish that at some point in my career, but I won't think about it too much.\"\n\nElsewhere, the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Milwaukee Bucks 138-119 and the Cleveland Cavaliers came past the Detroit Pistons 113-109.\n\nThere was also a 129-108 victory for the Charlotte Hornets over the Dallas Mavericks.\n• None Can this mystery finally be resolved?: 50 years on the case of a beachside abduction rumbles on\n• None The bizarre story of a company that conned its own staff into believing it was real", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Survivors from the bombardment of Mariupol are receiving treatment nearby in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nIn his hospital bed, little Artem stares into space. He clutches a small yellow toy tractor but says nothing as specialist nurses monitor his condition. The Russian shell that blasted shrapnel into his belly also badly wounded his parents and grandparents as they tried to flee Mariupol. A victim of Putin's war and he's not yet three years old.\n\nIn the next bed to Artem lies 15-year-old Masha, also from near Mariupol. Her right leg was amputated after it was torn apart by the blast from a Russian shell last Tuesday.\n\nThe very worst of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and what the relentless Russian bombardment has done to the people trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol, can be seen at the Regional Children's Hospital in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia.\n\nMasha is among the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians injured in Russian shelling over the past three weeks\n\nHundreds of people have been evacuated here. Their physical wounds are obvious and may, to an extent, heal. The psychological trauma will live with them forever.\n\nDoctors here and the children's surviving relatives, asked us to tell their stories, among them Dr Yuri Borzenko, head of the Children's Hospital. He can't hide his contempt for what Russia has done.\n\n\"I hate Russia,\" says Dr Borzenko, without a flicker of emotion on his face. \"The girl who lost her leg (Masha) was so traumatised she wouldn't eat or drink for days. She couldn't mentally handle what had happened. We had to feed her intravenously.\"\n\n\"Another boy,\" says the doctor, \"a six-year-old, with shrapnel in his skull described - without any tears or emotion - watching his mother burn to death in their car after it was hit. Two days later he said 'dad buy me a new mum, I need someone to walk me to school'.\"\n\nWhat is happening in Mariupol is a humanitarian disaster, even - perhaps - a war crime. An estimated 90% of the city's buildings have been damaged or destroyed. After last week's destruction of a theatre where more than 1,000 people were sheltering, reports today that an arts school, with 400 people inside, has also been attacked.\n\nDr Yuri Borzenko has found himself leading a children's hospital at a time of war\n\nThose who've been able to escape Mariupol talk of unimaginable horrors. First-hand accounts of bodies lying in the streets, of homes destroyed. Carrying those memories they put as much physical distance as they can between themselves and what they went through.\n\nIn a café in the central city of Dnipro, which itself has come under Russian fire, we met Oksana Gusak. With her husband Andrii, and her parents, Oksana fled Mariupol last week through mined roads and a dozen hostile Russian army checkpoints.\n\nJust drinking a glass of water now feels like a luxury for Oksana, after they had run out of everything in Mariupol. They all politely turn down our offer of coffee, saying it would be an insult to the family members they left behind in parts of Mariupol from where it was impossible to flee.\n\nHer husband, Andrii, told me there was no water supply in the city, no power, no heating and no communications so they had no choice but to go.\n\nOksana Gusak and her family are among the 35,000 people who have been forced to flee from Mariupol\n\n\"Absolutely we were taking a risk but at that point I didn't care whether I'd die in Mariupol or die trying to get out,\" says Oksana.\n\n\"We knew there was a chance, we'd be targeted and we realised we had to take that chance. If we would have stayed, the chances of surviving would be zero.\"\n\nAndrii and Oksana are fortunate to have escaped unharmed and with each other. They know that.\n\nAt Zaporizhzhia's Children's Hospital, I came across one grief-stricken, inconsolable father whose family had been completely torn apart.\n\nHis daughter Natasha, who was 26, and his 4-year-old granddaughter Dominica, were killed when a Russian shell landed near the shelter where the whole family was seeking refugee from the bombardment of Mariupol.\n\n\"I looked at the ground and there lay my little granddaughter with her head completely torn to pieces,\" says Vladimir. \"She lay there without a single breath and right next to her was my daughter with her legs fractured, open fractures.\"\n\nVladimir with his family before the war\n\nDominica - whose pictures her grandfather almost caresses on his phone - was killed instantly. Her mother died from her injuries the next day.\n\nAs broken as he is, Vladimir is trying to stay strong for his second daughter, Diana. She was also critically wounded in the blast and was about to undergo emergency surgery.\n\nBut he could not hide his pain. \"God, why would you bring all this upon me? I was not supposed to bury my children, my lovely girls, I failed to protect you.\"", "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have arrived in Belize for their week-long tour of the Caribbean - their first joint overseas trip since the start of the pandemic.\n\nThe couple were all smiles as they stepped off the plane following an 11-hour flight from the UK.\n\nThey were welcomed by Belize's governor general ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Johnny Briceno.\n\nBut part of their tour has been axed amid reported opposition from locals.\n\nThe trip is to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee this year, and will see William and Catherine also visit Jamaica and the Bahamas.\n\nThe royal couple were greeted by a guard of honour from the Belize Defence Force as they landed at Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport.\n\nAfter military tunes were played by the unit's band, William inspected the personnel.\n\nLater in the day, Catherine and William met Mr Briceno and his wife Rossana. The prime minister told the couple: \"We're so happy you're here.\"\n\nA Kensington Palace spokeswoman said the couple were \"very much looking forward to visiting the Caribbean region\" and to having the opportunity to thank communities across Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas for the support they had shown the Queen.\n\nHowever, a visit to the Akte 'il Ha cacao farm in Indian Creek village, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, has been removed from the couple's schedule.\n\nA protest opposing the trip took place on Friday, according to reports.\n\nBelize media outlet Channel 7 said there was a claimed dispute between residents of Indian Creek village and Fauna and Flora International (FFI), which has William as patron, over land owned by the conservation organisation.\n\nThere were also reported to be concerns about the landing site earmarked for the Cambridges' helicopter, with residents claiming they were not consulted about the location, a local football pitch.\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet with Belize's Prime Minister Johnny Briceno and his wife Rossana\n\nA Kensington Palace spokeswoman said: \"We can confirm that due to sensitive issues involving the community in Indian Creek, the visit has been moved to a different location - further details will be provided in due course.\"\n\nThe Belize government said in a statement: \"Indian Creek was one of several sites being considered. Due to issues in the village, the government of Belize activated its contingency planning and another venue has been selected to showcase Maya family entrepreneurship in the cacao industry.\"\n\nAnd a spokesman for FFI said the charity would \"support the livelihoods, educational opportunities and the customary rights of local people\" as part of its project in the area.\n\n\"We are establishing a dialogue with key stakeholders about the future ownership and management of land and want to work with - and in support of - the indigenous community, respecting traditional Mayan rights,\" he added.\n\nArtist Alex Sanker prepares for William and Kate's arrival in Belize City by painting a portrait of the couple\n\nThe trip has been replaced with a similar visit that will see them tour a chocolate producer on Sunday. They will later travel to the cultural centre of the Garifuna community in Hopkins, a beachfront village.\n\nThey will also spend time learning about efforts to preserve Belize's barrier reef.\n\nAmong other highlights of their Caribbean tour will be a sailing regatta in the Bahamas in honour of the Queen's 70-year reign, which is expected to see the couple renew their friendly sporting rivalry when they take to the water.\n\nTheir tour will also see them celebrate Jamaica's musical and sporting heritage.", "Turkey has positioned itself with great care to be the go-between with Russia and Ukraine - and this seems to be paying off.\n\nOn Thursday afternoon, President Vladimir Putin rang the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and told him what Russia's precise demands were for a peace deal with Ukraine.\n\nWithin half an hour of the ending of the phone call, I interviewed Mr Erdogan's leading adviser and spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin. Mr Kalin was part of the small group of officials who had listened in on the call.\n\nThe Russian demands fall into two categories.\n\nThe first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.\n\nChief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.\n\nThere are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.\n\nUkraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasn't a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.\n\nThis is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The BBC's Quentin Sommerville follows Ukrainian troops holding the front line as Russia pounds Kharkiv\n\nThe second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr Zelensky has already said he's prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.\n\nMr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.\n\nAlthough Mr Kalin didn't go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.\n\nThe other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.\n\nNevertheless, it is a fait accompli, even though Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.\n\nIbrahim Kalin was one of the few people to listen in on the phone call between Russia and Turkey's leaders\n\nStill, President Putin's demands are not as harsh as some people feared and they scarcely seem to be worth all the violence, bloodshed and destruction which Russia has visited on Ukraine.\n\nGiven his heavy-handed control over the Russian media, it shouldn't be too hard for him and his acolytes to present all this as a major victory.\n\nFor Ukraine, though, there are going to be serious anxieties.\n\nIf the fine details of any agreement aren't sorted out with immense care, President Putin or his successors could always use them as an excuse to invade Ukraine again.\n\nA peace deal could take a long time to sort out, even if a ceasefire stops the bloodshed in the meantime.\n\nUkraine has suffered appallingly over the past few weeks, and rebuilding the towns and cities which Russia has damaged and destroyed will take a long time. So will rehousing the millions of refugees who have fled their homes.\n\nWhat about Vladimir Putin himself? There have been suggestions that he is ill, or possibly even mentally unbalanced. Did Mr Kalin detect anything strange about him in the phone call? Not at all, he said. Mr Putin had apparently been clear and concise in everything he said.\n\nYet even if he does manage to present an agreement with Ukraine as a glorious victory over neo-Nazism, his position at home must be weakened.\n\nMore and more people will realise that he overreached himself badly, and stories of the soldiers who have been killed or captured are already spreading fast.", "Even the worst war comes to an end. Sometimes, as in 1945, the only outcome is a fight to the death. Mostly, though, wars end in a deal which doesn't satisfy anyone entirely, but at least brings the bloodshed to an end.\n\nAnd often, even after the worst and most bitter conflicts, the two sides gradually resume their old, less hostile relationship.\n\nIf we're lucky, we're beginning to see the start of this process happening now between Russia and Ukraine.\n\nThe resentment, particularly on the Ukrainian side, will last for decades. But both sides want and need peace: Ukraine, because its towns and cities have taken a terrible battering, and Russia, because it has already, according to the Ukrainian president, sacrificed more men and material than it lost in its two shockingly violent wars in Chechnya - although that is impossible to verify.\n\nBut no-one willingly signs a peace agreement which is likely to lead to their own downfall.\n\nFor Russian President Vladimir Putin the search is on for ways of saving face. Ukraine's President Zelensky has already shown remarkable skill as a diplomat, and he's clearly willing to say and do whatever is acceptable to himself and his people in order to get Russia off his country's back.\n\nFor him, there's one overriding objective - to make sure that Ukraine comes out of this appalling experience a united, independent country, not a province of Russia, which is what President Putin originally seemed to think he could turn it into.\n\nFor President Putin, all that counts now is that he can declare victory. No matter that everyone in his entire administration will understand that Russia has been given a bloody nose in this unnecessary invasion. No matter that the 20% or so of Russians who understand what's really going on in the world will know that Putin has bet the house on a fantasy of his own devising, and lost.\n\nThe battle will be for the support of the remaining majority of the population, who tend to believe implicitly what they're told on state television - even when there are moments such as the sudden popping-up on screen of the extraordinarily brave TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova with a placard to say that everything people are being told is propaganda.\n\nSo what will make President Putin come out of this disastrous war looking good in the eyes of Russia's majority?\n\nFirstly, an assurance, perhaps even to be written into Ukraine's constitution, that it has no intention of joining Nato in the foreseeable future. President Zelensky has already prepared the way for this, by asking Nato for something it couldn't agree to (establishing a no-fly-zone over Ukraine), then criticising the alliance for letting him down on this, and finally musing out loud that he wasn't sure that if Nato behaved like this, it was actually worth joining.\n\nAs clever and wise political positioning goes, it doesn't get much better than this. Nato gets the blame, which it can easily cope with, and Ukraine gets the freedom to act as it wants.\n\nBut that's the easy bit. It'll be harder to finesse the urgent ambition which Zelensky and Ukraine have to join the EU, something Russia is almost equally hostile to, though there are ways around that too. Hardest of all for Ukraine to swallow will be Russia's outright theft of Ukrainian territory, in total defiance of the solemn international treaty it had signed to protect Ukraine's borders.\n\nThe loss of Crimea in 2014 is something Ukraine may well be forced to give its formal acceptance to, in some way. And Russia clearly intends to hang on to those areas in eastern Ukraine which are pretty much effectively under Russian control already - and perhaps more.\n\nIn 1939, Joseph Stalin invaded Finland, which had once been part of the Russian empire. He was sure his troops would carve their way through it in no time - just as Putin thought about Ukraine in 2022. Stalin's generals, understandably terrified for their lives, promised him he was right. And, of course, he wasn't.\n\nThe Winter War dragged on into 1940, the Soviet army was humiliated, and Finland was left with a justifiable national pride in itself for resisting a superpower. It lost territory, because autocrats like Stalin and Putin need to come out of these things looking as though they've scored a victory. But Finland kept the most important, most imperishable thing: its full independence as a free, self-determining nation.\n\nAs things stand today, Ukraine - having beaten off so many Russian attacks and made Putin's forces look feeble and ineffective - should be able to do that. Unless Putin's armies can capture Kyiv and much more of Ukraine's territory, then Ukraine will survive as a national entity, just as Finland did in 1940.\n\nLosing Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine would be a bitter, illegal and wholly unjust loss. But Vladimir Putin would have to start using far more serious weapons even than he has already, if he's to come out on top. As things stand, in the third week of fighting, no-one can seriously doubt who the real winner in this war will be.\n\nJohn is the BBC's World Affairs editor. His weekly news programme, Unspun World with John Simpson, is broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 23:15 GMT on BBC Two, and on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nCivilians are said to be emerging alive from the ruins of a theatre that, according to Ukrainian authorities, was bombed by Russia in the city of Mariupol. Despite pictures of devastation at the scene, many who were sheltering there are thought to have survived in a basement that withstood Wednesday's attack.\n\nFor 10 days, that basement was a refuge for Kate, a 38-year-old Mariupol native, and her son, who is 17. Their own home, like many others in the besieged city, had been destroyed by Russian attacks, and they thought the Donetsk Regional Theatre of Drama was a place where they would be relatively safe.\n\nMother and son squeezed in the building's dark rooms, corridors and halls with dozens of other families. Some women, Kate said, carried babies that were just four or five months old.\n\n\"In the beginning, it was really tough, because we didn't have a well-organised food supply. So on the first two days, adults didn't have any food,\" Kate, who used to work at the city's zoo shop and did not want to give her full name, said. \"We gave food only to the children.\"\n\nThey slept on improvised beds made with soft parts of auditorium seats which had been put together on the floor. The seats made of wood, she said, were cut in parts and used as firewood for them to cook. \"Around the theatre there wasn't enough trees we could use, and it was too dangerous to go outside\".\n\nFor almost three weeks, Mariupol has been under constant shelling by Russian forces, which have completely surrounded the city. About 300,000 people are trapped, with no electricity, gas or running water. Food and medicine are running low, as Russia has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.\n\nFour days after she arrived, Kate said, Ukrainian forces managed to send some food supplies and a field kitchen to the theatre, and \"we [started] cooking something\". They would have soup, and sometimes oatmeal, for lunch, and tea with biscuits for dinner.\n\nThe imposing Soviet-era building in Mariupol's city centre, next to the Sea of Azov waterfront, had been designated as a shelter for civilians. Sergei Orlov, the city's deputy mayor, said up to 1,200 people had been there. Human Rights Watch, citing interviews with evacuees, put that number at between 500 and 800.\n\nAs Russia's relentless assault continued, Kate said the buildings around the theatre had been either damaged or destroyed. \"We knew we had to run away because something terrible would happen soon,\" she said.\n\nA day before the attack, Kate and her son left the site. \"We jumped in a car while the theatre and the area were being shelled,\" she said. They shared the vehicle with a family of four, who had brought four dogs and a cat.\n\n\"We asked to go with them, because we didn't have our own [car],\" she said. They were part of convoy of about 2,000 cars that escaped Mariupol on Tuesday.\n\nMariupol city council said a Russian plane dropped a bomb on the theatre, calling the attack \"deliberate and cynical\". Russia denied it had targeted the site but, in Mariupol alone, its attacks had already hit several civilian buildings including a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks.\n\nSatellite images released by the US company Maxar taken on Monday showed that the Russian word for \"children\" had been marked on the ground in large letters in two locations outside the building, to warn Russian jets away.\n\nA convoy of cars carrying evacuees from Mariupol arrives in the city of Zaporizhzhia\n\nVideo of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the building's collapsed façade. But with communications with the city almost completely cut off, the numbers of survivors or possible casualties were still not clear, almost 20 hours later.\n\nDmytro Gurin, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and originally from Mariupol, said the shelter in the basement of the building withstood the attack, and that teams were trying to clear the rubble which covered the entrance to the site. \"It looks like most of them have survived and are OK,\" he said.\n\nBut the rescue efforts were tricky, he said, as Russia had continued to attack the area. \"Shelling never stops and artillery never stops and airplanes are dropping bombs,\" he said, \"so it's really difficult\".\n\nThe city council estimates about 80% to 90% of the city's buildings have either been damaged or destroyed by Russia, which has attacked the city almost non-stop since it invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned into wasteland.\n\nLocal authorities say at least 2,400 people have been killed in Mariupol, although they acknowledge this is likely to be an underestimate. Many of the dead are being buried in mass graves.\n\nAfter leaving Mariupol, Kate was headed to the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, a region that has been largely spared of attacks. \"The first day after we managed to get out, I couldn't talk. We all just cried\", she said. \"But now it feels like there are no tears left. I don't think this pain will ever disappear.\"\n\nAre you or your family in Ukraine? Please share your experience if it is safe to do so by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "A child stole a Covid testing van and crashed it into a car before fleeing on foot, police have said.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Police said staff at a business on Weedon Street called officers at 04:15 GMT to report the van stolen.\n\nPolice spotted the van on Bramall Lane at 06:30 and it stopped on Queens Road after colliding with a silver Ford Ka.\n\nThe driver, a 13-year-old boy from Sheffield, was found nearby and detained, police said.\n\nThey said he had been arrested on suspicion of burglary/theft of a motor vehicle.\n\nThe driver of the car, a man in his 50s, was treated at the scene by Yorkshire Ambulance Service before being taken to hospital\n\nThe driver of the Ford KA, a man in his 50s, was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital.\n\nSouth Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service also attended to help make the scene safe, and Queens Road was closed at the junction with Duchess Road for a time but has since reopened.\n\nFollow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Refugees crossing over the border from Ukraine in to Korczowa in Poland on foot\n\nMariana Zlahodniuk spent days trying to persuade her mother, Olena, to get out of Ukraine.\n\n\"She wouldn't come, was adamant in fact,\" says Mariana, a 27-year-old marketing and business adviser from Ukraine, based in the Polish capital since 2012.\n\nThe pair's hometown of Zhmerinka, in central-southern Ukraine, is a strategic railway point and the frontline of the Russian invasion is edging closer.\n\nMariana's phone calls became more desperate, until, finally, Olena decided to make the hazardous journey to cross the border to safety in Poland.\n\nOlena's mother, Mariana's 73-year-old grandmother, meanwhile, is left in their house in the small town. \"She calls me every day and tells me to come home and tend to the garden,\" Olena adds.\n\nMariana eventually picked up her mum on the Polish side of the border on 26 February after a complicated journey - half of it on a slow train to Lviv with the lights turned off - to avoid attracting attention from the Russian military forces.\n\n\"I will go home as soon as I can and will do what I can to help, for example cooking for the soldiers,\" Olena says, when we meet in a cafe in Warsaw. \"I will have to hide her passport,\" Mariana laughs.\n\nWhen she arrived to collect her mother, Mariana says she was immediately struck by the lack of food and help available for the stream of refugees crossing at the border town of Korczowa and decided to act.\n\nAfter phoning round her friends in the marketing and business community, she was quickly overwhelmed by offers of help.\n\nShe joined forces with an Afghan refugee-turned-restaurant owner, Harry Parwani, a friend from Krakow. His catering company, Vegan Ramen AF, has stepped in with its portable kitchen to help provide free food for up to 8,000 people a day at the border.\n\nA Swiss investor then also funded more than €10,000 ($11,000; £8,398) of food shopping, and Mariana spent about 10,000 zlotys ($2,357; £1,765) of her own money supporting the work before charity organisations stepped in.\n\nMariana now employs 20 people as cooks and helpers, providing transportation and running a hotel. Shifts rotate every three to four days as the work is gruelling and some refuse to be paid, she says.\n\n\"Bakers sell me bread below market prices, firms bring in the food for free, companies offer free transportation and drivers. It's an extraordinary effort.\"\n\nA new Ukrainian population could end up filling some of Poland's labour market gaps\n\n'We want to provide support at all stages'\n\nPolish businesses have mobilised quickly to help refugees. Two million have already arrived here.\n\n\"We will help as long as it will be required,\" says Krzysztof Inglot, founder of Poland's largest recruitment firm, Personnel Service.\n\n\"We know that refugees at different stages of their stay in Poland will need different support. At the beginning, it is mostly transport, accommodation, and psychological support. The next stage is settling down, finding work and integration with Polish society. We want to provide support at all these stages,\" he says.\n\nNational railway company PKP Intercity is offering free travel for refugees, while Maciej Panek, chief executive of vehicle hire firm Panek has donated 1,000 rental cars to transport people away from the border.\n\nMany Ukrainian refugees arrive carrying just a couple of bags\n\nTransport firm FlixBus, meanwhile, has provided refugees with free buses on routes from the border. The company also joined UA Talents - a jobs platform launched by two Berlin-based Ukrainian entrepreneurs that will help refugees find jobs.\n\nMeanwhile, Poland's largest private healthcare company, Lux Med, has offered urgent free medical assistance to refugees. And mobile phone operators Play, Orange, Plus and T-Mobile are reducing the costs of telephone calls to the main Ukrainian operators, Kyivstar, Vodafone and Lifecell.\n\nHelping the refugees sort out their finances will also become an important part of support - banks in Poland have already removed fees for money transfers to Ukraine and commissions for cash deposits and ATM withdrawals.\n\nMr Inglot is optimistic, he says his recruitment company data suggests the labour market in Poland could absorb 500,000 employees within the next six months and another 200,000 after that, due to an acute shortage of workers in many sectors.\n\n\"We estimate that about 30% have travelled to other countries, so can say about half a million people may want to join the labour market. That is good news for employers who need employees,\" he says.\n\nA labour market study from Poland's Central Statistics Office shows firms need 93,000 industrial workers, 85,000 IT specialists, and 61,000 operators and assemblers of machines and devices, and a further 52,000 service sector employees.\n\nMichael Dembinski, chief adviser to the British Polish Chamber of Commerce (BPCC), agrees. \"Our members have been held back by a lack of workers in Poland.\" He describes an outflow of men from sectors such as construction, logistics and IT, but is hopeful hospitality, retail, the care sector, agriculture and horticulture will now gain more staff.\n\nDaniel Di Giusto and Jacek Siadkowski are both working on the Tech To The Rescue project\n\nThis rapid response has not been limited to the biggest companies: smaller firms are also pitching in. HerImpact, a recruitment agency in Warsaw, is working for free to help women arriving from Ukraine create new CVs, apply for jobs and translate documents into Polish and English, says chief brand officer Dionizy Wincenty Placzkowski.\n\n\"Many Poles have opened their hearts and houses to provide support to people in need,\" says Agata Zeman, managing director of the 24/7 media agency in Warsaw. The agency has donated part of its office to Flying Bag Foundation which is helping refugees, especially teenagers, organise their lives in Warsaw. \"I am proud of our people, who from the first minute, were united in solidarity and support for Ukraine. Like many other firms, we have given our team time to volunteer.\"\n\nAgata Zeman, managing director of the 24/7 media agency in Warsaw says staff are volunteering their time to support new arrivals\n\nA Polish foundation that connects IT companies with non-governmental organisations - TechForUkraine - was launched the day before Russia's invasion and within two weeks had 450 firms signed up and 30 projects launched.\n\n\"IT companies have these 'superpowers' and want to use them for good,\" says Jacek Siadkowski, director of TechForUkraine. \"Young people coming into the sector in Poland often work on strategies for selling sausages or something, and this campaign really galvanised them.\"\n\nMr Siadkowski says TechForUkraine is working on an \"Airbnb-style\" web platform, to help Ukrainians find accommodation. He says the platform called, uaSOS.org, is being developed by BCG, ID Advisory, Clevsoft and several dozens volunteers pro bono.\n\nPolish British Social Integration Club, Wawel, a charity based in West London is sending out donations from the UK.\n\nMr Dembicki says many of the BPCC's members - one third are large UK-based businesses investing in Poland - have pledged some kind of support, some financial. He says many of the UK's 52 chambers of commerce also want to help, offering English language lessons online.\n\n\"As soon as we heard about the war in Ukraine, I asked friends to start a collection of humanitarian aid, so together with Katarzyna Mazurkiewicz and volunteers we organised it,\" says Irina Nowosielska from the Polish British Social Integration Club, Wawel, a charity based in West London.\n\n\"There are a lot of good people around. It's just unbelievable how many people help us to help Ukraine,\" Ms Nowosielska says.\n\nBack in Warsaw however, Olena Zlahodniuk, is already itching to go home. \"I am extremely grateful to the Polish people for helping, but this is our fight and we will win,\" she says.", "Russian attacks have damaged or destroyed 80% of Mariupol's residential buildings, the mayor says\n\nEfforts to rescue hundreds of people trapped in the basement of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol are being hampered by intense battles in the area, the mayor says.\n\nVadym Boychenko told the BBC teams were only able to clear the rubble of the building during lulls in the fighting.\n\nUkrainian officials say Russia attacked the site, which was clearly marked as a civilian shelter. Moscow denies it.\n\nRussian forces have encircled the city, which has no electricity, water or gas.\n\nAbout 300,000 people are trapped inside, as food and medical supplies run out and Russia blocks the entry of humanitarian aid. Russian attacks have hit a hospital, a church and countless apartment blocks, with local officials estimating that about 80% of residential buildings are either damaged or destroyed, a third of them beyond repair.\n\nMariupol has seen some of the fiercest battles since Russia invaded Ukraine, three weeks ago. The location of the port city, on the Sea of Azov, is strategic for Russia, as it would help it create a land corridor between the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, controlled by Russian-backed separatists, and Crimea, the peninsula it invaded and annexed in 2014.\n\n\"[There is] street fighting in the city centre,\" Mr Boychenko said, confirming a claim made by Russia on Friday, when it said it was \"tightening the noose\" around the city.\n\n\"There are tanks... and artillery shelling, and all kinds of weapons fired in the area,\" the mayor said. \"Our forces are doing everything they can to hold their positions in the city but the forces of the enemy are larger than ours, unfortunately.\"\n\nCommunication with the city is difficult, with the phone network said to be operational only a few hours a day. Amid unrelenting Russian attacks, residents spend most of their days in shelters and basements, rarely coming outside.\n\nMr Boychenko said, in a previous interview, that there was no city centre left. \"There isn't a small piece of land in the city that doesn't have signs of war,\" he said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe intense fighting means it is too dangerous for teams to clear the rubble of the destroyed theatre and rescue people from the basement, which withstood Wednesday's attack. \"There's no opportunity to do that,\" Mr Boychenko said. \"When it gets quiet for a bit, rubble is being cleared and people get out.\"\n\nHe said he could not provide an update on how many had already left the site. A day earlier, the country's human rights ombudsman said 130 people had been rescued, and that about 1,300 remained trapped.\n\nSatellite images showed the Russian word for \"children\" had been emblazoned on the ground in two locations outside the imposing Soviet-era building, indicating the place was being used as a civilian shelter. Most of those inside are elderly people, women and children, who are living squeezed in dark rooms and corridors.\n\nIn a video address released on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the people rescued were \"seriously wounded\" but that, at the moment, there was no information of deaths.\n\nA picture of the theatre in Mariupol before the bombing, with the word \"children\" in Russian clearly visible\n\nPresident Zelensky also accused Russia of a \"war crime\" for blocking the access of humanitarian aid to the besieged cities. \"This is a totally deliberate tactic,\" he said. \"They [Russian forces] have a clear order to do absolutely everything to make the humanitarian catastrophe in Ukrainian cities an 'argument' for Ukrainians to co-operate with the occupiers.\"\n\nThe authorities in Mariupol say at least 2,500 people have been killed in the city since the start of the war, although they acknowledge that is an underestimate. Some of the dead are being left on streets, as it is too risky to collect them. Many end up being buried in mass graves.\n\nMr Boychenko, the Mariupol mayor, said 40,000 people had managed to leave the city in the last five days, and that 20,000 others were waiting to be evacuated. Residents are fleeing in private vehicles, he said, as attempts to create official humanitarian corridors have broken down, with Ukraine accusing Russia of attacking the city despite agreeing to ceasefires.\n• None 'We knew something terrible was coming'", "On Thursday, staff were removed from a ship docked at Larne\n\nA protest has taken place in Larne after P&O Ferries sacked 800 UK staff without giving them any notice.\n\nIt will be another week before P&O ships can operate from the County Antrim port.\n\nThe Larne protest was organised by the RMT union, but also features representatives from a number of other unions.\n\nDanny McQuaid, from the union, who lost his job with P&O on Thursday, said he was \"shocked and saddened\".\n\nThere were also protests on Friday across the ports of Dover, Liverpool, and Hull in England.\n\nUnions are discussing possible legal action over the job cuts, and the UK government has said it is reviewing its contracts with the firm.\n\nIn a letter to the company, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he was \"deeply concerned\" at the move and questioned whether it was legal.\n\nP&O said its survival was dependent on \"making swift and significant changes now\".\n\n\"I have been here about eight years, but there are some of the guys who have been here 30, 35 years,\" Mr McQuaid said, at the protest in Larne.\n\n\"They have given their lives to this company and have been part of the reason they have been such a success.\"\n\nDanny McQuaid said there was no good time to lose your job but this was a particularly painful time\n\nMr McQuaid said the way staff had been treated on Thursday was \"absolutely brutal\".\n\n\"There's no good time to lose your job, but certainly this is particularly painful, not just for me, but a lot of the guys - there are some young guys with families and mortgages to pay,\" he added.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday that it was their \"final day of employment\".\n\nGale Dowey has worked for P&O since 1994, joining the company at 18.\n\nMs Dowey works on board the ship for two weeks at a time which amounts to living on board for six months of the year.\n\n\"It's my life, it's the only life I know,\" she said.\n\n\"We eat together, we're with each other 24/7 and we spend longer together than we do with our families.\"\n\nMs Dowey, who is also a RMT union official, said P&O prided itself in having employees with long service.\n\n\"I took phone call after phone call yesterday from grown men, crying, asking me how they're going to go home to their wife and children and tell them they no longer have a career.\"\n\nGale Dowey (centre) says she is worried about the rising cost of living after losing her job\n\nOn Thursday, private security officers were sent on to a ship docked at Larne to remove staff.\n\n\"They were told they would be handcuffed and removed if they didn't comply,\" she said.\n\nShe said staff were taken to their cabins and told they had five minutes to fill a bag and leave the ship.\n\n\"They left the ship yesterday absolutely humiliated, they were treated like common criminals for working for this company and being loyal, long serving employees,\" she added.\n\nMs Dowey said she had no idea what to do next and was worried about the cost of her mortgage and rising cost of living.\n\nThe temporary halting of P&O's sailings at Larne Port will affect supplies coming into Northern Ireland as other ferry operators are \"pretty near full\", Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots has said.\n\nMr Poots said there was not the capacity and there would be consequences.\n\n\"There are export materials that need to get out of Northern Ireland which won't get out,\" he told BBC's The View programme.\n\n\"About 50% of our food is exported out of Great Britain, so that is a real problem for us.\"\n\nStormont's economy and agriculture committees held emergency meetings, in closed session, on Friday to discuss the implications for supply chains.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told about the job cuts via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday\n\nThe disruption to the goods supply chains was currently \"manageable\", the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC) said.\n\nHowever, as P&O sailings are a key part of Northern Ireland's retail logistics infrastructure, the matter needed to be resolved \"very quickly\", added NIRC's director Aodhán Connolly.\n\nHe said retailers had stock in large distribution centres which should last for about four or five days.\n\nRetailers were looking at alternative Irish Sea options such as using the ports of Belfast and Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, he added.\n\nWith regard to the transport of goods to and from mainland Europe, Mr Connolly said retailers were also considering using the Eurotunnel or air freight.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by P&O Ferries Updates This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nP&O Ferries tweeted on Friday evening that services between Larne and Cairnryan were suspended and they were no longer able to arrange alternative travel.\n\n\"For essential travel, customers are advised to seek alternatives themselves,\" the firm said.\n\nThe ferry firm said the \"tough decision\" was made to secure the future of the business.\n\nP&O has said that its services will not operate for the \"next few days\", with passengers told to use other companies.\n\n\"In its current state, P&O Ferries is not a viable business,\" it said.\n\n\"We have made a £100m loss year on year, which has been covered by our parent DP World.\n\n\"This is not sustainable. Without these changes there is no future for P&O Ferries.\"", "Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as \"dismal\".\n\nIts military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, \"the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day\". So what has gone wrong? I have spoken to senior Western military officers and intelligence officials, about the mistakes Russia has made.\n\nRussia's first mistake was to underestimate the strength of resistance and the capabilities of Ukraine's own smaller armed forces. Russia has an annual defence budget of more than $60bn, compared with Ukraine's spending of just over $4bn.\n\nAt the same time, Russia, and many others, appear to have overestimated its own military strengths. President Putin had embarked on an ambitious modernisation programme for his military and he too may have believed his own hype.\n\nA senior British military official said much of Russia's investment had been spent on its vast nuclear arsenal and experimentation, that included developing new weapons such as hypersonic missiles. Russia is supposed to have built the world's most advanced tank - the T-14 Armata. But while it has been seen on Moscow's Victory Day Parade on Red Square, it has been missing in battle. Most of what Russia has fielded are older T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and rocket launchers.\n\nAt the start of the invasion Russia had a clear advantage in the air, with the combat aircraft it had moved near the border outnumbering Ukraine's air force by more than three to one. Most military analysts assumed the invading force would quickly gain superiority in the air, but it has not. Ukraine's air defences are still proving effective, limiting Russia's ability to manoeuvre.\n\nMoscow may have also assumed its special forces would play an important role, helping deliver a quick, decisive blow.\n\nA senior Western intelligence official told the BBC that Russia thought it could deploy lighter, spearhead units like the Spetsnatz and VDV paratroopers, \"to eliminate a small number of defenders and that would be it\". But in the first few days their helicopter assault on Hostomel Airport, just outside Kyiv, was repelled, denying Russia an airbridge to bring in troops, equipment and supplies.\n\nOn the parade ground but not the battleground - Russia's T-14 Armata tank\n\nInstead, Russia has had to transport its supplies mostly by road. This has created traffic jams and choke points which are easy targets for Ukrainian forces to ambush. Some heavy armour has gone off road, only to get stuck in mud, reinforcing an image of an army that has become \"bogged down\".\n\nMeanwhile, Russia's long armoured column from the north that was captured by satellites has still failed to encircle Kyiv. The most significant advances have come from the south, where it has been able to use rail lines to resupply its forces. The UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC that President Putin's forces \"have lost the momentum\".\n\n\"They're stuck and they are slowly but surely taking significant casualties.\"\n\nRussia had amassed a force of around 190,000 troops for this invasion and most of those have already been committed to the battle. But they have already lost about 10% of that force. There are no reliable figures for the scale of either Russian or Ukrainian losses. Ukraine claims to have killed 14,000 Russian troops, though the US estimates it is probably half that number.\n\nWestern officials say there is also evidence of dwindling morale among Russian fighters, with one saying it was \"very, very, low\". Another said the troops were \"cold, tired and hungry\" as they had already been waiting in the snow for weeks in Belarus and Russia before they were given the order to invade.\n\nRussia has already been forced to look for more troops to make up for its losses, including moving in reserve units from as far afield as the east of the country and Armenia. Western officials believe it is also \"highly likely\" that foreign troops from Syria will soon join the fight, along with mercenaries from its secretive Wagner group. A senior Nato military official said this was a sign it was \"scratching the bottom of the barrel\".\n\nRussia has struggled with the basics. There is an old military saying that amateurs talk tactics while professionals study logistics. There is evidence that Russia has not given it enough consideration. Armoured columns have run out of fuel, food and ammunition. Vehicles have broken down and been left abandoned, then towed away by Ukrainian tractors.\n\nWestern officials also believe Russia may be running low on some munitions. It has already fired between 850 and 900 long-range precision munitions, including cruise missiles, which are harder to replace than unguided weapons. US officials have warned Russia has approached China to help address some of its shortages.\n\nDefence support announced by the US is expected to include the Switchblade \"kamikaze\" drone\n\nIn contrast, there has been a steady flow of Western-supplied weapons going into Ukraine, which has been a boost for its morale. The US has just announced it will be providing an additional $800m in defence support. As well as more anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, it is expected to include Switchblade, which is a small, US-developed, \"kamikaze\" drone that can be carried in a backpack before being launched to deliver a small explosive at targets on the ground.\n\nWestern officials still warn that President Putin could \"double down with greater brutality\". They say he still has enough firepower to bombard Ukrainian cities for a \"considerable period of time\".\n\nDespite the setbacks, one intelligence official said President Putin was, \"unlikely to be deterred and may instead escalate. He likely remains confident that Russia can militarily defeat Ukraine\". And while the Ukrainian forces have shown fierce resistance, that same official warned that without significant resupplies they too could \"eventually be spent in terms of ammunition and numbers\". The odds may be better than when the war first started, but they still seem stacked against Ukraine.", "Police have named the 19-year-old victim as British student Sabita Thanwani\n\nA 19-year-old woman found dead in student accommodation in central London has been identified as police search for a man in connection with her death.\n\nStudent Sabita Thanwani was found with neck injuries in the halls of residence in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell.\n\nPolice and medics went to Arbour House at about 05:10 GMT on Saturday but she died at the scene.\n\nDetectives want to speak to Maher Maaroufe, 22, understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Thanwani.\n\nThe Metropolitan Police said early indications suggested Ms Thanwani, who attended City, University of London, was with Mr Maaroufe on Friday evening.\n\nPolice are appealing for Maher Maaroufe to hand himself in\n\nDetectives said Mr Maaroufe, who is not a student, had links across London - particularly Marble Arch, Edgware Road and Lewisham - and was also known to travel to Cambridgeshire.\n\nAnyone who sees him should not approach him and call 999 immediately, police said.\n\nDet Ch Insp Linda Bradley said they believed Tunisian national Mr Maaroufe, of no fixed address, had now shaved his head and had little facial hair.\n\nAddressing Mr Maaroufe directly, she said: \"I am also appealing, once again, for Maher Maaroufe to attend a police station immediately.\n\n\"Maher - I am making this appeal directly to you: if you see this, please go to the nearest police station. It is important that we speak with you.\"\n\nA post-mortem examination has also been arranged.\n\nArbour House, near City, University of London, is owned by Unite Students and houses 188\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone, of the Met Police, said he understood the student community and local people would be concerned.\n\nHe said: \"I share their sadness and their concerns. And I can assure them that a thorough homicide investigation is under way, led by skilled and experienced detectives who will work tirelessly to identify and arrest whoever is responsible.\"\n\nOfficers, including forensic specialists, remain at the scene and there will be additional police in the area, Ch Insp Instone said.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA large fire on marshland on the Wirral Peninsula is thought to have been started deliberately.\n\nCheshire Fire Service sent six fire engines to the blaze at Neston after it started just before 18:30 GMT on Saturday.\n\nThe fire covered about 1 sq km (0.4 sq miles) and was \"mainly extinguished\" by midnight, the fire service said.\n\nCheshire Police said they were keen to speak to a group of teenagers regarding the fire.\n\nThey said three boys and a girl, aged between 14 and 15, were seen in the area when the blaze began.\n\nThey said the girl had long dark hair and was wearing a dark jacket and two boys were wearing dark jackets, while the third boy was wearing a light blue jacket and trousers.\n\nHundreds of residents and pubgoers came out to see the fire\n\nA police spokeswoman said investigators believed the fire was caused deliberately and they were treating it as arson.\n\nEyewitness Peter Guy, 43, who was visiting nearby Parkgate on a day trip, said he had just finished having fish and chips when he noticed the fire.\n\nHe said there was no explosion, but the fire took hold rapidly, creating a \"wall of flames\" across the marshland.\n\n\"It started off looking like a regular bonfire and then I noticed the fire getting closer to us,\" he said.\n\nThe fire started out small before the flames spread across the marshland, said an eyewitness\n\n\"There were so many people there enjoying the beautiful sunset. I've never seen anything like it. It was like the sky was on fire.\"\n\nOn Saturday evening, the fire service said there were two areas of fire spreading around the marshland, a site of special scientific interest.\n\nFire breaks were put in place to protect nearby properties.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Jon Ironmonger This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBy 22:00 GMT the huge flames had died down along with the crowds, which earlier lined the Parkgate front, said the BBC's Jon Ironmonger who was at the scene.\n\nHundreds of pubgoers and residents spilled onto the seawall to see the fire, which surged across marshland in the Dee estuary.\n\nCheshire Police said it had received a report about a man being attacked while trying to disperse spectators.\n\nA spokeswoman said he sustained a minor injury to his lip.\n\nBy midnight, all but one fire engine had been withdrawn to safety as the tide came in, with the fire mainly extinguished.\n\nBy 07:00 on Sunday, crews confirmed the fire was out by carrying out a sweep of the area with a thermal imaging camera.\n\nFire crews said the blaze covered about a square kilometre of the area\n\nA spokeswoman for RSPB, which owns the nature reserve, said: \"We're shocked and saddened by the fire that has devastated the Neston Reedbed part of our reserve.\"\n\nShe said marsh harriers were \"beginning to build their nests on the marshland which has sadly been lost to fire\".\n\nThe RSPB said the scale of the damage was being assessed and thanked the emergency services for their response.\n\nChris Tynan, from RSPB Liverpool, added that the Dee estuary was \"internationally important\" and \"one of the top 10 river estuaries in the UK\".\n\n\"There's a huge numbers of birds that come in there because it's got lots of food, it's got lots of habitat. If you dig down into the mud levels, the invertebrates, the food sources… are phenomenal.\"\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has branded P&O Ferries \"a disgrace\" for the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nMany workers were told without warning by video message on Thursday that it would be \"their final day of employment\".\n\nP&O sailings between Larne and Cairnryan have been disrupted since then.\n\nHowever, on Saturday the company resumed its service between Liverpool and Dublin.\n\nIt's unclear whether the staff on board are cheaper agency workers.\n\nIt could be another week before the company's ferries can operate from the County Antrim port.\n\n\"I think that the way that these workers were treated by P&O is an absolute disgrace,\" Sir Jeffrey said.\n\n\"We will do everything in our power at Stormont and at Westminster to ensure that they [the workers] get support and that we help Larne Port recover from this situation, so that ferry services - the vital links between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom are sustained going forward.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Consumer Council has said customers who have had sailings cancelled or re-routed should be entitled to compensation as well as reimbursement.\n\nThe council's Richard Williams said if a ferry is cancelled the company has to offer a full reimbursement or a re-routing on the same route\n\n\"As P&O had been unable to arrange a re-routing they have asked customers to book through Stena as an alternative,\" he said.\n\n\"In doing that, P&0 will treat them as they've re-routed them themselves as if they're actually using the P&O ticket in which case they'll be entitled to make an application for compensation for delay and any expenses.\"\n\nP&O sailings between Larne and Cairnryan have been disrupted since Thursday when 800 staff were sacked without notice.\n\nAlternative routes have been offered elsewhere in the UK.\n\nNearly a quarter of P&O Ferries' UK staff were told about the job cuts via a pre-recorded video message on Thursday\n\nIn a statement, a spokesperson for P&O said: \"To try to minimise disruption for our customers, we contacted everyone we could reach.\n\n\"If any passengers have any queries about travelling with us, we encourage them to get in touch with our customer services team.\n\n\"Our aim is to have the first of our services running again in the next day or two as we lose £1m a day for each day they are not moving.\"\n\nAll P&O Ferries contracts across government will be reviewed in response to the way it sacked 800 workers.\n\nA Department for Transport spokesperson could not provide details on the current value of government contracts awarded to P&O Ferries.\n\nHowever, Labour Party analysis of the public sector contracts database Trussle found the company had received £38.3m in taxpayer-funded contracts since December 2018.", "Two Ukrainian sisters and their families have been reunited in emotional scenes at Bristol Airport.\n\nIryna, who is a doctor in north Somerset, has been working hard to help her sister Olya with the paperwork that would allow her family to reach safety.\n\nOlya and her family fled the fighting in Ukraine and crossed the border into Poland before catching a flight to the UK.", "Police say they were called to the Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre in Mississauga, Ontario early on Saturday morning\n\nWorshippers at a Canada mosque have confronted and restrained a man who was allegedly wielding an axe and attacked them with bear spray during Saturday morning prayers, police say.\n\nOne worshipper knocked the axe from the man's hands, and held him down until police arrived, local media reports.\n\nA 24-year-old man was arrested at the scene in the suburb of Mississauga, and he has since been charged.\n\nSome congregants had minor injures from the bear spray, the mosque's imam said.\n\nOne of the worshippers said the experience was \"terrifying\" and described hearing a scream before turning around to see a man holding an axe and using bear spray - similar to pepper spray - against three people.\n\n\"By the time he was spraying, the people in the first row realized something was going on and one of the young men turned around and knocked away the axe before he had a chance to use it,\" Noorani Sairally told Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.\n\nThe young man then held the alleged assailant down until police arrived, the witness said.\n\n\"Before he could inflict harm on any worshippers, several congregants bravely were able to stop him in his tracks,\" imam Ibrahim Hindy said in a statement, describing the moment the attacker entered the site.\n\n\"Our community will never be broken and we refuse to be intimidated,\" he added.\n\nPolice have named the man they arrested as Mohammad Moiz Omar, and charged him with six offences including assault with a weapon and administering a noxious substance with intent to endanger life or cause bodily harm.\n\nFollowing initial uncertainty over a possible motive, investigators now say they believe the attack was a \"hate-motivated incident.\"\n\nPrime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of a number of high-profile Canadian public figures to condemn the attack, which he described as \"incredibly disturbing\" and applauded the courage of the worshippers at the mosque.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Justin Trudeau This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nCanada's Muslim community has been targeted in a number of deadly attacks, including in 2017 when a shooting at a Quebec City mosque killed six people and left another eight wounded.\n\nAnd last year, four members of the same Muslim family were killed after a vehicle hit them in London, Ontario, which was described by police as a deliberate Islamophobic attack.", "Patrick Vernon, who helped organise the rally, addressing hundreds of people outside Hackney Town Hall\n\nHundreds of protesters have marched through north London in support of a black pupil strip-searched at school after being wrongly suspected of carrying drugs.\n\nA report released this month found the search of the 15-year-old girl, known as Child Q, was unjustified and racism was \"likely\" to have been a factor.\n\nActivists marched chanting \"power to black girl Child Q\" and carried banners saying \"protect black kids\".\n\nThe girl's family is suing her school and the force, which said its officers' actions \"should never have happened\".\n\nSpeaking via her lawyers, the girl said she wanted \"cast-iron commitments to ensure this never happens again\" and thanked supporters.\n\nProtesters marched from Stoke Newington Police Station to Hackney Town Hall with placards saying \"no to racist police\" and \"hands off our children\", while chanting \"love for Child Q\".\n\nJacqueline Courteney, who helped set up the rally, said: \"I set it up because I'm a mother and I had that gut instinct a black child out there had been caused such harm, and that could have been my kids, or nieces and nephews.\n\n\"That's just not on, and there needs to be a way that we can demand change that is clear and obvious.\"\n\nNgozi Fulani said the officers involved should be sacked\n\nNgozi Fulani, founder of charity Sistah Space which supports black heritage abuse victims, said she was \"disgusted\" by the incident.\n\n\"There's something in our system that doesn't see the humanity in black people, much less black children,\" she said.\n\n\"The police involved should be sacked.\"\n\nA two-minute silence was also held in support of the girl.\n\nA two-minute silence was held in support of the schoolgirl\n\nProtesters chanted \"love for Child Q\" through the streets of north London\n\nDuring the incident in 2020, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched while on her period by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.\n\nThe girl's mother told the safeguarding review - by City of London and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership - that after the strip-search, her daughter had been \"asked to go back into the exam\" she had been sitting, with no teacher asking about her welfare.\n\nHer family said the girl had changed from \"top of the class\" to \"a shell of her former bubbly self\", and she was now self-harming and required therapy.\n\nThe Met apologised and admitted the incident should not have happened\n\nThe Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said its investigation was complete and its report was being \"finalised\".\n\nIt added three police constables had been served with notices last year advising them they were under investigation for misconduct, \"over their roles in either carrying out the strip-search or involvement in supervising it\".\n\nScotland Yard said the officers' actions were \"truly regrettable\" and it \"should never have happened\".\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Aircraft owned, operated or chartered by Russians are banned from flying or landing in the UK.\n\nA private jet has been grounded while \"possible Russian links\" are probed, the transport secretary has said.\n\nGrant Shapps said ministers were taking decisive action against Vladimir Putin and his \"illegal war\" in Ukraine.\n\nAll aircraft owned, operated or chartered by Russians are banned from flying or landing in the UK.\n\nThe jet has been held at London Biggin Hill airport while officials investigate if it falls foul of UK sanctions.\n\nThe official notice grounding the flight on Saturday morning relates to a Cessna plane owned by a company named as Brooker Holdings.\n\nThe Department for Transport said it would not comment on any links to individuals while it investigated the issue further.\n\nThe latest plane seizure comes 10 days after it emerged that the UK had impounded a private jet linked to a billionaire Russian oligarch.\n\nThe Luxembourg-registered aircraft had flown from the US into Farnborough airport, Hampshire, on 3 March. UK officials believe the oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler was on board when it arrived.\n\nThe plane had been due to fly from the UK to Dubai, but UK authorities prevented this while they investigated whether it was permanently leased to Mr Shvidler and fell under UK sanctions.\n\nMr Shvidler himself has not been personally sanctioned by the UK at any stage.\n\nThe UK and other western nations opposed to the Russian president's invasion of Ukraine have introduced a raft of sanctions designed to cripple Russia's economy and hurt its wealthiest citizens.\n\nThe UK has made it a criminal offence for planes owned, operated or chartered by Russians - including private jets - to fly or land in the UK.\n\nNew trade sanctions have also been introduced banning UK exports of aviation or space-related technology to Russia.\n\nOther measures introduced by the UK include:", "The incident happened early on Sunday, as dozens of people were preparing for a traditional parade\n\nAt least six people have been killed after a car drove into a crowd of carnival-goers in southern Belgium.\n\nThe incident happened in the small town of Strépy-Bracquegnies, about 30 miles (50km) south of the capital Brussels.\n\nThe car drove at high-speed into dozens of people who were preparing to take part in a traditional parade on Sunday morning.\n\nAround 40 people were injured and several are in a serious condition, the town's mayor said.\n\n\"There were about 150-200 people who were following the parade and [the] car arrived from behind and drove into the crowd,\" Jacques Gobert said.\n\n\"It continued for another 100m (328ft),\" he added. \"It should be considered a national catastrophe.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Witnesses describe horrific scenes as the car drove into the crowd\n\nThe exact circumstances of the attack are being investigated, but police said a terror attack had been ruled out.\n\n\"It is an accident, a tragic one. The car hit the group and tried to carry on but it was quickly stopped by the police,\" police spokeswoman Cristina Ianoco told the BBC.\n\n\"The driver and the other people in the car have been detained,\" she added. They have not been identified.\n\nPolice denied earlier reports in some Belgian media that the crash, which happened at around 05:00 local time (04:00 GMT), followed a high-speed police chase.\n\n\"A community gathering to celebrate has been hit in the heart,\" Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said\n\n\"Deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured in the incident this morning,\" Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden wrote on Twitter.\n\n\"What was supposed to be a great party turned into a tragedy,\" she added.\n\nPrime Minister Alexander De Croo, who is expected to visit the scene later on Sunday, said it was \"horrible news\".\n\n\"A community gathering to celebrate has been hit in the heart,\" he said.\n\nBelgian towns and villages host traditional street carnivals around the period of Lent. The event in Strépy-Bracquegnies, like many others, features a parade with participants dressed up comical figures.", "\"Russia does not start wars, it ends them\" reads a poster of Vladimir Putin in Simferopol, Crimea, 10 March\n\nVladimir's Putin's invasion of Ukraine has changed the world. We are living in new and more dangerous times - the post-Cold War era that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall is over.\n\nIt is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.\n\nIn November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.\n\nThe peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.\n\nIn Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.\n\nHow many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.\n\nBut that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.\n\nThe German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a \"paradigm shift\". The age of complacency, she said, was over.\n\nQuentin Sommerville, one of the BBC's most experienced war reporters walked through the wreckage in Kharkiv recently and said of the Russian bombardment: \"If these tactics are unfamiliar to you, then you haven't been paying attention.\"\n\nHe should know, he spent enough time under Russian rockets in Syria to be paying very close attention. But the governments of the democratic world - how much attention have they been paying to the nature of the Putin regime?\n\nThe evidence has been building for years.\n\nTwo decades have passed since he sent troops into Georgia claiming he was supporting breakaway regions.\n\nLater, he sent spies into British cities armed with nerve agents to murder exiled Russians.\n\nIn 2014, he invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.\n\nDespite all this, Germany, and much of the EU, were locking themselves into an unhealthy dependence on Russian gas. A year after the annexation of Crimea, they approved the building of a new pipeline, Nord Stream 2, to boost supplies.\n\nThe \"complacency\" Liz Truss refers to also indicts her own country. London has been a safe haven for Russian money since John Major was prime minister. Russian oligarchs have parked billions here, laundered their money, bought up the most prestigious private homes in the capital, socialised with politicians and donated to their campaign funds. Few questions were asked about where their vast wealth, acquired so suddenly, had come from.\n\nSo, no. The Western democracies have not been \"paying attention\" to the nature of the menace that has been incubating on their eastern frontier.\n\nBut Putin, too, has seemed complacent.\n\nReceiving station for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, near Lubmin, Germany\n\nFirst, he believed the West was in chronic decline, weakened by internal division and ideological rancour. The election of Donald Trump and Brexit he saw as proof of this. The rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in Poland and Hungary was further evidence of the disintegration of liberal values and institutions. The US's humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan was proof of a waning power withdrawing from the world stage.\n\nSecond, he misread what was happening on his borders. He refused to believe that a series of democratic uprisings in former Soviet Republics - Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-5) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) - could possibly be authentic expressions of the popular will. Because each was aimed at removing corrupt and unpopular pro-Moscow governments, it seemed self-evident to the Kremlin that these were the work of foreign intelligence agencies, the Americans and the British in particular - Western imperialism's forward march into territory that was rightfully and historically Russia's.\n\nThird, he has failed to understand his own armed forces. It is clear now that he expected this \"special military operation\" to be over in a few days.\n\nRussia's military incompetence has astonished many Western security experts. It brings echoes for me of a smaller, more containable, but nonetheless devastating war, in former Yugoslavia.\n\nIn 1992, Serb nationalists launched a war to strangle the newly independent state of Bosnia at birth. They argued that Bosnian identity was bogus, that Bosnian statehood had no historical legitimacy, that it was really part of Serbia. It is exactly Putin's view of Ukraine.\n\nA Bosnian special forces soldier and civilians come under fire from Serbian snipers, Sarajevo, 6 April 1992\n\nLike Russia today, Serb forces enjoyed overwhelming firepower superiority. But they often stalled wherever local non-Serbs put up resistance. They seemed unable to seize towns or cities - unwilling to fight street-by-street on foot. The Bosnian defenders were initially very poorly equipped - I remember boys in tennis shoes in the trenches of Sarajevo with one AK-47 between three of them. But they defended their capital for nearly four years. There is a similar resolve in the young men volunteering to defend Kyiv.\n\nSo instead of taking the cities and towns, the Serbs laid siege to them - surrounding them, bombarding them, cutting off water, gas and electricity. It is already happening in Mariupol. Besiege a city and cut off its water supply, and within 24 hours, every toilet is a public health hazard. Citizens have to go out into the streets to find water standpipes and fill up receptacles just to flush their loos. Cut off the electricity and you freeze in your own home. Soon the food runs out. Is that what the Russians intend for Mariupol, for Kharkiv, for Kyiv? To starve them into submission?\n\nBut nearly four years of this cruelty gave Bosnian nationhood a founding narrative of resistance, suffering and heroic struggle. Ukraine's identity, too, will be strengthened further by the way Ukrainians have fought. Ukraine's Russian speakers have not felt \"liberated\" by the invasion. The evidence is that they, too, believe in Ukraine as a sovereign state. Putin's war, aimed at reunifying what he sees as two parts of the Russian nation, is already having the opposite effect - strengthening the will of most Ukrainians to seek a destiny free from Russian domination.\n\nScrambling for rationed food during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992\n\nIn 1994, while the war in the Balkans was still raging, the rest of Eastern Europe was looking to the future - each nation eager to take what it saw as its natural place in a Europe of independent sovereign states at peace with each other. But it was still far from certain that any of them would be allowed to join Nato.\n\nThere was a debate, back then, about whether a third security block should be formed by the newly-liberated East European nations, to act as a buffer between Nato and Russia. Russia was weak in the 1990s, and the nations that had endured Soviet occupation for 40 years did not trust it to stay weak for long. In the end, they wanted nothing short of Nato membership.\n\nUnder President Bill Clinton, the US pressed ahead with Nato expansion. The Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who saw himself as a loyal ally of Clinton's, was said to be furious when he found out - at a press conference - that Nato was planning to admit new members without consulting Moscow.\n\nAnd the tearing down of the Iron Curtain had raised a new question in geopolitics - how far east does the Western world extend? I was commissioned by the BBC to take a road trip through Poland, Belarus and Ukraine to address the question, \"Where is the eastern edge of the Western world now?\"\n\nI went to the hunting lodge in Belarus where, in late 1991, the President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, had met his counterparts from Ukraine and Belarus. Here, they agreed to recognise each other's Soviet Republics as independent nation-states. They then rang the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and informed him that the country of which he was head of state - the Soviet Union - no longer existed.\n\nIt was a moment fraught with both danger and opportunity. For Belarus and Ukraine, it was the chance to liberate themselves from Moscow rule - domination by Russian imperialism in both its Tsarist and Soviet forms.\n\nFor Yeltsin, it represented the chance to liberate Russia too - from its historic role as an imperial power. The UK and France had both ceased to be imperial powers after World War Two - as Austria had done after WW1. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk had built a modern European secular republic - a Turkish nation-state - after the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire had been defeated and dismembered in 1918.\n\nUS President George HW Bush with Boris Yeltsin in Maryland, 1992\n\nCould Boris Yeltsin do the same thing - build a modern Russian nation-state, at peace with its sovereign neighbours, on the ruins of the Soviet Empire? In the early 1990s, he began his Westernising experiment, to try to turn an imperial power into a democratic state.\n\nBut the rush - encouraged by the Western democracies eager for investment opportunities - to turn a sclerotic, state-owned command economy into a free-market system was disastrous. It created gangster capitalism. A tiny elite became fabulously rich by plundering the assets of the major industries - especially oil and gas.\n\nThe wheels finally came off the experiment in 1998. The economy collapsed, the rouble lost two-thirds of its value in a month and inflation hit 80%.\n\nI stood with a middle-aged couple in a queue at a Moscow bank. They wanted to take their money out in dollars or pounds - anything other than roubles. The queue was long and slow-moving and, every few minutes, a bank employee changed the displayed exchange rate, as the rouble plunged further. People could see their life savings dropping in value by the minute. The couple got close to the head of the queue when suddenly the shutters came down - there was no cash left.\n\nI went to a former coal-mining region near the Ukraine border, where the mines were barely functioning. I met a graduate mining engineer who had lost his job - a man in his 30s with a young family. He took me to his dacha outside the city, which had about an acre of land. \"About 80% of what my family eat in the year,\" he said. \"I grow on this patch of land. The rest, like coffee and sugar, I barter for. I haven't used or even seen cash in about 18 months.\" Nothing spoke more powerfully about Yeltsin's failure to transform Russia than the sight of this highly educated man digging for his own dinner.\n\n\"Stalin turned a nation of peasants into an industrial superpower in a generation. Yeltsin is doing the same thing in reverse,\" he told me.\n\nOrdinary Russians felt robbed. The great westernising experiment had been a con trick that had enriched a criminalised elite and impoverished everyone else. Many of the reports we filed from Russia at that time boiled down to a single question: \"What are the political consequences of the profound disenchantment that Russians now feel?\"\n\nThe answer was that Russia, eventually, would revert to type - a retreat from democracy and a return to authoritarian rule. A retreat from nation-statehood and return to a more assertive imperial attitude to its \"near abroad\" - the countries that had previously been part of the Soviet Union.\n\nThe former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski famously said that Russia could be a democracy or an empire, but it could not be both. The Russian emblem, the double-headed eagle, looks both east and west. History has pulled Russia in opposing directions - democratic nation statehood in one direction, domineering imperial power in the other.\n\nGo to St Petersburg and you will see another aspect of this dual character. It is the country's beautiful bay window on the Gulf of Finland. It is an 18th Century city, facing west. It is the European Enlightenment in architectural form. Under the Tsars it was the imperial capital.\n\nAfter the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks moved the capital back to Moscow and power retreated behind the high, crenellated walls of the Kremlin. It is the architecture of defensiveness, of suspicion, even fear. When Russian leaders look west from here, they see flat open countryside rolling away to the south and west for hundreds of miles. There are no natural frontiers.\n\nThe crenellated red walls of the Kremlin in Moscow\n\nWhen I was the BBC's Moscow correspondent in the late 1990s, there was a driver who could remember, as a boy, seeing German troops on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1940s. Every time he took us to Sheremetyevo Airport, we would pass a monument designed to look like metal anti-tank defences - so-called Czech hedgehogs - and he would say: \"This is how close they came, the Germans.\"\n\nNapoleon's army had gone further the previous century. That experience - that chronic sense of an insecure western frontier - informs the way Russian leaders have thought about their \"near abroad\".\n\nIn another conversation about the \"near abroad\", a friend recited a rhyming couplet to me. In Russian it rhymes nicely, but in English it goes: \"A chicken's not really a bird; and Poland's not really abroad.\" Russia's sense of what it is entitled to in the lands to its west penetrates popular consciousness, too.\n\nI will borrow an anecdote from another friend in Moscow at the time. The same driver picked her up from the airport and asked her where she had been. \"I've been for a weekend in Prague,\" she said. \"Oh Prague,\" came the reply. \"That's good. That's ours.\"\n\nBut it wasn't. The Berlin Wall had come down nine years earlier and the nations of Eastern Europe had ceased being \"ours\".\n\nExcept Ukraine. Putin regards it not as a neighbouring country, but as the frontier land of Russia itself - and he wants it brought back into the Russian fold.\n\nWhat would it take to do that? How can a nation that has put up so unified a resistance be subdued? Almost certainly he has overreached himself. Several factors must now be alarming him.\n\nThe first is the state of his own armed forces.\n\nThe second is the resilience of the Ukrainian defence. Did Putin really expect the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine to welcome his troops as liberators? Did he really believe that the uprising of 2014 - which replaced the pro-Moscow government with one oriented to the West - was all a Western plot? If he did, then it reveals how little the Kremlin understands about its \"near abroad\".\n\nBut his biggest miscalculation has been to underestimate the resolve of the West. And this is what makes 2022 one of those pivotal years - the zeitenwende, in the words of Chancellor Scholz.\n\nAlmost overnight, Germany has transformed its attitude to its role in the world. Traditionally reluctant - for sound historical reasons - to throw its weight around, it had preferred the exercise of soft power to hard. Not now. It has announced a doubling of defence spending, and is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. Gone, too, is the ostpolitik - the decades-old German policy of seeking peace through engagement, especially trade.\n\nGermany, along with the rest of the democratic world, will now move to end its dependence on Russian gas. The Nord Stream 2 project is suspended - though not yet scrapped. We are seeing a root-and-branch redrawing of the map of global energy distribution, aimed at cutting Russia out of it.\n\nRussia is highly integrated into the global economy. But now it has been expelled from the system the world uses to exchange payment for goods and services. Its industries, including oil and gas, depend on imported goods and components. Soon production will grind to a halt. Employers will have to lay off their workers. Unemployment will rise.\n\nNo-one expected the West to sanction the Russian Central Bank. Already, the rouble has collapsed and interest rates have doubled. No other major economy has ever been subjected to a package of sanctions this punitive. It amounts to the expulsion of Russia from the global economy. More workers will be laid off. Major industries will find it hard to carry on. Unemployment will rise further. Soaring inflation will erode life savings.\n\nWe will all be affected. Potentially, this is the rolling back of the globalised economy that emerged after the end of the Cold War.\n\nThe US and the EU have, in effect, divided the world up. Those states and companies that continue to trade with Russia will find themselves punished - also frozen out of trade with the rich world.\n\nIt amounts to a new economic iron curtain separating Russia from the West.\n\nMuch will depend on how China negotiates this new landscape. China and Russia are bonded by their shared antipathy to American power, and their conviction that the greatest threat is from a resurgent, more unified democratic world.\n\nChina does not want Putin weakened, or the West strengthened. Yet that is exactly what the effect the war in Ukraine has had.\n\nSome China watchers believe Beijing will try to challenge the dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency by carving out a distinct yuan zone as an alternative space in the global economy that can be protected from any future attempt by the US to sanction China. Putin's war, therefore, could redraw the international financial map.\n\nBut above all, this is a war that pits the world's democracies against the world's authoritarian regimes.\n\nIt is also a war between two conflicting conceptions of the rules by which international relations should function.\n\nThe Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash says these two world views can be expressed in short form by two words - Helsinki versus Yalta.\n\nAt Yalta in 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved post-war Europe into \"spheres of influence\" - most of Eastern Europe to Russia, the West to the trans-Atlantic alliance that would set about rebuilding Europe's democracies.\n\n\"Helsinki\", by contrast, describes a Europe of independent sovereign states, each of which is free to choose its own alliances. This grew out of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and gradually evolved into the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.\n\nUkraine's defenders are fighting for Helsinki. Putin has sent his troops in to impose a modern version of Yalta - which would kill off Ukraine's independence and leave it under Russian domination.\n\nGarton Ash argues that the West has been too half-hearted in defending the values of Helsinki - that it has formally acknowledged Ukraine's right to join Nato at some unspecified date in the future without ever intending to make it happen.\n\nBut Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled a readiness to compromise on Helsinki principles, by agreeing to abandon Ukraine's ambition to become a Nato member. With all the risks that entails, it may yet be the price Ukraine pays for the survival of its statehood.\n\nMy generation grew up with the existential terror of the threat of nuclear annihilation. The conflict has brought that fear back to public consciousness. Putin has threatened to use Russia's nuclear arsenal.\n\nThat makes this the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Then, the Soviet Union shipped nuclear missiles to its ally Cuba. The US assembled a fleet to blockade (or \"quarantine\") Cuba and was considering an attack on the island by air and/or sea.\n\nWhat the Americans did not know is that the Soviets didn't only have long-range strategic missiles. They also had smaller, tactical nuclear missiles - so-called battlefield nuclear weapons. And that Soviet military doctrine delegated first-use decision making to commanders on the ground.\n\nHad the threatened invasion gone ahead, it would have triggered a nuclear exchange.\n\nThe then American Defence Secretary Robert McNamara only found out about this when the Soviet archives opened in 1991. Only then, did he understand how close the world had come to catastrophe.\n\nIn a remarkable film called Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara, he explained how the world had avoided destroying itself. Was it skilled diplomacy? Wise leadership? No.\n\n\"Luck,\" he said. \"We lucked out.\"\n\nThat experience, now fading from memory, should focus minds.\n\nCorrection: This article previously referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski as a former US secretary of state, rather than former national security adviser", "Around 600,000 people in England will be invited to book an additional Covid booster this week, as the NHS launches its spring booster programme.\n\nThe jab is being offered to adults over the age of 75, care home residents and the most vulnerable over-12s.\n\nAbout five million people in the UK will be eligible - with the first invites sent out from Monday.\n\nIt comes as Covid cases continue to rise across the UK, with an estimated one in every 20 people infected.\n\nLast month the UK's vaccines advisers said an extra dose would help top up protection against severe Covid-19, with some immunity likely to be waning.\n\nHealth Secretary Sajid Javid urged people \"to come forward as soon as you are contacted by the NHS\".\n\nUp until now, only people with severely weakened immune systems had been eligible to have four jabs - three doses plus a booster.\n\nFrom Monday, a second booster - to be administered six months after the previous dose - will be offered to:\n\nLocal NHS teams will also offer vaccinations in care homes - with hundreds of visits planned in the coming weeks.\n\nScotland and Wales have already launched their spring booster programmes - under the same terms. In Northern Ireland, the Department of Health said it expects the spring booster vaccinations to be completed in April and May.\n\nEligible adults will be offered either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, with those aged between 12-18 offered the Pfizer vaccine.\n\nNHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said efforts to protect the population from coronavirus had not stopped.\n\n\"We have protected millions of people at speed, thanks to the efforts of our staff, aided by volunteers. They will once again rise to the next challenge,\" said Ms Pritchard.\n\nThe Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said vaccinating these groups was a \"precautionary\" move and did not mean there was any current danger to their health.\n\nBut because people in these groups are at higher risk from Covid-19, have weaker immune systems than other people and were last vaccinated in September or October 2021, so their protection from vaccines might be waning more quickly.\n\n\"We must ensure those at greatest risk of serious illness from Covid are protected and spring boosters will top up people's immunity,\" said the government's vaccines minister Maggie Throup.\n\nFigures from the Office for National Statistics published on Friday show an estimated one in 20 people are infected.\n\nThe recent easing of restrictions and waning immunity from vaccines are among the factors believed to be contributing to the rise, with BA.2 - the highly infectious sub-variant of Omicron - now causing most cases.\n\nHospital cases are also rising, but vaccines are still helping to stop many severe cases, say experts.\n\nMeanwhile the government continues to defend its Living with Covid strategy, lifting all restrictions in England and putting the onus on vaccinations and personal responsibility.\n\nResearch by the government estimates that, since mid-December, some 157,000 hospitalisations have been prevented by booster doses, with 32 million top-up jabs given since the rollout began in September 2021.\n\nThe NHS said it also continues to offer first, second, and third doses for those who are yet to come forward for their Covid vaccine.", "It remains illegal to use an e-scooter on the road, outside of government-approved trials\n\nMore than 1,000 incidents of misuse of e-scooters have been reported during a trial on the Isle of Wight, it has emerged.\n\nA council pilot hire scheme has been operating on the island for 15 months.\n\nA Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed complaints had been filed over anti-social behaviour, dangerous and underage riding, as well as riding on the pavement.\n\nOperator Beryl said misuse of its vehicles were \"highly disruptive\".\n\nThe FOI by an island resident, and released by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, showed that in the 12 months following the start of the scheme in November 2020, 1,004 misuse reports were filed with Isle of Wight Council.\n\nThey included 87 for anti-social behaviour, 178 for dangerous driving on the road and 235 for riding with a passenger.\n\nUnderaged riding prompted 141 complaints and there were 262 for riding on a pavement.\n\nLast week, Hampshire Constabulary's roads unit issued 14 warning letters during an operation targeting riders of both private and hired e-scooters in Ryde and Newport.\n\nBeryl said: \"Riders can expect a warning in the first instance, and to be blocked on a second occurrence.\n\n\"Misuse is highly disruptive and potentially dangerous to other road users.\"\n\nTrials of e-scooter hire schemes are being carried out around the country, with evidence gathered due to be evaluated by the Department for Transport as it considers whether to legalise them.\n\nCurrently, privately-owned e-scooters are banned in the UK anywhere except on private land.\n\nFollow BBC South on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to south.newsonline@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Flowers were laid at the police cordon at Arbour House in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell\n\nA 19-year-old woman has been killed at student accommodation in central London.\n\nShe was found with serious injuries when police and medics were called to Arbour House in Sebastian Street, Clerkenwell, at about 05:10 GMT.\n\nThe teenager, who is believed to have been a student, was later pronounced dead at the scene, the Met Police said.\n\nA murder investigation has been launched and detectives are trying to identify the woman's next of kin.\n\nNo arrests have been made and a police presence remains at the scene.\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone, of the Met Police, said he understood the student community would be concerned.\n\n\"I share their sadness and concerns, and I can assure them that a thorough homicide investigation is under way, led by skilled and experienced detectives who will work tirelessly to identify and arrest whoever is responsible.\"\n\nCh Insp Adam Instone said officers would work tirelessly on the case\n\nStudent William Fereyre Guerra, who lives at the halls, said they were told to stay in their rooms in the early hours of the morning.\n\n\"There's been a helicopter during the night as well,\" he said.\n\n\"We were told to stay in the room because they didn't know if the suspect was still there hiding.\"\n\nWilliam Fereyre Guerra said people in his halls were told to stay in their room\n\nA spokesman for Unite Students, which runs Arbour House, said: \"As this remains an ongoing police incident, we are unable to comment on their investigation.\n\n\"Our priority at this time is the safety and wellbeing of students at Arbour House. We are working closely with the police and City, University of London.\"\n\nA spokeswoman for the university said it was supporting the police's investigation and working with Unite Students.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Olena Kurilo became the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Bloodied and bandaged, the 53-year-old teacher said she couldn't believe what had happened to her and her town of Chuhuiv.\n\nHer picture was on the front pages of newspapers across the world.\n\nOver the next few days, Russia's government social media accounts began to post a video claiming that Olena hadn't been injured at all.\n\n\"Great photos by the way, they were all over the news,\" the Russian narrator says.\n\nThe video then claims Olena was photographed two days later, uninjured.\n\n\"A couple of days later, good for her, not a scratch.\"\n\nThis claim is baseless, the BBC has verified the photo as genuine, as has Reuters. Wild conspiracy theories like these are not uncommon on social media.\n\nBut what makes this conspiracy theory so odd is that it was shared by an official Russian government Twitter account - the Russian Mission in Geneva. Two weeks on, the tweet is still live.\n\nThe Russian government has a huge network of official Twitter accounts - the BBC found more than 100 of them. They range from accounts that represent foreign missions or embassies, with a few thousand followers, to those with more than a million followers. President Putin has his own account. Many of the accounts are labelled as Russian government organisations by Twitter.\n\nThe Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs account, with Twitter's label\n\nYet, while many of these accounts have spread disinformation, Twitter deals with them differently to Russian state media - like RT or Sputnik.\n\nOn 28 February, Twitter announced it would prevent tweets from Russian state-affiliated media outlets from being eligible for \"amplification\" - meaning they wouldn't be recommended in the home timeline, notifications, and other places on Twitter. But Twitter has confirmed to the BBC that this policy does not include Russian government accounts.\n\nTim Graham, a social media analyst at QUT Digital Media Research Centre in Australia, describes this as a \"loophole\" in Twitter's moderation policies, which lets the Russian government pump out misinformation.\n\n\"It's certainly a blind spot in Twitter's defences against disinformation,\" he says.\n\nIntrigued by this spider web of Russian government accounts, Mr Graham - who specialises in analysing co-ordinated activity on social media - decided to investigate further. He analysed 75 Russian government Twitter profiles which, in total, have more than 7 million followers. The accounts have received 30 million likes, been retweeted 36 million times and been replied to 4 million times.\n\nHe looked at how many times each Twitter account retweeted one of the other 74 profiles within an hour. He discovered that the Kremlin's network of Twitter accounts work together to retweet and drive up traffic. This practice is sometimes called \"astroturfing\" - when the owner of several accounts uses the profiles they control to retweet content and amplify reach.\n\nA visualisation of Tim Graham's data - showing Russian Government accounts retweeting each other within 60 minutes\n\n\"If these accounts weren't retweeting stuff at the same time, the network would just be a bunch of disconnected dots. So what the network shows, very clearly, is that there's a very dense amount of connections to the way these accounts are retweeting.\n\n\"They are using this as an engine to drive their preferred narrative onto Twitter, and they're getting away with it,\" he says.\n\nCoordinated activity, using multiple accounts, is against Twitter's rules.\n\n\"You can't artificially amplify conversations through the use of multiple accounts,\" Twitter's rules state.\n\nBut Twitter doesn't treat all accounts equally. Tweets from government and elected officials can be given more leeway when it comes to moderation. The company says on its website that there may be a public interest in seeing tweets that would otherwise violate its rules.\n\nHowever, the company doesn't treat official accounts differently when it comes to coordinated behaviour - there is no exemption.\n\nThe BBC put Mr Graham's research to Twitter, however the company did not respond directly to his findings.\n\nThe BBC also asked the Russian Embassy in the UK about the suggestion that official Russian Twitter accounts behave in a coordinated way - and that many share misinformation. The BBC has not received a response.\n\nOn 10 March, the embassy itself tweeted that the bombing of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol had been faked. The account claimed that women pictured at the scene were actors.\n\nA photo was posted of a woman being carried on a stretcher, with the words \"FAKE\" plastered over the image. The claim was false. A few days later it was reported that both she and her baby had died.\n\nScreengrab from the account of the Russian Embassy in the UK - the fake claim was removed by Twitter\n\nTwitter deleted several tweets making the \"FAKE\" claim, after the BBC flagged them. Yet there are many other examples of Russian disinformation still up on the Russian government's Twitter accounts.\n\nThe unfounded claim that Olena Kurilo wasn't really injured is still live - it has been retweeted by more than 20 separate Russian government accounts.\n\nUnfounded claims that Ukraine has bioweapons have been shared by the Russian network and are still up - as are claims of an imminent chemical attack being allegedly prepared by Ukrainians.\n\nThe problem Twitter has is that proving content is false can be messy and complex in a time of war.\n\nSavvas Zannettou, who analyses social media moderation at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, says war makes policing social media even harder.\n\n\"To effectively moderate is impossible… the information comes at a very rapid pace, and it's coming from all over the place,\" he says.\n\nIt appears two things are happening here. Muddled and incomplete information on the ground means only examples of misinformation which are easy to prove are taken down on platforms such as Twitter.\n\nAdded to that, Twitter's own public interest exceptions means tweets from government officials can be treated differently from other accounts. The BBC asked Twitter whether tweets from Russian ministries and embassies were included in its public interest exceptions, however the social media company did not respond to this specific question.\n\nTwitter said: \"We've taken numerous enforcement actions on Russian embassy accounts, including requiring the removal of Tweets.\"\n\nTwitter also said it would also be doing more in the coming days to flag accounts linked to the Kremlin. \"We'll be expanding our government account labels to additional Russian embassies to add context for people interacting with these accounts on Twitter.\"\n\nThe Kremlin's social media accounts also exist on Facebook and other platforms - this isn't a headache consigned just to Twitter.\n\nIn January 2021, after the Capitol Hill riots, Twitter banned Donald Trump for his role in repeating allegations of voter fraud. Twitter argued that repeated disinformation, posted from a position of power, had caused real world violence.\n\nAs official Russian accounts continue to post wild misinformation during a time of war, it is perfectly possible that the Kremlin will end up facing another sanction - being frozen out of Twitter.\n\nJames Clayton is the BBC's North America technology reporter based in San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @jamesclayton5.", "Emergency services in the aftermath of a strike on a TV tower in Kyiv on Tuesday that killed five\n\nThe key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol was \"near to a humanitarian catastrophe\" on Wednesday after more than 15 hours of continuous bombardment by Russian forces, the city's deputy mayor told the BBC.\n\n\"The Russian army is working through all their weapons here - artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, airplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city,\" Serhiy Orlov said.\n\nMr Orlov said Russian forces were several kilometres from the city on all sides and had launched strikes on key infrastructure, cutting water and power supplies to parts of the city. One densely populated residential district on the city's left bank had been \"nearly totally destroyed\", he said.\n\n\"We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies. My father lives there, I cannot reach him, I don't know if he is alive or dead.\"\n\nRussian forces had targeted strikes against pump stations and electrical transformers, Mr Orlov said, and there were food shortages in parts of the city - raising fears of an approaching humanitarian crisis.\n\nMariupol is a key strategic target for Russia because seizing it would allow Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine to join forces with troops in Crimea, the southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine's army has resisted Russian forces so far in key parts of the country but the increased aerial bombardment of cities has raised fears Russia is shifting tactics.\n\n\"The Ukrainian army is very brave and they will continue to defend the city but the style of the Russian army is like pirates - they do not fight with their army, they just destroy entire districts,\" Mr Orlov said.\n\n\"We believe in our Ukrainian army, but we are in a terrible situation.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine took a heavy toll on civilians on Wednesday as residential neighbourhoods in several large cities were bombed. Ukraine's emergency services said more than 2,000 civilians had been killed so far during the Russian invasion, though the BBC was not able to independently verify the figure. The UN said on Tuesday that at least 136 civilians had been killed, but it estimated that the actual number was higher.\n\nThere were fears on Wednesday that the death toll would rise dramatically as Russian troops appeared to surround the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the port city of Kherson.\n\nUkrainian forces said Russian paratroopers had landed near Kharkiv on Wednesday, leading to street fighting on the outskirts of the city. Local officials said a cruise missile hit a city council meeting, blowing off the top of the building and wounding three. At least 18 people have been reported killed in the city in the past day.\n\nA fire at the a Kharkiv university building after it was hit by a Russian missile on Wednesday\n\nResidents in Kharkiv told the BBC they were experiencing heavy aerial bombardment. \"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" said Iryna Ruzhynska, 40, who was sheltering with her family in her second-floor apartment on Wednesday.\n\n\"We have put Scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ms Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nThe Russian defence ministry claimed its forces were in control of Kherson, a city of nearly 250,000 people just north of Crimea, but local authorities said the city was still under Ukrainian control, despite being surrounded. Video footage verified by the BBC appeared to show Russian troops in the centre of Kherson.\n\nLarysa Pavlovska, a 58-year-old paramedic in Kherson, told the BBC her part of the city was quiet on Wednesday but other parts were smouldering after intense overnight shelling, adding that some residential districts had been \"bombed out\".\n\n\"Local residents say Russian armoured vehicles can be seen moving in the city, people say about 50 units,\" she said. \"They have been spotted by the state regional administration building.\"\n\nInesa Chamlai, the deputy head of the emergency aid centre in Kherson, said Russian troops had prevented them taking a wounded 55-year-old man to hospital. The man had stepped on a mine and lost his leg, Mr Chamlai said.\n\n\"Our ambulance team was dispatched but was then prevented by Russian troops from taking the man to hospital,\" he said. \"The soldiers ordered to bring him back to his house where he will definitely die.\"\n\nThere were also growing fears in the capital, Kyiv, over a 40-mile long convoy of Russian military vehicles just 15 miles north of the city, though US officials said on Wednesday the column was barely moving.\n\nIn Irpin, close to Kyiv, residential buildings have been destroyed\n\nRussia's air force struck a television mast in the capital on Tuesday, killing five people at the site of a Nazi massacre which killed more than 33,000, mostly Jews, while a missile strike west of Kyiv, in the city of Zhytomyr, killed four people including a child, a Ukrainian official said.\n\nIn a video message on Wednesday, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, condemned the strike at the site of the massacre, accusing the Russians of trying to \"erase\" Ukrainians.\n\n\"They know nothing about our capital. About our history. But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all,\" he said.\n\nA UK government spokesperson said Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Mr Zelensky on Wednesday \"to condemn the abhorrent attacks on Ukraine in the recent hours and days\".\n\nIn an address on Tuesday, the US president Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a \"dictator\" and promised \"robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia's economy\".\n\nNearly a week after invading, Russia is facing increasing economic turmoil at home as it is hit by increasing sanctions. The Moscow Stock Exchange remained closed for the third day in a row on Wednesday as authorities tried to limit the impact of the sanctions.\n\n\"The Russian economy has suffered a serious blow,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, insisting that it was \"still standing\".\n\nHave you been affected by any of the issues raised here? Do you have family in Ukraine? Please get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.\n\nPlease include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.", "Police have cordoned off a bus stop on Upper Warwick Street\n\nA teenage girl has been seriously injured in a shooting as she was waiting at a bus stop after school.\n\nMerseyside Police said shots were fired from a group riding bikes in the Toxteth area of Liverpool at about 17:10 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nThe 15-year-old, who was in her school uniform, suffered \"devastating\" wounds to her upper body, with police saying it was a miracle she had survived.\n\nA man, 21, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.\n\nHe was also held on suspicion of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.\n\nA 60-year-old man, from Liverpool, was later arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.\n\nThe girl was taken to hospital where she remains in a \"serious\" but stable condition, police said.\n\nDet Ch Supt Mark Kameen described the attack as \"callous and cowardly\" and said police were looking for several people riding up to four bikes, possibly electric ones.\n\nAll the suspects were wearing dark clothing and face masks or balaclavas, he said.\n\nPolice believe shots were fired by \"one or more\" people on the bikes in Upper Warwick Street before they made off in the nearby North Hill Street area.\n\nForensic tape could be seen around a bullet hole on the bus stop\n\nA short time after the girl was shot a 21-year-old man turned up at hospital with a gunshot injury to his arm, an incident police said could be linked.\n\nForensic examinations have been carried out at the scene and officers have cordoned off the bus stop, with forensic tape seen around a single bullet hole.\n\nDet Ch Supt Kameen said: \"The actions of those people responsible for this attack on a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was waiting in a bus stop to go home from school are utterly appalling and shocking.\"\n\nHe said it showed a \"total disregard and contempt\" for honest, law-abiding people.\n\nOfficers have carried out house-to-house inquiries and CCTV is being checked as investigations continue.\n\nDetectives are appealing for witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage to come forward, adding the attack took place at rush hour in an area with roadworks and stationary traffic.\n\nPolice have also stepped up patrols in the area.\n\nMerseyside's Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell described the shooting in a tweet as \"deeply shocking and upsetting\".\n\nMayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson also tweeted that it was \"very alarming and upsetting to learn a 15-year-old girl is in hospital after a shooting on the streets of our city\".\n\n\"As always in situations like this, please remain calm and provide any assistance to the police if you can,\" she added.\n\nWhy not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "A personal trainer died after taking caffeine powder the equivalent of up to 200 cups of coffee, an inquest heard.\n\nFather-of-two Tom Mansfield had miscalculated the amount of powder he was meant to use on kitchen scales.\n\nAn inquest in Ruthin heard the 29-year-old from Colwyn Bay fell ill straight after drinking his mixture on 5 January 2021.\n\nReaching a conclusion of misadventure, coroner John Gittins said the cause of death was caffeine toxicity.\n\nCaffeine is used by some gym-goers, with some fitness websites recommending it for improving sports performance in certain doses.\n\nHowever, experts have warned that when taking powders there is a risk of consuming over the recommended amount.\n\nOn Tuesday an inquest heard Mr Mansfield began clutching his chest and complaining his heart was beating fast after consuming the product.\n\nMinutes later, after going to lie down, he began foaming at the mouth. His wife Suzannah alerted neighbours and family, and called an ambulance\n\nParamedics tried to resuscitate him for 45 minutes but was later pronounced dead at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire.\n\nThe lowest weight measured by Mr Mansfield's scale was more than six times the maximum recommended dose\n\nThe hearing was told the scales Mr Mansfield had used to measure the powder had a weighing range from two to 5,000 grams, whereas he was attempting to weigh a recommended dose of 60-300mg.\n\nIt was this miscalculation which led to a massive overdose.\n\nThe hearing was told he had bought a 100g bag of the powder from Blackburn Distributions.\n\nIn a statement read to the hearing, its director Ben Blackburn said the powder should be weighed to two decimal places in milligrams and the suggested dosage was 60-300mg of powder up to twice a day.\n\nHe said scales for the purpose of weighing such small amounts can be purchased.\n\nThe company did not, at the time of Mr Mansfield's death, include scoops in the packaging because they are not always accurate, but Mr Blackburn said this had now changed.\n\nIt has also enhanced the usage instructions and increased the prominence of potential side effects.\n\nA post-mortem examination showed Mr Mansfield had caffeine levels of 392mg per litre of blood.\n\nCaffeine levels would typically be two to four milligrams per litre if someone had drunk a cup of filter coffee.\n\nMr Gittins said it appeared Mr Mansfield had been aiming for the \"mid-range of the recommended dose\", but \"he got his maths wrong\" and there were \"unintended consequences\" which had a fatal effect.", "Girl With Balloon, spraypaint on metal, went for £2.8m\n\nTwo of Banksy's most recognisable artworks have sold for a combined total of more than £7m at auction.\n\nVandalised Oils (Choppers), described by auction house Sotheby's as having an \"anti-war\" message, went for almost £4.4m, above the initial estimate of between £2.5m and 3.5m.\n\nGirl With Balloon fetched £2.8m, after being priced at £2m to £3m.\n\nBoth pieces were sold by the London auctioneers having belonged to singer Robbie Williams.\n\nVandalised Oil (Choppers), showing two low-flying military helicopters, recalls the 1979 film about the Vietnam war, Apocalypse Now, when US attack helicopters strafe enemy positions to Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.\n\nIn its catalogue note, Sotheby's said it also reflected Banksy's opposition to the second Iraq war, when he handed out stencilled placards at London protests in 2003.\n\nGirl with Balloon, in spraypaint on metal, was acquired by Williams directly from the graffiti artist in 2006.\n\nThe picture is one of his most famous images showing a young girl holding her hand out towards a red heart-shaped balloon.\n\nA different version of the same work was automatically shredded after it sold at auction in 2018.\n\nBoth works had belonged to singer Robbie Williams", "Mr Burgis said he was delighted the court action had failed\n\nA libel claim brought by a post-Soviet mining giant against a journalist's book about dirty money and corruption has been dismissed by a High Court.\n\nBut judge Mr Justice Nicklin stopped the case after finding the claim against the author to be wholly flawed.\n\nMr Burgis' publisher said the case had been an attempt to use legal and financial firepower to silence public interest journalism.\n\nIn the book, Mr Burgis - a Financial Times journalist - charts how he says dirty money is linked to corruption and is now \"flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators [and] poisoning democracies\".\n\nAmong its stories, the book features Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), a mining company with interests around the world.\n\nLawyers for ENRC claimed in court that Mr Burgis has defamed the corporation because the real meaning of part of his book was that the company had three men murdered to protect its business interests.\n\nAndrew Caldecott QC, for Mr Burgis and HarperCollins publishers, told the court: \"This is not a Private Eye nudge-nudge book.\n\n\"It is not a book that pulls its punches at all. The theme is about thieves and their money - masters and their secrecy - and it shows how the thieves are uniting and the terrible human cost.\"\n\nIn a ruling stopping the case, Mr Justice Nicklin said he had read the book for himself before considering the case papers, so he could form a view like any other ordinary reader.\n\nHe said that ENRC's claim was not sustainable because every reader would know that only individuals can commit murder, rather than corporations.\n\nThat early ruling meant the case could not proceed to a full libel trial - and the judge awarded £50,000 in costs against ENRC, while also refusing it permission to appeal.\n\nSpeaking outside court, Mr Burgis said: \"I wrote a book about what I believe is the greatest threat to freedom today: the rise of kleptocracy. I'm delighted that this attempt to censor Kleptopia has failed.\"\n\nHe however still faces a second libel action over an article published in the Financial Times relating to his investigation.\n\nA spokesman for HarperCollins described the case as \"lawfare\" - legal action that poses such massive financial risks to a defendant it has the effect of silencing them or making them withdraw.\n\n\"HarperCollins is committed to publishing high quality investigative non-fiction and to defending our authors in the face of legal attacks from those who would seek to use the UK courts to silence them.\n\n\"It is grossly unfair that yet again HarperCollins and our author have had to risk substantial legal costs and personal liability defending public interest journalism.\"\n\nBut a spokesman for ENRC said the case had been fairly brought and insisted there had been enormous damage to its reputation because of the book.\n\n\"The independence of the British judiciary remains the UK's greatest defence of our democracy and our shared liberal values,\" said the spokesman.\n\n\"It is regretful to have witnessed a growing attempt to mischaracterise our reasonable and proportionate steps to defend our reputation through the courts.\n\n\"We have maintained throughout that we fully support the media's right to report fairly and objectively on matters, including on our own business.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Donald Dick spent three years sleeping in cars and friends' sofas.\n\nA man who spent three years sleeping in cars and on settees says having his own place to live is the \"best feeling in the world\".\n\nDonald Dick was part of Northern Ireland's so-called hidden homeless - people who only have temporary accommodation.\n\nWhile there is no official data, it is believed there are thousands of people like Donald in Northern Ireland.\n\nHe moved out of his parents' house because there wasn't enough room.\n\nBut he didn't have anywhere to go.\n\nDonald said his experiences had been \"rough\".\n\n\"I was staying between my parents' home, which is overcrowded, and my mate's house,\" he said.\n\n\"I was sleeping in their car or some nights we would go and sleep in the studio, or sometimes I could go and sleep with my brother at his house.\n\n\"I slept in the car maybe once or twice a week. But sleeping in the car, there's no sleep at all, it's so rough.\"\n\nDonald first went to the Housing Executive in 2015, but said there was no available accommodation.\n\n\"The Housing Executive made me fill in an application form and put me in the waiting list to start getting points, but the first two years the points were just the same,\" he explained.\n\n\"I was still going there, I'm still homeless, I'm not getting sorted or even to be put in accommodation. I just wasn't getting anywhere.\"\n\nThree years later, in 2018, Donald moved to a hostel provided by homeless charity the Simon Community. In 2019, he got his own home.\n\nDonald said he felt he was going nowhere with housing applications\n\n\"Without it, my life would be a mess, I would still be going in circles, going to my friend's house, sleeping in the street.\n\n\"If you keep living in that environment, it will just keep on getting worse.\"\n\nThere are no official statistics on hidden homelessness in Northern Ireland.\n\nThat's partly because people living at a friend or relatives' house are not always going to reach out for help.\n\nProf Ann-Marie Gray from Ulster University has worked on a report with the Simon Community.\n\n\"The only people that are counted as homeless in Northern Ireland are the people who meet the criteria for statutory homelessness. That's quite a tight criteria,\" she explained.\n\n\"If you're seen to have made yourself intentionally homeless then you're not counted in those figures and you don't receive help.\"\n\nProf Gray said when people present as homeless, the authorities should ask much more about their circumstances.\n\nProf Ann-Marie Gray said more help was needed at point of contact\n\n\"They should be obliged to do much more in terms of providing some support to stop those people from spiralling into homelessness which can sometimes last for years,\" she added.\n\nFamily fall-outs are not the only reason for people to come under the 'hidden homeless' umbrella.\n\nThe rising cost of living, low income, an increase in fuel prices or a hike in rent for those living in the private rented sector can all contribute to people not being able to afford their own home.\n\nA long-term shortage in social housing also exacerbates the problem.\n\nProf Gray said: \"With the housing crisis in Northern Ireland, particularly around affordability, there's no reason to expect that this problem will become any less - the opposite in fact.\n\n\"We know that there isn't sufficient housing supply in Northern Ireland, particularly of public sector housing.\n\n\"So people have to go to the private rented sector, and there are no rent controls currently on the private rented sector.\n\n\"We know from research that people are paying quite often considerably higher than what they get in housing benefit towards the cost of their housing.\"\n\nThe Simon Community, the organisation which helped Donald find his home, said there needs to be a better understanding of what hidden homelessness means.\n\nKaren McAlister said there could be 100,000 'hidden homeless' people in NI\n\n\"There are estimations that up to 100,000 people are experiencing hidden homelessness,\" said Karen McAlister, head of research and development at the Simon Community.\n\n\"Northern Ireland is a very close knit society, we're always offering help and support, which actually means that people sleeping on sofas remain invisible.\"\n\nMs McAlister said it was crucial that people felt comfortable coming forward and that help was offered when they needed it most.\n\n\"I do believe we are in a housing and homelessness crisis,\" she added.\n\n\"If you look at the number of people in housing distress, in temporary accommodation and if today we're talking about up to 100,000 people in Northern Ireland experiencing hidden homelessness, yes I do call that a crisis.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nUS President Joe Biden has told Congress that Vladimir Putin badly misjudged how the West would hit back once he invaded Ukraine.\n\nIn a primetime speech, Mr Biden vowed \"an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny\".\n\nDemocrats and Republicans reacted to Mr Biden's appeal to show support for Ukraine by rising in unison to applaud.\n\nHis State of the Union address came as pandemic-weary Americans grapple with galloping inflation.\n\nIn an hour-long address to lawmakers on Tuesday night, the Democratic president said: \"Putin's war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected repeated efforts at diplomacy.\n\n\"He thought the West and Nato wouldn't respond. And he thought he could divide us here at home.\"\n\nMr Biden - whose chaotic withdrawal last year from Afghanistan damaged his popularity among Americans - added: \"Putin was wrong. We were ready.\"\n\nHe announced that the US would ban Russian aircraft from American airspace, following similar bans by Canadian and European authorities.\n\nThe US and its allies have launched a barrage of sanctions against Russia's economy and financial system and Mr Putin himself. In his speech Mr Biden deviated from his prepared remarks by vowing further economic retaliation, warning Mr Putin: \"He has no idea what's coming.\"\n\nThe US president also welcomed Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, who received a standing ovation as she sat in US First Lady Jill Biden's VIP box.\n\nHours before his address, Mr Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss what help the US could give his country after six days of the Russian assault.\n\n\"Let each of us... stand and send an unmistakable signal to Ukraine and to the world,\" Mr Biden told his audience in the chamber of the House of Representatives.\n\nIt was one of the few moments in the speech where members of both deeply polarised parties rose together to clap and cheer for Ukraine, many of them waving Ukrainian flags that had been passed out before the president arrived.\n\nMr Biden's first formal State of the Union speech, an annual event pushing a president's agenda, came as his approval rating languishes.\n\nJust 40.6% of Americans are happy with his job performance, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.\n\nAfter addressing his biggest foreign policy crisis, the invasion of Ukraine, Mr Biden confronted a host of domestic troubles dogging his presidency, from the enduring pandemic, to soaring consumer prices, to a wave of violent crime.\n\nUkraine flags and badges were in evidence\n\nAlthough the US jobless rate has sunk to 4%, inflation has hit a 40-year high.\n\nThe president sought on Tuesday night to empathise with hard-pressed working families, saying: \"I get it.\"\n\nHe promised a plan for \"building a better America\".\n\nMr Biden argued the best way to counter rocketing consumer prices was to boost domestic production of cars and semiconductors and rebuild the nation's roads and bridges.\n\nOpinion polls show Americans are also unhappy with Mr Biden's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nBut on Tuesday, members of Congress who attended the speech were not required to wear masks for the first time in months.\n\nMr Biden said: \"Last year Covid-19 kept us apart. This year we are finally together again.\"\n\nMore than 2,000 Americans are still dying daily of Covid, according to the latest figures, the highest official tally of any country in the world.\n\nWith the nation's homicide rate having hit a 25-year high, Mr Biden rejected calls to defund the police that were taken up by a wide spectrum of his fellow Democrats.\n\n\"The answer is not to defund the police,\" said the president. \"The answer is to fund them.\"\n\nShe sought to portray a presidency that had sent America back to the late '70s \"when runaway inflation was hammering families, a violent crime wave was crashing on our cities, and the Soviet army was trying to redraw the world map\".", "As a family of chemicals, neonicotinoids cause harm to pollinating insects such as bees\n\nThe UK government has authorised the emergency use of a type of pesticide almost entirely banned in the EU because of the harm it can cause bees.\n\nA Defra spokesperson said the use of one type of neonicotinoid on sugar beet was \"based on robust scientific assessment\".\n\nThe use would be subject to strict conditions, Defra said.\n\nBut the Chief Executive of the Wildlife Trusts, Craig Bennett, called it \"scandalous\".\n\nStudies have shown that the group of pesticides damage the nervous systems and navigational abilities of bees and other pollinators. The pesticides can also end up in streams and rivers and harm aquatic life, and can persist for a long time in the environment.\n\nTheir outdoor use was banned in almost all EU countries in 2018. At the time of the ban, Michael Gove, then environment secretary, said the UK was in favour because it couldn't \"afford to put our pollinator populations at risk\".\n\nThe government is now authorising one type, thiamethoxam, to be used on sugar beet in England in 2022 because of the potential risk of yellows viruses, spread by aphids, which can severely damage crops. It estimates that almost 70% of the national sugar beet crop could be affected.\n\nA Defra spokesperson said that the decision \"was not taken lightly\".\n\n\"We evaluate the risks very carefully and only grant temporary emergency authorisations for restricted pesticides in special circumstances when strict requirements are met and there are no alternatives.\"\n\nThe chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, Craig Bennett, criticised the decision.\n\n\"The Government has outlined ambitions to restore nature, promising to protect 30% of land by 2030 and reverse declines of precious wildlife - but at the same time, it is giving a green light to use a highly toxic chemical that could harm pollinating insects and pollute soils and rivers,\" he said.\n\nAccording to the National Farmers' Union (NFU), there are 3,000 farmers who grow sugar beet, and the wider industry supports around 9,500 jobs in England, largely in the East. To minimise risks to bees, farmers will be banned from growing flowering plants for 32 months after the sugar beet crop.\n\nNFU Sugar board chairman Michael Sly said \"growers would be relieved\".\n\n\"The limited and controlled emergency authorisation granted by the government for growers to use the neonicotinoid seed treatment was to give them the tools to tackle this disease in this event of severe pest pressure, which we must remember caused crop losses of up to 80% in 2020.\"\n\nSugar beet crops can be devastated by yellows viruses\n\nStephanie Morren from the RSPB said, \"We are in a nature and climate emergency, and with farming accounting for 75% of the land in England we cannot reverse nature's decline without the support of our farmers. But highly toxic pesticides like neonicotinoids have no place in a sustainable farming system.\n\n\"Questions must be raised about how approving even temporary use of these chemicals and endangering our declining bee populations is in any way consistent with halting wildlife decline. Instead, farmers must be supported to reduce our reliance on these harmful chemicals,\" she said.", "The boss of one of the world's biggest crypto-currency exchanges has ruled out restricting ordinary Russians from using the service.\n\nBinance founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: \"Many normal Russians do not agree with war.\"\n\nMajor cryptocurrency exchanges have been asked by Ukraine to block Russian users.\n\nOne financial expert warned the war could become a \"crypto conflict\".\n\nIn a tweet sent on Sunday Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minster Mykhailo Fedorov asked major crypto-currency exchanges to block the addresses of ordinary Russian users, not just politicians.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nThe value of Bitcoin has risen 13% since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the Reuters news agency.\n\nThere has been speculation Russian oligarchs may pour their money into cryptocurrencies to avoid sanctions and other restrictions.\n\nBut Mr Zhao said: \"We're not against any people.\n\n\"We differentiate between the Russian politicians who start wars and the normal people.\n\n\"Many normal Russians do not agree with war.\"\n\n\"I can publish my sanction list, you can publish yours... Guess what? No-one else is going to follow.\n\n\"It just moves Russian users to other smaller platforms,\" he said.\n\nIn a statement published earlier, Binance said it would not unilaterally freeze millions of \"innocent users'\" accounts.\n\n\"Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe,\" the company told BBC News.\n\nAny unilateral ban would \"fly in the face\" of the reason crypto existed.\n\nBut \"while minimising the impact to innocent users\", it was taking the steps necessary to enforce sanctions.\n\nMr Zhao said: \"There are, I think, a few hundred individuals that are on the international sanction list in Russia - those are mostly politicians, et cetera.\n\n\"We follow that very, very strictly.\n\n\"And we are not in a position to sanction populations of people.\n\n\"We are not political - we are against war but we are here to help the people.\"\n\nSeveral other cryptocurrency exchanges have also ruled out freezing all Russian accounts, according to a Vice News investigation.\n\nKraken's chief executive Jesse Powell, for example, said its platform would not freeze Russian accounts, which would go against Bitcoin's \"libertarian values\".\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Jesse Powell This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nBut Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS), at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, warned exchanges that failed to follow the rules might find themselves cut off from financial services.\n\n\"Those banks that provide services to crypto exchanges will be watching their clients' activities very carefully to ensure that they are diligently applying the checks required by the expanding sanctions regimes against Russia,\" he said.\n\nThe war in Ukraine could become the first meaningful \"crypto conflict\", Mr Keatinge told BBC News, as those seeking to \"evade sanctions, protect their savings or avoid a collapsing banking system turn to cryptocurrencies for solutions\".\n\nCriminals laundered $8.6bn (£6.4bn) of crypto-currency in 2021, up 30% on the previous year, according to a report by blockchain data company Chainalysis published prior to the invasion.\n\nAnd the Financial Times revealed: \"Trading between the Russian rouble and crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Tether had doubled since the assault on Ukraine began, reaching $60m a day.\"\n\nThe increase comes as governments have sought to cut Russia out of the financial system.\n\nOn Wednesday, French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire said that the European Union will include crypto currencies in its sanctions against Russia, aimed at making Moscow's aggression against Ukraine as costly as possible.\n\nHe told journalists during a news conference that the sanctions against Russia were very effective and have \"disorganised\" the Russian financial system.\n\nThe British government has also announced measures to crack down on money laundering by Russian \"oligarchs and kleptocrats\", including new powers to seize crypto assets.\n\nChainalysis's Caroline Malcolm told BBC News: \"As with the traditional financial system, Russian oligarchs could leverage crypto-currency to evade the sanctions.\"\n\nBut it was unlikely designated persons under sanctions would move around large quantities of cryptocurrency now.\n\n\"Russia's elite and financial authorities have been preparing for sanctions for some time,\" she said.\n\n\"To the extent that cryptocurrency may be used to evade sanctions related to this crisis, it likely would have happened slowly over the past several months.\"\n\nAnd analytics tools used for following money were more effective than those \"capable of disrupting Russia's use of a network of traditional bank wires or physical cash to evade sanctions\".\n\nTom Robinson, of blockchain analysis company Elliptic, said crypto-currency could be an attractive haven for the wealth of oligarchs as it could not be seized and no-one could prevent it being moved.\n\nBut it was \"highly traceable, which means that they would find it difficult to spend anywhere that sanctions are enforced\".", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nA campaigner protesting against Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has set fire to her Russian passport during a vigil in Edinburgh.\n\nAnna Jakubova used a lighter to ignite the red booklet in front of hundreds of people gathered near The Mound.\n\nMs Jakubova, 26, from Moscow, said she was horrified by the slaughter of civilians and ashamed to be Russian.\n\nDemonstrations have been taking place in the Scottish capital since the invasion started on Thursday.\n\nOn Tuesday, Russia attacked a TV tower in Kyiv - with Ukrainian officials saying five people were killed.\n\nMissiles and rockets have also killed dozens of civilians in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, and satellite images show a huge armoured convoy heading towards Kyiv.\n\nMs Jakubova, who travelled from Dundee for the Standing In Solidarity With Ukraine event on Tuesday, said: \"I burnt my passport as a gesture against the Russian government and to show that even Russian citizens are turning against this country and the horrific things that it's doing.\n\n\"I am hoping to attract attention to the plight of the Ukrainians and give them a voice to amplify their suffering and their struggles.\"\n\nThe Edinburgh University graduate said while she condemned Russians who voted for Mr Putin's government, there are citizens from her country demonstrating against the invasion.\n\nShe added: \"There are quite a few Russians protesting in Moscow and they are risking their livelihoods and their careers and their families.\n\n\"I feel I am representing a significant proportion of Russians, even if it's not the majority.\"\n\nOn her own future plans, she added: \"I don't want to be a citizen of a country that committed war crimes that are so horrible it killed children and innocent people who are just defending their own country.\n\n\"I don't think I would be able to go back to Russia and I don't think I want to.\n\n\"I feel very sad. I feel shame that it is a country that is associated with me that has done this. I feel like nothing I can do is enough.\"\n\nMs Jakubova - who also holds an Estonian passport - told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland that Western sanctions were aimed at oligarchs and politicians, but risked isolating many ordinary Russians to \"stew in propagandistic thinking\".\n\n\"Popular opinion will have to change on its own in response to the violence in Ukraine, in response to the horrible corrupt things that Russian politicians are doing,\" she said.\n\nAnastasia Westwood, a Ukrainian who lives in Edinburgh with her Scottish husband, thanked Ms Jakubova for her actions at the protest.\n\nShe told the programme: \"Just imagine, if the sanctions start to work in Russians in one year, what are we going to have in Ukraine in one year?\"\n\n\"We need their immediate effects,\" she said. \"[The conflict] could be stretching and stretching. I am absolutely sure the Russian oligarchs are prepared for that.\"\n\nMs Westwood's family and friends remain in her home city in Ukraine, the besieged port of Kherson.\n\nShe added: \"For this invasion, this city is important, and they turned it to dust\".\n\nOn Tuesday, Freedom Square in central Kharkiv was hit by a missile strike, killing at least 10 civilians.\n\nReports also emerged that more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were killed after Russian artillery recently hit a military base in Okhtyrka, a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson has described the Russian attacks as \"barbaric and indiscriminate\".\n\nAnd First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has called on the world to stand united against the \"unjustified and illegal\" invasion of Ukraine.\n\nAlso attending the vigil was Dmitry Koshkin, 41, originally from Kharkiv and now living in Edinburgh.\n\nHe has relatives who are hiding in a bomb shelter in his home city, including his cousin, his cousin's wife and their nine-year-old son.\n\nMr Koshkin said: \"My cousin actually celebrated his birthday in these four concrete walls.\n\n\"It's smelly and crammed with people with lots of children and people with dogs and cats.\n\n\"So, for his birthday present to himself, he actually ran back home to take a hot bath. That was his birthday treat.\"\n\nProtesters took part in a demonstration outside the Russian consulate in Edinburgh on Friday\n\n\"It also feels wrong to sit in my warm Edinburgh flat while they are doing that.\n\n\"I try to come to these gatherings as much as I can just to do something because it tears me apart that they are over there, struggling, fighting, helping each other, and I am 5,000 miles away, I cannot do much except for message on WhatsApp.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, who attended the vigil, called on the prime minister to scrap visa rules for people fleeing Ukraine.\n\nMr Johnson earlier said the government was making it easier for Ukrainians in the UK to bring their relatives out of the country, by extending the scheme to help those fleeing the war.\n\nBut Home Secretary Priti Patel said the UK could not waive the need for visas for people fleeing Ukraine as it had to protect national security.", "Sainsbury's is set to close 200 of its in-store cafes next month, putting about 2,000 jobs at risk.\n\nThe supermarket has also announced plans to close less popular hot food counters in 34 stores.\n\nChief executive Simon Roberts said the chain was \"absolutely committed\" to supporting the members of staff affected.\n\nThey will be prioritised for vacant jobs and encouraged to look at alternative roles within the business.\n\nIt comes as part of new plans aimed at updating the supermarket's eat-in, takeaway and home delivery food and drink offer for customers.\n\nThe move follows a trial of a new \"food hall\" format called The Restaurant Hub at its Selly Oak store in Birmingham.\n\nOff the back of the trial, Sainsbury's plans to open 30 more of the food halls in 2022, as well as 30 Starbucks coffee shops in its supermarkets over the next 12 months.\n\nIt is currently working in partnership with the Boparan Restaurant Group on the project. As part of the trial, customers were able to choose options from the likes of Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Ed's Diner and Slim Chickens.\n\nSainsbury's said it could increase the number of food halls in future years, if they continued to perform well with customers.\n\nThe remaining 67 cafes will remain open while Sainsbury's reviews roll-out plans.\n\nIn a statement, the supermarket said it had spoken to all of its cafe workers today about the closure plans.\n\nIt also said that it would \"simplify the way it runs its bakeries\" in 54 stores and hold talks with those workers and those on the hot food counters, with the aim of redeploying them in other departments in-store if possible.\n\nThe retailer has already closed its fresh fish, cheese and meat counters in stores, which saw about 3,500 jobs cut.\n\nMr Roberts said: \"We are totally focused on improving what we can deliver for our customers and at the same time, working hard to make our business simpler.\n\n\"We are really excited about this new customer offer we will be rolling out over the next two to three years across many of our stores.\"\n\nSainsbury's said it could increase the number of food halls in future years, if they do well with customers.\n\nHe added, however, that he acknowledged this was an \"uncertain\" time for many members of staff.\n\n\"Of course, we understand this is very unsettling for our colleagues, but we must keep adapting our business to make sure we are offering customers the best possible food and drink at affordable prices,\" he said.\n\nSusannah Streeter, senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the announcement marked the latest in a raft of restructuring moves as the supermarket seeks to keep a lid on rising costs - and compete with the likes of discounters Aldi and Lidl.\n\n\"The chain is clearly hoping customers will 'taste the difference' via these tie-ups... while its own staff costs are taken out of the equation and it can concentrate spend on the business of filling trollies and virtual baskets instead,\" she said.\n\nSainsbury's is the first of the \"big four\" supermarkets to restructure its cafes. It's all part of a wider plan to simplify the business and save money.\n\nCaffè Carluccio's is going to be the main offer and it will work alongside one or two other brands using the same kitchen, which will fulfil orders for home deliveries and takeaways too.\n\nSixty-seven Sainsbury's cafes remain, for now. They provide hot food like a cooked breakfast and are still popular with shoppers. So bringing in these new, popular, brands is an eye-catching move. Other new partners could also be brought in.\n\nWill shoppers will miss the old cafes? The new ones won't be as cheap. But in-store cafes are hard work to run. Sainsbury's is prioritising its food offer in the aisles and trying to stay as competitive as possible on price.\n\nBut Unite the union hit out at Sainsbury's, demanding compulsory redundancies for cafe workers should be ruled out.\n\nUnite national officer for food, drink and agriculture, Bev Clarkson, said: \"Our members showed great loyalty to Sainsbury's during the pandemic. They served their communities during lockdown and ensured Sainsbury's flourished when other businesses flatlined.\n\n\"Now Sainsbury's must repay them by keeping job losses to an absolute minimum and ruling out compulsory redundancies,\" she said.\n\nRichard Lim, the chief executive of Retail Economics added that the pandemic had brought about huge changes for the food industry.\n\n\"Disruptive technologies have created near frictionless access to groceries, takeaway and food on-demand, resulting in greater competition and the merging of channels,\" he said.\n\nHe added that takeaways could be a \"lucrative opportunity\" for supermarkets which have enough stores to supply large numbers of people with lots of different cuisines.\n\n\"The takeaway market has seen impressive growth in recent years as digital platforms provide greater choice, faster deliveries and more competition. So there's no surprise that the supermarkets are trying to establish a firm foothold in the market and cater for evolving consumer habits.\"", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Ukrainian in tears during question to UK PM\n\nVladimir Putin is engaging in \"barbaric and indiscriminate\" tactics targeting civilians, Boris Johnson has said.\n\nThe prime minister said the Russian president had \"fatally underestimated\" the willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight - and the resolve of the West.\n\nSpeaking during a visit to Poland, he also said the UK had set aside £220m in humanitarian aid.\n\nMeanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said \"nothing and no one is off the table\" for further sanctions.\n\nThe UK is considering calling for Russia to be expelled from the UN Security Council, the BBC understands.\n\nMr Johnson said he was \"increasingly confident\" Russia's invasion would not succeed, adding that Mr Putin \"must fail\" in his aims in Ukraine.\n\nDuring a news conference with his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki in the Polish capital Warsaw, he said Mr Putin was prepared to \"bomb tower blocks, to send missiles into tower blocks, to kill children, as we are seeing in increasing numbers\".\n\nThe sixth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has seen continued attacks on several fronts, but the Russian advance has reportedly been slowed by Ukrainian resistance.\n\nEarlier, Russia attacked a TV tower in Kyiv - with Ukrainian officials saying five people were killed.\n\nMissiles and rockets have also killed dozens of civilians in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, and satellite images show a huge armoured convoy heading towards Kyiv.\n\nAt a further news conference with the Estonian prime minister and the Nato secretary-general in the Estonian capital Tallinn, Mr Johnson said the international community must do everything it can to support Ukrainians, but said \"we will not fight Russian forces in Ukraine\".\n\nHe said the UK was not actively supporting its citizens to volunteer to fight in Ukraine and ruled out a no-fly zone over the country.\n\nUkraine has called for help to enforce a no-fly zone - which would be designed to stop Russian air raids - in a bid to protect civilians.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nIn a speech after the news conference in Warsaw, Mr Johnson announced the emergency aid and said the UK had placed 1,000 troops on standby to help with the humanitarian response in Europe.\n\nHe said the government was making it easier for Ukrainians in the UK to bring their relatives out of the country, by extending the scheme to help those fleeing the war - which could see the UK take in more than 200,000 Ukranian refugees.\n\nThe scheme is being extended to include immediate Ukrainian family members - meaning adult parents, grandparents, children over 18 and siblings of those settled in the UK.\n\nBut Home Secretary Priti Patel said the UK could not waive the need for visas for people fleeing Ukraine as it had to protect national security.\n\nShe also announced a \"humanitarian sponsorship pathway\" for Ukrainians without ties to the UK to come to the UK by working for individuals, businesses, charities and community groups in the UK.\n\nMr Johnson has also warned there would be a cost to Western economies as a result of sanctions, adding it was essential Europe \"wean ourselves off dependence\" on Russian oil and gas exports.\n\nBoris Johnson met troops at the Tapa military base in Estonia\n\nFollowing his speech, Mr Johnson was confronted by a Ukrainian who criticised Nato's response to the invasion, and asked why Russian oligarch and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, thought to have close ties to Mr Putin, had not been sanctioned by the UK.\n\nDaria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Ukrainian civil society organization Anti-Corruption Action Centre, said: \"You are talking about more sanctions prime minister but Roman Abramovich is not sanctioned, he's in London, his children are not in the bombardments, his children are there in London.\"\n\nMr Johnson said he welcomed her question - but he was \"acutely conscious that there is not enough we can do as the UK government to help in the way that you want\".\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss has warned \"nothing and no-one is off the table\" in terms of further sanctions on the Russian economy, Mr Putin and the \"highest echelons of the Russian elite\".\n\nShe told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the Russian president was responsible for civilian deaths and more than half a million refugees so far.\n\nOn Tuesday evening, the government announced new sanctions against Belarusian individuals and organisations. Belarus is closely aligned with Russia and there is speculation troops from Belarus could join the fight on Russia's side.\n\nDuring a visit to a Ukrainian church in west London, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told one parishioner he would \"talk to the government\" about a no-fly zone.\n\nSir Keir also said \"we need to go further in our support for Ukraine\", adding that he did not think the government had gone far enough to help people who were fleeing.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Deputy PM Dominic Raab says the ICC is looking at situation is Ukraine \"very carefully\"\n\nThe prime minister said on Tuesday the Russian president and military commanders could face charges for war crimes if reports of attacks on civilians could be verified.\n\nMr Johnson said: \"I think that everybody involved in the Russian onslaught should understand that all this will be collated in evidence to be used at a future time in what could be proceedings before the International Criminal Court.\"\n\nShadow defence secretary John Healey said the Labour Party would support the UK government in responding to the invasion, adding: \"The most important thing is there is a united UK voice.\"\n\nThe Prince of Wales has also condemned the \"brutal aggression\" against Ukraine, in the strongest comments so far from the Royal Family about Russia's invasion.", "Putin's KGB friends and former judo partner among those targeted by new US sanctions\n\nPresident Biden was pretty blunt in announcing the new package of sanctions on Russia. He said its oligarchs were lining their pockets with the Russian people’s money while Ukraine and its people were hiding in subways to protect themselves from Russian missiles. Biden added that sanctions against President Putin and those around him were already having a “profound impact”. The additional list of eight names of those to be sanctioned by the US is interesting. They include former friends of Putin during his time in the KGB in East Germany and one of his former judo training partners. They also include the Kremlin press secretary who, the Americans say, is a \"top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda\". And we’re told a lot of these Russians have houses and other major assets in the US. Earlier on Thursday, the White House also told us that President Biden had no plans to talk to, or meet, President Putin to discuss ways of halting the invasion.", "The couple have four children together\n\nKim Kardashian is a single woman once again after nearly eight years married to Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.\n\nIn a virtual court hearing on Wednesday, the reality star also officially and legally dropped \"West\" from her last name.\n\nKardashian, who filed for divorce from the rapper last year, made the request in December to become legally single.\n\nThe former couple must still resolve the division of property and custody of their four children.\n\nWednesday's ruling - granting Kardashian's request for a \"bifurcated divorce\" - means that divorce proceedings will be split into two parts - the first settling her legal name and marital status, now resolved, and the second part involving custody and financial assets.\n\nIn several sworn statements submitted since December, the 41-year-old beauty and television mogul said she \"very much\" desired the termination of her marriage.\n\n\"I believe that the court terminating our marital status will help Kanye to accept that our marital relationship is over,\" she wrote in a statement last month.\n\nYe, 44, who was not present for the hearing, had publicly fought the separation and appealed for Kardashian to return to their marriage.\n\nBut Kardashian also wrote that his recent social media activity, in which he posted private text messages and attacked her new boyfriend, comedian Pete Davidson, had caused \"emotional distress\".\n\nOn Wednesday, the rapper posted a video for his new song Eazy, apparently showing an animated version of Davidson being kidnapped and buried.\n\nAt the divorce hearing, a lawyer for Ye pushed for an agreement from Kardashian to waive any marital privilege she might have with a subsequent spouse.\n\nKardashian and her lawyer called the move \"unprecedented\" and it was denied by the judge.\n\nThe former couple began dating in 2012 and married two years later.\n\nYe is one of the biggest names in rap music, known for global hits like Stronger, Jesus Walks and Gold Digger. He has also found success as a fashion designer.\n\nKardashian first found fame in 2007 as the star of reality TV show about her family, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and has since launched fashion and beauty brands.", "Videos from social media have emerged showing people in Ukraine standing up to Russian troops.\n\nPeople in different parts of the country have stopped tanks from entering towns and cities, while others have angrily confronted soldiers face to face.", "Fighting continued on Monday, the fifth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.\n\nMissile strikes killed dozens of civilians in the country's second city, Kharkiv, while air raid sirens sounded again in the capital, Kyiv.\n\nThere were reports of fierce shelling in the northern city of Chernihiv.\n\nRussia is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, but its advance has been slowed by Ukrainian resistance.\n\nAll three cities remain under Ukrainian control.\n\nAway from the battlefields, economic and diplomatic moves have continued.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin has banned Russians from moving money abroad as he tries to halt a plunge in the value of the rouble following the imposition of sanctions.\n\nAnd a rare emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly has heard a demand from the secretary general for an immediate halt to hostilities.\n\nOn the northern border with Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian officials ended their first round of talks.\n\nThere was little expectation the session would bring a breakthrough, but a Ukrainian official said both sides would now return to their respective capitals for further consultations before a second round of negotiations.\n\nRussia said both sides had agreed to continue talking and would meet again \"in the next few days\".\n\nNew members have been joining the Territorial Defence Forces in Kyiv\n\nIn a late-night address, Mr Zelensky said there were eyewitness accounts of civilians being deliberately targeted during a sustained attack on Kharkiv.\n\nHe called for the West to consider a no-fly zone over Ukraine - something the US so far ruled out over fears it could draw it into a direct conflict with Russia.\n\nVideos shared on social media showed rockets landing in Kharkiv, in what some defence analysts described as typical of a cluster munition strike on a dense urban area.\n\nNew satellite images showed a Russian military convoy stretching for about 40 miles (64km) north of Kyiv.\n\nBut reports of fresh fighting on the outskirts of the capital forced residents back into their shelters on Monday evening.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. The cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv faced heavy shelling on the fifth day of Russia's invasion\n\nAnother video circulating on social media showed huge clouds of smoke at a burning shopping centre in Chernihiv, another city that has been under pressure from the Russian offensive.\n\nOne teacher in Chernihiv, Oksana Buryak, told the BBC the situation was \"like from some horror movie\".\n\n\"Our hearts are broken, we don't understand anything,\" she said.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. A resident in Donetsk asks \"How much longer until this is over?\" as buildings in the city are destroyed.\n\nTo the south, Russian forces are trying to take control of the key strategic port of Mariupol, near Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine denied reports that Zaporizhzhia, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, had fallen into Russia hands.\n\nUkrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyy, speaking to the BBC, said the situation across the country was \"serious, but stable\".\n\n\"Every day the enemy sends more and more forces. But our glorious armed forces are basically destroying everything that arrives to Kyiv,\" he added.\n\nThe UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said millions of civilians were being forced to huddle in makeshift bomb shelters such as underground rail stations to escape explosions.\n\nSince the invasion began on Thursday, her office has recorded 102 civilian deaths, including seven children - and more than 300 injured.\n\n\"The real figures are, I fear, considerably higher,\" she said.\n\nA cold Kyiv day, the fifth day of Russia's invasion, had dawned with a weekend curfew ending, peace talks starting, and a bright sun rising in the winter sky.\n\nBut the chilling wail of the air raid siren soon sounded. It kept piercing the quiet of a city drained of its normal rhythms. After the sun set, it almost seemed to be on a loop.\n\nAs darkness fell, an explosion rocked the centre of Kyiv, shaking buildings in the city centre for the first time. Some reports said they were targeting a military radar centre in the Brovary suburb. Residents in high-rise apartment blocks there told us it was \"very close, very frightening\".\n\nRussian forces seem to be inching closer to the city centre, the prize in this war.\n\nUkrainian forces have been stalling their advance. And tonight the night sky was lit by surface-to-air missiles targeting Russian warplanes and helicopters.\n\nTo sum up the view of a Western official who spoke to journalists today, the Russians seem to have overestimated its own military prowess, underestimated Ukrainian resolve, miscalculated the world's reaction and misunderstood the mood of our time.\n\nBut other Ukrainian cities give a glimpse of may lie in wait for Kyiv. In the north-west, Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv has been pounded by suspected cluster munitions. In the north-east, siege tactics used to devastating effect in Syria are being unleashed around the historic city of Chernihiv; shells are also slamming into its streets.\n\nA woman I met in a shelter today anxiously told me of her father's plight. He's in Chernobyl, to the north, now occupied by Russian forces, without electricity or much of a phone signal, trying to hide the light of a burning fire now cooking his potato soup.", "The deal between Suffolk County Council's company Vertas and Gazprom was agreed in 2019\n\nA council plans to stop using gas from Russian company Gazprom as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nSuffolk County Council said it would break away from its £10m contract with the state-owned energy supplier, held by its wholly owned company Vertas.\n\nCouncil leader Matthew Hicks said the county was \"actively pursuing\" ending the contract.\n\nThe 2019 deal started in 2020 and is due to run until 2023, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.\n\nIt resulted in Gazprom supplying gas to several schools and offices in the county.\n\nConservative Mr Hicks said: \"When Vladimir Putin made the immoral and utterly reprehensible decision to invade Ukraine, I instructed officers last week to review our contract with Russian-owned energy company Gazprom.\n\n\"I can confirm that we have decided to invoke our options to break away from the contract, ending our connection with Gazprom.\"\n\nHe added it was \"a part we can play in helping to bring to an end this act of aggression on a free and peaceful nation and its innocent people\".\n\nAndrew Stringer, leader of the opposition Green, Liberal Democrat and Independent group, said: \"I welcome our council's reconsideration of our funding of Gazprom.\"\n\nWealden District Council in East Sussex, which uses Gazprom to supply gas to its social housing, told the BBC it was also looking at its \"options and obligations\".\n\nA spokesperson for the Local Government Association (LGA), who represent councils in England and Wales, said: \"Councils are deeply saddened by the tragic events unfolding in Ukraine and are following the situation closely.\n\n\"It is up to individual councils to decide how to act locally but, like many organisations, they will be reviewing what action they might want to take in light of UK sanctions and the ongoing situation.\"\n\nOn Monday, Shell announced it would end all of its joint ventures with Gazprom following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFind BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Dozens of people have been killed in Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, officials say.\n\nVideos shared on social media showed rockets landing in Kharkiv, in what some defence analysts described as typical of a cluster munition strike on a dense urban area.\n\nThick black smoke could also been seen billowing from destroyed a shopping centre in the city of Chernihiv, north of Ukraine.\n\nThe footage in this video has been verified by the BBC, but the sources of some sections are unknown.", "Re:Store shops, which sell Apple products in Russia, have been closed.\n\nApple has become the latest major firm to halt all product sales in Russia, in a widening corporate backlash to the country's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe tech giant was said it was \"deeply concerned\" about the Russian invasion and stands with those \"suffering as a result of the violence\".\n\nApple Pay and other services such as Apple Maps have also been limited.\n\nNike did not comment on the conflict but customers are no longer able to order its products online.\n\nAn automated message said Nike was halting online orders because it could not guarantee delivery of goods to customers in Russia.\n\nHowever, the website directed customers to their nearest Nike stores.\n\nOne Ukrainian member of parliament, Lesia Vsylenko, tweeted that the sportswear giant's move was a great example of how private companies could impose sanctions against Russia.\n\nA series of high profile brands have pulled back from Russia in recent days, including film studios, carmakers and technology firms.\n\nGoogle has removed Russian state-funded publishers such as RT from its features.\n\nMobile banking apps in Russian, such as Russia's VTB Bank's app, may soon not function fully on devices using Apple's iOS operating system, according to news agency RIA.\n\nApple said in a statement that the firm had disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a \"safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens\".\n\nLast week, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov published an open letter to Apple on Twitter, in which he asked Apple to cut Russia off from its products, services, and App Store.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nApple's iPhones are the third best-selling smartphone in Russia, supplying about 13% of all the handsets sold last year,according to market research firm Counterpoint. However that represents less than 2% of Apple's global iPhone sales.\n\nEarlier, Google restricted news firms funded by the Russian government from advertising tools and some features on YouTube.\n\n\"We are committed to complying with all sanctions requirements and we continue to monitor the latest guidance,\" the company wrote in a blog post.\n\nThe company also told the BBC that Google Pay had been limited in the country - for those using sanctioned banks. Google has not, however, blocked Google Pay in Russia.\n\nGoogle also said \"most of our services (like Search, Maps and YouTube) currently remain available in Russia, continuing to provide access to global information and perspectives.\"\n\nApple is generally fairly good at keeping its head down when it comes to global affairs.\n\nFor example, it has faced criticism for not standing up to China over its treatment of Uyghurs.\n\nThis move then is significant, and unusual, by the iPhone maker.\n\nOne by one global brands have been moving to distance themselves from Russia - making the country look more and more isolated.\n\nBut it was by no means certain that Apple would make this move. The company had started to receive criticism for its relative silence on Ukraine.\n\nThe BBC had reached out to Apple for comment, but had not received a reply until this announcement.\n\nThere are many phone companies in Russia, and plenty of alternatives to Apple products.\n\nPeople with iPhones will also still be able to use the App Store - the pause in sales will not have a huge immediate impact.\n\nBut as brands desert Russia, its citizens will begin to notice that products they used to buy, simply aren't available anymore.\n\nMeanwhile, the Finnish network equipment maker Nokia said it would stop deliveries to Russia to comply with sanctions imposed on the country following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nOn Monday, Netflix also said it had \"no plans\" to add state-run channels to its Russian service. Russian regulations had required it to carry 20 free-to-air news, sports and entertainment channels in the country.\n\nThe biggest shipping firms in the world, Danish Maersk and Geneva-based MSC, also suspended container shipping to and from the country on Tuesday. The UK has also banned ships from Russia in its updated sanctions.\n\nRussia supplies a sixth of the world's commodities so will now be cut off from a significant part of shipping trade.\n\nMotorbike firm Harley-Davidson also suspended business and shipments of its bikes to Russia.\n\nAnd US plane manufacturer Boeing Co said on Tuesday it was suspending parts, maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines - as well as major operations in Moscow after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Starmer: Why is Abramovich not facing sanctions?\n\nRoman Abramovich - the owner of Chelsea Football Club - must be among those to face UK sanctions over Ukraine, Sir Keir Starmer has said.\n\nThe Labour leader accused Boris Johnson of being slow to target individuals who \"prop up\" Vladimir Putin's regime.\n\nThe PM said he could not comment on individual cases but UK sanctions were already \"having an effect in Moscow\".\n\nMr Abramovich has previously denied having close financial ties with Vladimir Putin or the Kremlin.\n\nA spokesperson denied the Labour leader's claims and said Mr Abramovich had not done anything sanctionable.\n\nThe 55-year-old, who gave \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its foundation trustees following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has now announced that he is selling the club.\n\nIn a statement, he said the \"net proceeds\" of the sale would go to a charitable foundation to help \"all victims of the war in Ukraine\".\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir Starmer said: \"We must stand up to Putin and those who prop up his regime.\n\n\"Roman Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea Football Club and various other high-value assets in the United Kingdom.\n\n\"He's a person of interest to the Home Office because of his links to the Russian state and his public association with corrupt activity and practices.\n\n\"Last week, the prime minister said that Abramovich is facing sanctions. He later corrected the record to say that he isn't. Well, why on earth isn't he?\"\n\nMr Johnson said it is not \"appropriate\" for him to comment on individual cases at this stage.\n\nBut he told MPs the UK had sanctioned 275 individuals, and a \"further 100 this week\", and had led the way on action against Russian banks.\n\nHe added: \"What we will publish in addition, is a full list of all those associated with the Putin regime.\"\n\nDowning Street later added that a significant proportion of those on that list could expect to face sanctions.\n\nBoris Johnson has referred to the 100 figure several times in the past week. But when Reality Check asked for the names of the 100, the government could not provide them and said: \"We'll let you know as soon as we have further details to add.\"\n\nInstead, it sent a list of every person and company currently sanctioned by the UK, including people from Iran and North Korea. It shows that 15 individuals have been sanctioned in the past week.\n\nWhen asked about this, the prime minister's spokesman said there were 100 individuals and entities.\n\nSir Keir asked why Russia's former deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, who he said owns two flats in central London \"worth over £11m\", was not on the UK sanctions list when he was being targeted by EU sanctions.\n\nShuvalov's properties are registered under a company owned by the Russian politician and his wife, said Sir Keir.\n\n\"We only know which oligarch lurks beneath that shell company because of the information obtained and disclosed by Alexei Navalny. Navalny, of course, was poisoned by the Russian state and he now sits in a Putin jail,\" added the Labour leader.\n\nHe said transparency was \"essential to rooting out corruption\", adding: \"I'm ashamed that we only know about Shuvalov's Westminster flats because a dissident risked his life. Is the prime minister?\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch MPs in UK Parliament stand and clap for the Ukrainian ambassador, who was attending Prime Minister's Questions\n\nMr Johnson said: \"The UK of course is doing everything that we can to expose ill-gotten Russian loot and this has been something that we have been working on for a long time, and we actually were the first to impose sanctions on those who were guilty of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.\"\n\nHe told MPs measures being brought forward next week to expose the ownership of properties will \"continue to tighten the noose around Putin's regime\".\n\nBoris Johnson is under pressure to punish more Russian oligarchs with sanctions.\n\nThe prime minister is now promising a \"full list\" of those associated with the Putin regime but in Whitehall there's no clear sense yet of exactly how this will work. Labour and Conservative MPs are using Parliamentary privilege to name individuals but ministers have to be more careful.\n\nUK officials say cases need to be built in a way that's legally robust and it's too simplistic to see this as a numbers games or a competition with the EU to see who can freeze the most assets.\n\nThe aim is to impose the highest economic cost on President Putin and his regime, which is more likely to come from restrictions on Russian defence companies and banks than individuals.\n\nBut they do want to identify those who have real influence and significance, a proven association with Putin - and they aren't necessarily the names most familiar to the British public.\n\nWhat everyone is keen to avoid is a situation where a list is published before sanctions are imposed and all it does is tip off individuals who then move quickly to protect their assets.\n\nUnder the government's Economic Crime Bill, a register will force anonymous foreign owners of UK property to reveal their identities to prevent criminals hiding behind secretive shell companies.\n\nSir Keir said Labour would help vote through the long-awaited legislation on Monday \"at speed\", but he said it would not come into force for existing property owners like Shuvalov for 18 months.\n\n\"At best, that's Autumn 2023. Far too long for the Ukrainian people. Why are we giving Putin's cronies 18 months to quietly launder their money out of the UK property market and into another safe haven?\"\n\nHe also called for measures to be added to the bill to overhaul Companies House - where directors register companies - to deter criminals from setting up shell firms.\n\nMr Johnson said he was happy to work with Labour next week to \"strengthen and accelerate the package of measures\" in the bill.\n\nHe also suggested, in response to a question from Conservative MP Bob Seely, that law firms representing oligarchs with links to Putin could \"face sanctions\".\n\nMr Seely claimed law firms \"intimidate into silence\" those who would investigate offshore money flows, including the media or \"even the National Crime Agency\".\n\n\"Does the prime minister understand this is how state corruption happens and this is systemic, planned subversion?,\" asked the Isle of Wight MP.\n\nMr Johnson said law firms were reminded on 23 February of the \"need to comply with sanctions regulations and legislation,\" adding: \"Clearly they will face sanctions if they fail to do so.\"\n\nLabour MP Chris Bryant. who has led calls for Roman Abramovich to be sanctioned, also named a series of individuals at Prime Minister's Questions.\n\n\"We are not even sanctioning Sergey Shoygu, the Russian defence minister, yet. Nor Igor Osipov, the commander of the Black Sea fleet,\" said the chairman of the Commons standards committee.\n\nHe added: \"Why don't we use parliamentary privilege to get this out there so the lawyers can't attack the sanctions that we must surely bring, rapidly, today?\"", "Ukraine has fought back much harder during the first week than Vladimir Putin expected, or very probably than his generals promised him, it would. But these are still the early stages of what could be a very nasty war.\n\nPutin must have hoped that a few days after Russian forces invaded, Kyiv would have fallen. And he surely expected that Western countries, cowed and divided, would have accepted that he had reclaimed a territory that he says is historically part of Russia.\n\nNone of this has happened. Ukraine has proved a hard nut to crack, and the reaction of Western countries, particularly Germany, has been far fiercer than he thought. Russia's economy has already been savagely hit. Putin's one big friend, China, now seems worried that this Western upsurge of anger might, one day, be turned against China itself - and that serious damage could be done to the Chinese economy. It has already distanced itself from the invasion.\n\nNato, by contrast, might be strengthened. Finland and Sweden could both end up joining the alliance for their own protection. Putin launched this war in part to stop Ukraine one day joining Nato, but he could find more Nato members on his north-western border.\n\nThese are all major setbacks for him. They stem from Putin's own miscalculations, made while he isolated himself from Covid. He saw only a very few advisers, who we can assume told him what he wanted to hear. Now he will have to reach for new options. He has always refused to back down when he is rebuffed. He will hit back harder - and he has the weapons to do it.\n\nThe Ukrainian ambassador to the US claims that Russian forces have already used a thermobaric weapon - what people call a \"vacuum bomb\", which sucks in oxygen to generate a high-temperature explosion. Ambassadors at times like this often make extreme claims, but the fact is we have already seen video of Russian thermobaric rocket launchers on their way to Ukraine. Analysts say it is probably only a matter of time before they are used more widely.\n\nPhotographs also show that suspected cluster bombs have been used against civilians in Kharkiv. These unleash showers of so-called \"bomblets\", which inflict horrific shrapnel wounds on anybody within a wide area. An international convention banned them in 2008, but Russia has not signed it, having claimed it uses cluster bombs in accordance with international humanitarian law. The people of Kharkiv may disagree about that.\n\nVladimir Putin has never had any qualms about using excessively dangerous weapons. He is thought to have signed off on the use of radioactive polonium to murder the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. He is also likely to have agreed to let Russian military intelligence attack Sergei Skripal, another defector, with the toxic nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury in 2018. Skripal survived, although one woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after being exposed to the deadly substance.\n\nThe danger to entirely innocent civilians doesn't seem to have worried him. These were planned as targeted assassinations, not the kind of widespread attacks that we are starting to see in Ukraine, but the principle is the same - civilian lives don't matter if Russia's wider interests are at stake.\n\nThe house in Salisbury where Sergei Skripal lived\n\nWould he be prepared to use nuclear weapons if he doesn't get his way over Ukraine? That must be a possibility - but most analysts think we're not close to that stage yet. It is true that Putin has said darkly that if anyone considers interfering in Ukraine from the outside, they will face consequences more serious than any in their history. And he's often repeated the thought that if the world doesn't include Russia, why should it continue to exist? All the same, Nato would have to miscalculate very badly for a nuclear confrontation to build up.\n\nHistory may repeat itself - in 1939, Stalin attacked Finland, expecting it to crumble within days. Instead it fought back, and the Russian army received a bloody nose. It was more than 100 days before the so-called Winter War was over. It ended with Finland losing territory but remaining an independent country. There's at least the possibility that the war in Ukraine will finish in a similar way.\n\nWe are only at the start of things, and just because Ukraine has held out so far, that doesn't mean it can resist the full might of Russia for long. But the first round has unquestionably gone well, and the West's response has been far more robust than most people expected. Chief among them, Vladimir Putin.\n\nHe discusses the situation in Ukraine in Unspun World on BBC iPlayer.", "Last updated on .From the section Chelsea\n\nChelsea owner Roman Abramovich says he is planning to sell the club.\n\nIn a statement on the Premier League club's website, businessman Abramovich said he had made the \"incredibly difficult decision\" which \"pains\" him.\n\nThe Russian will not ask \"for any loans to be repaid\" and said proceeds of the sale would be donated to war victims.\n\nAbramovich had said on Saturday he would give \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its foundation trustees following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThat led to speculation Abramovich - who has loaned the club more than £1.5bn - would put Chelsea up for sale, and billionaire Hansjorg Wyss told Swiss newspaper Blick on Wednesday that he had been offered the chance to buy the club.\n\nWyss said Abramovich wanted \"to get rid of Chelsea quickly\" after the threat of sanctions was raised in Parliament.\n\nAbramovich, 55, is alleged to have strong ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.\n\nHe said \"all net proceeds from the sale\" would be donated to the \"victims of the war in Ukraine\".\n\nBBC Sport understands Abramovich has already received offers for Chelsea and that he values the club at as much as £3bn.\n\nIn his statement, Abramovich said: \"I have always taken decisions with the club's best interest at heart.\n\n\"In the current situation, I have therefore taken the decision to sell the club, as I believe this is in the best interest of the club, the fans, the employees, as well as the club's sponsors and partners.\n\n\"The sale of the club will not be fast-tracked but will follow due process. I will not be asking for any loans to be repaid.\n\n\"I have instructed my team to set up a charitable foundation where all net proceeds from the sale will be donated. The foundation will be for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.\"\n\nBBC Sport understands the trustees of Chelsea's charitable foundation, who had not yet agreed to take control of the club, will no longer be asked to. Abramovich was criticised for not referencing Russia's invasion of Ukraine in that original statement on Saturday.\n\nChelsea's players were not told ahead of time about their owner's new statement, which was released less than a hour before the side's FA Cup fifth-round tie at Luton Town.\n\nAfter falling behind early on, the Premier League team won 3-2 to reach the quarter-finals.\n\nAbramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for £140m, and in his statement said it had \"never been about business nor money, but about pure passion for the game and club\".\n\nSince his purchase of the club, Chelsea have been transformed, setting the template for how much finance was needed to compete at the top end of the Premier League.\n\nIn total, Abramovich has loaned the club more than £1.5bn, which has helped to bring great success.\n\nUnder his ownership, the club have won every major trophy possible - including the Champions League twice, both the Premier League and FA Cup five times, the Europa League twice and the League Cup three times.\n\nIn August 2021, they won the Uefa Super Cup and in February won their first Club World Cup.\n\nHe has appointed 13 different managers and the club spent more than £2bn in the transfer market under his ownership.\n\nChelsea's women's team, who became affiliated to Chelsea FC in 2004, have thrived under Abramovich's ownership, winning the Women's Super League four times, the Women's FA Cup, three times and reaching the Champions League final last season.\n\nTheir high profile has seen world stars such as Australia's Sam Kerr and Danish forward Pernille Harder move to the club.\n\nWhy has Abramovich chosen to sell?\n\nOther Russian billionaires have already been the subject of European Union sanctions where their assets have been frozen.\n\nThat has included Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial links to Everton.\n\nThe United Kingdom government is yet to sanction Abramovich or Usmanov, but Labour MP Chris Bryant said in Parliament on Tuesday that Abramovich was \"terrified of being sanctioned which is why he is going to sell his home tomorrow [Wednesday], and another flat as well\".\n\nOn Wednesday, during Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Keir Starmer asked why Abramovich was not facing sanctions, with Boris Johnson replying it was \"not appropriate to comment on any individual cases at this stage\".\n\nA spokesperson denied the Labour leader's claims and said Abramovich had not done anything sanctionable.\n\nWyss also said: \"Abramovich is trying to sell all of his villas in England, he also wants to get rid of Chelsea quickly.\n\n\"I and three other people received an offer on Tuesday to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Abramovich declined to comment on those claims.\n\n'One of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in history of English football' - analysis\n\nWhile this was not an entirely unexpected development after it became apparent during the last 24 hours that Roman Abramovich was looking to sell Chelsea, this dramatic announcement still feels like a seismic moment. Not only for the west London club, but for the wider English game too.\n\nThe Russian billionaire's arrival almost two decades ago helped transform the Premier League's competitive balance, profile and spending power, reinforcing its status as a truly global competition.\n\nThe oligarch's riches turned Chelsea into a major force in the game, and his ownership seemed to pave the way for subsequent takeovers by overseas billionaires, at clubs like Manchester City for instance.\n\nBut there was significant controversy too.\n\nWith Abramovich - one of Russia's richest people - almost never commenting in public, he also came to symbolise the detachment of some super-wealthy club owners. Many also found the ruthlessness with which he treated managers questionable.\n\nThere was always intrigue surrounding the motives for his ownership, and how he made his fortune. While he has always denied direct links with Putin, the invasion of Ukraine led to calls in parliament for the government to sanction wealthy Russians.\n\nAbramovich vehemently denies that he had done anything to merit sanctions being imposed against him. But as the highest-profile oligarch in the country, and with one MP citing concerns about alleged links to corruption, his ownership was coming under mounting scrutiny.\n\nAnd with the government facing mounting pressure to seize his assets, and Abramovich criticised over his failure to explicitly condemn Russia's invasion, it is little surprise that he has swiftly announced his decision to sell.\n\nIn recent years Abramovich has been an increasingly infrequent visitor to Stamford Bridge, withdrawing his application for a visa in 2018 after relations between the UK and Russia worsened.\n\nBut while fans had got used to not seeing Abramovich, the Russian's departure could mean the club is run very differently in future - and perhaps with much more financial constraint - by whoever now buys it.\n\nThat may help explain why some at Chelsea will no doubt be sorry to see him go. Many other observers, however, will be pleased, some of whom have always viewed Abramovich's ownership as a classic example of 'sportswashing'.\n\nHaving always insisted he was passionate about the club and had its interests at heart, he leaves as one of the most significant, controversial and influential figures in the history of English football.\n\nChelsea will be a desirable football club for many given its status within the game. It's in London which makes it very attractive to ultra high net-worth individuals.\n\nYou have to caution that Chelsea has lost more money than any other club in the history of the Premier League and its stadium is a lot smaller than some of the other stadiums in London.\n\nSpeaking to some agents already today, I think the initial asking price is around £3bn. I think that is unlikely to be achieved. But if you are looking for a trophy asset - something to show off to your compatriots, to your friends, then Chelsea has an awful lot of attraction.\n\nThey are European and world champions - that does add to its allure.\n\nThere are three potential types of bidders we could see.\n\nWe could see the individual billionaire looking to add to their portfolio of well-known assets.\n\nIt could come for a private equity company based in the US who believes the riches of Premier League are undervalued in traditional markets.\n\nWe could see from a sovereign wealth fund as we've seen in relation to Manchester City, Newcastle and Paris St-Germain\n\nThis sale has come at a bad time in terms of the market. The share price of Manchester United - a good peer group company for Chelsea - is now trading significantly below its initial listing price in 2012. The market seems to have lost its love-in with football and this could impact on the ultimate price Chelsea is sold for.\n\n25 February: Labour's Chris Bryant tells MPs the UK government should remove Roman Abramovich's ownership of Chelsea and seize his assets, citing concerns about alleged links to corruption.\n\n26 February: Abramovich announces he is handing \"stewardship and care\" of Chelsea to its charitable foundation.\n\n27 February: Foundation members express concern over whether Charity Commission rules would allow them to run the club. Chelsea beaten 11-10 on penalties by Liverpool in League Cup final at Wembley after game ended 0-0.\n\n28 February: Abramovich asked by Ukraine to help support their attempts to reach a \"peaceful resolution\" with Russia.\n\n1 March: The Charity Commission says it is \"seeking information\" from Chelsea after the club was placed under the control of its charitable foundation.\n\n2 March: Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss claims he has been offered the chance to buy Chelsea from Abramovich.\n\n2 March: Abramovich announces he intends to sell the club.\n\n'It can take months or years'\n\nFormer Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer on BBC One: \"It's a huge moment for Chelsea. He has brought massive success over his 20 years but it is not simple, selling a football club. It can take months or years.\n\n\"But more importantly, there is still no condemnation from Roman or the club about what is happening in Ukraine.\"\n\nFormer Manchester City and England defender Micah Richards on BBC One: \"It is a better statement than Saturday, there is a lot more clarity and Roman Abramovich has done the right thing.\n\n\"It is so sad we have to talk about this on a football night after all the scenes we have seen. It is heartbreaking. The sooner it happens the better.\"\n• None Our coverage of Chelsea is bigger and better than ever before - here's everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment\n• None Everything Chelsea - go straight to all the best content", "Netflix has halted all projects and acquisitions in Russia\n\nStreaming giant Netflix has announced it has paused all future projects and acquisitions from Russia.\n\nThe company said it was assessing the impact of the current invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFilming for the production of Russian language series Zato will be halted.\n\nElsewhere in tech, cloud computing company Oracle also said it has suspended operations in Russia.\n\nThe two companies are the latest US technology firms to take action against Russia as attacks on Ukraine's cities have escalated.\n\nOn Tuesday, Apple also announced that it was halting sales in Russia.\n\nOracle's announcement on Twitter came three hours after Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation tweeted the company, calling for support.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Mykhailo Fedorov This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nDeputy Minister Alexander Bornyakov told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine has sought help from 50 different companies - in a bid to apply pressure to Russia.\n\n\"More sanctions imposed, faster peace restored,\" Borynakov said on social media.\n\nIn a tweet Oracle said: \"On behalf of Oracle's 150,000 employees around the world and in support of both the elected government of Ukraine and for the people of Ukraine\"\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 2 by Oracle This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nIn recent days, global brands including Shell, Nike, H&M and Boeing have cut ties or temporarily suspended sales in Russia.\n\nMoscow has responded to foreign companies distancing themselves from Russia by temporarily restricting Russian asset sales by foreigners.\n\nOn Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin met with the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs to discuss how it would attempt to minimise the impact of sanctions announced so far.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post 3 by President of Russia This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post 3 by President of Russia\n\nNetflix would not comment on how many people use its streaming service in Russia.\n\nEarlier this week, however, it confirmed in a report by Hollywood Reporter that it would not carry Russian state channels.\n\n\"Given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service,\" a Netflix spokesperson told the magazine in a statement.\n\nUnder a law that only came into effect on 1 March, \"audiovisual services\" in the country with more than 100,000 users will be required to carry 20 major state television channels.", "Alexandra Markevitch rests in a makeshift refugee shelter in Lviv, Ukraine. \"I have never felt so much love for my homeland,\" she said.\n\nAlexandra Markevitch fled Kharkiv on Sunday, as Russian shells rained down on her neighbourhood and gunfire rattled her city.\n\nShe ran with her son Pasha to the station, with only a few documents, family photographs, and warm clothes in hand, and they made it on to a train headed west. When a pressure wave from a rocket strike hit the train, Markevitch feared it would be derailed, she said. When the train made it past the outskirts of the city and the sounds of the blasts, she tried to comfort her son. It was his 11th birthday.\n\nRussia has bombarded Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, since it invaded the country on Thursday, shelling residential areas and later the cultural heart of the city. On Tuesday, Kharkiv's opera house, concert hall and government offices were hit in a series of strikes, killing at least 10 people and injuring many more.\n\nThe city's mayor said a separate rocket strike on a residential neighbourhood had destroyed a hospital, killing several and injuring many. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strikes on Kharkiv a \"terror attack against Ukraine\".\n\nMany thousands are now fleeing the city, leaving behind homes, families and jobs. Many have made it by train as far as the city of Lviv in the west of Ukraine, some to a makeshift refugee shelter in an old theatre on a cobbled street, where people can stay for a few days before they have to move on. Markevitch, 29, sat alone there on Tuesday, on a mattress on the stage. She was a stylist in Kharkiv, she said, until she sold her business last year to help fund her grandmother's Covid care. As her son Pasha played, she turned over a necklace pendant her grandmother left her when she died.\n\nMarkevitch's family and friends are still in Kharkiv. Many residents there cannot flee. Just days ago she was with them, hiding in a shelter under a neighbouring apartment building, where it was cold and damp, with no electricity, no heat and no real food and she was sick with worry for Pasha. Above ground they could hear \"every sound of the war\", she said. \"Shelling, bombing, grad rockets, fighter jets. Nobody sleeps because there is bombing all day and all night.\"\n\nThree days and nights after the invasion began, and \"full of fear I would lose my son,\" Markevitch made her choice. \"Either you face death there or you face death on the road,\" she said. \"At least on the road you have a chance of getting somewhere safe.\"\n\nShe is in contact with her family and they are still OK. \"Physically, they are alive,\" she said. \"Spiritually, life has become very hard in Kharkiv\".\n\nMen sheltering in an underground station in Kharkiv. Thousands have hidden undergound as Russian forces shell the city.\n\nJust 30 miles from the border and largely Russian speaking, Kharkiv has long been considered an obvious target for this invasion. Russian troops have engaged in street combat there with Ukrainian soldiers defending the city, and the city has been heavily bombarded from the air, killing scores of civilians at least.\n\nResidents who spoke to the BBC on Tuesday described spending long nights in cramped bomb shelters or, for those with no access underground, in the hallways of their apartments, away from windows.\n\nIryna Ruzhynska, 40, was sheltering on Tuesday in the hallway of her second-floor apartment in a 16-floor building, with her two sons, daughter-in-law and grandchild. Ruzhynska's mother, who is 75, was trapped in her own 11th-floor apartment because the building's lift was out of order.\n\n\"We have put scotch tape on the windows and pillows by the window stills,\" Ruzhynska said. \"We don't turn on the lights, only the torches on our phones. We managed to go to the store yesterday, but we queued for four hours and there was virtually no food left.\"\n\nA street nearby Ruzhynska's apartment was shelled on Monday, she said - a thumping blast that left body parts strewn around the street. When she opens her window she can hear gunfire and bombing.\n\n\"It is exhausting and terrifying living under this pressure,\" she said. \"And I am angry, because this is a big, beautiful city, my city, and they want to wipe it from the face of the Earth.\"\n\nLate last night, while the rest of the family was asleep in the hallway, Ruzhynska put in her earphones and danced alone in the dark, \"to try and release my emotions\", she said. \"Then I cried silently for a long time.\" It was a Russian singer she was listening to, she said. \"Because we are people of peace. It does not matter to us.\"\n\nYehor Konovalov, 23, fled Kharkiv after the bombardment began with his parents and two siblings, and headed to a family business property in a village close to Donetsk. On Tuesday the family of five was sheltering in a cold 2m by 2m cellar while explosions could be heard in the distance.\n\n\"When the shelling started my eight-year-old sister woke me up at 4am and said, 'Yehor they are firing, they are firing bombs at Kharkiv'.\n\n\"I couldn't believe it. Then we heard the bombings and saw the ash cloud rising above the horizon.\"\n\nKonovalov said the family was now cut off from buying food and other provisions because the Ukrainian army had blown the bridge near the village. The family had only three bottles of water and a few days' worth of food left for five people.\n\n\"We need to get to Western Ukraine, to get my mother and sisters safe and me and my father can join territorial defence troops,\" he said. \"We are not afraid to die to kill those who invaded our soil.\"\n\nAndrey Akonenko, a 22-year-old web designer who fled Kharkiv on Tuesday with his girlfriend and spoke to the BBC from Poltava, 150km away, also said he would sign up to defend Ukraine.\n\n\"They are shelling our residential areas, our apartment buildings - there are no military sites there where they are bombing,\" he said. \"They are trying to destroy Ukrainian people.\"\n\nAkonenko was hoping to reach Lviv, he said, where Markevitch was waiting on Tuesday to move on from the refugee shelter with her son Pasha, ideally to Poland.\n\n\"The main goal is simply to leave Ukraine for somewhere we won't be in a war anymore,\" she said.\n\nThe Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has tried to claim he is liberating eastern cities and districts like Kharkiv from an oppressive Ukrainian government, but over eight years of war he appears now to have only reinforced in many a deep patriotism for Ukraine and a turning from Russia.\n\n\"I have never felt so much love for my homeland and for my city,\" Markevitch said. \"I hope the war will end and I can bring my son back home to Kharkiv as soon as possible.\"\n\nBefore then, she said, she was only focused on making it to Poland, and finding Pasha a birthday cake.\n\nValeriia Ratynskianska and Daria Sipigina contributed to this report.", "H&M has announced it is temporarily suspending all sales in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe world's second-biggest retailer said it was concerned about the developments in Ukraine on Wednesday.\n\nIn an official statement, the Swedish retailer said it stands \"with all the people who are suffering\".\n\nH&M is the latest firm to halt sales in a widening corporate backlash against what the UK prime minister described as \"barbaric\" attacks by Russia.\n\nOn Wednesday evening, H&M's Russian English-language website was unavailable for customers to place orders.\n\nH&M's website was unavailable in Russia on Wednesday evening\n\nAccording to recent figures, Russia is H&M's sixth-biggest market, accounting for about 4% of group sales in the fourth quarter of 2021.\n\nThe fashion giant has recently been expanding its presence in Russia, including opening shops under other brand names in its portfolio, Weekday and & Other Stories. Russian shoppers can usually also order clothes from the brands Monki and Cos online.\n\nThe retailer currently has more than 150 stores in Russia, according to its 2020 annual report, which will all now be shuttered due to the conflict.\n\nThe firm said on Wednesday that shops in Ukraine had already been closed temporarily \"due to the safety of customers and colleagues\".\n\nIt joins a host of other major firms who have spoken out about the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin.\n\nFast fashion retailers Asos announced on Wednesday that they would no longer serve customers in Russia.\n\n\"Against the backdrop of the continuing war, Asos has decided that it is neither practical nor right to continue to trade in Russia,\" an Asos spokesperson said on Wednesday.\n\nBoohoo and footwear brand Nike have not commented on the conflict specifically, but customers in Russia are no longer able to order its products online.\n\nApple has also has paused all product sales in Russia, saying it was \"deeply concerned\" and stands with those \"suffering as a result of the violence\".", "Aliny Godinho was murdered by her ex-husband in front of their young daughter in 2019\n\nA police force has apologised over failings which a coroner says contributed to the murder of a mother.\n\nAliny Godinho, 39, was stabbed to death by her ex-husband Ricardo Godinho while on the school run in Stoneleigh, near Epsom in Surrey in February 2019.\n\nA coroner concluded her death was \"more than minimally contributed to\" by Surrey Police.\n\nEarlier the force agreed there were failings, adding it was \"deeply regretful\" and was \"truly sorry\".\n\nDuring the inquest, Surrey Coroner's Court heard the attack happened in just 17 seconds as Mrs Godinho held their young daughter's hand.\n\nIn July 2019, Godinho was found guilty of murder and possessing an offensive weapon and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years.\n\nAliny Godinho's last movements were captured on CCTV as she walked with her daughter to collect her son from school on the day she was killed\n\nSurrey Coroner Richard Travers said: \"I found a number of very significant failings on the part of Surrey Police in their response to Aliny's complaint and the unfolding events thereafter.\"\n\nMr Travers listed multiple failings including failing to respond to reports of escalating conduct from Mrs Godinho's ex-husband in the days before her death, failing to recognise she should have remained high risk and not following domestic abuse procedures.\n\nParticular criticism was levelled at one officer, PC Diane Walker, whom the coroner said had \"formed a view at a very early stage that Ricardo Godinho was unlikely to harm Aliny\" and noted a \"very significant failure to keep an open mind\".\n\nRicardo Godinho was jailed for a minimum of 27 years for his wife's murder in July 2019\n\nIn a statement released earlier, Det Supt Juliet Parker said: \"We agree there were failings on the part of Surrey Police in how her case was handled. Opportunities to safeguard Aliny were missed and for that we are deeply regretful.\n\n\"We welcome today's conclusion and accept the findings that there are areas of improvement for us as an organisation.\"\n\nThe coroner imposed a regulation 28 report on Surrey Police to prevent future avoidable deaths and has made recommendations, the force has 56 days in which to show changes have been made.\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk", "The UK has targeted Belarusian army chiefs as part of its first wave of sanctions against Belarus for its role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.\n\nFour defence officials and two military enterprises are included in the package.\n\nForeign Secretary Liz Truss said Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko had aided and abetted Russia's invasion.\n\nMr Lukashenko has hosted Russian forces and allowed them to use Belarus as a staging ground.\n\nA close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Lukashenko's administration has become increasingly reliant on Russia for economic, political and military support in recent years.\n\nMr Putin backed Mr Lukashenko after he claimed a disputed election victory in 2020, sparking mass protests that almost ousted him from power.\n\nIn January this year, Belarus hosted large joint military drills with Russia as western leaders issued increasingly grave warnings of a possible attack on Ukraine.\n\nThe exercises were extended and then Belarus announced that the Russian troops would remain in the country, citing \"the aggravation of the situation\" in eastern Ukraine.\n\nBut on Monday, Mr Lukashenko said Belarus had no plans to join Russia's military operation in Ukraine, according to state news agency Belta.\n\nMr Lukashenko denied Ukraine's allegations that Russian troops were attacking from Belarus's territory, Belta's report said.\n\nAnnouncing sanctions on Tuesday, the UK government accused Belarus of \"facilitating the invasion from within its borders\".\n\nMs Truss said Belarus \"will be made to feel the economic consequences for its support for Putin\".\n\n\"We are inflicting economic pain on Putin and those closest to him. We will not rest until Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity is restored.\"\n\nThe UK says it has already imposed sanctions on more than 100 people and organisations in response to the \"fraudulent elections\" and \"human rights violations\" in Belarus.\n\nSuggesting further sanctions could be imposed on Belarus over the Ukraine invasion, the foreign secretary said \"nothing - and no one - is off the table\".\n\nBelarusian and Russian forces took part in joint military exercises in Belarus ahead of the invasion of Ukraine\n\nTuesday's Belarus sanctions came as MPs approved new measures against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe package includes a full asset freeze for all Russian banks, as well as new powers to limit them from clearing payments in sterling.\n\nA ban has also been enacted on a range of exports critical to Russia's military and strategic interests.\n\nThe sanctions are in alignment with the US, European Union and others to collectively cut off much of Russia's high-tech imports, the government said.\n\nThe measures were announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who told the House of Commons last week they were \"the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen\".\n\nLabour and Conservative MPs have called on the government to strengthen the sanctions regime in order to put further pressure on Russia.\n\nLabour shadow foreign minister Stephen Doughty urged ministers to \"go even faster and further\", warning in some cases the sanctions had been \"off the pace\" compared with the UK's allies.\n\nConservative former cabinet minister David Davis said action was needed against the \"140 or so oligarchs\" identified as having \"direct links\" with President Putin.", "Black, Asian and mixed-heritage people are much less likely to develop cancer than white people, in England, an analysis suggests.\n\nBut there are exceptions - prostate and blood cancer are two to three times more common in black people.\n\nThe Cancer Research UK study said many cancers were preventable.\n\nHigher obesity rates in Black, Asian and mixed-heritage compared with white primary-age children could lead to a rise in cancers in those groups.\n\nCancer Research UK's analysis, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is based on three million cancer cases in England from 2013-17.\n\nOverall, compared to the white population, cancer rates were 38% lower in Asian people, 4% lower in black people and 40% lower in mixed-heritage people.\n\nThe study shows \"there are disparities in cancer rates across different ethnicities\", author Dr Katrina Brown, a Cancer Research UK statistician, said.\n\nThe risk of developing cancer is based on many different factors, including someone's age and the genes they inherit - but about 40% of cases in the UK are preventable and due to lifestyle choices.\n\nAnd these affected some groups more than others and created inequalities, CRUK chief executive Michelle Mitchell said.\n\n\"We already know that the burden of cancer weighs heaviest on the most deprived in the UK,\" she said.\n\n\"More research is needed to understand the challenges faced by different ethnic groups and how the cancer journey differs for people.\"\n\nEqual access to stop-smoking services and advice on how to manage weight, as well as early diagnosis and treatment, was essential to improve survival from the disease, she added.\n\nThe analysis found white people in England more than twice as likely to develop skin cancer (melanoma), oesophageal, bladder and lung cancers than Black, Asian or mixed-heritage people.\n\nSkin cancer is more common because white-skinned people are more likely to burn and cause damage to their skin in the sun.\n\nBut black people are more likely to develop stomach and liver cancers.\n\nPrevious studies suggest there is a genetic explanation for black men being twice as likely to get prostate cancer than white men, and three times as likely to develop blood cancer (myeloma).\n\nCancer types linked to infections, such as hepatitis, are more common among people belonging to some ethnic minorities and this could be why Asian people are more likely to develop liver cancer.\n\nAsian is defined in the study as people from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, any other Asian background. Black is defined as Caribbean and any other black background and white means white British, white Irish and any other white background.\n\nOther reasons for the variations in cancer rates between ethnic groups include access to:\n\nLower levels of smoking among most black and Asian groups is one reason they are at lower risk of some lifestyle cancers - such as bowel, breast and lung - than white people, the study suggests.\n\nBut the researchers warn this could be changing.\n\nA quarter of white children in the last year of primary school in England were obese in 2020-21, compared with 30% of Asian and 35% of black children.\n\nAnd these higher proportions, combined with a slower fall in smoking rates, may lead to an increase in cancers in these children when they grow up.", "Watch the moment that MPs stood and applauded in the House of Commons for the Ukrainian ambassador, who was watching Prime Minister's Questions from the gallery.\n\nSpeakers of the Commons have usually frowned on MPs who clap in the chamber, but Lindsay Hoyle smiled at the tribute to Vadym Prystaiko.\n\nSeveral MPs wore yellow and blue ribbons, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.\n\nClick here for the latest updates on Ukraine.", "Central Kharkiv has been hit by a Russian air strike. The morning strike appeared to target government offices in Freedom Square in the city centre.\n\nAccording to emergency workers at least 10 people have been killed, and Ukrainian officials says dozens were injured.\n\nWarning - this video contained distressing footage. It has been verified by the BBC but the source is unknown.", "Boris Johnson has been confronted by a visibly angry Ukrainian who demanded western nations enforce a “no-fly zone” over the country.\n\nDaria Kaleniuk, who said she was from Kyiv and had family and colleagues still in Ukraine, accused Nato of being unwilling to enforce a no-fly zone out of fear of a World War Three that has “already started”.\n\nIn response, the UK PM, speaking in Warsaw, said that “direct combat” with Russia was not something the UK could do as it would be \"truly very difficult\".", "Martin O'Hagan was killed as he walked home from a pub with his wife\n\nPolice were given names of people said to have been involved in the killing of journalist Martin O'Hagan within 48 hours of his murder, but did not act on the information, security sources have told a BBC investigation.\n\nMr O'Hagan was shot dead in Lurgan in September 2001, by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).\n\nAn insider, known as Witness A, met two detectives soon after, BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme has learned.\n\nIt is understood he said he had been contacted and asked to go to a yard in Lurgan to help, as the murder gang got rid of the getaway car and other items.\n\nAnd he named individuals he claimed were involved.\n\nBut no one was arrested and the yard was not searched.\n\nThis new information has emerged amid fresh claims by the O'Hagan family that state informers had a role in the murder and have been protected from prosecution.\n\nThe O'Hagan's lawyer, Niall Murphy, said it was inconceivable that police in 2001 were given names, addresses and roles played, \"and nothing was done\".\n\nSecurity sources have also said this was \"inexplicable\".\n\nThe murder was deemed an attack on the freedom of the press and the authorities vowed no stone would be left unturned to bring the killers to justice.\n\nIt is understood the detective leading the initial murder investigation has said he was not told about Witness A in 2001.\n\nThe O'Hagan family is now asking why, it appears, someone in the police did not pass Witness A's information on to the murder inquiry.\n\nWitness A came forward, again, to a new team of detectives in 2007. It is believed this is when it was discovered that he had provided his information to police six years earlier.\n\nOn the basis of his claims, five men were arrested and charged in connection with the murder in 2008.\n\nThe Public Prosecution Service (PPS) later had issues with Witness A's reliability because he had past convictions, including for deception.\n\nBut police investigators were confident in Witness A's information.\n\nOne of the men he named, Neil Hyde, from Lurgan, confessed to possession of the murder weapon, on the night of the killing.\n\nThe Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said it would be inappropriate to comment on Witness A or other issues raised in Tuesday's Spotlight programme because the Police Ombudsman is investigating the case, and there are ongoing legal proceedings.", "A French fighter jet pilot inspects his aircraft before taking off for a daily Nato border watch mission over Poland\n\nCalls for a no-fly zone to be imposed by Nato forces over Ukraine have been rejected by the UK's defence secretary.\n\nBen Wallace reiterated warnings that this would likely trigger a Europe-wide conflict with a nuclear-armed power.\n\nUkraine leaders have appealed to the West to set up a no-fly zone but their calls have been repeatedly rebuffed.\n\nMeanwhile, Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have agreed sanctions must go further to exert maximum pressure on Russia.\n\nThe UK has partnered with Western allies to enact sweeping sanctions on Russia, including against Russian banks, businesses and people.\n\nIn a call, the UK prime minister told Mr Zelensky the UK was \"rallying\" the UN General Assembly to \"ensure the strongest possible condemnation\" of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting of the body in New York later on Wednesday, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.\n\nA week in to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, attacks on key cities have intensified with fighting raging in the north, east and south.\n\nA no-fly zone over Ukraine would mean that military forces - specifically Nato forces - would have to engage directly with any Russian planes spotted in those skies and shoot at them if necessary.\n\nIn a BBC interview, Ukrainian scientist Glib Mazepa, from the north-eastern city Kharkiv where heavy fighting is reportedly taking place, urged Nato to \"close the skies over Ukraine to Russian missiles, to Russian planes\" to protect civilians.\n\n\"Otherwise they will just bomb the whole city to ashes,\" he said.\n\nHowever, Mr Wallace told the BBC's Today programme a no-fly zone would need to be enforced by Western air forces and inevitably lead to combat with Russian jets to prevent them from operating.\n\nHe added a no-fly zone would be a tactical benefit to the Russian invading forces, as Ukrainian jets would also not be able to operate.\n\n\"If you had a no-fly zone in Ukraine, the overwhelming scale of the Russian army would be able to drive around with impunity, which it can't at the moment,\" he said.\n\nMr Wallace added that most of the Russian strikes on Ukraine were primarily being carried out by missiles and shelling by heavy artillery, neither of which would be impacted by a no-fly zone.\n\nLaying out the ways of setting up a no-fly zone, Mr Wallace added it would require enforcement by Nato jets, which would inevitably lead for the need to shoot down Russian planes in active combat.\n\nHe also reiterated warnings that have been issued by many Western politicians and military experts that a no-fly zone would risk a major escalation of the conflict.\n\nMr Wallace added another way of achieving a no-fly zone was arming Ukrainians with anti-air capabilities - a policy Britain has \"led the way\" in.\n\nHe said this was an effective means of reducing Russian air operations as it prevented them from operating in the day.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Ukrainian woman breaks down in tears during question to UK PM\n\nThere have been increasing calls for the enforcement of a no-fly zone to limit Russian bombing in recent days.\n\nOn Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was confronted by a Ukrainian woman who demanded Western nations enforce one over the country to protect civilians. Mr Johnson replied saying \"direct combat\" with Russia was not something the UK could do as it would be \"truly very difficult\".\n\nHowever, senior Conservative Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, argued that Nato should introduce a \"humanitarian partial or total\" no-fly zone.\n\n\"What scale of war crimes, what numbers of civilian deaths must we witness - before Nato, the most powerful military alliance in the world, is tasked to intervene?\" he tweeted.\n\nEchoing Mr Wallace's comments, a former deputy supreme allied commander, said Nato cannot impose a no-fly zone as this could lead to a \"third world war\".\n\nGeneral Sir Adrian Bradshaw told the BBC's Today programme the conflict was not like the 2003 invasion of Iraq. \"We're up against a sophisticated enemy with very capable air defence assets,\" he said.\n\n\"This becomes a struggle between the forces of Nato and the forces of Russia, on the ground, quite probably from the sea, in the air, in the space domain, in the information domain and in the cyber domain.\n\n\"This is war. It amounts to 30 countries against Russia. This is the third world war in anybody's language. We cannot afford to let that happen.\"", "Oil prices have surged despite new measures aimed at calming markets worried by the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nBrent crude - the international benchmark for oil prices - has hit $113 a barrel, marking the highest level since June 2014.\n\nIt rose even after the International Energy Agency's members agreed to release 60 million barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles.\n\nRussia is one of the biggest energy producers in the world.\n\nAs a result, concerns about Russia's invasion of Ukraine have sparked concerns among investors that oil or gas supplies could be affected.\n\nMeanwhile, the price of US oil - West Texas Intermediate crude - rose to almost $109 a barrel.\n\nThe United States and 30 other member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to release the oil in a bid to stabilize energy markets worldwide.\n\n\"We are prepared to use every tool available to us to limit disruption to global energy supply as a result of President Vladimir Putin's actions,\" White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.\n\nShe added that Washington would carry on looking at how to speed up moving energy supplies away from Russia.\n\nAnother statement by the IEA noted that the invasion of Ukraine came against a \"backdrop of already tight global oil markets, heightened price volatility, commercial inventories that are at their lowest level since 2014\".\n\nPetrol price movements in the UK are mainly determined by the price of crude oil, which is the raw material for fuel, and the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound, because oil is traded in dollars.\n\nOn Monday, the RAC said the average price of petrol had jumped to a record high of £1.51 a litre on Sunday, while diesel increased to £1.55.\n\nJay Hatfield, chief investment officer at ICAP, said the \"dramatic\" price increases seen globally were unlikely to persist though if the situation in Ukraine becomes more stable.\n\nShare prices across Europe and the US also fell further on Tuesday as attacks on cities in Ukraine continued.\n\nMarkets in US, Europe and UK fell amid fears about the impact of the ongoing conflict.\n\nHaving been up in early trading, the FTSE 100 turned negative amid the warnings of the consequences of Western sanctions on Moscow and signs that Russia was stepping up its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nWestern countries have imposed punishing sanctions against Moscow, with another raft of companies winding down Russian operations and halting investment, such as BP and Shell.\n\nItalian energy giant Eni also said it planned to sell its stake in the Blue Stream pipeline. Eni co-owns the pipeline, which carries Russian gas to Turkey, with Russian energy firm Gazprom.\n\nMeanwhile, French oil and gas group TotalEnergies said it would no longer provide capital for new projects in Russia on Tuesday.\n\nFrankfurt saw steeper losses, which analysts suggested could be linked to Germany's reliance on Russian energy imports.\n\nRussia's currency was stable, however, having collapsed 30% on Monday to record lows against major currencies. One rouble was worth less than one US cent in trading on Tuesday.\n\nThe rouble's fall cuts its buying power and hits savings of ordinary Russians. The decline was only halted when Russia's central bank doubled interest rates to make the currency more attractive to investors.\n\nThe sanctions' stranglehold on Moscow's finances has hit the central bank's access to a lot of Russia's huge reserves of money held in the form of foreign currencies.\n\nSophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: \"This is a fast-moving situation and investors should be mindful of potential share price volatility in the short to medium term.\"\n\nRussia's invasion of Ukraine has investors on edge.\n\nThere is a huge amount of uncertainty about what is likely to happen next, and you can see that in the volatility on markets.\n\nWestern sanctions on Russia have caused turmoil in the global banking sector, with firms scrambling to ensure they're not doing business with any sanctioned individual or company.\n\nEuropean and US asset managers who are keen to offload their Russian investments may find it difficult to do so with the Moscow stock exchange currently closed and talk that the Kremlin will prevent foreigners from selling up.\n\nThat - together with the lack of revenue from Russian customers - could mean lower profits for western companies, from energy giants to carmakers to investment funds.\n\nSanctions can hurt both sides, not just the sanctioned.\n\nBut many company bosses are clear - decisions are being made, not simply about money, but on moral grounds too.\n\nMeanwhile, the war continues to unsettle the energy markets, with the price of oil now well over $100 a barrel.\n\nAn announcement that large stockpiles of crude will be released would ordinarily send prices lower.\n\nToday's news, however, has done nothing to ease market concerns about the potential for shortages of oil from Russia.", "This video has no sound.\n\nWatch the moment a crowd of people in the city of Kupiansk surround what's believed to be a Russian vehicle.\n\nKupiansk is in north-eastern Ukraine near the Russian border.\n\nVideo shows locals running towards the car and trying to stop it from leaving, with one person climbing on to the bonnet.", "Russian oil makes up around 8% of global supply\n\nThe cost of oil surged on Wednesday, as traders snapped up non-Russian oil, increasing the chance of further price rises at UK forecourts.\n\nBrent crude - the global benchmark for oil prices - passed $113 a barrel, its highest level since June 2014.\n\nTraders are struggling to sell Russian oil, even at a discount, because of the new difficulties in shipping and payments amid its invasion of Ukraine.\n\nGas prices also doubled, which could feed through to energy bills.\n\nAlmost 70% of Russian crude oil exports do not have a buyer according to UK-based research consultancy, Energy Aspects.\n\nOn Tuesday, oil trader Trafigura offered a cargo load of Russian crude oil at a record discount of $18.60 per barrel below the market rate for Brent, but could not find a buyer willing to take the risk.\n\nAmrita Sen, its founding partner told the BBC World Service that buyers are concerned that they could run afoul of Western sanctions and \"lawyers are poring through the language\" of the new rules.\n\nThe RAC said if the higher oil price is sustained, the cost of filling up a car in the UK will increase with it.\n\n\"The sudden $10 jump in the oil price is likely to take the average price of petrol towards 155p a litre and diesel to 160p, particularly as it's looking like this price isn't just a market blip caused by the US and allies deciding to dip into the strategic oil reserve.\n\n\"If oil does stay at this level, the journey to an average unleaded price of 155p may be far too quick.\" said RAC fuel spokesperson Simon Williams.\n\nThe average price of petrol across UK forecourts on Tuesday was 151.6p per litre, according to the RAC.\n\nHousehold gas and electricity bills are set to rise after the annual energy price cap increases to £1,971 in April, but the rise in wholesale prices amid the war in Ukraine may mean the price cap ratchets up to £3,000 by the end of the year, according to one energy analyst.\n\n\"Wholesale prices make up between 40-50% of household bills,\" said independent energy analyst David Cox. \"If these high prices stay around 400p per therm we may see the price cap head closer to £3,000 per year, which is terrifying.\"\n\nEnergy analysts at Cornwall Insights also predicted a jump in the energy price cap in October, based on turmoil in the European wholesale gas prices, to over £2,900.\n\nHigher oil and commodity prices helped the London stock market to buck the downward trend in global markets, with commodity-linked company share prices surging as the Ukraine crisis fanned fears about supply shortages.\n\nThe FTSE 100 closed up 1.36%, boosted by Shell and BP shares.\n\nOn Wall Street, the Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes all opened trading higher, and were up between 1.6% and 1.9% respectively at the close of trade.\n\nMeanwhile, the price of US oil - West Texas Intermediate crude - rose to almost $109.78 a barrel.\n\nOil and gas is still flowing from Russia - but there's deep concern that situation may change - either because of a further tightening of sanctions, or because Russia itself decides to restrict supplies. So prices are rising.\n\nThe decision by International Energy Agency members to release 60m barrels of emergency oil reserves has done little to calm the situation. If anything, comments by the head of the agency that global energy security is under threat have made traders even more nervous.\n\nMeanwhile wholesale gas prices in the UK and Europe have moved perilously close to the record levels seen in December. Europe gets 40% of its gas from Russia and there are deep concerns about what would happen if those supplies were choked off.\n\nAt the moment, the high prices are working in Russia's favour - it's making billions at a time when it's economy is being squeezed. While that makes it unlikely Moscow will cut supplies, nothing can be ruled out.\n\nIf European nations were to clamp down on oil or gas imports, meanwhile, the impact of its sanctions would be magnified dramatically. But it would also cause serious economic pain for those countries themselves.\n\nThe IEA member countries, led by the United States, yesterday agreed to release 60 million barrels of emergency stockpiles, but it appeared to have had a limited effect on pricing.\n\nSelling the emergency oil reserves is not sufficient to meet the supply shortfall caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine or prevent prices from going higher, analysts at Goldman Sachs said.\n\nAJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said the move would not \"make any sustained difference\" to prices.\n\n\"Russia controls a sixth of the world's gas and a tenth of its oil. Those figures dwarf the 60 million barrels and industrial buyers, or financial speculators, will be focusing on those numbers and where that supply goes.\n\n\"The West is still buying Russian supply and Russia is still providing it but that could conceivably change as relations deteriorate further,\" Mr Mould added.\n\nRussian oil exports account for about 8% of global supply.\n\nThe Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia and allies, a group known as known as OPEC+, met and agreed on Wednesday to stick to their ongoing policy of increasing supply by 400,000 barrels per day in April.\n\nExxonMobil on Tuesday said it would sell out its stakes in Russian oil and gas operations as a result of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Shell and BP have also made similar announcements.", "Prince Charles said he has been deeply moved by the bravery of Ukrainians faced with \"terrible aggression\" from Russia.\n\nHe was speaking on a visit to the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London on Ash Wednesday.\n\nUkrainians had been to the cathedral to ask for blessings before going to join the fight against Russia, staff said.\n\nRussia has been attacking key cities as its invasion intensified on Wednesday.\n\nThe prince told how he and his wife Camilla had been moved by all they had heard on their visit and \"above all by the extraordinary bravery, generosity and fortitude of the Ukrainian community in the face of such truly terrible aggression.\"\n\nThe Duke and Duchess of Cornwall were joined by representatives from humanitarian organisations he is connected with as well as the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, and his wife Inna.\n\nMr Prystaiko earlier received a standing ovation from MPs in the Commons when he watched Prime Minister's Questions.\n\nPrince Charles's visit came after he earlier described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a \"brutal aggression\".\n\nOn Tuesday he visited Southend-on-Sea on Tuesday to celebrate its new city status, an honour given by the Queen following the killing of its MP Sir David Amess.\n\nHe compared the conflict in Ukraine to what happened to Sir David, saying the MP had stood for democracy and freedom.\n\n\"We are seeing those same values under attack today in Ukraine in the most unconscionable way\", he said.\n\nPrince Charles has been unusually blunt and outspoken in his attacks on the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nHe made an impromptu speech in a visit to the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London, condemning the \"truly terrible aggression\".\n\nIt follows another speech on Tuesday where he strayed beyond any diplomatic soft-soaping, warning directly of the \"brutal\" attack on freedom and democracy in Ukraine.\n\nThe visit to the cathedral was another show of support for the Ukrainian community and Prince Charles said he was \"deeply moved\".\n\nPrince Charles and Camilla spoke to the BBC journalist Olga Malchevska who had been reporting live on the war when she had seen the bomb damage to her own family home in Kyiv.\n\nHe asked if she was able to keep in touch with her family and, with a choir singing, the prince seemed to recommend the power of prayer.\n\nOther members of the Royal Family have also expressed their solidarity with those affected by the conflict including Prince William and Kate Middleton who have also said they stand with Ukraine.\n\nRussian forces are continuing to bomb city centres and closing in on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.\n\nThe United Nations has said since Russia launched its invasion last Thursday, more than 800,000 people have now fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries.", "Donations for Ukraine are being collected at a pop-up community centre in west London\n\nSince Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on foreign fighters to travel to Ukraine and join in the defence of the country, hundreds of Britons have come forward saying they want to volunteer.\n\n\"I've been losing sleep over it,\" says 32-year-old Joseph, who we are only identifying with his first name at his request, adding that he plans to make the journey to help in any way he can. \"I feel like we're not doing enough.\"\n\nAlthough he says he has recently applied to join the British army, he does not have any military experience, and has no links to Ukraine other than a friend he attended college with.\n\nAfter hearing Mr Zelensky's appeal, he has come to a pop-up Ukrainian community centre in Holland Park, west London, set up to receive donations. But his search is for Ukrainians who might give him information on how to enlist for the war effort.\n\n\"I understand how tense the situation is and I understand what we're trying to avoid, [but] I think we need to stop [Putin] in his tracks. If we won't properly assist Ukraine then people are just going to have to volunteer and hope that we can have some kind of impact even if it's small.\"\n\nAlthough Foreign Secretary Liz Truss did say in a BBC interview on Sunday she would support those in the UK who wanted to take up arms in Ukraine, the government has since made it clear that that is not the official policy.\n\nThe most recent statement issued on the subject reminds people that the Foreign Office currently advises \"against all travel to Ukraine\" and that \"the best way we can help Ukraine right now is by ensuring Putin fails\".\n\nMP Tobias Ellwood, who has served in the Army and is chairman of the Commons defence select committee, was unequivocal on Twitter, writing: \"Please do NOT go if you have no combat experience. You may get yourself, and others who have to look after you, killed.\"\n\nBut Joseph says he is not deterred: \"I've got friends who have been in the service, so I've got an idea of what to expect. I've had my warnings.\"\n\nHe said the reaction from his family has been mixed, but that they can understand his reasons for wanting to volunteer.\n\nUkraine has urged volunteers to come forward and bolster its defence forces\n\n\"The stance is, if you believe in something, if you genuinely believe in something - like freedom, a democratic system - unfortunately you've got to be willing to die for it,\" he says.\n\nThe Ukrainian embassy told the BBC it appreciated the support of \"all people who want to support our country and fight Russian aggression\", but it stressed it was playing no role in helping people enlist.\n\nInstead, informal networks have emerged to help put Britons in touch with people who can meet them in third-party countries between here and Ukraine and assist them in getting to the front line.\n\nLuke, 22, a Londoner who also has no military training, admits he is scared by the prospect of going to Ukraine, but still plans to make the journey.\n\n\"I feel like just watching the news every day and seeing what's happening, I feel like I want to help in some way,\" he says.\n\n\"So if I can then I will. Even moving things around, driving, anything. I want to help in any way I can.\n\n\"If a 22-year-old fit and healthy person isn't going to go, who is going to go and defend them?\"\n\nHe says he is hopeful that foreign fighters can help make a difference in the conflict.\n\n\"I think it's amazing what the Ukrainians have done so far without… [Nato] troops on the ground,\" he says.\n\n\"So I do think eventually, if enough people go to help, and we do keep supplying aid to them, lethal and non-lethal, then we can push them back.\"\n\nHe also says he hasn't told his family about his plans to travel to Ukraine and doesn't intend to before he leaves. \"I don't want anyone to talk me out of this. I've made my decision,\" he says\n\nOf course many of those who are planning to travel from the UK are Ukrainians who are not affected by the Foreign Office advice and can freely choose to return home. Among them is Mykhalo, a 43-year-old from the city of Lviv who was on a visit to the UK when the invasion started.\n\nFlowers and balloons left outside the Ukrainian embassy in London\n\nHe normally works in building management and has no military experience, but wants to get back as soon as possible to join the fighting.\n\n\"It might be tonight, who knows. I just must help my country. I have no choice,\" he says.\n\n\"We are not the richest country. But we never affected any other country. People have normal life. Working, working, cooking, laughing, travelling. And now, some monster… I don't know what he's thinking about.\"\n\nAsked what he thinks about the British nationals volunteering to help defend Ukraine, he says: \"My brothers! I love them.\"\n\nThe community centre has been receiving a steady stream of donations of military equipment as well as food and clothing for people displaced by the conflict.\n\nEwan Vidion has just delivered a carful of items donated by reservists and others from around Portsmouth and South Hampshire.\n\n\"What I've brought is what they're urgently in need of,\" he says. \"It's the medical supplies, the field dressings and also military gear, military clothing, bergens [military backpacks], mats for them to sleep on, some helmets.\"\n\nThe plan is for the donations to be packed into a convoy and transported overnight to arrive in Kyiv on Thursday.\n\nEwan says: \"People feel like our hands are tied, so it's a case of saying 'What can we do as ordinary people?'\"\n\nFlowers left at a statue to Ukraine's St Volodymyr in London", "Poland is dealing with thousands of people fleeing from the war in Ukraine.\n\nCommunities across the country, and particularly along the border, have rallied to help them.\n\nThe BBC went to a school that has been transformed into a shelter.", "Watch this emotional interview with a Ukrainian mother as she recounts the moment she fled her home with her baby - but had to leave her husband behind.\n\nLiza Grach, who is now in Germany, is one of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who have escaped the country since conflict broke out.", "Mr Rogozin’s comments followed the Soyuz rocket’s early morning transfer to the launch pad\n\nThe UK has rejected Russian demands for it to sell its share in internet firm OneWeb to allow a satellite launch.\n\nA Soyuz rocket carrying 36 OneWeb satellites is on the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.\n\nRussia's space agency Roscomos demanded guarantees the spacecraft would not be used for military purposes.\n\nIt then said it would not launch the rocket unless the UK sold its share in OneWeb - but business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng rejected this.\n\n\"There's no negotiation on OneWeb: the UK government is not selling its share,\" tweeted Mr Kwarteng.\n\nThe UK government, which has come under pressure to pull the launch because of the war in Ukraine in any case, said it was continuing to discuss the situation with its partners on the OneWeb board.\n\nOneWeb itself has made few public comments in recent days, although the BBC understands this was because it wanted the space to remove its personnel from the Baikonur launch complex. This it has now done.\n\nUK taxpayers helped buy OneWeb out of bankruptcy in 2020 with a £400m stake.\n\nIn an interview with Russia 24 TV channel, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said the agency had contacted OneWeb and its partner Arianespace to demand \"comprehensive legally binding guarantees\" that the satellites would not be used for military purposes.\n\n\"If by 21:30 on March 4 we do not receive confirmation, the rocket will be removed from the launch pad and the satellites will be sent to the assembly and test building,\" he added.\n\nThe launch is currently timed for 22:41 GMT on Friday (03:41 local, Saturday).\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by РОГОЗИН This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\n\nMr Rogozin posted a video of pad workers covering over UK, US and Japanese flags\n\nAccording to Russian news agency TASS, Mr Rogozin said the OneWeb contract had been paid in full and the funds would not be returned.\n\n\"We received all the money for it for the manufacture of launch vehicles, upper-stages and for the necessary launch services.\n\n\"This money, due to force majeure circumstances that have arisen as a result of the aggressive policy of the West and the sanctions that are applied against Russia, this money will remain in Russia,\" the Roscosmos boss stated.\n\nThe space agency's twitter feed later went a step further, demanding the \"hostile\" UK government withdraw its shareholding from the London-headquartered company.\n\nMr Rogozin posted a video showing pad workers at Baikonur covering over the flags of the UK, US and Japan from the fairing of Friday's rocket.\n\nNeither OneWeb nor the UK government will be taking direction from Mr Rogozin. His demands are impossible. The UK and US militaries want to use OneWeb, and ever since British taxpayers took a share in the company post-bankruptcy the talk has been about adding further defence and security capabilities to future OneWeb satellites.\n\nLow-Earth orbiting broadband internet constellations present an emerging challenge for authoritarian regimes. While they can simply turn off terrestrial networks to control the flow of information, this is much harder to achieve with space infrastructure.\n\nThe numbers of satellites in these new constellations, and the speed at which they move across the sky, make them hard to jam.\n\nUS entrepreneur Elon Musk this week shipped antenna terminals to Ukraine to allow citizens there to use his Starlink broadband system.\n\nAt the moment, most of Ukraine would not be able to plug into OneWeb because much of the country is too far south for its signals. Future launches planned by OneWeb would ultimately though have filled in this gap.\n\nFormer UK government adviser Dominic Cummings, widely regarded as the official who persuaded Prime Minister Boris Johnson to buy into OneWeb, tweeted at the weekend that a situation such as that in Ukraine was in their minds when making the investment.\n\nOneWeb has just a handful of launches left to complete its network of 648 satellites.\n\nAll of the missions are booked on Russian Soyuz vehicles that are scheduled to fly out of Baikonur in the coming months.\n\nWith the existing spacecraft it has in orbit (428), the company can deliver broadband internet connections to locations above 50 degrees North, which includes business customers such as BT in the UK, but it needs those additional satellites if it wants to run a truly global service.\n\nRegions important to the company's prospects, including the rest of Europe, most of the US, Africa and Asia, will be left out without the final set of launches.\n\nWhat happens next is anyone's guess, but a flight to orbit on Friday now seems highly unlikely.\n\nOneWeb's launch contract is with France-based Arianespace. It markets Soyuz vehicles to the world.\n\nFollowing its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, OneWeb paid Arianespace upfront to organise all its launches.\n\nThen there is the issue of the 36 satellites currently sitting on top of the Soyuz in Baikonur. They are the property of OneWeb.\n\nThey were manufactured in Florida in the US and their handling is therefore subject to strict American export controls covering sensitive technologies. These regulations would have seen the satellites' shipment to Kazakhstan and attachment to the Soyuz rocket overseen by a US official. That official is also no longer present at the spaceport.", "A woman in St Petersburg watching footage of President Putin on TV last week\n\nNever was there a better illustration of the alternative reality presented by Russian state media than at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday. As BBC World TV opened its bulletin with reports of a Russian attack on a TV tower in the capital Kyiv, Russian TV was announcing that Ukraine was responsible for strikes on its own cities.\n\nSo what are Russian TV viewers seeing of the war? What messages are they hearing over the airwaves? Below is a snapshot of what ordinary Russians would have picked up, on Tuesday 1 March, while channel-hopping across the country's key TV stations, which are controlled by the Kremlin and its corporate allies.\n\nGood Morning, on state-controlled Channel One, one of Russia's most popular channels, is to the casual observer not unlike the breakfast broadcasting found in many other countries with its mix of news, culture and light entertainment.\n\nOn Tuesday the normal running order is interrupted at 05:30 Moscow time [02:30 GMT]. The presenters announce that TV schedules have been changed \"due to well known events\", and there will be more news and current affairs. The news bulletin suggests that reports about Ukrainian forces destroying Russian military hardware are false, designed to \"mislead inexperienced viewers\".\n\n\"Footage continues to be circulated on the internet which cannot be described as anything but fake,\" the presenter explains as the viewer is shown photographs of what is described as \"unsophisticated virtual manipulations\".\n\nRussia's Channel One presenter showed two photos of the same military vehicle - the top photo is captioned \"Donbas 2014\" and the bottom one \"Ukrainian montage\". He claims the top photo is of a Ukrainian vehicle destroyed in the conflict zone in 2014 and that the bottom photo is of the same image, manipulated to make it look like newly destroyed Russian hardware. He says a \"Z\" has been added - a common marking for Russian military equipment.\n\nLater in the morning, at 08:00 Moscow time, we tune in for the morning bulletin from television channel NTV, which is owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom, a Kremlin-controlled firm. It concentrates almost exclusively on events in Donbas, the region in the east of Ukraine where on 24 February, Russia stated it was beginning its \"special military operation\" to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine.\n\nThere is no mention of reports of the ominous miles-long military convoy snaking its way from Belarus in the north to Ukraine's capital Kyiv, which, in the UK, leads the BBC Radio 4 news bulletin half-an-hour later.\n\n\"We start with the latest news from Donbas. LNR [Luhansk People's Republic] fighters continue their offensive, having travelled 3km, while DNR [Donetsk People's Republic] units have travelled 16km,\" the NTV presenter says.\n\nThe presenter is referring to the Moscow-backed rebels who have been in control of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics since Russia's intervention in east Ukraine eight years ago.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nOn Rossiya 1 and Channel One - Russia's two most popular channels, both state-controlled - Ukrainian forces are accused of war crimes in the Donbas region. The threat to civilians in Ukraine comes not from Russian forces, but from \"Ukrainian nationalists\", says the Rossiya 1 presenter.\n\n\"They use civilians as a human shield, deliberately positioning strike systems in residential areas and stepping up the shelling of cities in Donbas.\"\n\nChannel One's presenter announces that Ukrainian troops \"are preparing to shell residential houses\" and bomb warehouses with ammonia, in \"acts of provocation against civilians and Russian forces\".\n\nEvents in Ukraine are not referred to as war. Instead, the offensive is described as a demilitarisation operation targeting military infrastructure or a \"special [military] operation to defend the people's republics\".\n\nAcross state-controlled TV, presenters and correspondents use emotive language and images to draw \"historical parallels\" between Russia's \"special military operation\" in Ukraine and the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany.\n\n\"The tactics of nationalists who use children to shield themselves have not changed since the Second World War,\" says the presenter of a morning show on Rossiya 1's sister channel, Rossiya 24.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\n\"They behave like fascists, in the very sense of this word: neo-Nazis put their hardware not just next to residential houses but where children take shelter in basements,\" adds the correspondent in a video report captioned \"Ukrainian fascism\".\n\nThe passage echoes the unproven claims made by Vladimir Putin last week that Ukraine was using women, children and the elderly as human shields.\n\nWhile media in the West has been asking whether Putin's assault has struggled to make quick progress, Russian TV portrays the Russian operations as very successful. Regular updates give numbers of destroyed Ukrainian hardware and weaponry. More than 1,100 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities have been disabled and hundreds of pieces of hardware have been destroyed, morning news reports say. There is no mention of any Russian casualties.\n\nRussian morning news bulletins barely acknowledge its army's offensives in other parts of Ukraine. State TV correspondents are not reporting on the ground from places like Kyiv and Kharkiv, the two major cities that have seen shelling of people's homes. Instead, they are embedded with troops in Donbas.\n\nBut by the afternoon edition of the news, NTV finally mentions the news event that has dominated hours of coverage on the BBC by this stage - the shelling of the city of Kharkiv.\n\nHowever, it debunks any reports that Russian forces are responsible, calling them \"fake\".\n\n\"Judging by the trajectory of the missile, the strike was delivered from the north-west where there are no Russian forces,\" the presenter says during the 16:00 Moscow time edition of the news. Four hours later, a bulletin by Rossiya 1 goes further, blaming Ukraine itself for the bombing.\n\n\"To strike Kharkiv and say that it was Russia. Ukraine is hitting its own and is lying to the West. But is it possible to deceive the people?\" it asks.\n\nDuring a 17:00 bulletin, the Rossiya 1 presenter outlines what she says is Russia's \"main objective\" in Ukraine: \"The defence of Russia against the threat from the West, which is using the Ukrainian people in its stand-off with Moscow.\"\n\nTo counter what is described as \"fake news and rumours\" about Ukraine which are circulating online\", she announces that the Russian government is launching a new website where \"only true information will be published\".\n\nTV stations are required by the media watchdog Roskomnadzor to follow the official narrative.\n\nBut that is not to say that there was no variety in the tone of Tuesday's reporting. While the news bulletins talked of Ukrainian war crimes, Vyacheslav Nikonov, pro-Kremlin host of Channel One TV's current affairs talk show The Great Game, spoke about his love of Ukraine as he signed off.\n\n\"I very much love Ukraine, I love Ukrainians. I have travelled across the country on multiple occasions. It indeed is a brilliant, wonderful country. And I think Russia is, of course, interested in it being a prosperous, friendly country… Our cause is just. We shall be victorious.\"\n\nIncreasing numbers of younger Russians tend to get their news from independent websites or social media, and the longer the war goes on, the more images and videos of dead soldiers and prisoners of war are surfacing. But the authorities are responding to this and turning the screws on independent reporting.\n\nRoskomnadzor has ordered TikTok to remove military and political content in its suggestions to minors, complaining, \"in most cases, these materials have a pronounced anti-Russian character\". It also demanded that Google remove what it describes as false information about the Russian army's reported losses, and Reuters reports it has re-imposed a slowdown on Twitter's loading speeds over \"fake reports\" of Moscow's \"special military operation\", and restricted access to Facebook.\n\nIt has instructed media outlets to use information only from official Russian sources when reporting the invasion, demanding that they take down any reports referring to \"a declaration of war\" or \"an invasion\". It has threatened them with fines and blocking if they do not take action. The websites of the independent TV channel Dozhd and popular liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy have been blocked for alleged calls for extremism and violence, and \"systematic spread of false information about the activities of the Russian military\".\n• None Twitter confirms it is being restricted in Russia", "An investigation has been launched after a rail driver was struck and killed by a passing train near West Worthing station\n\nA train driver was struck and killed by a passing train after he left his cab.\n\nThe man, who has not been named, died on 1 February while his Southern train was stationary at a siding near West Worthing station, West Sussex.\n\nThe driver was due to wait at the siding \"for a short time\" before entering the station.\n\nInvestigators said: \"Train drivers should not normally need to leave their trains as part of their duties while waiting in this siding.\"\n\nIn a statement, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) added he was hit by a passing train at around 33mph.\n\nA full investigation into his death has been launched, the RAIB said on Tuesday.\n\nFollow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk.\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "The moment an airstrike hit Kyiv's main television tower has been published on the Telegram channel of Kyiv's Mayor Vitaly Klitschko.\n\nEmergency services say five people were killed in the Russian attack.\n\nIt's unclear whether the tower itself was directly hit - it remains standing - but the blasts took some broadcasts off air.\n\nWarning - this video contains distressing footage. It has been verified by the BBC but the source is unknown.", "Demand from commuters outstripped supply of services on Wednesday morning, the day after the first strike\n\nA second 24-hour Tube strike in a week is set to bring more disruption to the capital, Londoners are being warned.\n\nAbout 10,000 RMT union members are set to walk out at 00:01 on Thursday, as they did on Tuesday, in a dispute over job losses and pensions.\n\nTransport bosses are urging people to work from home or use other modes of travel, as the RMT union confirmed the strike action would go ahead.\n\nTuesday's walkout saw most Tube lines suspended and caused widespread chaos.\n\nThe disruption continued into Wednesday, with Transport for London (TfL) bosses advising passengers not to travel until at least 07:30 GMT. Reduced services followed for much of the day.\n\nRail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) general secretary Mick Lynch said members would \"not be derailed in our determination to reach a just settlement that protects jobs and pensions of Tube workers\".\n\nCommuters queue for the underground to resume at Waterloo station on Wednesday\n\nHe said: \"If London mayor Sadiq Khan spent as much time putting pressure on ministers for a long-term TfL funding deal, instead of accepting their cuts agenda and attacking our members, there would be no need for a strike.\"\n\nOn Tuesday, the majority of the Tube network was shut down for most of the day due to the first of the two 24-hour strikes. Only a limited shuttle service operated on a small section of some lines, causing buses to be overcrowded and roads gridlocked.\n\nTransport bosses had advised against travel, and the same advice is being given for Thursday, with warnings the disruption is set to be repeated.\n\nAndy Lord, Transport for London's (TfL) chief operating officer, said: \"I would ask anyone who needs to use the Tube on Thursday to check before they make their journey, consider whether they are able to work from home and use alternative modes of transport where possible.\"\n\nPolice officers had to be drafted in to help manage queues of people near Liverpool Street on Tuesday\n\nNineteen Tube stations, including Nine Elms, Tottenham Hale, Hendon Central and Lambeth North were shut earlier on Wednesday \"while the service recovered from strike action by the RMT\".\n\nOnly East Acton remained part-closed later on Wednesday due to the \"unavailability\" of station staff to help with step-free access.\n\nThe disruption to Wednesday's rush-hour travel also affected the London Overground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR). Trams and TfL Rail were unaffected although the latter experienced severe delays later on.\n\nFollow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has warned that air fares this summer will be \"materially higher\" due to soaring oil prices and Covid effects.\n\nHe said the impact of the Ukraine crisis on oil prices was \"steep and severe\".\n\nAirlines also had fewer seats available after cutting capacity during the Covid pandemic, he said.\n\nIn February Air-France KLM warned of airlines pushing up prices as they face rising overheads.\n\nCrude oil prices are surging as markets react to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Oil and gas is still flowing from Russia, but there's concern that sanctions could tighten supply, or that Russia could decide to restrict supplies.\n\nMr O'Leary said that Ryanair was largely insulated from surging prices due to fuel-buying agreements until 2023 that cap the cost for 80% of its fuel.\n\nHowever, price rises on the remaining fifth of its fuel mean Ryanair expects to pay an extra €50m (£42m), he said.\n\nShort-haul capacity in Europe would be reduced by 10% this summer, and that would also drive higher fares in the peak months, when prices would be \"materially higher\", he said.\n\nMr O'Leary predicted that air fares would be 10% to 15% higher than pre-Covid in June, July, August and September and accommodation would also be more expensive.\n\n\"I think you're going to see families returning to the beaches of Europe this year,\" due to pent up demand, he added.\n\nThe warnings echo those made by the UK boss of Air France-KLM Fahmi Mahjoub in February, who said his airline faced significantly higher fuel and airport costs, and as a result higher air fares were \"quite unavoidable\".\n\nSpeaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr O'Leary said his airline would be the first to fly to and from Ukraine again, when it was safe to do so and airspace reopened.\n\nBut he said that may not be until the winter. Russia has taken out most of the radar infrastructure at Ukrainian airports, he said, adding that he wanted to see the Ukrainians \"succeed\".\n\nMr O'Leary said on Tuesday that Ryanair had started flying medical supplies and humanitarian aid in the hold of flights to south eastern Poland, free of charge, on behalf of Irish and UK humanitarian agencies.\n\nRyanair has seen a significant surge to and from Polish airports.\n\nMr O'Leary said a lot of people who had come across the border from Ukraine to Poland \"are flying across Europe reuniting with friends and family\". He said Ryanair was keeping air fares low because it wanted to play its part in reuniting them.\n\nBefore the crisis, Ryanair was the biggest airline flying to Ukraine, serving four airports there. It had expected to fly two million passengers on those routes this year.\n\nHe also said Ryanair carrying humanitarian supplies was \"for the first time in 30 years\".\n\nMr O'Leary added that Ryanair flight bookings had dropped 20% when the invasion began and were still about 10% down.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Mikhail Fridman said the conflict in Ukraine should be stopped as soon as possible\n\nOne of Russia's richest men has said imposing sanctions on oligarchs would have no impact on Moscow's decision to launch a war in Ukraine.\n\nBillionaire banker Mikhail Fridman told a press conference in London the war was a tragedy for both sides.\n\nBut he stopped short of direct criticism, saying personal remarks could be a risk not just to himself but also staff and colleagues.\n\nHe joins another businessman, Oleg Deripaska, in calls for peace.\n\nThe two men are the most prominent oligarchs to speak out against Russia's invasion, now in its sixth day.\n\nThe UK also sanctioned Belarusian military chiefs on Tuesday for their role in \"abetting\" the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe Foreign Office said the Belarusian military has \"supported and enabled the Russian invasion of Ukraine\" and has also sanctioned some of its state manufacturing firms.\n\nThe Belarus sanctions are on top of those already applied on Minsk by the UK since 2020 when over 100 people and organisations were targeted in response to the fraudulent elections in Belarus.\n\nBorn in Ukraine before the break-up of the Soviet Union, Mr Fridman was the founder of Russia's biggest private bank, Alfa, and runs investment firm LetterOne which has extensive interests in oil and retailing.\n\nThe billionaire said the sanctions, which freeze some assets and impose a travel ban, were unjustified and he would fight them.\n\nBut he added the sanctions would, in any case, not have the desired effect of helping to rein in the Kremlin.\n\nHe said: \"My parents always told me: you know, because you are a Jew, you could not be in this position or that position, in this university or this job.\n\n\"Now, I'm facing the same situation here in the West, because you are Russian.\"\n\nOn Monday, the European Union slapped sanctions on Mr Fridman, who lives in London, and long-time partner Pyotr Aven.\n\nThe EU statement described Mr Fridman as \"a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin's inner circle\".\n\nMr Fridman said the conflict in Ukraine should end as soon as possible, but avoided questions about outright condemnation of President Vladimir Putin's actions.\n\n\"Please, don't push me to comment,\" he said, adding it would be not just \"my personal risk, but also a risk for my colleagues and staff\".\n\nHe said his companies had tens of thousands of staff in Russia, Ukraine and the UK. \"It's a very sensitive issue. We have a dozens of partners and I do not have a right to put all of them at risk.\"\n\nMr Deripaska, who founded one of Russia's largest industrial groups, has also pleaded for peace in a post on the messaging app Telegram.\n\nRussian billionaire oligarchs do not give many press conferences.\n\nIn some Western circles, the mere sight of banker and industrialist Mikhail Fridman defending himself after being sanctioned by the EU, shows the strategy of squeezing Russia financially is having the desired impact.\n\nMr Fridman, who was born in Ukraine, said sanctions were having a drastic impact on the Russian economy, and called for an end to the conflict - but said he had no influence over the actions of President Putin.\n\nThe founder of Alfabank said when asked if there was a bank run in Russia, that there was huge pressure on the Russian currency the rouble. He said many Russians were going to banks to withdraw roubles to convert into dollars because of dramatic moves in value, to keep hard currency \"under the mattress\".\n\nBut he feels the EU is treating him unfairly and without due process, that he should be sent back to Russia, for having been born in the former Soviet Union. And tellingly, while wishing for the war to end, he said journalists could not expect him to criticize President Putin, given the risk to his staff in Russia and Ukraine.", "Kinga Orkisz is part of a group of Polish people in Northern Ireland collecting supplies for refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.\n\nA lorry will takes these supplies to the Ukrainian border later this week.\n\nCollections like this are being replicated across Northern Ireland.\n\nThe UN says more than half a million people have fled their homes as heavy fighting continues across the country.\n\nMany Ukrainians have fled to neighbouring countries, including Poland.", "Their city has been shelled with Grad rockets, hit by cruise missiles and air bombardment.\n\nBut life goes on for the children of the Kharkiv Hippocrates centre where they treat patients with the most serious nervous system conditions.\n\nThe centre is a hospice and a rehabilitation facility. Its head, Dr Roman Marabyan, had been called up to the army, so I spoke to his deputy, Valentyna Drokina.\n\nShe seems overoptimistic for a doctor stuck with her patients in a city that’s been seeing no reprieve from Russia.\n\nIn more peaceful times, the centre used to care for dozens of young patients from the Kharkiv region and north-eastern Ukraine.\n\nSome children were orphans - their parents abandoned them in state facilities after learning their diagnoses. The centre’s nurses and doctors have become not just children’s carers, but parental figures. Other children usually had mothers by their side.\n\nThe war has brought all of them together.\n\n“We are one family now,” says Valentyna Drokina. Her centre welcomes all abandoned children with life-threatening conditions and those with their parents who didn’t have enough time to flee Kharkiv.\n\nOut of 21 children that are being treated in this facility, only three can walk on their feet. Valentyna tells me the centre’s professionals had equipped its basement so that the children could spend the most dangerous hours down there.\n\n“When it’s needed, every adult comes up to the kids, each takes one child and runs with them to the cellar,\" she says.\n\nQuote Message: \"Children have no idea of what’s going on. They think we are playing with them\" \"Children have no idea of what’s going on. They think we are playing with them\"\n\nThe centre is home not just to its young patients and their parents, but also to the staff who work there. Valentyna says they even found room for three ordinary families who couldn’t find a safe place to stay.\n\n“We are OK as long as there are no power outages.” She says the area hasn’t been shelled with Grad rockets, so they’re staying strong.\n\nBut then her voice breaks. She’s starts crying and adds:\n\nQuote Message: My optimism is gone\"", "People stand in line to use an ATM money machine in St Petersburg on Sunday\n\nRussia has more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in a bid to halt a slump in the value of its currency.\n\nThe Bank of Russia raised the rate from 9.5% after the rouble sank 30% after new Western sanctions. The currency then eased back to about 20% down.\n\nThe collapse in value erodes the currency's buying power and could wipe out the savings of ordinary Russians.\n\nAmid pictures at the weekend of queues at cash machines, Russia said it had the resources to ride out sanctions.\n\nPresident Vladimir Putin on Monday responded to the sanctions with an order barring citizens from transferring money outside of Russia, including for debt payments. Moscow's stock market, which saw heavy losses last week as investors sold, is to be closed for a second day on Tuesday.\n\nAhead of an emergency meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his economic advisers on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: \"These are heavy sanctions, they're problematic, but Russia has the necessary potential to compensate the damage from these sanctions.\"\n\nThe UK, along with the US and EU, cut off major Russian banks from financial markets in the West, prohibiting dealings with the central bank, state-owned investment funds and the finance ministry. The moves sent the rouble tumbling.\n\nChancellor Rishi Sunak said the measures demonstrated the UK's \"determination to apply severe economic sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine\".\n\nRussia has about $630bn (£470bn) in reserves - a stockpile of savings - built up from soaring oil and gas prices.\n\nBut because a lot of this money is stored in foreign currencies like the dollar, the euro and sterling as well as gold, the Western ban on dealing with Russia's central bank restricts Moscow from accessing the cash.\n\nLast week, Russia's central bank was forced to increase the amount of money it supplies to ATMs after demand for cash reached the highest level since March 2020.\n\nVideos on social media on Sunday appeared to show long queues forming at cash machines and money exchanges in Moscow, with people worried that their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw.\n\nChris Weafer, chief executive at consultancy firm Micro-Advisory and based in Moscow, said on Monday he was seeing some queues in food stores.\n\n\"You are beginning to see a little bit of queuing in some grocery stores, particularly people buying some goods that they think might come into short supply due to trade restrictions or maybe will be subject to big price increases because of the rouble devaluation.\n\n\"This set of sanctions is hitting ordinary Russians to an extent that previous sanctions have not and people are now becoming aware of that.\n\n\"People are a lot more fearful. There is already talk about some companies having to either go on reduced working hours, or even suspend production because they're not able to access maybe key parts from the West due to sanctions or due to trade limitations, so there's a great deal of concern on the street.\"\n\nMoscow resident Anastasia told Reuters that she expected her economic situation to get worse. \"It's inevitable in these circumstances,\" she added. Whilst another Moscow resident Sergey said he was already seeing an impact. \"Prices are rising, of course, savings are shrinking and stocks are falling.\"\n\nOn Monday, the central bank said it had ordered brokers to suspend the execution of all orders by foreign legal entities and individuals to sell Russian investments.\n\nThe sanctions that have been imposed by the EU, the US, the UK and others are unprecedented. It's one thing to block the foreign reserves of a country like Iran or Venezuela, quite another to act against Russia - a country with a major role in global trade and a very significant supplier of oil and gas.\n\nThe reaction on the currency markets has been dramatic - with the rouble plummeting, despite the central bank's efforts to prop it up using interest rates. There may already have been a rush to the foreign currency ATMs in Russian cities, but citizens there have yet to feel the full impact.\n\nAt the very least prices will rise dramatically; banking collapses, hyperinflation and a deep recession are all potential consequences.\n\nBut sanctions are a two-way street. Cutting the central bank off from its reserves and limiting Russian institutions' access to the Swift network will not only hurt Russia - western institutions also face losses from debts that cannot or will not be repaid, for example. And then there is the risk of countermeasures from Russia - potentially hitting energy exports.\n\nSuch sweeping sanctions being imposed in such a unified way is remarkable. It's also a very big gamble.\n\nAttempts to put a stranglehold around Russia's finances reverberated across the financial and corporate world:\n\nWill Walker-Arnott, senior investment manager at Charles Stanley, told the BBC's Today programme that \"it looks like Russia is increasingly becoming an economic pariah, increasingly isolated from the global financial system\".\n\nCutting some Russian banks from international payments system Swift is among the harshest measure so far imposed to date on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.\n\nThe assets of Russia's central bank will also be frozen, limiting the country's ability to access its overseas reserves.\n\nRussia is heavily reliant on the Swift system for its key oil and gas exports. It was not clear whether those deals would be exempt from the bans.\n\nThe intention is to \"further isolate Russia from the international financial system\", a joint statement said.\n\nOn Monday, the European Central Bank (ECB) said several European subsidiaries of Sberbank Russia, which is Russia's largest bank and majority owned by the Russian government, were failing or likely to fail due to reputational cost of the war in Ukraine.\n\nSberbank Europe AG, which had total assets of €13.64bn (£11.4bn) at the end of last year, along with its Croatian and Slovenian units, suffered a rapid deposit outflow in recent days and is likely to fail to pay its debts or other liabilities, said the ECB, which is the lenders' supervisor.\n\nWhat questions do you have about the Russian invasion of Ukraine?\n\nIn some cases your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "The move follows bans from footballing governing bodies\n\nGames publisher Electronic Arts will remove the Russian national team and all other Russian teams from Fifa 22 and associated games, it has announced.\n\nIt was doing so to \"stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people\", the company tweeted.\n\nIt comes as football's governing bodies Fifa and Uefa said Russia's national side and clubs would be banned from all competitions.\n\nUkraine has asked the video games industry to do more.\n\nThe country's Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called on all game-development companies and esport platforms to block Russian and Belarusian accounts, cancel tournaments and ban players\n\nElectronic Arts tweeted: \"EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and like so many voices across the world of football, calls for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\n\"In line with our partners at Fifa [the International Federation of Association Football] and Uefa [the Union of European Football Associations], EA Sports has initiated processes to remove the Russian national team and all Russian clubs from EA Sports Fifa products including Fifa 22, Fifa Mobile and Fifa online.\n\n\"We're also actively evaluating related changes to other areas of our games.\"\n\nIt has also removed Russian and Belarusian teams from NHL 22 games.\n\nThere has not been any response yet from Microsoft and Sony, which own Xbox and Playstation respectively, to Mr Fedorov's tweet asking them to leave the Russian market.\n\nMusic streaming app Spotify has announced it has closed its Russian office indefinitely\n\nEarlier this week it removed all content from state media RT and Sputnik on its platform in the European Union, the US and other markets except Russia, following similar steps from Meta and Twitter.\n\nWho you play as is an essential element of Fifa, as people live out their sporting dreams from home.\n\nBeing suddenly unable to choose to play as your country or your favourite club will fundamentally alter the experience that many Russian gamers can have with a game they love. A game they've already paid for.\n\nElectronic Arts has also made a similar move with its NHL ice hockey franchise.\n\nGiven that gigs, movie releases and sporting events have already been cancelled in Russia, it was only a matter of time before the gaming industry got involved.\n\nWe've already seen games companies fundraising, esports events banning Russian teams and messages of solidarity with the people of Ukraine on social media - but this is the first step that will impact millions of gamers in one go.\n\nWhether it goes far enough for Ukraine's deputy prime minister, who called on the gaming industry to take action on Wednesday, we wait and see - but expect this to be the first move from gaming's major players, with more measures likely in the days to come.", "Jim Crossley died after being stabbed in west Belfast\n\nA woman has been charged with murder after a man died after being stabbed in west Belfast.\n\nHe has been named as 38-year-old Jim Crossley.\n\nPolice said they received a report of a stabbing at a property in Filbert Drive, off the Stewartstown Road, at about 23:50 GMT on Tuesday.\n\nOfficers went to the scene, along with the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, but Mr Crossley was pronounced dead a short time later.\n\nThe 31-year-old woman who has been charged with his murder is due to appear at Lisburn Magistrates' Court via video link on Thursday.", "A review is under way at the South Eastern Health Trust after an elderly woman died after spending eight hours in an ambulance.\n\nThe trust told BBC News NI it was \"very saddened\" by what happened.\n\nIt said medical teams \"did everything possible to resuscitate the patient\" at the Ulster Hospital Emergency Department.\n\nThe trust said the woman was cared for by both ambulance and medical teams staff in the ambulance.\n\nHowever, her condition \"deteriorated while she was being treated\".\n\nBBC News NI understands that the patient was in the ambulance for about eight hours on Monday night as the emergency department was under immense pressure.\n\nA spokesperson for the trust confirmed that the department and its teams were under \"extreme pressure all day\".\n\n\"Sustained pressures are being experienced in all of the emergency departments across Northern Ireland, resulting in patients having to wait longer than we would like for admission to hospital,\" the statement read.\n\nThe trust has been in contact with the lady's family and has expressed condolences to them, it said.", "A building that was set to be an on-site museum was pictured on fire\n\nJewish groups have condemned a missile attack near a Holocaust memorial park in Kyiv, which commemorates the murder of Jews by the Nazis in World War Two.\n\nBabyn Yar was the site of one of the largest mass killings, where Jewish people were lined up and shot.\n\nThe various memorials that sit there now are very special to Ukraine and significant landmarks in its capital.\n\nIn a country with a large Jewish population and a Jewish president, the Russian attack is significant.\n\nTuesday afternoon's missile attack, which was targeting a nearby TV tower, killed five civilians.\n\nStaff were initially unable to access the Babyn Yar site to assess the damage. However, it is now known that the most iconic memorials in the park are unscathed. These include a large menorah, newly built synagogue and a monument honouring the Soviet citizens and prisoners of war who died, which is located closest to the TV tower.\n\nA museum building which was not yet in use caught fire, and there is damage across the 140-acre site, such as burnt and uprooted trees, the BBC has been told.\n\nSpeaking directly after the missile attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was \"beyond humanity\" and accused the West of not doing enough to prevent the attacks on his country.\n\n\"What is the point of saying 'never again' for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating...\" he tweeted.\n\nThe menorah monument, one of Babyn Yar's most iconic memorials, is reportedly unscathed\n\nBabyn Yar - also known as Babi Yar - is one of the largest World War Two mass graves in Europe. The massacre at the ravine on the outskirts of Kyiv took place over two days in September 1941.\n\nAs Ukraine's Jewish population fled the Nazi advance, a large population still lived in the city. Tens of thousands were told to assemble with spare clothes, on the assumption they would be sent to a labour camp, but they were then forced to undress and walk into the ravine, where they were shot by special killing squads.\n\nAccording to the Nazis' own records, 33,771 Jews were killed over two days.\n\nAs the Holocaust continued, German forces continued to perpetrate horrendous crimes at Babyn Yar, using it as a mass grave to dispose of up to 100,000 bodies, until the Soviets took control of Kyiv again in 1943. As well as Jews, Roma, Ukrainian civilians and Soviet prisoners of war were also murdered there.\n\nLater in the war, the retreating Germans bulldozed the ravine and burned the bodies in huge pyres to try to cover up their crimes.\n\nBabyn Yar is now a place of quiet contemplation, where thousands of people travel to every year to remember those who died. That it could be damaged or destroyed by an aggressive military attack goes against everything it stands for.\n\nBut the significance of an attack so close to Babyn Yar goes deeper.\n\n\"It is symbolic that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of the Babyn Yar, the biggest Nazi massacre,\" said the chair of Babyn Yar's advisory board, Natan Sharansky.\n\nLast week, Mr Putin called Ukraine's leaders \"neo-Nazis\" and said his goal was the \"denazification\" of the country.\n\nMr Sharansky said the Russian leader had sought \"to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country\" in the \"utterly abhorrent\" move.\n\nYad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel, echoed this and called for an end to \"abusing and distorting the memory of the Holocaust\".\n\nUkraine's president is himself Jewish and his family suffered greatly under the Nazi regime.\n\nVolodymyr Zelensky has often told his \"story of four brothers\" - his grandfather and three great-uncles - all of whom fought in the Soviet Army against Nazi Germany. Only his grandfather survived. The president was also closely involved in the creation of the memorial at Babyn Yar, Mr Sharansky said.\n\n\"Such a missile strike shows that for many people in Russia, our Kyiv is completely foreign. They know nothing about our capital. About our history,\" Mr Zelensky said after the attack.\n\n\"But they have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.\"\n\nWhile official figures put Ukraine's Jewish population at 43,000, the European Jewish Congress believes it numbers at least 360,000.\n\nThe Soviets had tried to wipe out Babyn Yar's brutal history time and again, in an effort to suppress any mention of the atrocities committed against Jews, Mr Sharansky told the BBC.\n\n\"They physically tried to destroy these graves and delete the history, it's unbelievable how important it was for Soviets to change the nature of the place,\" he said.\n\nA few years after the Nazis attempted to cover their own tracks, the Soviets tried to flood the ravine with mud. Then in the 1960s, there was anger at plans to build a sports stadium there. Mr Sharansky said the construction of the TV tower directly adjacent to the memorial in the 1970s was another attempt to \"destroy the memory of the Holocaust\".\n\n\"There were so many attempts to erase Babyn Yar and change its nature, finally we turned it into a big memorial, and that is once again overshadowed by Russian aggression,\" he said.\n\nFor decades under Soviet rule, there was little to mark the massacre site, except a simple obelisk that referred to \"Soviet\" victims, without mentioning the Jews, who were the main victims.\n\nFinally, in the 1990s, a large Menorah monument was erected, when independent Ukraine decided to commemorate the Jewish victims. And last year a synagogue was opened.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nJewish groups and institutions were quick to condemn the missile strike.\n\n\"Rather than being subjected to blatant violence, sacred sites like Babi Yar must be protected,\" Yad Vashem said in a statement.\n\nIsrael's Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, said on Twitter that his country would help to repair the damage to the site. And the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in the UK said it was \"shocked\" and \"horrified\" to hear of the attack.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by US Holocaust Museum This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. End of twitter post by US Holocaust Museum", "A cargo ship that was carrying thousands of luxury cars has sunk off the Portuguese Azores archipelago, nearly two weeks after it caught fire.\n\nThe ship, named Felicity Ace, was transporting around 4,000 cars such as Porsches and Bentleys.\n\nThe vessel was on its way to Rhode Island in the United States from the German port of Emden when the fire broke out.\n\nAll of its crew members were evacuated when the fire broke out on February 16.\n\nJoao Mendes Cabecas, the captain of the nearest port on the island of Faial, told Reuters that no oil leak had been reported so far but said there were fears the fuel tanks could be damaged while the vessel lies at the bottom of the Atlantic at a depth of around 3,500 metres (2.17 miles).\n\nPortugal's navy said no one was hurt by the fire and that the 22 crew members were taken to a hotel after the navy, four merchant ships sailing in the area and the Portuguese Air Force completed the evacuation.\n\nVolkswagen said the damage to the vehicles was covered by insurance which could cost around $155m (£116m) according to Reuters.\n\nBentley confirmed that 189 of its cars were onboard the ship and Porsche said it had about 1,100 of its models onboard.\n\nOne customer tweeted to say his Porsche was on board the abandoned ship.\n\nAnother tweeted that his had been reordered.\n\nThis Twitter post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser. View original content on Twitter The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Skip twitter post by Zerin Dube This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Do Russia's attacks on Ukraine amount to war crimes? Ros Atkins investigates\n\nBoris Johnson has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine.\n\nAt Prime Minister's Questions, he said bombing innocent civilians \"already fully qualifies as a war crime\".\n\nHe was responding to the Scottish National Party's Ian Blackford, who called for Mr Putin to be prosecuted.\n\nOn Wednesday, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said he was now investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.\n\nThe investigation was launched after 38 nations grouped together to refer the situation to the prosecutor's office, which said \"collection of evidence\" had started.\n\nThe UK government described the referral as the largest in the history of the court, which relies on co-operation with countries worldwide for support, particularly for making arrests.\n\nFollowing the announcement, Mr Johnson said in a tweet: \"We are crystal clear that Putin cannot commit these horrific acts with impunity.\"\n\nUkraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has already accused Russia of war crimes after air strikes on the country's second city, Kharkiv.\n\nA week in to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, attacks on key cities have intensified, with fighting raging in the north, east and south.\n\nOn Tuesday, Mr Johnson described the tactics used by the Russian military under orders from Mr Putin as \"barbaric and indiscriminate\".\n\n\"With every passing hour, the world is witnessing the horrors of Putin's war in Ukraine,\" said the SNP's Westminster leader Mr Blackford. He called for Mr Putin to be prosecuted for the \"full range\" of war crime charges available.\n\nMr Johnson replied: \"What we have seen already from Vladimir Putin's regime in the use of the munitions that they have already been dropping on innocent civilians, in my view, already fully qualifies as a war crime.\"\n\nJustice Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK was \"willing to provide the necessary technical assistance to support successful convictions\" and stressed the importance of preserving \"all evidence of war crimes\".\n\nAsked about Mr Johnson's remarks after PMQs, Downing Street said possible war crimes were occurring daily in Ukraine.\n\nMr Johnson's official spokesman agreed the Russian attack on the Babyn Yar holocaust memorial in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the targeting of apartment blocks constituted war crimes.\n\nThe spokesman said: \"Obviously, formally it will be for a criminal court to make that ruling but I think no one can be in any doubt that what we're seeing daily, almost hourly now, are horrific acts that would certainly appear to be war crimes.\"\n\nEarlier, in a phone call, Mr Johnson and Mr Zelensky agreed sanctions must go further to exert maximum pressure on Russia.\n\nThe UK has partnered with Western allies to enact sweeping sanctions on Russia, including against Russian banks, businesses and individuals.\n\nMeanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate end to the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nJust four countries - Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria - joined Russia in opposing a motion calling for the withdrawal of all occupying forces, while 35 nations abstained.\n\nGeneral Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but the move further isolates Russia diplomatically.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch MPs in UK Parliament stand and clap for the Ukrainian ambassador, who was attending Prime Minister's Questions\n\nAt the start of PMQs, MPs, many wearing the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag, gave a standing ovation in support of the Ukrainian ambassador, who was watching from the public gallery.\n\nThe applause, not usually permitted in Parliament, lasted for almost a minute.\n\nMr Johnson had opened the session by condemning Mr Putin's \"abhorrent assault on a sovereign nation\", adding the Russian leader had \"gravely miscalculated\" the Ukrainian people's resolve to fight and the willingness of the \"free world in standing up to his barbarism\".", "Here are four things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Wednesday morning.\n\nCompulsory Covid jabs for care workers are being scrapped in England. The policy was introduced last year but immunity levels, and the Omicron variant causing less severe illness means the mandatory requirement will end on 15 March. The change is expected to spark outrage from those who have had to quit their jobs. Read more here.\n\nCara Neary was 16 when the was diagnosed with anorexia. She's one of a number of young people being diagnosed with an eating disorder. Those numbers are increasing with two regional adolescent psychiatric units in Scotland reporting a combined rise in admissions - from 26 in 2019 to 68 in 2020. Although the full data during the pandemic isn't available, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned there had been \"a huge increase in the demand and need for eating disorder services\" across Scotland over this period.\n\nOnly 250 out of 5,300 children aged between five and 11, who are classed as vulnerable or living with a vulnerable person, have been vaccinated against coronavirus in Wiltshire, Swindon and Bath. Those low numbers have prompted concerns from doctors. Find out more here.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nAfter testing positive for coronavirus and suffering from mild symptoms, the Queen has made a return to official engagements. The monarch, 95, is back at work after some false starts last week, and has already carried out two virtual engagements with the ambassadors of Andorra and Chad.\n\nHere are five things we need to keep an eye on as the UK starts to live with Covid.\n\nYou can find more information, advice and guides on our coronavirus page.\n\nWhat questions do you have about coronavirus?\n\nIn some cases, your question will be published, displaying your name, age and location as you provide it, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. Please ensure you have read our terms & conditions and privacy policy.\n\nUse this form to ask your question:\n\nIf you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or send them via email to YourQuestions@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any question you send in.", "Last updated on .From the section Disability Sport\n\nAthletes from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to compete as neutrals at the 2022 Winter Paralympics in Beijing following the invasion of Ukraine.\n\nThe International Paralympic Committee (IPC) says the two countries \"will compete under the Paralympic flag and not be included in the medal table\".\n\nThe opening ceremony is on Friday, with competition starting on Saturday.\n\nIPC president Andrew Parsons said the measures were the \"harshest possible punishment\" under its constitution.\n\n\"The IPC and wider Paralympic movement is greatly concerned by the gross violation of the Olympic Truce by the Russian and Belarussian governments in the days prior to the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games,\" Parsons said.\n\n\"The IPC Governing Board is united in its condemnation of these actions and was in agreement that they cannot go unnoticed or unaddressed.\n\n\"In deciding what actions the IPC should take, it was fundamental that we worked within the framework of our new constitution to remain politically neutral.\n\n\"Such neutrality is firmly anchored in the genuine belief that sport holds the transformative power to overcome our shortcomings, and summon from within us the best of our humanity, especially in the darkest of moments.\"\n\nIn all, 71 competitors from Russia and 12 from Belarus - plus guides for both nations - will now be classed as neutral athletes at the Games.\n\n'Choosing bloodshed and profits over principle and stakeholders'\n\nNadine Dorries, UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said she was \"extremely disappointed\" with the IPC's decision.\n\n\"I call on them to urgently reconsider,\" she said. \"They must join the rest of the world in condemning this barbaric invasion by banning Russian and Belarussian athletes from competing.\n\n\"We will consider the full range of options in protest of this decision, in consultation with UK Sport and the British Paralympic Association. I will also be meeting with my international counterparts this week to discuss how we can respond collectively.\"\n\nA joint statement from the athletes of Ukraine and the Global Athlete group, an international athlete-led body that aims to inspire change in world sport, said the IPC had issued \"another blow\" to every Ukrainian athlete and citizen with their decision.\n\n\"The demands of the athletes have been cast aside in favour of Russian interests,\" the statement said. \"Sports administrators are choosing bloodshed and profits over principle and stakeholders.\"\n\nThe statement acknowledged that sport cannot stop the violence, but that the IPC \"could have sent a message that Russian and Belarusian actions warrant the toughest sanctions and complete isolation.\n\n\"With or without a neutral label, the Russian and Belarusian athletes will use their athletes' participation in the Games as state propaganda.\"\n\nThe US Paralympic Committee and the British Paralympic Association have also expressed disappointment in the IPC's decision.\n\nThe British Paralympic Association said: \"We, like many participating Paralympic nations, already stated that given the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine we cannot see how the participation of Russia or Belarus in the Games is compatible with the objectives of the Paralympic movement.\"\n• None Fifa and Uefa suspend all Russian clubs and national teams\n• None Which sports have taken action in response to Russia's invasion?\n\n'Paralympic athletes are not the aggressors'\n\nRussian athletes competed under a neutral Paralympic flag at the 2018 Games as punishment for state-sponsored doping.\n\nIn addition to deciding Russian and Belarussian athletes will not compete under their own flag or feature on the medal table in Beijing, the IPC also stated it will hold no events in the two countries \"until further notice\".\n\nCrucially, the IPC says it will host a vote later in 2022 to decide on whether upholding the Olympic Truce is a membership requirement. Any breach would then create a scenario where the offending nation could be suspended.\n\nWhen this vote has been conducted, the IPC said it will also decide on whether to terminate the memberships of the Russian Paralympic Committee and Belarus Paralympic Committee.\n\nParsons continued: \"Now that this decision has been made, I expect all participating NPCs to treat the neutral athletes as they would any other athletes at these Games, no matter how difficult this may be.\n\n\"Unlike their respective governments, these Paralympic athletes and officials are not the aggressors, they are here to compete in a sport event like everybody else.\"\n\nUkraine's Paralympic team has arrived in Beijing and will be able to compete, less than a week after Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of the country.\n\nIn recent days a host of governing bodies from across sport have moved to introduce measures including the exclusion of Russian and Belarussian athletes from competition, the banning of use of the their flags or the cancellation of events in each country.\n\nUkrainian athletes, the International Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Association had called for Russians to be excluded from the event.\n\nOn Monday, Russian football clubs and national teams were suspended from all competitions by Fifa and Uefa \"until further notice\".\n\nFriday's opening ceremony in Beijing will be used to promote \"a message of peace\".\n\n\"The eyes of the world will be watching the Paralympic Winter Games in the coming days,\" Parsons said.\n\n\"It is vital we show to world leaders through our sport that we can unite as human beings and that our true power is found when promoting peace, understanding and inclusion.\n\n\"This is at the core of what the Paralympic Movement does and what it stands for. We should not lose sight of this now, no matter what the circumstances.\"\n• None What is the greatest escape ever according to Morgan Freeman?", "Ros Atkins looks at the history of nuclear tensions and deals between the US and Russia.", "Valerie Warrington and her ex-husband Clive Warrington were both found dead in different locations\n\nA divorced couple have been found stabbed to death at two locations 15 miles (24km) apart\n\nThe body of Clive Warrington, 67 was found at Sherborne Place in Cheltenham by police at 06:25 GMT.\n\nOfficers then discovered the body of his ex-wife, Valerie Warrington, 73, at a property in Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds shortly afterwards.\n\nA man from Cheltenham has been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with both deaths.\n\nSupt Roddy Gosden, of Gloucestershire Police, said the man was known to the victims and they were not currently looking for anyone else.\n\nHe appealed for anyone with information to come forward.\n\nOfficers are asking for anyone who may have dashcam or CCTV footage that could be relevant to get in touch\n\nIt's no more than 200 yards (182m) from John Lewis in the centre of Cheltenham to the victim's home on Sherborne Place where the man's body was found early this morning.\n\nSo, shoppers coming and going in cars had to be patient as they weaved their way round police cordons, watching a dozen or so officers in red jackets searching for clues and knocking on doors.\n\nSome knew of Clive Warrington but no one saw or heard anything early in the morning when the paramedics arrived and declared him dead from stab wounds.\n\nLater, Supt Gosden read a prepared statement, explaining they had found another body with stab wounds 15 miles away in Bourton-on-the-Water, that of 73 year old Valerie Warrington, who had been married and divorced from Clive.\n\n\"A devastating time,\" said the officer in charge.\n\nThe body of Valerie Warrington was found in Whiteshoots Hill in Bourton-on-the-Water\n\nHe said: \"Family members have been informed and our thoughts go out to them at this devastating time.\n\n\"This has been a challenging situation and we will be providing support to officers and all those who have been impacted by these incidents.\n\n\"Understandably people will be shocked to hear that two lives have been lost in such a tragic way.\"\n\nCordons will remain in place at the scene for a number of days and officers will be in the local communities to provide reassurance, Supt Gosden added.\n\nThe village of Bourton-on-the-water is about 15 miles from Cheltenham\n\nFollow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk\n\nThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.", "Joe Biden spent the first 15 minutes of his State of the Union address talking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, an event that certainly has transfixed the world more than the latest twists and stumbles of his domestic legislative agenda.\n\nAlthough Mr Biden's annual speech is billed as a message to Congress, his comments on Ukraine were tailored to four distinct audiences - with four distinct messages.\n\nHere's a look at what he had to say and to whom.\n\nEarly in his speech, Mr Biden called out Ukrainian ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova, seated in the balcony next to Jill Biden and other distinguished guests.\n\n\"Thank you, thank you, thank you,\" he said, as members of Congress cheered.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.\n\nThe United States has already sent Ukraine military, economic and humanitarian aid. On Tuesday night, Mr Biden wanted to send a message that America cared about Ukraine's fate and stood by the embattled nation.\n\n\"From President Zelensky to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination inspires the world,\" he said.\n\nAlthough Kyiv may be encircled by Russian tanks, his message was that more American help is on the way.\n\nMr Biden's message to Vladimir Putin was simple - the Russian president had \"badly miscalculated\". The economy pain that the US and Europe had imposed on Russia for its invasion was just beginning. The rouble was crashing, the Russian stock market was in free-fall, Russian oligarchs would have their \"ill-begotten gains\" confiscated, and Russia was losing access to key technologies.\n\nThere was another message to Russia beyond one of economic pain, however. He also emphasised that the US and its allies would fight to defend \"every inch of territory of Nato countries\".\n\nMr Putin has put his nuclear forces on elevated alert and warned of devastating consequences if any nation intervened in Ukraine. Mr Biden's message was to spell out, lest there be any doubt, when and where America itself would fight.\n\nThe US and its European allies have been in remarkable lockstep as they imposed sanctions on Russia and offered military aid to Ukraine. Time and time again during his speech, Mr Biden celebrated this fact.\n\n\"He thought the West and Nato wouldn't respond,\" the president said. \"Putin was wrong. We were ready.\"\n\nMr Putin may have got that impression from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which sparked criticism directed at Mr Biden for not consulting allies. But this was a topic the US president notably avoided during his speech.\n\nMr Biden's emphasis on the key role Europe has played in the response to Russia's invasion may have been part of this administration's continued effort to soothe frayed relations.\n\nOver the course of his presidency, Mr Biden has spoken repeatedly about what he sees as an era-defining global conflict between democracies and autocracies - and that it would take co-operation among the democracies of the world to prevail. It was a theme he touched on again on Tuesday.\n\n\"Democracies are rising to the moment,\" he said, \"and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security.\"\n\nA public opinion survey released earlier on Tuesday showed that a majority of Americans were most interested in hearing what Mr Biden had to say about the conflict in Ukraine. Biden's message was that the global unity of response - from Asia to Latin America to Europe and even Switzerland - was a testament to his administration's efforts.\n\nOne of Mr Biden's campaign pledges was to restore US standing in the world and rebuild strained relations with allies after the tumultuous Trump years. This, he implied, were tangible results of that effort, coming when the stakes were at their highest.\n\nMr Biden also had a message to Americans we may be concerned that the possibility that US soldiers would be at risk in the Ukrainian conflict. While he spelled out US obligations to Nato allies, his message about what the US would do in Ukraine was also direct, that US forces \"are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine\".\n\nFinally, Mr Biden had to address what is sure to be the increased economic hardship that Americans will bear because of the conflict in Ukraine - hardships added to those already caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and ones that may come at political price for a president whose standing with the US public is already weak.\n\nHe said that the US will attempt to craft its sanctions to target the Russian economy, but that costs for the rest of the world were unavoidable. He announced that the US will release 30 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve, but that move is more symbolic than it is likely to blunt the rising price of gas for American consumers.\n\n\"I know the news about what's happening can seem alarming,\" he said, \"but I want you to know that we are going to be OK.\"\n\nThat may be the most important message for Mr Biden's political fortunes. If the American public doesn't feel OK, the president and his party may bear the consequences in November's mid-term elections.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: What Americans think of Biden's Ukraine response", "Haulier Christopher Kennedy captured by CCTV in the cab of his lorry\n\nA lorry driver who was part of a people smuggling ring has been ordered to pay £6,000 to the families of 39 Vietnamese people who died in a failed smuggling operation.\n\nThe victims, aged between 15 and 44, were found dead in a trailer in Essex in October 2019.\n\nThey had suffocated on their way to Purfleet from Belgium on a ferry.\n\nChristopher Kennedy picked up containers with people inside, but not the one in which 39 Vietnamese died.\n\nThe 25-year-old from Keady in County Armagh, is serving seven years for his part in the wider operation.\n\nOn Wednesday, the Old Bailey heard he had made £67,050.65 from people smuggling but had just £6,094.18 in his Bank of Ireland account.\n\nJudge Mark Lucraft QC ordered that the available money should be confiscated and used as compensation to the families of the victims.\n\nKennedy, who was sat in the dock, made no reaction during the hearing.\n\nHis trial in December 2020 heard he picked up containers in Essex which arrived from Belgium.\n\nHis job was to deliver them to a remote location at Orsett, a 20 minute drive from the port.\n\nTwice he did this in the two weeks before the smuggling operation which went wrong on October 23, which is why he was tried with the other drivers involved.\n\nKennedy was not charged with manslaughter but was instead charged with conspiracy to assist in unlawful immigration.\n\nHe denied the charge and claimed he thought he was transporting cigarettes, but a jury found him guilty.", "MPs will get a £2,212 pay rise on 1 April, seeing an MP's basic salary go up to £84,144 a year.\n\nThe 2.7% rise will come in the same week that millions of workers see their wages hit by a National Insurance increase.\n\nPrime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have both said MPs should not get a rise this year.\n\nBut their pay is set by an independent body, which says it should be in line with other public sector workers.\n\nMPs' pay was frozen last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.\n\nRichard Lloyd, chairman of Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which sets salaries, said: \"This is the first increase in pay for MPs in two years and follows the average of increases across the public sector last year.\n\n\"MPs play a vital role in our democracy and this is reflected in their pay. It is right that MPs are paid fairly for the responsibility and the unseen work they do helping their constituents, which dramatically increased last year.\n\n\"For parliament to reflect society, it is vital that people from all walks of life can be an MP.\"\n\nOn 1 April 2022, employees, employers and the self-employed will all pay 1.25p more in the pound for National Insurance.\n\nThe changes will see an employee on £20,000 a year pay an extra £89 in tax. Someone on £50,000 will pay £464 more.\n\nIn October last year, Sir Keir Starmer told LBC Radio any extra money for MPs should be spent on key workers instead.\n\nA month later, Downing Street said government ministers would have their additional salaries frozen for the year ahead.\n\nMPs who have jobs as ministers get paid additional salaries - including the prime minister, who is entitled to an extra £79,286 this financial year.\n\nDowning Street is in charge of deciding on ministerial salaries and it has said a freeze for 2022/23 was \"only right\" at a time of significant pressure on public services.\n\nThe decision means the pay for a secretary of state will be £4,168 less than they are statutorily entitled to.", "Regulations requiring care workers to be vaccinated against Covid are being lifted from 15 March in England.\n\nThe government says things have changed since the policy was made in preparation for a tough autumn and winter.\n\nIt says the UK population now has lots of immunity to the virus thanks to vaccines.\n\nAnd many people have recently caught and recovered from the Omicron variant, which has been less severe than Delta.\n\nThere will be outrage from those who say they had to leave their job when the policy began, meaning anyone working in a Care Quality Commission-registered care home in England had to have two vaccine doses by a November deadline, unless they were medically exempt.\n\nIn January 2022, the government confirmed its intention to revoke vaccination as a condition of employment for other front-line NHS workers in England.\n\nThe government said in a statement; \"With the population better protected and lower levels of hospitalisations and mortality, it was right to revisit the balance of risks and benefits that had guided the government's original decisions.\"\n\nThe vast majority of NHS, social care and other healthcare staff have been double-jabbed. Vaccination helps protect them and the patients they treat from catching and getting very ill with Covid.\n\nThe government has been under pressure from some within the health service to scrap the mandate, arguing that it would lead to a staffing crisis.\n\nMinisters say those working in health and social care who remain unvaccinated still have a professional responsibility to get vaccinated.\n\nScotland and Wales have not made any proposals to make Covid jabs compulsory for NHS workers or care home staff. Northern Ireland has been consulting on the issue, with no decision or policy made yet.", "Watch the moment when diplomats at the UN walked out as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a speech via video link on Tuesday.\n\nAs Mr Lavrov spoke to the UN Human Rights Council, officials left the room, with Ukrainian representative Yevheniia Filipenko holding her country's flag outside.", "Prices in shops rose at their fastest rate in over a decade in February, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) says.\n\nShop price inflation jumped from 1.5% in January to 1.8% in February, according to the BRC-NielsenIQ price index.\n\nIt marks the highest rate of inflation it has recorded since November 2011.\n\nThe sharp rise was partly driven by fresh food price rises and higher prices for other goods such as beauty and furniture products.\n\nMany people have been struggling with a cost of living crisis as fuel prices and energy bills continue to soar.\n\nThe latest official figures provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed living costs rising at their highest rate for 30 years.\n\nNon-food inflation rose to 1.3% in February, rising from 0.9% in January which is its highest rate since September 2011, the BRC said on Wednesday.\n\nThe inflation rate for fresh food, which measures how quickly costs for everyday items increase over time, rose to 3.3% - up from 2.9% in January, according to the industry group.\n\nThe BRC said this was partly because of poor harvests, both in the UK and overseas.\n\nHelen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said that the price rises would be \"unwelcome news\" for households who already face taking how less because of energy price rises and higher National Insurance rates.\n\nRetailers, Ms Dickinson added, are still facing cost pressures from higher shipping rates, labour shortages, product price increases and rising energy prices. Many of these increases continue to be passed on to customers.\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Cost of living: ‘All of a sudden there’s no money’\n\n\"Retailers are going to great lengths to mitigate against these price rises and support their customers, for example, many supermarkets have expanded their value ranges for food,\" Ms Dickinson continued.\n\n\"Unfortunately, there are limits to the costs that retailers can absorb,\" she added.\n\nMike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at research firm NielsenIQ, said he expects shop prices to continue to rise over the next few months.\n\n\"With falling disposable income for most households, retailers will need to keep encouraging customers to spend by offering choice and value and, for some, discounts as well as added benefits for loyal shoppers,\" Mr Watkins added.\n\nThe Bank of England has warned the increase in the cost of living could exceed more than 7% this year.\n\nFood chains such as Greggs, have already raised the price of some goods in order to cover increased labour costs. The High Street retailer Next, has also said its prices could rise by up to 6% this year to keep up with higher costs.\n\nSupermarket giant Tesco has also warned that the \"worst is yet to come\" for rising food prices.\n\nJack Monroe, a food poverty campaigner, has said that the prices of everyday essentials are going up by more than the official inflation rate, hitting the poorest hardest.\n\nThe ONS agreed that \"one inflation rate doesn't fit all\" and said it would soon be publishing a wider variety of cost-of-living metrics.", "A temporary camp has been set up in Przemysl, Poland, for some of the hundreds of thousands fleeing Ukraine\n\nMore than half a million people have fled their homes to escape the war in Ukraine, the UN says, as heavy fighting continues across the country.\n\nMajor cities - including Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv - remain under attack from Russian forces.\n\nA government official said dozens of civilians were killed in Kharkiv as shelling continued into the morning.\n\nOn the northern border with Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian officials are meeting for talks for the first time.\n\nHopes for a breakthrough are slim - but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there was a \"small chance to end the war\".\n\nThe United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said millions of civilians were being forced to huddle in makeshift bomb shelters such as underground rail stations to escape explosions.\n\nSince the invasion began on Thursday, her office has recorded 102 civilian deaths, including seven children - and more than 300 injured.\n\n\"The real figures are, I fear, considerably higher,\" she said.\n\nIn the capital, Kyiv, the bulk of Russian forces are about 30km (19 miles) outside the north of the city, slowed by fierce Ukrainian resistance, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.\n\nBut street-level fighting continues in several parts of the city. Despite the danger, a two-day curfew has been lifted, with residents emerging from underground shelters to buy food and gather supplies.\n\nKasenya, who spent more than 36 hours underground, told the BBC she had managed to get home. \"I can't describe how I am feeling, I'm happy to stay alive and safe and just have the possibility to see my splendid and beautiful Kyiv,\" she said.\n\n\"Even underground, everyone is trying to help one another and help our army to be stronger and to spread the world about our situation here.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: Liza Grach emotionally describes fleeing Ukraine with her 10-month-old baby, but leaving her husband behind\n\nTo the north and north-east, Kharkiv and Chernihiv were also shelled by Russian forces overnight but remain in Ukraine's control. Shells landed near a shopping centre in Kharkiv during the day, while fighting continued in the streets.\n\nAnton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, posted to Facebook: \"\"Kharkiv has just come under massive shelling from Grads [multiple rocket launchers]. Dozens have been killed and hundreds wounded!\"\n\nTo the south, Russian forces are trying to take control of the key strategic port of Mariupol, near Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine denied reports that Zaporizhzhia, home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, had fallen into Russia hands.\n\nAs the curfew lifted at 08:00 on day five of the Russian invasion, small numbers of people began to emerge on to the sunlit streets in Kyiv.\n\nSince the curfew was imposed on Saturday night, there has been a change in the city - more checkpoints, more sandbags and more tension.\n\nWe drove past a blue Lada car, stopped in the middle of the road. There were bullet holes along one side, and the driver was slumped - dead - over the wheel. He had been shot in the head.\n\nSuddenly Ukrainian troops - in a concealed position - started shouting at us to go. We don't know the circumstances but it's possible the driver was suspected of being a Russian saboteur. The security forces are hunting for them inside the city.\n\nFor some, today was a chance to try to flee. Mid-morning, as an air raid siren wailed, we met a group of about 30 students from India, rushing to the railway station, dragging their cases behind them.\n\nThey said they had heard reports that foreign students were being prevented from getting on trains. One medical student told me that in this time of war, they hoped all people would be treated the same. In any case they weren't planning to rely on the train. They had booked their own bus.\n\nAs the Ukrainian delegation arrived for talks near the Belarusian border, President Zelensky gave a speech to the nation, saying that 16 children had been killed in the four days since the invasion began.\n\nHe implored Russian troops to lay down their weapons and leave the country. And he called on the European Union to make Ukraine a member immediately.\n\n\"We are grateful to the partners that they stand with us,\" he said. \"But our goal is to be with all Europeans and, most importantly, to be equal. I'm sure that's fair. I am sure we deserved it.\"\n\nThere is speculation that troops from Belarus could join the fight on the side of Russia, to which it is closely aligned.\n\nReports in US media, and Ukrainian news outlet the Kyiv Independent, suggest that a troop deployment is possible as soon as Monday.\n\nBelarus has acted as a springboard for Russian troops since the invasion began. Its government voted on Sunday to renounce its non-nuclear status - paving the way for Russia to potentially stage nuclear weapons there.\n\nThat coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin putting its deterrence forces, which include nuclear weapons, on \"special alert\". The announcement does not mean Russia intends to use the weapons, but was widely perceived as a threat.\n\nUK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told media the move was to \"remind the world that he has a deterrent\" and distract people from \"what's going wrong in Ukraine\".\n\n\"We're all talking about it. He is clearly wanting to get peoples' attention distracted from what is going on on the ground.\"\n\nThis video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Watch: The families fleeing a war, but having to leave loved ones behind\n\nWestern nations have continued to levy sanctions and co-ordinate non-military action against Russia.\n\nRussia's currency, the rouble, slumped by 30% against the US dollar in early trading on Monday - a record low prompted by Western financial sanctions. Russia's central bank more than doubled its interest rate - bringing it to 20% - in response.\n\nHuman rights group Amnesty International also accused Russia of indiscriminate use of weaponry on populated areas, something it said could constitute a war crime.\n\nOn Monday, Lithuania's government said it would ask prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to investigate \"war crimes and crimes against humanity\" in Ukraine.", "The United Nations says more than a million people have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.\n\nMost of the tens of thousands crossing into Poland stay with relatives or move on to other countries, but others have nowhere to go.\n\nSome people living near the border are opening their homes to those who need shelter. The BBC's Mark Lowen met Joanna, a mother of three, as she welcomed Anna and her five-year-old daughter, Milena, after they had fled from Kyiv."], "link": ["http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/60815376", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60825804", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60814306", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60812328", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60821266", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60816960", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60819859", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60829542", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-60822329", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60815941", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60826303", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60809454", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60784526", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60824956", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-60814933", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60807134", 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